From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Sep 07 2002 - 14:59:28 MDT
On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Technotranscendence wrote:
> It's not that terrorists aren't a threat, but that government is a much
> larger and longlasting threat. Long after Al Qaeda is forgotten, the
> DoJ will still have its expanded powers and those who are not in favor
> or not in a position to defend themselves.
Daniel, I think this statement is absolutely wacko. Yes, in this administration
the DoJ is trying to stretch its powers and what I see is the courts slapping
their hands (witness recent decisions regarding who you can hold in secret
or without legal consul). I don't think that is unreasonable considering
the event that provoked this was the worst attack on American soil in 60
years.
Here is the truth -- the DoJ is operating within a set of constraints called
the U.S. Constitution. I happen to think the document works reasonably well.
If you don't -- move elsewhere. Al Qaeda is *not* operating within any
constraints at all which is why they could use airplanes to kill 3000
civilians because they simply felt like doing that. While our political
history has examples of individuals who got out of line (Nixon comes to
mind) -- for the most part it seems to work pretty well -- witness the
current debate on whether or not we should use a large amount of force
to remove a despot in Iraq.
I agree with Harvey -- the Florida case raised my eyebrows. But it
does seem to make a certain amount of sense -- guilt is supposed to
be decided in our system by a jury of ones peers. While the issues
of charging 2 parties with the same crime are scary -- IMO its up to
the juries to decide. If they had both been found guilty then you
either have a conspiracy (not entirely unheard of you know) or a
mistake -- and thats up to appeals courts to decide.
If we found it happening in hundreds of cases I'd start to
get concerned but an isolated case I'm not going to get to wound
up over -- life is stranger than fiction.
Robert
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