When the Supreme Court ruled more than four years ago that money need not be a motive for bringing the weight of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law against abortion protesters, it presaged a devastating loss for the protesters. The question that remains is what also has done to the First Amendment.

RICO traditionally is used to discourage organized crime. It carries stiff penalties such as long prison sentences, forfeiture of assets and treble damages and fees. Its purpose is to stamp out patterns of misbehavior a court rules are of grave danger to society. The court decided that the RICO law says nothing explicitly about being limited to crimes based on an economic motive, allowing the case against the protestors to proceed.

The suit brought 12 years ago by the National Organization for Women was decided this week in Illinois, and the three anti-abortion activists were found liable of engaging in 21 acts of extortion to shut down women’s health clinics that performed abortions. The jury in the case also concluded that two anti-abortion organizations, Pro-Life Action League and Operation Rescue, cooperated in the plan.

What justifiably concerns some defenders of the First Amendment is how this case will influence any group’s ability to protest. To be clear, the anti-abortion activists were not merely walking around with signs. They were accused of besieging clinics, assaulting employees and threatening reprisals. Their intent was not to influence the way the clinics did business but to put the clinics out of business.

What the court cannot say — yet — is how different that action is from environmentalists chaining themselves to trees in the Northwest, New York AIDS activists disrputing business downtown, Greenpeace members creating havoc at off-shore oil sites or peace protestors engaged in mischief at Bath Iron Works. Many of these sorts of activities result in laws being broken and protestors arrested and penalized. But does the government also have cause to crush them under RICO?

Congress should take this week’s decision as its cue to revisit RICO and add some very clear language about what the law is trying to accomplish and what it is not. Protecting the right to protest, even when that means that laws may be broken, should be Congress’s guide in reviewing this law.