Slashdot Mirror
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.
with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003
I wonder if this will be seen as a tipping point when historians will look back at how the United States became a fascist nation, or if it will be seen as just part of the slow decline that began with the Johnson administration.
You say you want a revolution....
The order gives the Secretary of the Treasury the right to immediately and without notice freeze all assets of anyone suspected of either directly or indirectly attempting to undermine the Iraqi government as well as anyone who has financial dealings, directly or indirectly, with such people.
The language is ridiculously broad and does appear to violate the 5th amendment. It appears that if you, say, donate to a charity that the Bush administration determines is trying to undermine the Iraqi government, all of your assets can be frozen. The language is very broad and open to interpretation by the Secretary of the Treasury, who serves at the pleasure of the President. This is absolutely begging to be abused.
From the Executive Order:
Yeah, that's a single sentence.
What, specifically, is the "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security" that he speaks of?
Personally, I find his threat to the Fifth Amendment to be far WORSE than anything anyone in Iraq can do.
Go ahead and mod me down. It's the truth whether you want to hear it or not.
Personally, I don't think it's so much that the media is controlled by the government, but rather that both the media and government are largely controlled by the same interests.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
When did Slashdot become a political blog?
May be an AC but I don't think many Americans knew that we were officially in a "State of Emergency".
Even if we mod the parent up, though, I don't hold much hope that many Americans will spend more than a few moments thinking about what that really means.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
"Err, how many anti-war (or anti anything) folks are going to be transferring money overseas"
Kevin Smith on Prince
It's true. I wonder how many of the people here who always talk about the erosion of liberty in the US are still going to vote for a Clinton/McCain/Obama/Giuliani type candidate in the primaries. (Or not vote in the primaries at all.)
If you want liberty, vote for Ron Paul. If you can't stand voting for someone running as a Republican, vote for Mike Gravel.
It pains me to say that you are correct.
In fact, political acts are included and guilt will only be determined through a secret process outside the courts.
I don't see this in the order. I see things like (i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of: This is not a "political act", but an act of treason. I feel these people would be getting off light.
The rest deal with providing material support, which is nothing new.
I guess you should be happy that he doesn't take Orwell's view: Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. Mr Savage remarks that 'according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be "objectively pro-British".' But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious 'freedom' station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
First, the President of the United States does not have any magical "executive order" powers that make new laws or grant new powers. An "executive order" is given by the president to one of his cabinet members. It is just the same as your boss telling you to do something. If you don't do it, or don't do it well, you will be fired.
Unfortuntaely, somebody didn't tell this to George Bush. Reading the order you can see that he really thinks that he can tell the Treasury department to seize people's money. It's surreal to see this, because I really think that the guy just doesn't know that he doesn't have this power. And it's weirder because people seem to pretend like he does, and actually follow them. Indirectly, I guess that means he does have the power. It's very weird.
What would help, is if people (including the press) would stop acknowledging them as "executive orders" because they aren't. Call them "strongly worded requests" or "presidential demands" or something. George Bush writing this has no more relevance than if I wrote it. The press should be making him a laughing stock.
The "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq" phrase is in 1.i.B in the document. If you look, because of 1.i, both 1.i.A and 1.i.B only apply to persons committing "an act or acts of violence" with the purpose or effect of 1.i.A or 1.i.B
So, if someone committed an act of violence at an anti-war demonstration, and said act of violence was intended to undermine progress in Iraq, then yes, that person would be hosed. But anyone who doesn't act violently is immune from that clause. Unless.....
Anyone want to take a wager on whether the Bush administration would engage in Clintonesque "it depends on what the meaning of violent is" semantic dancing?
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? If someone is on a murderous rage, do you wait until after he is convicted to block access to his gun? If someone gets caught drunk driving, do you wait until he's convicted to stop them from driving?
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.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I've lamented slashdot sliding into digg land lately, but reading this has shown me important ways slashdot is way above digg.
First, the depth of discussion. People are posting multi paragraph intelligent statements and responding to each other without rancor. People seem to actually have some grasp of the topic. On digg the comments would be, "BUSH TEH DEVIL hax his internets."
Secondly, despite the fact the headline is inaccurate and somewhat inflammatory, on digg the headline would have been, "BREAKING CONFIRMED: Bush tells american public to FUCK OFF"
FYI, the Secretaries of Treasury, State, and Defense are all part of the Executive branch, not the Judicial, hence the apt phrase "secret process outside the courts" which you objected to.
No, I objected to "In fact, political acts are included". That is nowhere in the order. I understand that there is nothing expressly forbidding it, but regardless of what the executive order says or doesn't say, if this is used to silence political opponents, the uproar will be enough to have congress overturn this executive order and possibly (probably) lead to impeachment proceedings. Keep in mind that while an executive order is law, it can be overturned by congress, so oversight exists.
