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Authored by: kuroshima on Friday, January 18 2013 @ 07:11 AM EST |
It is the widespread impression, by those of us living on the
other side of the pond, that the US Justice system is so much
out of true that getting actual justice out of it is either
hopeless, or a matter of pure luck. That's not to say that
the justice system here is any better, though.
Disclaimer: I am not a US resident, and so I have a (media
formed) external opinion on the USA Justice system. It may be
wrong (all my evidence is hearsay), and despite me believing
that my opinion is widespread, I could be wrong.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Bas Burger on Friday, January 18 2013 @ 07:20 AM EST |
Sadly, little or few recognise the flaws of the country they live in. At that
moment there will always be a rift between authoritarian minded people and
progressive people about what is just.
As outsider you often see that sooner, same as I would have a lot of blind spots
towards the country I live in.
Also sadly, few people of the US will or can recognise (because they have to
live there) that their state is corrupt by design, see the system of
pleabargening, the way lobbying is organised and the revolving door between rich
corporations and the government(s) of the US.
Moral is that an individual cannot expect mercy, fairness and balancedness from
a corrupt state, see all the high profile fraud from the rich that is not
prosecuted and the crushing of non rich that takes place at the slightest sense
of suspect.
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No comments...[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 18 2013 @ 12:37 PM EST |
We've seen times when the FBI and Local police are used to support the
Corporation:
Apple security having a police officer
along so they can execute a search of a private individuals home for a stolen
iphone without a proper search warrant
The FBI assisted
CISCO
Now apparently DA's and the Secret Service have joined the
ranks!
There's good reason for the average person who has done nothing
wrong to fear the US authorities I think.
Because those very authorities
have apparently decided to let Corporations decide what is a criminal offense.
And if it really is up to Corporations - like the RIAA and the bodies they
represent - then Copyright Law would be absolute and there is no such thing as
Fair Use! When the Corporation decides you are a criminal for choosing not to
be their customer:
Yes, we all should fear!
I certainly hope the
picture outlined above really isn't the reality. That it's rogue members of the
various authorities who are responsible. But it's up to those who have the
authority to bring their fellow colleagues to Justice to correct the
situation.
Will they?
Or, like the Apple scenario where neither
the local police nor Apple Security were brought to task for their behavior at
all, will nothing be done?
Like the Cisco scenario where the FBI were not
brought to task for their role, where Cisco was not brought to task for feeding
the FBI bad information - will nothing be done?
Are Corporations and
their bad behavior directed at private individuals truly above the Law? Are the
authorities that help such Corporations also truly above the Law?
Or will
they all start being reigned in?
We've finally started seeing Judges
reigning in the RIAA type behaviors.
When will we start to see the other
authority figures who are mis-using their authority reigned in?
When
will we see someone like Carman Ortiz face appropriate criminal charges for her
behaviors?
Granted, she may not have actually broken any Law.
But:
Can't the Laws surrounding harrassment be applied to her threats of
extraordinary punishment in order to get an admitted conviction be read as
"loosely" as the Laws surrounding what was applied to Swartz?
I do not
condone such behavior even though the part of me that is uncivilized is
convinced Ortiz deserves to be on the receiving end of the very behavior she
finds acceptable.
But I do condone that if the situation is honestly
examined and she is found to have abused her authority - by promissing extreme
punishment if the person does not admit guilt to lesser crimes - that she
permenantly looses her job and is never allowed into such a position of
authority again. Send a message to all prosecuting attorney's that are behaving
the same way that such behavior is not just unacceptable - it's no different
then:
torturing someone in order to get an admission of guilt
Sadly:
Extreme behavior requires an extreme response in order to stop it.
RAS[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 19 2013 @ 08:41 AM EST |
I ran into this report
[pdf] about how the crime rates of England and Wales compare to other
developed countries. On the last two pages they have numbers on how punitive
different countries are. The 'punitive ratio' is the ratio between the number of
people in jail as result of a court sentence and the number of people convicted
per year. The result shows the US is extremely punitive, 27 times more than my
country, the Netherlands, and 98 times more than the lowest on the list,
Finland.
1.471 United States
0.934 Mexico
0.898 Japan
0.429 Israel
0.356 Chile
0.345 Estonia
0.263 Czech Republic
0.249 Slovakia
0.222 Norway
0.168 Poland
0.152 Austria
0.130 Spain
0.123 Korea
0.123 Hungary
0.117 Slovenia
0.115 Portugal
0.115 Scotland
0.085 Italy
0.078 Canada
0.069 Germany
0.068 Australia
0.065 New Zealand
0.065 France
0.064 Switzerland
0.054 Turkey
0.054 Netherlands
0.049 England and
Wales
0.041 Iceland
0.040 Sweden
0.032 Northern
Ireland
0.032 Denmark
0.015 Finland
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 19 2013 @ 08:47 PM EST |
Unfortunately, many of the laws in the U.S. are authored by corporate lawyers
representing their powerful corporations and not the people. Most of these laws
are written to serve and protect the corporation or industry and not the people,
but to control the people. Our elected “Representatives” pretty much only
represent the wealthy and are looking out for their self interests. The popular
thing today is to push, or at least try to push, laws through and when the bills
are drafted, leave their public office and work for the industry they were
representing as lobbyists. It is indeed a sad time here in the U.S. for its
citizens. I fear it will get much worse before it gets better, since the wealthy
are getting more powerful every day.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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