For “supporting a proscribed organization”. Aka. Hamas. The arrests are by counter-terrorism police.
The police came to her house just before 7.30am. 12 of them in total, some of them in plain clothes from the counter terrorism police. They said she was under arrest for “content that she has posted online.” Her house is being raided & they have seized all her electronic devices.
Others who have been arrested include Richard Barnard, Richard Medhurst and Craig Murray.
This is the law they are being charged under:
I have long opposed all “proscribed organization laws.” They destroy freedom of association and freedom of speech. In the US RICO is the primary culprit, justified by being used to go after the Mafia, but they’re all bad and they all wind up being misused. If someone commits an actual crime they should be charged, but freedom of association is fundamental and should not be abridged. RICO should be unconstitutional, but somehow isn’t. As for Britain, well, the laws on the books are draconian but were often not enforced.
Starmer, Britain’s PM, has always treated his job as crushing the left. This was clear when he was leader of the opposition and purged the party of the left, and now he’s done something even the Conservatives did not do, and done it to protect a genocide. When you look at the austerity politics his government is enforcing, it’s clear that he’s actually slightly worse than the Conservatives, which is quite the achievement. A monster in all regards.
In general the West, and especially Europe, is cracking down on freedom of speech. Strong, confident elites don’t need to do this. “Say what you want, it doesn’t matter” is how they think and feel, and they know it’s better to have people shooting off their mouths than acting.
But weak elites; scared elites; crack down.
A lot of this comes down “when times are good, people talk but rarely do.” In the best of times, most people fundamentally support the system. They want changes, yes, but they aren’t actually a threat to elites. But life in Britain has been getting worse for over forty years now and Corbyn scared the Labour establishment: he should never have been able to be elected leader and he should never have come within a hair of winning his first election.
So crush, crush away. Make examples of people.
The same is true of France’s arrest of the CEO of Telegram. This is all about instilling fear. Stay within the lines or we’ll crush you.
Mary Bennet
Mr. Welsh, I think our own courts can decide whether or not the RICO laws are constitutional. Most of us Americans do think they are both constitutional and useful. So far as I know they are used to go after actual law breaking, not speech. Most of us also think membership in a certain faction, family, etc. should not confer immunity from prosecution.
Ian Welsh
RICO,
“Section 1962(c) is the most frequently utilized substantive section of criminal RICO, and section 1962(d) (conspiracy) is practically ubiquitous in RICO indictments. What does subsection (c) really prohibit? Violation of RICO is defined as participation in a group of individuals, associated however loosely, “through” commission of at least two other crimes. By definition, the truly wrongful acts in RICO are already criminalized under other statutes. What does RICO add to the criminal code by making it a crime to associate with others “through” commission of crimes? The lack of a satisfactory answer to this question highlights the problematic implications of the fact that RICO is a highly derivative criminal statute. Assuming for the moment that the crimes listed in the RICO statute are themselves properly characterized as crimes, nothing is gained by making it a new and separate crime to associate with others (“conduct or participate in an enterprise”) through commission of other crimes.
In reality, RICO acts as an arbitrary penalty enhancer and prosecutorial bargaining tool. A violation of RICO is a crime of convenience—for prosecutors, that is. What defendant, charged with a predicate act carrying a potential sentence of a few years, would refuse to bargain with a prosecutor who says, “I’ll take the RICO charge with its mandatory twenty-year sentence off the table if you plead guilty to the predicate offense”? If this tactical weapon fails, a prosecutor faced with a resolute defendant determined to roll the dice at trial can still rest easy, knowing that RICO has stockpiled new procedural weapons in the prosecutor’s war chest. For example, RICO allows the government join into a single prosecution widely diverse defendants and crimes that, absent RICO, would be too disjointed to be allowed in the same trial under the rules of evidence and criminal procedure.”
much more at link.
https://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?id=215
StewartM
Mary Bennett
Most of us also think membership in a certain faction, family, etc. should not confer immunity from prosecution.
Them’s weasel words. The issue is not ‘immunity from prosecution’ but ‘prosecution simply because of association’. You know someone who is suspected of a crime, that makes you a criminal too, right? Would you be happy having that standard used on YOU?
And why is it necessary? If you arrest a Mafia hit man for committing and/or attempting murder, you can always offer a lighter sentence if he turns to be a witness against his boss for the state. Did you need RICO for that?
Soredemos
@Mary Bennet
Well this American for one doesn’t agree with you. If you’re going right make this strange implicit argument that Welsh isn’t allowed to opine on US law because he isn’t American, then I’m throwing my US citizenship behind him and endorsing his position. He gets gets to be a proxy American here on this one.
Oakchair
The society of 1984, and “Brave new world” wasn’t built in a day. Re-read those books and they no longer are fiction but rather dramatized documentaries. When society reaches a critical point –which it likely already has– we’ll be stuck with the dystopia until a social collapse.
