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Executive Order Overturns US Fifth Amendment
RalphTWaP writes "Tuesday, there wasn't even a fuss. Wednesday, the world was a little different. By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact." There hasn't been much media notice of this; the UK's Guardian has an article explaining how the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists.
Here's the short version with a lot of legalese stripped out:
Yes, there is a bunch of other stuff in there, but I don't see anything stopping the Secretary of the Treasury from using this for political purposes. If you go to an anti-war demonstration, you just might be undermining efforts to promote political reform in Iraq (as defined by the Bush administration).
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that you're a die-hard Republican George Bush fan, and you honestly think that this would never be used for such blatant political purposes. Would you say the same thing about Hillary Clinton, who stands a very good chance of being elected in 2008? Because guess what. She's going to have the same powers when she takes office.
People who support the creation of this kind of crap based on their trust of the Guy (or Gal) In Charge right now, whether that person is a Democrat, Republican, or whatever, are idiots. You should never ask yourself what something like this will be used for, you should ask yourself what it can be used for, and then imagine that the politician you hate the most holding the reigns. Then, and only then, can you decide whether a law, executive order, or whatever is good or bad.
Sounds like we should seize a certain ranch in Crawford, Texas if we're going after people who are "threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq" (Section 4.1.a of the order)
"The new authority will only be used to go after terrorists..."
Uh-huh. And the FBI isn't going to spy on ordinary Americans.
Where's the outrage?
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists.
Ofcourse, who is and who isn't a terrorist will be determined by the Secretary in secret after the fact.
Aw crap, ninjas!
"...the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists."
Right, until they redefine "terrorist." Or change the rules. Or just break the rules they have, and then label anyone who calls them out on it as "un-American." This sucks; Something's gotta give eventually, right?
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
Sad to say.
The root password on the U. S. Constitution is "The Global War on $SUBJECT"
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The part you quote is just the preamble and carries no legal weight.
The summary is mistaken, yes (though not dishonest). The actual situation is far worse than Slashdot's summary describes.
The actual language refers to persons who "have committed, or... pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of" undermining etc.
In other words, you do not have to do anything to be affected by this law. All the Secretary has to assert is that you were probably going to do something that had a bad effect.
Whether you had the intention to undermine Iraqi reconstruction is irrelevant. Whether you actually did anything is irrelevant.
This isn't just overturning the 5th Amendment, it's erasing it and replacing it with thoughtcrime.
The US Government has been freezing the assets of those it determines to be "bad guys" for a long long time now, well before GWB was a twinkle in his mother eye. If this violates the 5th ammendment then we have been doing so for many decades.
The original and unabridged order is linked in the summary, go read it. The problem with relying on the Secretaries of Defense and State to serve as checks and balances with this is that all three of those officials are Executive Branch people who serve at the pleasure of the President. If the President orders this for a particular person, chances are good that all three of these people will rubber-stamp it. You cannot have true checks and balances existing entirely within one branch of the government.
I hate to say it but what did you expect?
Allow a government to get away with as much shit as this current Bush administration has been allowed to, from Guantanamo Bay onwards, and this is what you get.
I guarantee you that if people had kicked up more of a fuss about the rights of POWs (they're POWs, denying that they're POWs and calling them detainees is just an easy way to avoid giving them basic rights) at Gitmo then you wouldn't be seeing stuff like this today.
Right now, the winners in the "War on Terror" are Al Qaeda (they have what they wanted: open conflict with the West) and oil companies. The losers are average citizens, not just in the West but in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the occupied territories, etc.
It's not too late to change things. But it probably is too late to leave it to others and just hope for the best. Get out the pen, get out the paper and write to your representatives. It's your government, so take it back.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Watch the press for a few years and it's patently obvious that "word comes from above" when anything like this happens.
The medium is the message. If you watch TV, you won't see anything of any real importance. Get out of TVLand and you'll find a wide variety of news and opinion. The fact is, Americans have become fat and lazy. Most of us get our "news" from the medium that is least capable of providing insight and understanding, and most geared toward instant emotional gratification.
As an aside, if you'd ever worked in government, you'd know that there is no Ministry of Information Control. Your "patently obvious" observation is just a way of ducking the real problem. The real problem is the laziness of the American public. We are throwing away our republic. We should be throwing away our televisions.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
We recognize those acts as wrong.
