2009 Project Censored #5 - Seizing War Protesters Assets

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/5-seizing-war-protesters-assets/

# 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009


Sources:
Global Research, July 2007
Title: “Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement”
Author: Michel Chossudovsky

The Progressive, August 2007
Title: “Bush’s Executive Order Even Worse Than the One on Iraq”
Author: Matthew Rothschild

Student Researchers: Chris Navarre and Jennifer Routh
Faculty Evaluator: Amy Kittlestrom, PhD

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Vaguely written and dangerously open to broad interpretation, this unconstitutional order allows for the arbitrary targeting of any American for dispossession of all belongings and demands ostracism from society. Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and former Justice Department official in the Reagan administration says of the order, “This is so sweeping it’s staggering. I have never seen anything so broad. It expands beyond terrorism, beyond seeking to use violence or the threat of violence to cower or intimidate a population.”

In an editorial for the Washington Times, Fein states, “The person subject to an asset freeze is reduced to a leper. The secretary’s financial death sentences are imposed without notice or an opportunity to respond, the core of due process. They hit like a bolt of lightning. Any person whose assets are frozen immediately confronts a comprehensive quarantine. He may not receive and benefactors may not provide funds, goods, or services of any sort. A lawyer cannot provide legal services to challenge the secretary’s blocking order. A doctor cannot provide medical services in response to a cardiac arrest.” Fein adds, “The Justice Department is customarily entrusted with vetting executive orders for consistency with the Constitution. Is the Attorney General sleeping?”1 (see Story #8).

This is one executive order that Obama should declare void immediately.

The 4th Amendment to the Constitution has been gutted and gutted and gutted as evil empire types cast about for certain classes of criminals that they declare not to be covered by its sanctions. They got the ball rolling with the War on Drugs that allows seizures and forfeitures before a finding of guilt and without a presumption of innocence. The Supreme Court reaffirmed that - how, I will never know. They are constantly striving to expand the definitions of people they can treat like this - as you can see, they decided war protesters would qualify.

Please, President Obama, repeal this if you haven't already and also give us some Supreme Court nominees who can restore sanity and justice to our courts and protect us from overreaching despots and their henchmen.

[derby378]

1. Paging Keith Olbermann...paging Rachel Maddow...

:nuke:

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. So, who out there, some of the most informed people in the universe

knew about this?

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. Have to admit, this is the first I've heard of it.

And I'm usually up to date on the Bush Crime Family's fascist plots. Guess it's just as well that I don't have anything they would have wanted to steal.

[chill_wind]

4. You beat me to the question. n/t

[hootinholler]

5. I for one do not remember this...

There have been so many outrages, I could have lost it in the barrage.

Certainly it would have been discussed here?

On edit: There certainly were a number of threads


-Hoot

[Igel]

6. It was a big deal here, IIRC.

I knew about it.

I found it to be a vaguely paranoid assertion at the time and asked that anybody who knew of a anti-war protester or activist who was subject to this to post the info--as though anybody needed my request on the matter. I'm a frequent reader here, taking a week or two off once or twice a year. I haven't heard of an instance of this being applied ... and that's with the thing in force for 1 1/2 years.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. Why do you think it is a vaguely paranoid assertion?

Who are the paranoids? Those who issue the order or those who question it?

Is it not founded in reality? Why do you think ANYONE would know of someone who had been subject to this action? If you read the order, they are effectively denied legal counsel and a defense. Who would even know if this happened?

Why would a democratic Republic founded on the Constitution like our country countenance an Executive Order like this in the first place? If you knew that your presence at an anti-war rally could cost you the loss of your home and business and to be treated like a leper, would that cause you to rethink your presence?

[Jim Lane]

8. I don't know if I qualify as one of "the most informed people in the universe", but I didn't know.

It may well be that no one was actually subjected to asset forfeiture during the Bush administration, but just having the thing on the books (for its threat value) is outrageous.

[illuminaughty]

9. The entire Project Censored List of #25 deserves a look

They've been right on over the years and there is some amazingly scary items on 2009's list.
Check out #2. Just when you think it's all tinfoil talk, it resurfaces.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/2-security-and-prosperity-partnership-militarized-nafta/

[autorank]

10. kick

:kick:

[Clio the Leo]

11. "To find, the money's on the other side...."

Reminds me of those Green Day lyrics....

"Hear the drum pounding out of time
Another protester has crossed the line
To find, the money's on the other side"

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/greenday/holiday.html