—–
“Say what you want, it doesn’t matter” is how they think and feel, and they know it’s better to have people shooting off their mouths than acting.
——
This is why the Western propaganda system was a lot more effective and less costly to implement than the Soviet system.
A joke in the USSR went along the lines of “we are more informed than Americans because we know the media is propaganda while they think it’s truth.”
After the Soviet system collapsed it took 20 years for their life expectancy and economy to return to 1989 levels. Rather than learn anything from that the West said “hold my beer”
elissa3
“In general the West, and especially Europe, is cracking down on freedom of speech. Strong, confident elites don’t need to do this. “Say what you want, it doesn’t matter” is how they think and feel, and they know it’s better to have people shooting off their mouths than acting.”
This reminds me of my first visit to London over half a century ago. My father took me to Hyde Park corner–does it still exist?–to educate me on the cleverness of the British system. ‘You see’, he told me, ‘how they allow would-be revolutionaries and crackpots alike to blow off steam’. The lesson was that virtually anything could be said out in the open and that if increasingly larger crowds gathered around a particular speaker, the authorities would know exactly who it was. A superior system compared to outright government repression.
david lamy
Ms. Bennet, I am a U.S. citizen and my view is that RICO is a dangerous tool to allow any prosecutor. Look at the plethora of plea bargains in the U.S. Defendants are out gunned and many simply cannot afford to hire top flight defense firms to go toe to toe with the prosecutor.
Do you have reliable polling to buttress that most U.S. citizens view the RICO statutes favorably? I think both RICO and property confiscation (happens guilty or not) are not fully understood and if explained as Mr. Welsh does in his reply to your post will be viewed unfavorably by most of us.
elkern
IMO, it’s even creepier that that enforcement of these laws is now primarily focused on stifling criticism of Israel – a foreign country – rather than protests against the State (UK/USA) or its internal Elites.
Nations – indeed, probably all human organizations – have always found ways to stifle dissent; it’s the organizational equivalent of an active immune system. (Though, yes, of course, it’s still anathema to our democratic and republican roots and aspirations).
But when a country jails its own citizens for criticizing another country, that conflicts with the basic (Westphalian?) notion of a “Country” as a bunch of people who live inside some imaginary lines on the map and – far more importantly – care about each other more than they care about people in other “countries”.
I [think I] understand how this works here in the USA: AIPAC and their “loose affiliation of Millionaires and Billionaires” make sure that Congress toes their line by donating millions of dollars to “primary” anyone who steps out of line. That works here because there are millions of people and hundreds of Zillionaires in the USA who care deeply about Israel (OK, that’s code for being Jewish, but I know that there are plenty of Jewish Americans actively working against The Lobby, too).
How does this work in Britain?
bruce wilder
On the face of it, the U.K. has made it illegal to advocate for the Palestinians.
I note that even if the Crown could not prevail in open court for lack of unambiguous evidence of support for a specifically proscribed organization (and the bar is set low with regard to what constitutes “support”), the law empowers the police to seize property, to detain persons, to interrogate and harass, upon mere suspicion. There is no defence in law against such authoritarian police tactics and such tactics are specifically provided for. The police are authorized to assault persons and seize their personal property with no due process of law.
DMC
The most succinct statement of “Why the Democrats won’t save you” with the perspective of Ukraine and Israel:
https://indi.ca/the-nice-nazis/
Willy
They’re trying to frame Sarah Wilkinson as not only supporting Palestinian civilians against having their lives destroyed (legit), but of also supporting Hamas (questionable), and that this somehow is the same as supporting a terroristic overthrow of Britian (bullshit). I have no idea about her “Labour Left” street cred.
Should the Labour Left tread more carefully, or do they need better lawyers, or should they improve their investigation skills to uncover the true sources of personal smears?
Mary Bennet
Wikipedia has a fairly good writeup about RICO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
I am not an expert or legal junkie, but on the face of things I see nothing which compromises people’s First Amendment Rights. Which do include, I might add, freedom of religion, a detail which I wonder if some of the recent protesters have thought about. Interesting to note that there were pro-Palestine protests at the Democratic convention but not the Republican. Hmm just sayin.
The RICO act was signed by Richard Nixon, so no lefty conspiracy here. Atlanta Prosecutor Fanny Willis used it to prosecute a gaggle of Atlanta public school teachers for falsifying test scores.
I grant you AIPAC will use and misuse everything and anything they can to have their own way. I would like to see repeal of dual citizenship–you are either an American citizen or you are not– AIPAC forced to register as an agent of a foreign government, and serious enforcement of the laws against foreign money in our elections.
I think RICO is a useful tool and I am glad our prosecutors have it.