Our government recognizes those acts as wrong.
Our government has issued reparations to the people who suffered them. Because they were wrong.
Now you're using those as a yardstick? Wrong is wrong. How about we just stick to the Constitution and the Amendments? Is that too much to ask?
Is there some reason that you advocate we commit ANOTHER crime other than the fact that we had committed one before?
Namaste
Slashdot == kdawson's political blog
I think he's the love child of michael and timothy. Is there any way we can send him where he belongs: digg.com?
In this section the President specifically states that he is aware that the U.S. Citizens affected by this may have Constitutional rights that this order violates. However, because of the ongoing (6+ years now) "National Emergency" said rights are nullified in the interests of efficiency.
So basically what he's doing is selectivly removing consitutional rights by executive order because the present circumstances, in his opinion alone, demand it.
He's explicitly and clearly attacking our rights because he says that he feels its necessary, no oversight, no checks, no balances, nothing.
If this is accepted it means that any president at any time can strip legal rights from U.S. Citizens, even if those rights are literally embedded in the Constitution just because he wants to. This means that the rule of law, the rule of the Constitution, is null and void.
And in this part:
They explicitly grant themselves the right to expand this power to anyone else they wish to. That is, the proactive seizure could be handed over to the DEA, the IRS, the ATF, etc if they feel necessary. No future executive order, no public record, will be necessary. Anyone up for proactive seizure of property because you may have cheated on your taxes? Keep in mind that the no fly list includes a large number of people who have committed the crime of having the same or similar sounding names as 'bad' people and no mechanism exists to get them removed from the list. How'd you like to have your house and money taken because you look kind of like a bad person only to have no means of picking back up because that's someone else's department?
What to do:
In all cases make it clear why you oppose this and why it is fundamentally wrong. It isn't a guarantee that they will rethink it but unless this stuff is exposed, discussed, and ultimately attacked then nothing will happen. And it won't be unless we spread this off
Democracy dies when noone is looking.
If you freeze my assets, I have no use of them. That is the same as seizure.
Again, no. If I seize your assets, I can do with them as I wish, including selling them. If I freeze your assets, I can't sell them, but I prevent you from selling them.
It's arguable if what they do can be considered "due process" under the law, but it's a lot better than what this order gives the Treasury Department the authority to do.
Uh, you do know that the IRS is part of the Treasury Department, don't you? The bottom line is, as has been pointed out by numerous posters, this kind of authority is not unusual, nor is it a violation of the fifth amendment.
The language is a bit vague, but calling this a defeat of the Fifth Amendment is overly hyperbolic.
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
I have to agree with you, this only strikes down one part of the 5th amendment. Of course, one could argue that, already having lost all those other silly little rights, this puts the last few nails in the coffin; bet technically, this EO alone doesn't kill the 5th.
As for those (not you specifically) arguing that the government already had this power - The last clause in what I bolded above makes the key distinction there. The government can seize our assets after "due process of law" has played out. Not before. After.
"The Republicans hate your freedom!"
And they do... But so do the Democrats.
Here's the relevant portion of the 5th (with my emphasis)... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; If the government can block my access to my property, then I can make no use of it, hence I am deprived of it. Are we really going to try to split some microscopic hair over this? Does anyone really believe that the writers of the Constitution meant for something like this to be legal? Unfortunately Congress probably can't do a thing about this, and it will have to go to the Supreme Court to be resolved, which can take quite a while. Of course in the meantime, the administration will be doing as they please. I'm so glad that Bush loves freedom so much that he's willing to go to these lengths to preserve it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What happened to news for nerds? It's turned into daily kos lite with some linux bits thrown in.
Michael was pretty bad, but kdawson is turning to be worse with the blatant editor abuse.
1) They have a warrant
2) Eminent domain
You are probably right that this happens anyway, in extreme cases like terrorism. But they are expanding "terrorism" into a lot of gray areas.
The Founding Fathers thought those rights were vital for a functioning democracy... and they had been through an actual war on U.S. soil. I'm inclined to trust their judgement on what we can 'afford'.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Define temporarily. A week? A month? A year? Five years? Ten years? Fifty years?
As this administration is well known to apply new and twisted logic to the common usage of words, temporarily could very well mean indefinitely.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If you find a guy cutting the electrical wires to people's houses, do you wait until after he is convicted to take away his cutters?
