Dnia poniedziałek, 20 stycznia 2014 21:06:49 Jim Bell pisze:
From: Philip Shaw <wahspilihp@gmail.com>
To: J.A. Terranson <measl@mfn.org> Cc: cpunks <cypherpunks@cpunks.org> Sent: Monday, January 20, 2014 8:28 PM Subject: Re: [OT] Note to new-ish subscribers: you joined a mailing list, not a "group". (fwd) On 21 Jan 2014, at 12:47 , J.A. Terranson <measl@mfn.org> wrote:
Telecom/NSA/*retroactive immunity* ring a bell?
Retroactive acquittal is relatively OK - it is a good thing when applied to the people, for example people have been campaigning for a long time to get all British sodomy convictions >quashed even though everyone has now been released, so we more or less have to accept that it *can* be used to clear government agents too, even if politically we shouldn’t approve >(at least in specific cases). (For criminal matters, in many jurisdictions the government can simply refuse to prosecute cases against its agents and private prosecutions aren’t permitted >in some places, so it doesn’t create any new danger to the public.) Retroactive indictment is the problem, and is far more dangerous.
Au contraire! A good argument can be made that retroactive acquittal (more precisely, in this case, retroactive civil immunity of corporations)
So let's stick to either the general thing (that seems to be more or less okay) *or* the specific not-okay thing, and not use arguments against the latter against the former, shall we? Because I'm sure we can agree here that retroactive corporate acquittal is bullshit and should not happen, under any circumstances. And I think we can agree that in some cases *personal* retroactive acquittal is not a bad idea. -- Pozdr rysiek