Bukko Boomeranger
I read “Atlas Shrugged” when I was younger, in university, because it was reputed to be an important work of political philosophy. I realise now it was a BS paean to selfishness. Ayn Rand made one worthwhile point that sticks with me to this day, though.
An eeeeeevil gubbermint official (is there any other kind in Randystopia?) was telling the shruggy hero that the government enacts all sorts of laws, but it doesn’t expect citizens to obey them. Perfect obedience is impossible. The laws often contradict each other, or have such nit-picky standards that they cannot be adhered to. The true purpose of those “laws,” Evil.Govman explained, is to give The State an excuse to arrest anyone it chooses to target. You’re always guilty of something! Step out of line, oppose Authority in any way, and they can point to something in the law books so you can be reeled in.
RICO does that. “Supporting proscribed organisations” does the same. It’s easy to proscribe an org. It might not even require a vote in Parliament, with debate on the merits of the proscription. As if MPs bother to do that to begin with… Perhaps a political appointee in some government office decides “that’s a bad group. I hereby add them to the proscribed list, under terms of the Act that gives me ministerial discretion to protect Public Safety.” The ban happens in the background, with nobody except the Ministry and maybe members of the now-prohibited group noticing.
Then the intrepid journalist, who’s gotten under the skin of some Important Group, flies home from an overseas assignment. Border goons grab their computers, phones, notepads, flash drives, etc. Because The Law says that’s allowed in the name of Protecting The Homeland. And the entry hall at an airport is in a sort of legal limbo, not quite “on” home soil. So a traveller has no rights there if a man with a gun says they don’t. Not even citizens of the country where the airport is, and doG help anyone who is NOT a citizen.
When the bordergoons go through the devices — “tell us your passwords if you want to leave the airport. No, you’re not under arrest. You have not been charged with anything. But if you try to walk out of this room, we will handcuff you for the crime of attempting to escape Lawful Authority” — they find the name of a Proscribed Group in your stuff. NOW you’re nailed, thanks to the Counter Terrorism Act or RICO or Foreign Agent Registration Act. The “law” is a fig leaf to cover the prick who has decided to bone you. It’s the one thing that Rand got right.
Airports are a “free fire zone” when it comes to authorities attacking anyone’s rights. Ask Ritter or Medhurst or so many others who have been grabbed at an airplane walkway. Soon to be expanded to almost anywhere, when The State decides it’s important enough. In the United States, anywhere within 100 miles of an “international border”(which can technically include airports where overseas flights land) is subject to Border Patrol rules that suspend the U.S. Constitution. People have no “rights” if a man in uniform decides they don’t. Those lofty principles on revered documents are merely a hypnotist’s trick so you don’t notice the bars of your cage.
John F. Kennedy said “those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” (I realise he used “revolution” twice in that quote and didn’t say “change” but it sounds better my way.) That’s what’s going to happen in the U.S., U.K, probably all over the world. People are going to get fed up with playing by the rules, after the boot stamps on their faces long enough. They’ll start burning $hit down and fcuking stuff up. Unfortunately, it will be the fascist factions who do that, because aggressive authoritarians don’t have the same sense of respecting social sanctions that mellow freedom-lovers do. Thus, the Newtonian “equal and opposite reaction” to the Starmer/Biden (or whoever’s running things in the U.S.)/futureTrump crackdowns is going to be capital-N Nasty. Hold onto your hats, and don’t forget to duck!
Oakchair
those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” That’s what’s going to happen in the U.S., U.K
———
I’m going to go down this rabbit hole, down and down.
Suppose the ruling class is competent and has planned. They would take proactive measure to reduce revolution occurring.
60% of Americans having a chronic illness, and 1 in 25 children having autism to the oligarchs would be a good thing.
The masses fighting each other over meaningless dribble such as the number of Mexicans in the country, which pro-noun to use, etc is another feature.
Social media and technology that has people doom scrolling and do addicted to the dopamine hit to do anything was the best thing since controlling the police.
mago
I knew a big time east coast new age pot dealer in the 80’s. He was cunning, charming and a committed family man—also something of a dick—but you know.
The DEA hated him because he always out foxed them until he didn’t. He got busted under RICO and didn’t see daylight for a long time. It was vendetta stuff. Irony that marijuana is mostly legal and mainstream now.
But what I want to say is, I could’ve gone down, too, since I cooked for his family. (Some seem to believe in that good guy bad guy Hollywood stuff, but it just ain’t so.)
Anyway, in my early 20’s I was a macrobiotic chef who followed the yin and yang of food and the universe. I accepted some parts and rejected others.
One thing that made sense to me was that inhabitants of the northern continents with their cold climates and reliance on meat were aggressive as a result (yang) and were naturally given to exploiting dwellers in warmer climes who ate a lighter more plant based
diet (yin) and were more pacifistic and spiritually inclined, which is a partial and somewhat simplistic description.
