Opinion ID: 185451
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The deprivation

Text: 37 The government argues that even accepting the proposition that petitioners are entitled to the protection of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the designation process and its consequences do not deprive them of life, liberty, or property. The Secretary contends that this question is settled by Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693 (1976), in which the Supreme Court held that the government does not, simply by the act of defaming a person, deprive him of liberty or property rights protected by the Due Process Clause. Id. at 708-10. However, Paul v. Davis held much more than the point for which the government asserts it. 38 That case concerned the stigmatizing of plaintiffs by police officers distributing a flyer listing them among active shoplifters. In reversing a circuit decision that the dissemination of such information implicated the Due Process Clause, the High Court entered the holding upon which the government relies. But in doing so, it analyzed and distinguished its earlier decision in Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433 (1971). In Constantineau, a state statute empowered a local police chief, without notice or hearing to a citizen, to cause a notice to be posted in all retail outlets that that person was one who by excessive drinking exhibited specified undesirable traits, such as exposing himself or family 'to want' or becoming 'dangerous to the peace' of the community. Id. at 434 (quoting Wis. Stat. 176.26 (1967)). The Constantineau Court held that this stigmatizing posting without notice or hearing constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause. In explaining its refusal to follow Constantineau, the Paul Court noted specific language from the Constantineau holding: 39 Where a person's good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him, notice and opportunity to be heard are essential. 424 U.S. at 708 (quoting Constantineau, 400 U.S. at 437 (emphasis supplied by the Paul Court)). 40 The Paul Court then went on to note the effects of the excessive drinking posting beyond stigmatization: That is, the posted individual could not purchase or even receive by gift alcoholic beverages within the city limits for one year. Thus, the Paul Court held, the appropriate rule of law is that where the government issues a stigmatizing posting (or designation) as a result of which the stigmatized individual is deprived ... of a right previously held under state law, due process is required. Id. The deprivation under the Wisconsin statute as described in Paul v. Davis was the right to purchase or obtain liquor in common with the rest of the citizens. Id. 41 Like the parties in Constantineau, and unlike the parties in Paul, petitioners here have suffered more than mere stigmatization. Rather than being posted as drunkards, the petitioners have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations under the AEDPA. Rather than being deprived of the previously held right to purchase liquor, they have been deprived of the previously held right to--for example--hold bank accounts, and to receive material support or resources from anyone within the jurisdiction of the United States. Many people, presumably including the members of the Council and the PMOI, would consider these to be rights more important than the right to purchase liquor. We consider at least one of them equally entitled to constitutional protection. 42 The most obvious rights to be impaired by the Secretary's designation are the petitioners' property rights. Specifically, there is before us at least a colorable allegation that at least one of the petitioners has an interest in a bank account in the United States. As they are one, if one does, they both do. We have no idea of the truth of the allegation, there never having been notice and hearing, but for the present purposes, the colorable allegation would seem enough to support their due process claims. Russian Volunteer Fleet v. United States, 282 U.S. 481, 491-92 (1931), makes clear that a foreign organization that acquires or holds property in this country may invoke the protections of the Constitution when that property is placed in jeopardy by government intervention. This is not to say that the government cannot interfere with that and many other rights of foreign organizations present in the United States; it is only to say that when it does so it is subject to the Due Process Clause. 43 The other two consequences of the designation less clearly implicate interests protected by the Due Process Clause. As to the right of the members of the organizations to enter the United States, the Secretary argues with some convincing force that aliens have no right of entry and that the organization has no standing to judicially assert rights which its members could not bring to court. See, e.g., Takahashi v. Fish and Game Comm'n, 334 U.S. 410, 419 (1948). The organizations counter that the present act limits the ability to travel abroad of its members who are already in the United States as they know they would be denied readmission. 44 As to the third consequence of the designation--that is the banning of the provision of material support or resources to the organizations--both parties again raise colorable arguments. The petitioners, citing such cases as Apthecker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 507 (1964), and NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), assert that this limitation deprives their members of First Amendment associational and expressive rights. The government asserts that the limitation does not affect the ability of anyone to engage in advocacy of the goals of the organizations, but only from providing material support which might likely be employed in the pursuit of unlawful terrorist purposes as of First Amendment protected advocacy. See Humanitarian Law Project v. Reno, 205 F.3d 1130, 1133-34 (9th Cir. 2000). 45 On each of the second and third consequences, each side offers plausible arguments. But we need not decide as an initial matter whether those consequences invade Fifth Amendment protected rights of liberty, because the invasion of the Fifth Amendment protected property right in the first consequence is sufficient to entitle petitioners to the due process of law. 46