FBI releases documents that confirm they proactively spy on anarchists
rt.com
rt.com
What immunity doesn't address is the individual's first amendment right to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech must include the freedom to remain silent. Nothing in the constitution gives the government the power to compel expression.
Fourth amendment protections against search and seizure should apply as well. The government is trying to force these people to provide the contents of their minds. Again, there is no constitutional justification for this.
The constitution sets out strict limits on government power. This use of the grand jury system is a clear violation of those limits and a moral outrage.
Courts are invested with the power to try cases. When someone swears to 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' they're agreeing to express themselves to an organ of the government. The constitution doesn't forbid lying, but that doesn't grant you the freedom to engage in perjury.
This use of the grand jury system is a clear violation of those limits and a moral outrage.
I wouldn't rely on Russia Today for my legal analysis if I were you. The Validimir Putin Press Agency is not really in a position to report objectively on the theory or practice of fair trials, given the lamentable state of the Russian legal system.
And they quote one of the parties complaints about the time when the GJ was set up without mentioning whether it was set up specially or just in line with the normal calendar schedule. The jury in a trial is specially convened for that case. Grand juries typically sit for several months at a time and issue indictments on whatever happens to come before them. They're completely different from trial juries.
That's true, but grand juries can be convened for a specific issue as well.
These three activists didn't lie or take an oath - they simply refused to testify. You could argue that the courts' power to try cases allows the govt to imprison people to coerce testimony, but that's a different argument.
> I wouldn't rely on Russia Today for my legal analysis if I were you. The Validimir Putin Press Agency is not really in a position to report objectively on the theory or practice of fair trials, given the lamentable state of the Russian legal system.
And yet that logic never stops US papers from reporting on other countries' legal systems...
There are sources besides RT for this news - you can google them.
Edit: jstalin, I stand corrected. Looks like immunity is often forced upon people.
This is pretty standard and has been for (at least) decades. The constitutional injunction is against self incrimination. You can be forced to testify against others, and a whole lot of people have been thrown in jail over the years for refusing to do so.
>Freedom of speech must include the freedom to remain silent.
Why would you think that?
>Fourth amendment protections against search and seizure should apply as well.
This is beyond weak as a constitutional argument.
>Why would you think that?
The same reason that atheism is covered under freedom of religion.
> In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right [...] to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor...
Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_Process_Clause
So the Constitution is fairly explicit that courts have the power to compel testimony. That's not to say that the power isn't be abused, or at least used in a fashion not originally intended. But given the directness of this statement of a court power, your arguments against are unconvincing, since they rely on interpretations that are as yet unproven (like the right to silence).
The courts are generally more empowered than normal government institutions, because they are only invoked when other rights (may) have already been violated. The pursuit of truth, and in particular the pursuit of innocence of an accused party, may occasionally trump individual civil liberties.
Therefore the 6th does not apply. Habeas Corpus should in theory apply, if it is still in the US code - not sure about that.
It's funny that Russia Today always points out the flaws in the USA while having a not really well functioning democracy at home.
Let's release some FSB information for a change?
I am not thinking RT is the root of all evil though. It's definitely a valuable source for information, if you take it with a grain of salt.
[Funny also that they are one of the big media outlets for Assange or Wikileaks/Whistleblowers in general, that are with their information indirectly targeting mostly American Intelligence] - one of the reasons btw why Assange is a hypocrite
BTW, this article reeks of off-topic to me.
"It's definitely a valuable source for information, if you take it with a grain of salt."
I don't think that you should absorb any information without critical thinking of course, but just said, that especially news from RT about American Intelligence Failures you should be careful with.
And my observation: There is more USA government critical thinking in the NY Times than on RT. So imo they are more based on ideology, while the NYT is of course too, but not that much.
Summary: Anti-Putin activist fled to Ukraine to seek UN protection, stepped out of the UN office to get lunch, got abducted by some people who transported him back to Russia, got a confession out of him and turned him over to prosecutors... Reads like something from a Cold War novel.
The U.S reporting is pretty decent though. Anybody who has a problem with the way things are going in the U.S they will give a microphone to so sometimes the quality of the interviewee's presentation degrades somewhat. However, on the plus side, they would never consider patriotism or national security as an excuse not to report on something in the U.S as domestic channels would.
Ever hear the phrase "don't shit where you eat"?
Because they never would - therefore they are strongly driven by a political agenda (/influenced by a political mindset), not reporting bad things about the democracy "at home", while constantly commercializing Intelligence Failures of and Whistleblowers in the USA.
And like i've also mentioned:
- still valuable source of information, if you are able to identify this agenda and are applying your logic accordingly
How does a grand jury meet in March to investigate riots happening in May?
... or do you mean that they were investigating an alleged conspiracy to vandalize state property?
Juries are selected for a particular case. Grand juries are selected for a particular time period. During that time period potential cases will be brought before the grand jury who will then decide whether or not the case will go to trial (and if it does, a separate jury is selected for that case).