According to you, if I go to a large demonstration against the Bush Iraq policies and there is a significant threat that there may be violence there then I am a traitor to my country. Sheesh. There is a significant threat of violence just driving to the damned demonstration.
Depends on what you call a protest. If you stand in the road and block the shipment of supplies to our troops overseas, then you are doing the work of the enemy and therefor, a traitor. Carrying a sign and calling it a protest should not protect you if you are offering aid and comfort to the enemy. Disrupting supply lines by standing in the road near a Seattle port is the same as planting a roadside bomb on the Basra Highway. However, if you are standing in front of the White House with a sign that says "Bush is a punk-ass chump!", then no, you are not a traitor.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The horrible thing is that you're wrong. Corporate interests do NOT control the government or the media. The government, the media, and large financial interests, and most of the US population is completely -complicit- in what goes on here. Thats what keeps me up at night. Even thought they CAN change things (if they couldnt, then they would be 'controled'), everyone is actually largely uninterested in doing things differently.
Good points.
One thing though... Assume for a moment that an innocent person is caught
up in this. He/she/it is unable to use their bank accounts for an extended
period of time. What happens to the mortgage on their house? The bank might
well foreclose. Bills they had, they don't get paid, who is going to pay
the interest on the charge cards as they remain unpaid and bump to the highest
rates allowed, and accumulate late charges. Suppose they are married. What
happens to the spouse, if that spouse A, doesn't have a job and a separate bank
account or B, has both, but this is unaccessible due to the relationship to
the spouse? They might have kids. Maybe in college, except, not any more,
cause the tuition is not being paid.
Will this bill put things right for the affected people if they are found innocent?
emt 377 emt 4
You are completely wrong. Let's go to the original source, the acts that created the treasury department. For some background on the how and why, I'm using what I recollect from history class in school. That being many years ago, I tried the Wikipedia article United States Treasury Department and I see nothing substantiating any claims about the Treasury department conducting search and seizer. And the US Coast Guard has nothing to do with the Treasury Department.
...." and provide no links. I'm open to being wrong, but don't challenge someone elses sources unless you present your own.
I find it funny when people say things like "I don't know where you are getting this info from, but I think
Can you explain to me what the hell is partisan about wanting to protect the 5th amendment? If this president issued an executive order that he and Cheney got to eat babies would you support it because he's a Republican?
Check out DRM-free movies at http://www.bside.com
and if you fall under it's affects, then you have no money to defend yourself and an attorney is not allowed to help you, because that is considered aiding a terrorist. It falls under the same catagory of not being able to file against secret wiretaping so long as it is secret. It doesn't matter if something is illegal if the courts are not allowed to rule on it.
If you don't think that this order will be abused, do some research into what happens when money is seized on the grounds of it being drug money, but then all drug related charges dropped. The money ends up in a legal limbo. They get told they can have it back as soon as the courts find them not guilty.
It's not partisan to protect the 5th amendment.
The complaint the poster had is that the headline "Executive Order Overturns US Fifth Amendment" is intentionally misleading and just another one of kdawson's political rants.
So? The founding fathers also thought that having a professional army was a waste of taxpayers' money and that they instead should arm Joe Public to form militias. And look where you are now: A HUGE professional army "defending" around the globe while the 2nd Amendment has been twisted into something that gives a possibility for people to "go postal" or "do a Columbine".
Hey, I am Dubya The Dolt, I have an idea, let us (ie: wipe my feet on the Constitution, in stark contrast to my oath of office) attack the symptoms (ie: near universal understanding of those who want the American killers out of their country) of the problem, not the problem itself (ie: force-feeding so-called government/capitalism to people who have rejected it for the last 3000+ years).
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Due Process is the process provided by law. If the courts rule it unfair it will be changed again but they are subject to the law. There is nothing about due process that is set in stone that a new law couldn't change.
Case in point, the suspension of habeas corpus. The new due process is a military tribunal if you happen to fall into a certain category. And the Supreme court suggested it be done this way in one of the jurisdictional challenges with the club gitmo residents.
I didn't say the use is right, just that it can happen. Congress has 90 days to pass a resolution defeating the executive order or it become full force with the law behind it. Of course congress could pass a law restraining the president from giving this order but then there would probably be a constitutional challenge that no one in congress really wants.
Now, I'm not clear how you can view being upset by this executive order a "political rant". This isn't politics, it's a violation of the very principles that this country was founded on. The recent attempts by congress and the executive branch to defeat our constitution's provisions for the rights of US citizens makes me angry. Not that-guy-just-cut-me-off angry; not the-power-went-out-just-as-I-was-about-to-defeat-
Definition of deprive.
In another light, if you deprive (see above) me of food, I will starve. I don't care whether you eat the food (your definition of seize), or simply lock it up in a fridge (your definition of freeze).
Either way, I starve.
So who's mangling the English language?
The EO say "seize" not "confiscate". There is a not so subtle difference. The first is a temporary measure, the second is permanent. They will keep the money and the assets until the owner show himself and ask them back.