From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. This is a shout-out to al-Qaeda and also to the IRA, Hamas, the Tamil Tigers,

and any Basque or Kurdish separatists within the sound of my voice. As an expert in the field of messaging, I advise and

implore you directly. Stop blowing people up. It wins you headlines, but not sympathy.

Osama bin Laden, dude, this means you. Now, it's not likely that Osama bin Laden will heed my advice. Very possibly, though,

I have just committed a federal felony. In a decision announced Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court found

that advice to terrorist organizations, even advice motivated by a wish to end violence, is punishable as aiding and abetting

terrorism. The New York Times, Adam Liptak, wrote about the case. Adam, welcome back to OTM.

Thank you. Can you tell me about the original prosecution that yielded this ruling?

Well, no one was prosecuted, but the case was brought by a couple of people and six organizations,

All-American, who said they wanted to provide advice of a kind that would further the aims of peace,

to help a Kurdish group, for instance, that has a beef with Turkey, appeal to international organizations

to help resolve disputes peacefully. So these folks went to court to say they feared being

prosecuted because it seemed that the plain terms of this law reached them that even benign

assistance amounts to material support to terrorist organizations. Nobody disputes that if you give

terrorist organizations money or bombs or tangible stuff, that that is the kind of support that

can be used for terrorist ends. The question is, can you give intangible speech-related advice

and assistance to these groups and not be subject to this law that makes it a crime to provide

material support.

Now, Chief Justice Roberts, worried aloud about the free speech implications of this ruling,

but then ultimately said, oh, well, you know, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

Can you break down his reasoning?

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