Tht’s pretty much the gist of a US Supreme Court ruling last month, according to the 3D Security Initiative, who say the Court
upheld a contentious US counterterrorism law that calls “negotiation training” and “offering advice on peacebuilding” to be a crime when it is done with groups listed by the US as terrorist organizations.
Other countries make a distinction between supporting a terrorist organization’s violent cause, or conversely, communicating with these groups to promote nonviolent solutions.
3D’s director, Lisa Schirch, has a rebuttal of the Supreme Court’s reasoning over on Huffington Post which is worth a read. She argues that there’s still scope for a remedy: Congress should react to the ruling by being much more specific about exactly what kinds of communication are and aren’t allowed with terrorist groups.
For fuller details of the Court’s ruling, see this summary from AP.
