I have heard the term secret court, for the first time only with reference the the USA. With secret courts, secret indictment, your statement of 'He isn't going to be charged with treason' only looks like a trap being laid.
Or, drop a drone bomb on him. (see: Anwar al-Aulaqi, Samir Khan, Abd al-Rahman, and Jude Mohammed.)
The only American citizen targeted in a drone strike was Al Awlaki. The others were killed because they happened to be traveling with Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan or Yemen who were targeted. We can argue about the legality of targeting Al Awlaki, someone who was actively waging war against the U.S. and tried to evade capture for a decade, but it's ridiculous to bring up the other three. Hundreds of U.S. citizens were killed in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fact that U.S. citizens may be killed collaterally in a military strike with legitimate targets has never been construed to be a violation of due process.
Snowden is a completely different situation. He's not waging war against the U.S. and leaking classified information is a criminal charge, not an act of war.
So he was held for three and a half years as an "enemy combatant" under order of the US president, G.W. Bush.
Is the US court system so broken that one person, one president, one dictator is now judge jury and executioner and gets away with such an atrocity?
What has become of the rule of law in the USA?
As a country, it's looking more and more like a dictatorship.
As a country that stood for democracy, freedom of speech and justice for all, what has become of that?
As a serious question, what exactly does the government of the USA stand for today?
Halliburton, the US energy services giant, has admitted destroying evidence relating to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst such disaster in American history.
A Justice Department statement released late on Thursday said the company had agreed to plead guilty to criminal conduct that occurred when it was carrying out its own post-accident investigation.
Is any one going to pay for the fact that they broke the law, screwed up in the lives of so many people in Florida, stuffed up the environment for years to come all for the sake of a dollar?
No. The Justice Department is going to do nothing more than slap them on the wrist.
And why is that? Obviously money talks!
You make it sound like Halliburton just wrote a check to the DOJ to make the problem go away. Big companies don't need to write checks--they have hostages.
Put yourself in a DOJ prosecutor's shoes. You've got evidence of illegal conduct. You can't pin it on anyone specific, but you know the company overall engaged in the conduct. What do you do?
Do you randomly prosecute the CEO, simply by virtue of his position, for activity you can't directly pin on him? If you do this, watch every multi-national rush to re-incorporate in Switzerland.
Do you shut down the company, in the process putting tens of thousands of innocent people out of work in the midst of a shitty economy, punishing shareholders who had nothing to do with the illegal activity, and destroying a local economy?[1] All for what? To prove a point?
No, you don't do any of these things. You do exactly what the DOJ did in this case: force them to make a $55 million "donation" to the National Wildlife Fund, pay a token $200k fine, and let them go on with a stern warning. That's just the nature of law enforcement in a globalized economy, where multi-national corporations can "vote with their pocketbooks" and have countries compete to see who can be the most lax about law enforcement.
[1] E.g. consider the criminal indictment and subsequent dissolution of Arthur Andersen, and its impact on Chicago. While most of the personnel moved to other accounting firms in the city, losing the global headquarters of a $10 billion/year giant in the industry was not a good thing for the local economy.
This whole thing to me is pretty reminiscent of Wall Street problems. I'm sure there will always be a number of economists who'll defend the situation there, who'll pedantically frame the issues in detailed legal, economic orientations but overlook the more damaging, permanent problems people at large face. Without drastic actions (e.g., handing Jamie Dimon a lengthy prison sentence; fining Halliburton something that'll seriously debilitate (but not bankrupt) their operations, an amount that will make it absolutely clear to management, shareholders and everyone else that strategies of 'play dirty, make big profit, pay relatively small fine' are completely unacceptable), I don't think we're likely to see any meaningfully positive change.
As a society we seem to just accept (and overlook) a high entropy in incarcerations of black teens caught with weed with shaky evidence. Much like how folks are okay with that, I'm pretty much okay if we start seeing a more rash justice come down upon CEOs and upper management, I'm okay seeing shareholders suffer a little, I'm okay with seeing fines in upwards of billions figure, I'm okay with the threat of nationalization looming over companies at detection of naughty behavior. And I don't think this is sloppy anarchist thinking, this is action apparently needed for a larger utilitarian interest (which in my view is generally a reasonable goal).
Okay, that sounded a little extreme, but tell me, how else can we tell them we're not putting up with bullshit anymore? How things are currently going is obviously not working very well.
> Do you randomly prosecute the CEO, simply by virtue of his position, for activity you can't directly pin on him? If you do this, watch every multi-national rush to re-incorporate in Switzerland.
Great. Another one will pop up in its place, who we should reward if they uphold higher ethical standards by doing business with them.
