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Re: RICO - (Was: Group order for Secret Power)
> 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
> [email protected]
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