First Amendment vs Aid to Terrorists:  Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports on the Supreme Court hearing on Tuesday regarding a complicated dispute over free speech and lending aid to terrorists.  In Tuesday's arguments in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Solicitor General Elena Kagan defended 18 U.S.C. §2339B(a)(1), a 1996 law designed to combat terrorism, as "a vital weapon in this nation's continuing struggle against international terrorism."  Lawyer, David D. Cole, representing the Humanitarian Law Project, challenged the law claiming it is unconstitutional with respect to speech that furthers lawful, nonviolent activities of proscribed organizations.  His clients claim they want to provide support for the legal, nonviolent activities of a Kurdish political party and a Tamil group, both of which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department.  According to Kagan, even this benign help is prohibited, stating that, "What Congress decided was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs."  Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Court's most popular defender of First Amendment freedoms admits this is "a complicated issue".  "Support of any kind", says Kennedy, "will ultimately inure to the benefit of a terrorist organization, and we have a governmental interest in not allowing that." Lauren's blog on the oral argument can be found here.