By and large, black teens aren't incarcerated on "shakey evidence." That's the great thing about crimes that affect poor people: they're really easy to prove. The difference between an aggressive deal/outright fraud/honest mistake is difficult to prove. Who knew what? When? What were they thinking? Possession of an uncontrolled substance? Felon in possession of a firearm? Robbery? That stuff is easy to prove.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's okay that we imprison so many low-income minorities. But I don't think its the result of "high-entropy" prosecutions based on "shakey evidence." It's the result of astronomical sentences and three-strikes rules for relatively minor crimes (drugs, theft, gang activity) that are very common among low income populations.
> Great. Another one will pop up in its place,
Because we're doing such a great job keeping businesses in America as it is? All that will happen is that the capital will slowly migrate elsewhere.
> But tell me, how else can we tell them we're not putting up with bullshit anymore?
The fact of the matter is that we don't have any choice. My mentor in law school once pointed out to me that in Illinois politics, large companies don't have to make campaign donations to exercise their political clout. All they do is call up a state legislator and say: "I create 300 jobs in your district; this is how high you're going to jump." And the legislators ask: "how high?"
And the people absolutely will not do anything about it, because far and away their #1 political concern is getting a job or keeping their job. And no government official is going to be stupid enough to do something like punish a corporation overly harshly because a simple ad along the lines of "so and so cost such and such county in Illinois 300 jobs!" is a nuclear weapon in the current economy.
And I was thinking that in US companies can't make campaign donations at all, but what do I know...
Second, Bush was not "judge, jury, and executioner." Bush persued a policy on his interpretation of the law. The Supreme Court smacked him down. He backed off that policy. Padilla got a civil trial. It took time because litigation is slow and always has been. But that's an example of the system working, not an example of it descending into dictatorship.
You are 100% correct. The US government now thinks it's a court all unto itself and is now above the law.
It's got to the point where it doesn't even try to hide these indiscretions.
Rendition of prisoners to foreign countries by US personnel is now OK as long as no US personnel are involved in the subsequent torture.
It’s a well known fact the US government does not participate in torture, they don’t condone torture and as a government they do everything in their power to stop it. But rendition is OK. Out of sight, out of mind.
So that does not mean they can't assist in the process of rendition.
Also water boarding is not considered a form of torture by the US government. We the government consider it a form of intelligence gathering.
Unlawful detention? There is no such thing. We can hold any one for any length of time as long as it is in the national interest.
Is this the new US democracy?
The big disappointment for me is Obama.
I actually thought he was different, but I now know that was just foolish of me.
In many ways he is turning out to be much worse than the alternative :(
It appears that you are referring to the people the US is holding in Gitmo.
Uh, an issue here is the "lawful" part: A claim is that the whole Gitmo thing is part of the US military fighting a war. The Gitmo people are prisoners of war or some such. So, they are not to be handled in the US legal system. So, for how they are being handled, "lawful" in the US legal system makes little or no sense.
For "torture", the US military claims not to use torture. Okay. Maybe water boarding is torture, but apparently it does no physical harm and, so, maybe is not really torture.
In broad terms, many well informed people, e.g., D. D. Eisenhower, understood very well that the US military in times of war does things on battlefields that would be totally unacceptable against US citizens inside the US. E.g., Ike was very reluctant to send the Army to Little Rock. So, one broad lesson is that (1) the US legal system and law enforcement inside the US are one thing and (2) what the US military does outside the US to enemies of the US is a very different thing. In particular, Gitmo is just not like a US prison or a county jail. Asking if Gitmo is "lawful" is like asking about the wings on hogs.
I don't say this because I like Obama or liked W or Cheney.
For W and Cheney, they got us into foreign wars that were good candidates for "absurd foreign adventures" and didn't get us out. There's "Occupy a country, pull down a statue, now what? Do you know what I mean?" or some such from just retired Marine four star General J. "Mad Dog" Mattis.
For Obama, my first time really torqued off was his early 2008 interview with the SF Chronicle (off and on on YouTube -- once when on I typed in a full transcript which I still have) where he said that he wanted to use carbon cap and trade to ratchet up the charges on coal fired electric generating plants to "bankrupt" the plants. From some DoE reports, at the time that was 49% of our electric power and about 23% of all our energy. Outrageous. He'd need a crash program in nuke construction to make up the difference. He also said that of course "electric rates would skyrocket".
