NEW YORK and WASHINGTON - February 23 - Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the first case to challenge a portion of the Patriot Act before the highest court in the land. The case, originally brought in 1998 on behalf of a human rights group, a retired federal administrative judge, a doctor, and several nonprofit groups, challenges the constitutionality of the law that makes it a crime to provide “material support” to groups the administration has designated as “terrorist.”  In particular, the plaintiffs charge that the law goes too far in making speech advocating lawful, nonviolent activity a crime.  The lower courts have unanimously declared several provisions of the law – including one added by the Patriot Act – unconstitutionally vague because they encompass speech and force citizens to guess as to their meaning.