I may be off on some details, but that is my understanding of how grand juries work.
That's why you don't have a regular defense team there; the GJ isn't pronouncing on the guilt or innocence of the accused person, they're pronouncing on the gravity of the alleged offense. So if you're a prosecutor and you bring someone in front of a grand jury for murder, all you have to establish on a practical level is that a murder took place. You can learn more from the handbook for jurors: http://www.uscourts.gov/Viewer.aspx?doc=/uscourts/FederalCou...
There's no precrime involved here. A crime (vandalism of a federal court building) occurred in May, and it was brought before the grand jury that happened to be impanelled at that time, as one of the many cases they examine. It's not a conspiracy just because you don't know about it.
Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
If the people present a democratic threat to the government, the government should fade from existence peacefully. If people present a non-democratic threat to the government, then the government should act to protect itself.
Anarchists do not, categorically, present (or seek to present) a non-democratic threat to the democracy.
Do you want to keep tabs on violent* anarchists? Knock yourself out. I have no particular issue with that.
Be careful, this is only true in certain countries. Sometimes governments are created by someone who is the best warlord & administrator, c.f., Charlemagne.
What you are proposing is that the government spy on anyone who falls within a broad category of political classification. I think the issue with that should be self-evident.
"Our aim is not to overthrow the state, but to ignore it. Anyone who wants to continue to support the state and obey its laws is free to do so, so long as they leave us alone. Our goal is to build the kind of society we want, and prevent the state from overthrowing us while we’re doing it. The last person out of the state can turn off the lights." - Kevin Carson
To some anarchism is the idea of a completely voluntary society. A violent overthrow of the state is against this idea.
But I don't think that, in a free country, the government should be monitoring people solely for their political views or what kind of books they read, without some actual evidence that they're a danger to anyone. Sure, maybe someone who buys an Ayn Rand book will eventually work to eliminate government, but I'm not sure owning The Fountainhead should land you on a watchlist; and the same should go for reading Proudhon or Kropotkin.
It's also really easy to run into false positives. In the '80s/'90s, for example, the police/media liked to paint a bunch of generally harmless BBSing kids as "dangerous anarchists" because they had an ASCII file of The Anarchist Cookbook—which is violent anarchist literature, after all.
Curiously, communists probably had it better precisely because of how focused they were on the one "big" goal (communist revolution): Leninist parties in particular were very centralized, disciplined, and scrupulously avoided doing minor illegal things (vandalism, etc.) that could give the police a excuse, because Marxist-Leninist ideology generally believes that small-scale direct action is ineffective, and the vanguard party should keep its powder dry, so to speak, until they're in position to seize power in one quick move. Anarchists are much more decentralized, and have varying opinions about how to organize change, so there's much more scope for the cops to find someone who spray-painted or vandalized something, and via that argue that any group that person was part of is part of an "anarchist criminal cell" by transitivity (occasionally they get tired of waiting, and a police infiltrator will actively egg on more militancy).
Aside from that general principle, there's also the reality of how its implemented. Most of the time sleeper agents are used to get evidence for trumped up, meaningless charges like "interstate travel with intent to riot." That's the best case scenario. At worst, these agents, on not finding something of even minor note, will attempt to incite violence to prove that "those anarchists have really been violent all along." See, for instance, Brandon Darby.
Edited to add: I do, for the record, think that if there's actual evidence that someone's trying to blow up a bridge, monitoring is appropriate (though I don't see why simply arresting them wouldn't usually be sufficient if that were the case). But usually these things are more fishing expeditions than anything, against people whose ideology the State finds distasteful.
Hmmm - yes, why not: http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_Reforming/#Item4
Is it the very word "anarchist" that causes the difficulty, because that's what it looks like to me.
It's of course reasonable to keep an eye on seditious groups: these almost by definition imperil life, liberty, property, etc. It is another thing altogether to keep an eye on someone who wants to peacefully change government via peaceful and lawful means.
I am an anarchist (a market anarchist, specifically). It is my professed ideology. I don't break laws (well, maybe occasional acts of non-violent civil disobedience in protest of specific unjust laws), I pay my taxes, and I behave according to pretty high ethical standards.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are files on me with the Austin Police Department, and DHS (via the Fusion Center here in Austin), because an organization I've been a part of has been infiltrated multiple times by undercover APD officers (and APD has, thankfully, been slapped around by judges for doing so, and for the way the officers behaved in the process). But, I'm not pleased about it, and I consider it a violation of basic civil liberties provided by the constitution...since I've never been arrested and never been charged with a crime. I am, by all reasonable standards, an upstanding citizen. Only if you believe holding a belief can be a crime, could you believe that I deserve to be spied on.
I'm sure you hold some beliefs that others, including others in positions of power, consider wrong. Wanting to change (or dismantle peacefully) the government is not a crime.
In short, it aint nobody's business what my ideology is. And, if you believe someone should be put in prison, in solitary, for holding an unpopular ideology...well, that's just not very American. Worse, it's not humanitarian.