[Nitpick] It’s “remindering.” [/Nitpick]
By Bushie definition anytime any one says something bad about the war in Iraq ,they embolden the enemy. Does that qualify as threatening the peace or stability in Iraq.
If he goes broad enough, and I find him always too broad in those accusations, the enemy list will be huge.
And by “found to be”, you of course mean in a court of law, with all due process observed, right? Or, does the President get to simply declare US citizens in violation of this order, much the way he can declare them “enemy combatants” and suspend their right to habeus corpus?
The order says, “any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense . . .”
Nope. This is an administrative measure, per the executive role. Thus it can simply be imposed outright, in much the same way as various other penalties can be.
That isn’t to say that such action cannot be fought in federal court afterward, but it would stand until successfully challenged.
That’s only the first of three parts to it:
It’s quite reasonable to interpret clause (ii) as applying to, for instance, a computer help desk, or even a question posted in this very message board - nothing here mentions the support has to be knowingly provided. If I unknowingly sell a mobile phone and SIM card (which is then used in Iraq) to a blocked person I fall under clause (ii). If I am then a blocked person and I send my son out to buy a newspaper he then runs afoul of this thing - (iii) doesn’t say the ownership or action on behalf of the blocked person has to be in any way related to acts of violence, in fact it has no restrictions at all.
You make a good point. The intent of sanctions, however, isn’t primarily to punish to people who (unknowingly) violate the sanctions, it is to prevent further goods and transactions from being passed along to bad people while civil or criminal charges can be considered by the courts. The seizure of assets, while serious in itself, can be likened in a certain sense to arresting a suspect based on merely the probable cause in the minds of government officials and thereby depriving a possibly innocent person of his freedom pending a trial.
To the end that someone did intend to violate sanctions on persons or countries, IEEPA provides for criminal penalties for those who knowingly did so. They can get 10 years in the slammer and a $50,000 fine. Google 50 USC 1705 for the text (can’t link to temporary file).
Oh, and I’m not sure how posting on a message board can constitute “material assistance.” What do you mean by that?
Well…were do you perceive that their rights to appeal any decision through the regular court system is being impeded? I’m curious, as I don’t see anything about that.
Correct me if I’m wrong of course, but afaik Bush (or any other president since Lincoln) in fact DOESN’T have the right to suspend habeus corpus to a US citizen…so its kind of a silly question. Unless of course I’m wrong about that…in which case I’m unsure how it still fits in with what I’m reading about this. Afaict (not being a lawyer), the US Government (a.k.a. apparently Bush) could freeze the assets of a group or individual suspected of committing or supporting a terrorist group, even a US citizen. But that said citizen or group would then be able to take their case to the courts system for redress if the accusation was unfounded…and most likely be able to pursue a counter suit for redress I suppose.
No?
-XT
Considering the Bush administration’s notoriously casual attitude towards even following the letter of the law, I hardly trust them to voluntarily keep themselves within the spirit of it. The Patriot Act was intended to fight terrorists but the first person convicted under it was the owner of a strip club with no terrorist connections.
I thought the owner was found to be supplying (slightly used) virgins to paradise…
-XT
Ask Jose Padilla about what the government can and will do.
Why would I ask him? He’s obviously not exactly an unbiased source, ehe? I’ll ask YOU since I know and trust you Little Nemo…did GW Bush suspend habeus corpus? Is Jose Padilla’s case one where one could state that, yes, he has been denied completely the ability to seek relief from unlawful detention of himself or another person? Give no other legal recourse?
I’ll leave it to you to decide if this is the case as I’ve thought of something else. How many OTHER US citizens are in the same boat at this time? How large is this supposed problem? Has the problem been getting worse lately…or better? Or staying about the same?
-XT
Been there, had that done to me. link to the relevant thread. Now I have a new Paypal account, same name, different Card; I never bothered to send Paypal what they asked for identity confirmation, just to show ow effective this measures are to gag the Minions of Evil. :rolleyes:
Come on. You have to know that this post can only be followed with that ‘they came for the trade unionists, and I said nothing’ quote. It’s in the rules. 
If your assets were seized first, before you had an opportunity to make your case, would you not consider that your rights had been impeded?
Jose Padilla was held in a military brig for two years without legal charges filed against him. Whether the President has that right is up for debate, but in the meantime, habeas corpus has been suspended anyway.
No. In this country, citizens have the right to due process before the sentence is imposed. Holding them in jail indefinitely, or seizing their assets until they prove the government was wrong to do either, is contrary to our legal system.
Look, I’m not going to defend Bush’s policies on wiretapping, Guantanamo, attorney firings, or all the other various abuses of power. But that doesn’t mean that the Executive Branch ought to be stripped of important and, IMHO, reasonable law enforcement functions. Stopping people from funding insurgents and terrorists who are killing our troops and causing mayhem by preventing assets from being shipped out of country – even if it is shipped to a county that we have no business being in – seems like a very, very reasonable government policy.
Once assets are sent, that’s it – the damage is done. Potentially very serious damage. If we, as a country, put sanctions on a country or persons while following US laws, I don’t see how those sanctions could ever be enforced if, in order to prevent, say, huge amounts of cash going to leaders of the Sudanese genocide, or advanced computers to North Korean missile scientists, or cell phone detonators to Iraqi insurgents, the government cannot stop the shipment until there’s been an arrest, arraignment, discovery, trial, jury deliberations, and verdict. If that were the case then there’d be no way to prevent the actually bad people from sending money to other bad people. (And yes, I’d apply the same standard to even Dick Cheney who was accused of an IEEPA violation when Halliburton opened up an office in Tehran.)
Again, I can’t help but think that there is a useful parallel in police arresting someone and depriving them of their freedom based on merely probable cause before a suspect can make his case to a judge. If the person is innocent, they get released from jail. If the government seizes some assets to prevent them from going to the bad guys, and the person is innocent, then they should get their money back.
What should happen if someone has their assets seized? Well, the Office of Foreign Asset Control has a form right on their website to apply for the release of blocked funds. People should have a right to their day in court. But preventing the harm of material support going to various very bad people seems like a legitimate step for the government to take in the time before a judge can hear the case, just like getting an accused criminal off the streets is a reasonable step to prevent further harm from occurring. Maybe the source of our disagreement is that I don’t see freezing assets as “punishment,” no more than arresting someone. (If the assets were permanently seized, or someone thrown in jail permanently, then of course that’s a different case.)
Now if this, or any other sanctions, are enforced improperly (maybe used as a political tool against Harry Reid, as has been suggested, or taking little ol’ ladies money just because they shopped at a local market that unknowningly employed an Al Qaeda sleeper agent, or whatever) then I’ll condemn it. But this Executive Order is something that could very well be properly enforced. The wheels of government can’t be ground to a halt simply because we are pretty much all have deep objections to what the President has done with his time in office.
I’ve read novels where conspirators send each other alterts via coded personals ads in the newspapers. A message board hypothetically could do the same thing faster. Remember, the whole theory underlying the NSA’s surveillance program is that monitoring or interdicting their communications is a good way to fight/detect terrorists.
Using boards or any other forum to propagate anti-war and anti-Administration messages is another matter entirely, of course. But not everybody seems to understand that. bob_co not long ago mooted the idea that Hillary Clinton and others could or should be jailed for that kind of thing.
I’m not sure how you know what the intentions of this act are. If that is so why did they not include the word “knowingly”?
Again you need to read what the act actually says; “material assistance” is only one of several actions that draw penalties:
So providing technical support - for instance answering a computer problem post here - for a blocked person draws you in under this act, whether you knew they were blocked or not.