So, what was he doing? Best I can tell, he was waving a smell of raw meat to get some greenies up on their hind legs. And he was building a consensus to throw money at green projects, please some greenies in business, and get back some campaign donations. For shutting down coal plants, likely the EPA has been slowly shutting down some of the older plants the owners didn't want to upgrade to cleaner burning. There I would be more concerned about NOx emissions, that cause acid rain, than CO2 (that plants like!).
So, my reading is that mostly he has just played politics with the greenies: Give them a little smell of what they want, throw some money their way, pretend to be doing what they want, and otherwise do essentially nothing.
E.g., in Mideast Arab Spring politics, he doesn't want to appear to be on the side of either secular dictators or the radical Islamists. So, in Libya he did something but apparently mostly (set aside Bengazhi) not enough really to entangle the US. Apparently in Syria he trained a few rebels to use some Russian missiles -- again, appearing to fight the dictator but not getting the US entangled. Now the US DoD has given him a list of options for more in Syria; my guess is that he will take none of the options but continue to find ways to posture. For actually influencing the outcome in Syria, I suspect he will do nothing. Of course, I don't see a good outcome in Syria -- it looks like either Al Qaeda or back to Assad as the Mediterranean branch of Iran.
Maybe in Egypt he did or enabled something productive: Uh, it appears that from the deal between Sadat and Begin at Camp David, the US heavily funds the Egyptian military. Sooooo, net, the Egyptian military is nearly a branch of the US DoD! Sooooo, the US essentially has a big veto and say-so in Egypt. So, after a year of Morsi and his true believers messing up the economy, there was enough discontent in the streets to let the military dump Morsi and set up an interim techocrat government and then hold elections. If this works out, good. If Obama played a significant role, also good.
My explanation for nearly everything Obama does is he just wants to play politics or be a political leader. So, pick some issues, appear to be for some and against others. For each side, make some statements and maybe some weak actions and otherwise do next to nothing.
When would he actually do something? Maybe when about 70% of the voters really wanted it. Otherwise he will just say things and do little things that make his base feel good.
My take is that basically he is indifferent and cynical about government and, instead, is willing just to play feel good politics. E.g., "bankrupt" the coal plants is just feel good nonsense to please some greenies and not something he's actually going to do.
So, as an engineer, to me one place he fails is (1) see a serious US problem, (2) analyze the problem, (3) find a good direction, (4) explain the problem and direction to the American people and build a consensus to solve the problem, (5) move on with a solution. Instead he just plays politics until some other forces get maybe 70% approval for some action and then steps in front of the crowd as the leader.
In part playing such politics can generate political capital that can be used for something definite.
It seems to me that such leadership looks weak to the voters and, as a result by now, is costing him political capital.
One place where maybe 70% of the people will get torqued at him is the Trayvon Martin matter: So, again, Obama hasn't done much, and since it really isn't necessarily a Federal issue he didn't have much to do. But he has said some things that appear to please his base. And his buddy the AG has said some more such things. Apparently so far their actions have amounted to next to nothing except one might guess that some of the rioting that has happened since the jury decision was stimulated or encouraged by some of what Obama and his AG did say. Sure, that can mean that some dumb people rioted for no good reason so blame the dumb people; still, the statements were not good.
One danger of Obama is that many problems in the US are permitted just to fester, e.g., the economy, energy planning, immigration, health care reform, etc. instead of receive serious attention. A second danger is that if there were a serious problem, would he be a good and serious leader?
One piece of good news is that Obama seems to be going along with the plan to put the DHS in the old DC Saint Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital. Sounds fully appropriate to me. Hope that the TSA is one of the first inmates. Sad part is that they want to spend $4.5 billion moving in.
Also apparently constitutional scholar Obama failed to notice how the NSA tracked mud over the Fourth Amendment and, again, let that problem just fester until the sh!t hit the fan.
Prisoners of war have legal rights too, under treaties to which the US is signatory. The Gitmo prisoners are not receiving those rights either. They're in a legal no-man's-land.
The Gitmo situation is a mess, not the least because apparently it's costing the US $1+ million a year per prisoner. But while a mess, I object to calling it a legal mess. Laws, courts, justice, etc. just have next to nothing to do with it.
Maybe there are a lot of lawyers and they want to see every problem, e.g., the Gitmo problem, as a legal problem. Sorry, lawyers, it's not a legal problem; instead, it's something else, a problem of a different kind.
In part Gitmo is an example to Jihaders: Either we will kill you, and if they are physically close maybe your family, or we will ship you to Gitmo, and we will let you decide which is worse.
Some of the Gitmo Jihaders believe that it is just their natural, Allah-given right and mission to fight the US or go on a hunger strike. I'd say, that 120 days of hunger strike would be about right.
Whatever, I just don't see it as a legal problem.