From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 17:46:31 -0800 (PST)
To: Black Unicorn <attila@primenet.com
Subject: Re: RICO - (Was: Group order for Secret Power)
Message-ID: <199611080145.RAA20080@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 04:43 PM 11/7/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote:

>
>I cover RICO because it's a popular prosecution tool,

"popular"?  Well, only in a rather stilted point of view!


> because it is 
>the predominate vehicle for seizure and forfeiture in federal cases 
>(of which remailer and encryption issues are likely to arouse) and 
>because it represents a codification of the approach most courts take 
>when dealing with seizure cases.  In a very real way, RICO represents 
>the outer extremes of seizure cases in the United States, and is 
>probably, given the complexity of many state laws, the simplest way 
>to "grab" something.  It also has civil provisions which make 
>"private prosecutors" out of you and me.

But the odd thing is, the one entity we can't seem to attack using RICO is 
the Federal government, and probably most other governments levels.  Looked 
at purely objectively, it should be easy to demonstrate that the Federal 
government (and its representatives) have engaged in plenty of crime as a 
pattern of activity, and certainly enough to rise to the level of the 
standards of RICO. (It takes only a few instances of such crime satisfy the 
standards of RICO.)

Change the name "Federal Government" to "Organization X," and describe what 
it's done, and all the evidence will point to a clear pattern of crime. 

Now, okay, it may seem presumptuous of me to even dream of the possibility 
of using RICO against the thugs who wrote it.  But this country (USA) is 
SUPPOSED to be under the rule of law, not men, and there is no reason (other 
than, sadly, pessimism or a-priori realism) to conclude that the government 
can't be punished when it breaks its own rules.  Such punishment could come 
by way of mechanisms such as the OKC bombing, or the far more selective 
system Assassination Politics (AP).  Take your choice.





Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com