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Supreme Court Won't Hear Kim Dotcom's Civil Forfeiture Case (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Kim Dotcom's civil forfeiture case will not be heard before the Supreme Court this term, America's highest court ruled on Monday. The civil forfeiture case was brought 18 months after 2012 American criminal charges related to alleged copyright infringement against Dotcom and his now-shuttered company, Megaupload. In the forfeiture case, prosecutors specifically outlined why the New Zealand seizure of Dotcom's assets on behalf of the American government was valid. Seized items include millions of dollars in various seized bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand, the Dotcom mansion, several luxury cars, four jet skis, two 108-inch TVs, three 82-inch TVs, a $10,000 watch, and a photograph by Olaf Mueller worth over $100,000.
"We are disappointed in the denial of the cert petition -- it is a bad day for due process and international treaties," Ira Rothken, Dotcom's chief global counsel, told Ars. "Kim Dotcom has never been to the United States, is presumed innocent, and is lawfully opposing extradition under the United States-New Zealand Treaty -- yet the United States by merely labeling him as a fugitive gets a judgement to take all of his assets with no due process," Rothken said. "The New Zealand and Hong Kong courts, who have authority over the assets, will now need to weigh in on this issue and we are cautiously optimistic that they will take a dim view of the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine and oppose US efforts to seize such assets."
"We are disappointed in the denial of the cert petition -- it is a bad day for due process and international treaties," Ira Rothken, Dotcom's chief global counsel, told Ars. "Kim Dotcom has never been to the United States, is presumed innocent, and is lawfully opposing extradition under the United States-New Zealand Treaty -- yet the United States by merely labeling him as a fugitive gets a judgement to take all of his assets with no due process," Rothken said. "The New Zealand and Hong Kong courts, who have authority over the assets, will now need to weigh in on this issue and we are cautiously optimistic that they will take a dim view of the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine and oppose US efforts to seize such assets."
This is very typical. At one time, florida law allowed police to confiscate any cash on you (if you carried more than $300) during a traffic citation on the assumption it was drug money. It was on the person to prove the money was not acquired through illegal drug activities. Oklahoma also had similar laws at one point. I do not know if they are still applied. Tax fraud arrests was very similarly executed in the 80s, even to the point a senator wrote a book about armed IRS agents ransacking in the middle of the night, freezing every bank account the person in question had etc....again on them to prove they were not in violation of tax laws before getting their $ back. Round and round we go.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
People on both the left and the right oppose civil forfeiture...
The Constitution is about restricting government, not explicitly about protecting anyone, thus this seizure is definitely illegal, as the government has violated it's founding charter.
Heck, it definitely DOESN'T protect citizens, but instead mentions the People, and one does not need to be a citizen to be a member of the People.
Citizenship is a contract between a member of the People and the government.
Vanhorne v. Dorrance, 2 US 304 - Supreme Court 1795
The Constitution is the work or will of the People themselves, in their original, sovereign, and unlimited
capacity. Law is the work or will of the Legislature in their derivative and subordinate capacity. The one is
the work of the Creator, and the other of the Creature. The Constitution fixes limits to the exercise of legislative
authority, and prescribes the orbit within which it must move. In short, gentlemen, the Constitution is the sun of the
political system, around which all Legislative, Executive and Judicial bodies must revolve. Whatever may be the
case in other countries, yet in this there can be no doubt, that every act of the Legislature, repugnant to the
Constitution, is absolutely void.
The Bill of Rights and Due Process is only valid to naturally born or legalized US citizens.
Huh? Where does it say that?
First off, let's be clear that the Bill of Rights is a limitation on US Governmental power. It says that what the US government can and cannot do. It doesn't "give" rights to citizens, it prohibits the US Government from violating (natural) rights of others.
Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it mention "citizens", though in places it does mention "the people". Note that the Constitution *does* mention "citizens", so by implication "the people" and "citizens" are not synonymous. (Though admittedly "the people" could be interpreted as a back-reference to the opening line of "We the people of the United States ..." -- though I'm personally unaware of any Supreme Court ruling that would establish this narrow interpretation.)
Regarding Due Process, there's an even stronger case there. With Due Process you're talking specifically about the Fifth Amendment, which doesn't even contain the phrase "the people". It explicitly says "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." (emphasis added)
Unless you're arguing that there's some court decision ruling that a non-citizen isn't "a person" (and have the references to back it up), you've got a rather strong uphill battle to argue that the Fifth Amendment does not also enjoin the US Government from violating their rights.
He's actually a really horrible and manipulative guy. He always has been and it's too bad that you're his latest rube since he's aligned himself with a cause near and dear to you.
