General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTwo lessons from the Megaupload seizure
...
Its wildly under-appreciated how unrestrained is the Governments power to do what it wants, and how little effect these debates over various proposed laws have on that power. Contrary to how it was portrayed, the Obama administrations threatened veto of the NDAA rested largely on the assertion that they did not need a law vesting them with indefinite detention powers because they already have full power to detain people without a trial: not because any actual law expressly vested that power, but because the Bush and Obama DOJs both claimed the 2001 AUMF silently (implicitly) authorized it and deferential courts have largely acquiesced to that claim. Thus, Obama argued about indefinite detention in his NDAA veto threat that the authorities codified in this section already exist and therefore the Administration does not believe codification is necessary, and in his Signing Statement the President similarly asserted that the executive branch already has the authority to detain in military custody accused Terrorists and as Commander in Chief I have directed the military to do so where appropriate. In other words: we dont need any law expressly stating that we can imprison people without charges: we do it when we want without that law.
...
The U.S. really is a society that simply no longer believes in due process: once the defining feature of American freedom that is now scorned as some sort of fringe, radical, academic doctrine. That is not hyperbole. Supporters of both political parties endorse, or at least tolerate, all manner of government punishment without so much as the pretense of a trial, based solely on government accusation: imprisonment for life, renditions to other countries, even assassinations of their fellow citizens. Simply uttering the word Terrorist, without proving it, is sufficient. And now here is Megaupload being completely destroyed its website shuttered, its assets seized, ongoing business rendered impossible based solely on the unproven accusation of Piracy.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/21/two_lessons_from_the_megaupload_seizure/singleton
Zax2me
(2,515 posts)Due process - no one has been convicted yet.
If you suspect a stolen car you arrest the guy and seize the car.
Due process proves innocence or guilt.
Innocent, you get the car back.
Obama admin doing the same thing here.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)You don't go and arrest and detain a landlord because he rented apartments to people who may or may not have been doing something illegal. And you don't impound the whole apartment building. This is gross overreach of authority and a chilling example of what might yet to come.
derby378
(30,252 posts)...Texas family court judge William Adams savagely beating his daughter's legs and back with a leather belt because she may have downloaded a pirated video game.
starroute
(12,977 posts)Going back to the 1970s, there's been a general belief on the right that government bureaucracy can't do anything worthwhile because it's too inefficient and nit-picky. One aspect of that is a specific insistence that normal legal procedures are incapable of bringing lawbreakers to justice because there are too many loopholes and the authorities' "hands are tied."
(Gingrich insisting that as president his first act would be to ignore the Supreme Court is a reflection of that attitude.)
But the really nasty irony is that in the name of not trusting the ordinary procedures of government, the right has indicated a willingness to trust government implicitly as long as what it is doing is authoritarian and extra-legal.
One can only conclude that what the Reaganites (and many libertarians) are really after is not freedom but authoritarianism.