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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