Re: RICO - (Was: Group order for Secret Power)

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

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 Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com