At least he was charged with a crime in front of a judge before the executive arm got involved. Since the latest Presidential Executive Order has been signed and sent to Congress, someone in Haneef’s situation in the USA could be made a homeless dumpster-diver without ever being interviewed by the police, let alone being charged with a crime.
Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq
…all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,
- (i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
- (A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
- (B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;
So far typically authoritarian, but following a certain valid logic.
(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or (iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.
All assets of any suspect can be frozen, with no notice (Section 5 of the order), by the Treasury without even having to get a court order. Anyone associated with them in all sorts of normal social or business transactions can potentially be treated likewise. And to put the icing on the top:
The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to,
- (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and
- (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.
It is illegal to accept a birthday gift for your child from any such person if that law is strictly applied. Or to employ them so that they have income to pay rent.
- (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
- (b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
So giving money to charitable organisations wishing to provide such a person with funds, goods or services that might allow them to eat or not freeze would be illegal. Of course, Section 4 below makes doubly sure that such a person can not be helped by anyone in any way: no donations are allowed either. Especially from lawyers willing to donate their services pro bono to challenge any exercise of this order, I betcha.
Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.
The application of this order will make it so that the suspect has no legal way to provide food, shelter and clothing for themselves or their family. All without laying a single charge in court.
Via Nightshift at Shakesville, who translates the legalese to English for us all and rightfully freaks the fuck out. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
Sounds a bit like the ancient Roman prohibition on “Fire and Water”, but at least you were given a bit of time to get the relevant distance away from the city of Rome.
I seriously hoped this was a joke - until I went to the white house. The only further step is to make such regulations secret so no-one knows what acts might fall foul of the executive.
I suppose the only ability to fix this is with a generic case using their Bill of Rights. Does anyone know if you can bring anything before the supreme court without a specific case that involves the proscribed person. (Proscription is not too harsh a term to use, and the overtones from Sulla’s day are apt).
This makes it trivial to “disappear” people - just like Stalin and Hitler. Is Bush jealous of Putin’s recent behaviour?
From memory: “And the animals looked from pigs to men and from men to pigs and could not tell the difference”.
I’m sure we can trust The Authorities only to use these powers against people who truly deserve it. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you will have nothing to worry about.
Check out the latest abuse of Executive Privilege from Bush &Co:
Surely to Gawd it’s past time to start taking the whole idea of impeachment seriously now???
Nixon tried to argue that “When the President does it, it’s not illegal” - and they laughed him out of office. See how far we have come?
It might be a good time to reflect on our asset seizure laws which were justified by the alleged menace of the drug trade.
Nope, it won’t happen unless the Dems think they can actually succeed in impeaching both Cheney and Bush and for that they’d need a smoking gun, the bullet, plus a video-taped confession to convince the 25 or so Repub senators. Anyway being an arsehole isn’t enough for impeachment - which requires treason, bribery or other high crime or misdemeanour. It’s merely the basic requirement for getting on the ballot.
A case before the Supreme Court of the USA has to be brought by someone with “standing” ie someone affected. A case such as this would have to go through the Federal Court first as I understand it.
Your parallels with Sulla’s proscription laws are apt. I’d overlooked that, due to being gobsmacked.
The “drug Trade” was the moral panic when we didn’t have “terrorism”.
Both were a weapon against the dreaded “Other”.
What I find odd is that so many ( Nick Minchin for gawd’s sake)are willing to admit toking but not Krudd or his Stepford wives including, idiotically, Garrett!!
Let’s imagine, Alice/Red Queen style, that it were true, “I can believe six impossible things before breakfast”
Do you REALLY want to elect someone in the 21stC who DIDN’T have a toke, or twenty, in their youth?
Like Krudd, whom I totally believe didn’t smoke, inhale or know anyone who did.
That’s the problem - what the hell was wrong with them, then & now, and what does it say about them, after years, decades of seat warming, yea-saying and smoozing that they are little, read- NO - different to the Norman Grey’s then in power?
Ah yes. Good old EO 13303.
Memo, persons living under US jurisdiction. (And where does that end?)
You are living in a tyranny justified by a completely bogus declaration of a “national emergency”.
Chimpo thinks he has the right to promulgate these Executive Orders that can unperson anyone.
Enjoy the rest of ride until January 2009.
It’s politics. Check out the paranoia emanating from responsible people such as Paul Craig Roberts, at Information Clearing House here.
These are possibly the targets, although I think there are more flakey targets they can start with.
Tom Noonan.
presumably Section B could also infer senators who vote against bills, peace demonstrators and generally people who Bushco decide are policy obstructionists.
TigTog
Just realized, the XO is issued “pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act”. And the Oz regime has sent even mere copyright offenders to the US for trial and hard time.
I’m riffing on this with a Room 101 for Australians post.
I hope I’m just being paranoid.
btw: Apologies for “apt” in my prev cmt. Its my abbrev for “appropriate” and stuffs up the sense of things.
I squirm everytime I hear “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve nothing to fear”.
Apart from always having been bullshit, in “the current climate” there is the added factor of when the State knows more about you than you know yourself. IE Plain wrong but nonetheless it’s sitting on many databases AND is used to inform other evaluations. The obvious case for most people is when a credit agency has got it wrong but it’s way too common with law enforcement agencies also. Don’t imagine that someone, somewhere isn’t noting the books you take from the library, the Letters to the Editor you write and even critical letters sent to MPs or quangos.
Maybe that’s why unemployment is (claimed to be) so low?
A prime example is the USofA, 7% of the (adult)population has been through the judicial system but think of the vast infrastructure, jobs, prison buildings etc to service that population?
It’s no less alarming for having been done before, of course, but judging by this listing of Executive Orders, this sort of horror is nothing new. Your post led me to the White House site where there’s a listing of all Executive Orders from the current reign. Previous similar EOs have targeted “Persons Contributing to the Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”, “Certain Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Belarus”, Persons in Connection with the Conflict in Sudan’s Darfur Region “, “Additional Persons in Connection with the National Emergency with Respect to Syria” and so on.
As far as I can see, the first one to include more or less the full draconian wording was issued in May 2004. In all of them, the threats were uniformly deemed to “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and [I] hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.” Not inclined to understatement, it seems.