Uh-oh, Legal Div.

If I understand the arcane workings of the legal system correctly, this is not good news.

San Francisco - A federal appeals court agreed Wednesday to reconsider its ruling against the sweeping 1996 law the government has increasingly used to arrest or prosecute suspected terrorists.

The law in question sets harsh penalties - up to life in prison - for providing "training" or "personnel" to a group the feds call "terrorist." The Humanitarian Law Project had been lobbying Congress on behalf of one such group, the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey. The Injustice Department claimed that such activities amounted to providing "personnel" to the group and went after the Project.

As I noted back on January 26, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the law unconstitutional to the extent that it covers what would otherwise be constitutionally-protected activity (such as lobbying and providing legal advice) that do not actually provide support for the group's activities.

The government appealed - natch - and now the full court will rehear the case.

Now enters my questionable grasp of legal technicalities.

It's my understanding that such a rehearing is by no means automatic, that the court could have declined to reconsider the case, leaving the DOJ to go to the Supreme Court. And that a full-panel reconsideration usually only happens when the members of the court feel there is a reasonable chance that the decision of the smaller panel will be overturned.

Thus my headline: If my understanding is correct, uh-oh.

Footnote: What makes the case particularly bizarre is that the Humanitarian Law Project was advising the Kurdistan Workers Party on ways to nonviolently resolve its conflicts with the Turkish government. As I said in January, people being threatened with prison "for advising accused terrorist groups on how to stop being terrorist? What is it the DOJ wants to appeal here? And why?"