In order to take away his cutters you have to have Probable Cause that he was indeed the one doing the cutting. This executive order makes no such distinction.
If someone gets caught drunk driving, do you wait until he's convicted to stop them from driving?
Yes, you do. I don't know where you live, but here in Minnesota presumption of innocence still applies. As far as the traffic stop itself, the officer has to determine probable cause - e.g. field sobriety test, or smelling alcohol on your breath, or observing errant driving behavior.
As long as the person ultimately gets due process, there is nothing wrong with temporarily blocking access to the tools used to commit a crime.
Justice delayed is justice denied. That's why we have Habeas Corpus
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Sorry dwm, but I disagree with this as noted below:
No. The relevant part of the fifth amendment states:Blocking the use of property is not legally the same as depriving someone of it (although, admittedly, practically-speaking it comes pretty close). If this were a violation of the fifth amendment, so would the IRS putting a lien on someone's property for tax purposes.
"Blocking" said use of property is pretty much the same thing... unless of course you think that said property will be magically released before damage to the owner('s life, liberty) occurs.
The "definition" Bush('s writers) are using is:
are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt inWhich pretty much means "Seized" - and either way is the same as depriving someone the use of.
Of course, either way, you are forgetting one of the most relevant parts in that Amendment - though you did quote that part:
without due process of lawThis is the other part of the Amendment that is being "violated" - which you neglected to point out while defending this action as Constitutional.
Sorry that I beg to differ with you. Semantics dont make something right (your claim of this being constitutional) - and the 2nd part of this is quite semantically undisputable (the lack of due process).
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
People like to talk about "freezing the assets of terrorists" or "people who support insurgents". Who could object to that? Why wouldn't you want to freeze the assets of terrorists or people who support insurgents? I certainly support that.
The problem is that this debate is framed incorrectly. What legislation like this is really about is giving the executive branch the power to simply declare that someone is a terrorist or supports insurgents, without due process and without benefit of a trial.
So, what the administration really wants is the power to determine unilaterally, without meaningful legal oversight or possibility for redress, to deprive citizens of property and possibly liberty.
Republicans: you're always complaining about bureaucracy and intrusive government. You're seeing the most intrusive government being created by your party. Worse, you're destroying the foundations on which this country was founded, the separation of powers. It would be wrong to call this "unprecendented" (after all, the US Constitution co-existed happily with slavery and racial inequality for many years), but you are moving in the wrong direction. Reign in your party, and deliver what you promise: smaller, less intrusive government. Strengthen the separation of powers, reduce government expenses (starting with the military), get government out of our bedrooms, and get the church out of government.
To suggest that this violates the fifth amendment is absurd: when a police officer, on arresting someone and discovering a gun in that person's belt buckle then removes the gun--is that a violation of the person's fifth amendment rights? Please...
When you're arrested, you get indicted and then tried in front of a court of law. When the Secretary of the Treasury declares you a terrorist collaborator, what recourse does one have? Where is the due process?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Nothing new here, really. In the auspices of the "War on Drugs" property is seized all the time, without due process involved. The rights of the American Citizen have been undermined well before September 11, 2001. The American populace didn't care when it only affected the drug using portion of the populace, and they won't care now that it only affects those that may or may not be aiding the enemy or hindering the progress of a group of hand selected corporations. This game has been over for longer than many would like to imagine and the citizenry lost.
Read it again.
You're not in error, you're simply not reading it from the perspective of what the power claimed in the Executive Order can be used for. The stuff you talk about in item #3 in your list isn't a limitation on that power, and the Executive Order is expanding it.
Also, let's say that Congress does repeal IEEP. That means that the few limits on the power (items of non-value, CD's, microfiches, etc.) would be wiped out, and it would give the President the power to pretty much do whatever he (or she) wants. That's what the IEEP was passed in the first place, to say that the power isn't without limit.
Of course, this administration doesn't recognize any limits on its power. When it does run up against a legal wall, it simply ignores the wall and does whatever it wants to anyway. Like I said, if you trust these guys, I think you're a bit naive and I obviously disagree with your assessment of their character. But more importantly, you're also setting the precedent that whomever is in office next (likely one of those evil liberal Democrats) will have the same powers.
If that's okay with you, then sure, go ahead and ignore the klaxons. It's not so okay with me, though.
