From: "Matthew J. Miszewski" <mjmiski@execpc.com>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 16:48:47 -0800 (PST)
To: Black Unicorn <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: RICO - (Was: Group order for Secret Power)
Message-ID: <199611100048.SAA02758@mail.execpc.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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> At 03:13 AM 11/8/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote:
> >On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, jim bell wrote:
> 
> >> 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.)
> >
> >Incorrect.  Employees of the Federal Government can be, and have been,
> >prosecuted under RICO.  Many political corruption cases involve some RICO
> >aspects.  This should make Mr. Bell a big fan of the statute, unless he
> >just likes the flash of murdering officials instead.
> 
> No, I meant the ENTIRE government  Not just individual government officials. 
>  Remember, RICO is _supposed_ to apply to any organization with a pattern of 
> criminal activity, and has been used (in fact, probably mostly used) against 
> organizations where many of the members are "merely" employees, quite 
> analogous to the Federal government.  If RICO applies to anything, it should 
> apply to the Feds, and that means conviction of the entire organization if 
> it or its employees have a pattern of illegal activity.   Since RICO only 
> requires a relatively tiny number of criminal acts to meet its standards, it 
> should not be difficult to show enough criminality.

Jim,

If it seems this easy to you, please draft the pleadings.  I would 
strongly suggest at least a basic civil procedure book.  Non-specific 
pleadings?  That couldn't be a problem.

And upon Peter's recommendation, thank you Jim for doing this brave 
service for the cpunks cause.  

"Canary in a coal mine, going on down, down..."

Matt


> 
> 
> Jim Bell
> jimbell@pacifier.com

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