Clancy v Office of Foreign Assets Control of US Dept. of Treasury, 559 F.3d 595 (7th Cir, 2009)
Before BAUER, KANNE, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.
Having declared a national emergency to deal with the threat of Iraq in 1990, President George H.W. Bush imposed economic sanctions prohibiting unauthorized travel to Iraq and authorized the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") to promulgate regulations in accordance with those executive orders. In 2003, Clancy traveled to Iraq in violation of those regulations and was fined $8,000 by OFAC. Clancy challenged OFAC's regulations on a number of statutory and constitutional grounds, first in a written submission to OFAC and then in federal court. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, and Clancy now repeats all of his arguments on appeal. None has any merit.
[559 F.3d...
1) Noteworthy case confirming a particularly broad interpretation of the term "services," as well as "export." Here, the 9th Circuit agreed with OFAC that travelling to Iraq and acting as an uncompensated "human shield" in protest of U.S. bombing of that country constituted the "export" of a "service" to the Government of Iraq, even where "the record did not demonstrate that the United States even knew of, much less delayed or halted its bombing of Iraq, as a result of Clancy's presence in Iraq. And clearly Clancy's efforts to prevent the bombing of Iraq were futile."
The court took a more purpose-based approach in considering the extent to which OFAC could stretch the term "service":
“Webster's Dictionary defines ‘service’ as ‘an act of helpful activity; help; aid.’ Webster's College Dictionary (2d ed.1997). The purpose of being a human shield is to confer, or attempt to confer,...