> If the government can block my access to my property, then I can make no use of it, hence I am deprived of it.
>
> Does anyone really believe that the writers of the Constitution meant for something like this to be legal?
Mod up +1000: Clueless Slayer!
I am thoroughly disgusted by buffoons who want to change one word slightly and reintpret the Constitution as having no validity.
"No, you aren't deprived of it. You just can't ever have it back ever again if we don't want to give it back, and you have no legal way to even try."
Would they agree with this?
"No, you aren't being deprived of life. You are just having your heart stopped and your cells are allowed to die from lack of oxygen."
To which the incompent, deserving-of-death idiots will reply, "Ahhh, but they could always give you back your stuff. They couldn't give you back your life!"
Yes, idiots. But they can always give you back your stuff even if they deprive you of it fully and Constitutionally. You've got it all bass-ackwards.
And does it even "feel" like upholding the spirit of the Constitution? What's that?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Bingo. Your rights can only be taken if you allow it.
What really surprises me is that anyone thinks this is a new thing unique to this administration. The difference is the reporting on it. Burning people alive in Waco and shooting women in children in Ruby Ridge was "justified force" on "religious fanatics" or "white separatists", government surveillance/harassment of civil rights leaders in the 50s/60s was policing of "subversives" (the few rare times it was actually reported), but people get their panties in a wad about "violating the civil rights" of "terrorists"? I'm not saying they're wrong to be upset, they should be, but where the fuck have they been? Most of the people whining today are old enough to have at least been conscious during waco/ruby ridge/elian gonzales/etc. and yet those incidents are apparently a blank spot in their memory.
Welcome to the real world, folks. If you're worried about your rights being trampled upon, do something about it. I suggest becoming familiar with the phrase "cold dead hands".
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Except that this isn't a law. This is an Executive order granting powers to a set of executive offices. In a recent decision the Supreme Court argued that the public cannot challenge internal executive actions (such as this one claims to be) through the courts, effectively nullifying any judicial oversight. The case in question dealt with meetings being held with religious figures but the reasoning was similar and likely the same arguments would be advanced again.
But, ironically what this order attacks is the very foundation for such a lawsuit. If, in the executive's opinion your Constitutional rights are ineffective and therefore unnecessary on what grounds do you sue? If the grounds are violations of your rights then you have to ask Bush's Supreme Court to counter his own executive order. Such an action would be interesting to say the least, and unlikely to go forward.
Moreover such an action would likely have to occur after the fact, i.e. after said property was seized. But lacking all property it would be difficult to mount a challenge, especially if said seizure was kept as secret as other similar actions (i.e. library records seizures) have been. As such the damage, or some of it, may already be done.
As with Congress, well again this isn't a law (The president can't make that) but supposedly an internal executive thing. Yet it is being treated by them as if it is a law and a vehicle by which the President can make laws. Congress, however has other means to affect the departments involved and so can put pressure on the executive. They can also strip the departments in question of funding for such activities. They could also grow a spine and reassert their role as overseers and guardians of the Constitution.
The catch is that, as I said this is an Executive Order, but an Executive order that carries the force of law and declares some laws (i.e. The Constitution) to be invalid or "ineffective" and therefore unnecessary. Constitutionally the President cannot make laws. However it seems through Executive Orders he is seeking to do so practically and what he is going after is the very basis of that, the Constitution itself and the limits that is places on his, and the Federal Government's behavior.
The bottom line is that this is policy, bad policy, and the way in which you stop bad policy before damage is done is via public pressure. Congress, the Newspapers, others are in a position to apply said pressure along with the public. Better to stop it now before bad things happen than, like the PATRIOT act, let it get in place and wake up to find out where we are.
I 100% categorically deny the assertion that the Constitution is an impediment to fighting evil. It was wrong when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, it was wrong with the alien and sedition acts, it was wrong with McCarthy, it was wrong with the Japanese internment, it's wrong with the DEA seizures, it's wrong with this document.
It's still wrong.
Some regulatory takings are wrong. I tend to agree that property owners are entitled to some consideration when their property is devalued due to regulations.
But, just because that's wrong, doesn't make this right. Again: Binary thinking. Bad.
Individual liberty and real property rights are more important than fighting terror/Communism/the Japanese/Johnny Reb.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!