The US government kindly asked the New Zealand Government to gank the motherfuckers shit and they did. He doesn't get due process since he's not a citizen and not on US soil. The USA is allowed to politely ask your local government to fuck you to death and if they comply you get fucked to death.
Now go read up on kim schmidt and what kinda grandma swindling fuckstick you're defening. You can start at attrition.org where he's alongside superhackers: Carolyn P Meinel and Gregory D Evans.
The reason they chose to arrest him in New Zealand is because the US knows that the NZ government will do what they are told, no questions asked.
It is starting to unravel a bit, because the courts here have at least some independence, and have ruled that our spies broke the law which might make the evidence go away also.
I don't imagine that will get Kim his money back however.
I am not a lawyer, but I do play one on the Internet sometimes.
And according to the 4th Circuit court, he'll get his due process as soon as he makes an appearance before a US court. Until then, he considered a fugitive.
I quite agree, and as horrible as civil forfeiture is that's not even the worst of it: the drone war (conducted across US administrations from US Presidents G.W. Bush, through Obama, and now Trump) kills people extrajudicially including Americans and children. Put another way: civil forfeiture typically takes people's property (including their money), the drone war typically takes people's lives. So far nobody has used the drone war as much as Pres. Obama, but there's more continuity of policy showing how (like civil forfeiture) there's an agreement across both corporate parties. The reasoning justifying the killings is almost always absent, and when pressed revealed to be horrific.
Under Obama's administration on September 30, 2011 the US killed an American named Anwar al-Awlaki said to be involved in al-Qaeda operations. There were no charges filed, no evidence offered, no trial held. Two weeks later in a separate drone strike his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was also killed. Again no charges filed, no evidence offered, no trial held. When reporters asked what Abdulrahman's crime was that justified killing him extrajudicially Robert Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, replied in a way that made it clear: the US government kills whomever it wants whenever it wants on any or no evidence while he also blamed the son for the alleged sins of his father. Lots of passers-by die in each drone strike as well; completely untargetted people who happen to live or pass within the killing zone of a missile. This is how wedding and dinner parties full of people (we don't even know their names) have died.
Obama famously made a joke of drone war at one of his press dinners where he joked about killing a boy band his daughters liked. What made that 'joke' so unfunny is precisely that when he said it he was one of the few people who could have ordered such a strike and gotten away with killing them too. I think it important in this age of replaying Pres. Trump gaffes to indicate how little he cares about the disaffected people to show how little people knew of what was going on in these drone strikes, who was being killed, and why.
Continuing the policy of unlimited extrajudicial killing Obama once feinted to be concerned about: On January 29, 2017, the Trump administration killed Anwar Al-Awlaki's 8-year-old daughter, Nawar Al-Awlaki in a drone-led Navy SEAL raid.
As other countries get killer drones, what future has the US committed its citizens to? One can only hope that other countries continue to show a restraint that the US has not shown with nuclear weapons. There's still far too much danger with nuclear weapons too, but the above are some of the reasons the world fears the US most. You won't hear many people criticizing Trump mention civil forfeiture or drone strikes because bringing this up at all runs the risk of not being uniquely anti-Trump, of pointing out the continuity of American policy that in some way hurts us all (none so much as those assassinated, of course).
Digital Citizen
No, they're taking your shit because it was bad shit. The shit itself is being accused of the crime. And shit has shit for rights.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That happens all the time to this day, more and more frequently in fact. It's up by huge amounts every year, and for many departments is a major funding source. Some places are even trying to equip cops with card readers so they can seize any assets you have that way during traffic stops too. It's not even limited to large amounts, they routinely seize under $100. What's more, since it's a civil action against your property and you're not accused of a crime, you're not entitled to a lawyer so have to pay for one at your own expense to fight the seizure, and can't get attorneys fees covered. It's truly disgusting. Not surprisingly, Jeff Sessions is a huge fan of it and announced that he was rolling back restrictions designed to prevent the worst abuses of it at the federal level, including one on limiting states' ability to get around their own forfeiture laws by partnering with the feds. And not only do no states require a criminal charge, much less a conviction, around half of them only use the weakest standard there is (preponderance) for challenges, for which you can't get a jury trial, and the judge always gives enormous deference to the cops. It's nothing short of a massive program of legalized theft by armed government agents.
The Trump administration loves civil forfeiture. They've expanded it in every way, and have overturned all of the limitations that the Obama administration placed on it in 2015. There will be more asset forfeiture until the Trump regime is safely out of power.
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...
http://observer.com/2017/07/do...
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Your president has expanded civil forfeiture.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/polit...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/s...
https://reason.com/blog/2017/0...
You are welcome on my lawn.