Most everybody’s diet sucks now that the climate and environment are whacko.
But. The Brits traditional diet is appalling. Chip Buddy anyone?
Their naval and empire building mentality was influenced in part by their dietary inclinations, also their binary non contextual legal system.
It’s stuck and it sucks. Cue to the genocidal US of Anality.
All right, dietary influences on cultures and behaviors are easily dismissed. However, there’s some truth upon examination.
I’ll leave it with a controversial anecdote here that many will disagree with. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Macrobiotic guru Michio Kushi once mentioned in a private conversation that the Jewish mentality and behavior could be understood in terms of the amount of dairy, sugar. fat and salt they consume. He said the dairy in particular accounts for their sentimental tendencies.
I knew little about Jewish culture then, being a western lad, and while I’m wiser now, it’s not so much.
I ate my share of blintzes and cheesecake back in the day so oy vey.
About the blatant strong arming against dissident journalists and even politicians—which is everywhere, but big time in the west—maybe it’s time to take up the sword and shield and kick those bald heads out of town. . (I’d be glad to set up and run the field kitchens.)
bruce wilder
Should the Labour Left tread more carefully, or do they need better lawyers, or should they improve their investigation skills . . . ?
They should have a plan! How clever that would be.
Maybe they could undestroy themselves as a first step.
StewartM
Mary Bennett
Wikipedia has a fairly good writeup about RICO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
It’s only “good” as in “good for your argument”; a well-written Wikipedia piece should include criticisms and mangled cases, which this does not.
But here’s one about how RICO is used by corporations to stifle critics via civil cases, which is a close analogy to the case in Britain.
Charlie Holt and Daniel Simons
RICO AS A CASE-STUDY IN WEAPONIZING
DEFAMATION AND THE INTERNATIONAL
RESPONSE TO CORPORATE CENSORSHIP
https://www.swlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2020-12/6%20-%20Holt%2020.12.15.pdf
V. CHEVRON V. DONZIGER
In 2011, Chevron lost an 8-year legal battle in Ecuador and was hit with
an $18 billion USD liability judgment. The legal case, Aguinda v.
ChevronTexaco, began in October 2003 in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, after it was
transferred from a U.S. federal court at Chevron’s request (the case was
originally brought in November 1993 in the Southern District of New York
against Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2001). The plaintiffs, consisting
of some 30,000 people from five indigenous groups and dozens of
communities in Ecuador’s Amazon, alleged massive oil contamination of
their ancestral lands and waters – including the deliberate dumping of over
18.5 billion gallons of toxic “formation waters” into Amazon waterways.
Instead of paying the damages, Chevron sold its assets in Ecuador to
avoid seizure, left the country, and promised the indigenous groups they
would face a “lifetime of litigation” if they “dare pursue their claims.” Chevron’s General Counsel, Charles James, told an audience of law students
at Berkeley that while he expected to lose the case, Chevron “would fight
until hell freezes over – and skate it out on the ice.” After the indigenous groups started enforcement actions in the USA and Canada, Chevron took an innovative approach to making good on these promises: it turned to RICO.
Chevron argued, in short, that the $18 billion USD judgment had been
procured “fraudulently” by the defendants. The basic logic for invoking
RICO was simple: while courts are split on whether equitable relief is
available in civil RICO claims, Chevron could argue that they were entitled
to injunctive relief to prevent the defendants from profiting off their “criminal
enterprise.” Chevron’s RICO strategy, however, went much further than just
capitalizing on the law’s provisions for sanctions and remedies. Chevron took
full advantage of RICO’s public relations opportunities. While the RICO
lawsuit was brought against approximately 50 lawyers and activists, (with
advocacy groups Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and Amazon Watch
named as “non-party co-conspirators”) Chevron put a strong focus on Steven
Donziger, the New York lawyer who had worked on the Lago Agrio litigation
as a legal consultant for the Amazon Defense Front. An internal email from
2009 from a Chevron strategist described their public relations strategy as:
“demonize Donziger,” which they proceeded to do through an online
newspaper called the “Amazon Post,” a litany of social media accounts in
multiple languages, a series of slickly-produced YouTube videos,73 and at
least eight public relations firms. As well as targeting Donziger, Chevron
took advantage of RICO to “cast its victims and virtually anyone who has
supported their campaign, or been critical of Chevron – including NGOs,
journalists, and responsible investors – as criminals.”
As with earlier RICO cases targeting advocacy, Chevron also used an
expansive reading of RICO to treat advocacy as extortive or otherwise
criminal. Chevron’s complaint alleged that advocates colluded with attorneys
to “create enough pressure on Chevron to extort it into paying to stop the
campaign against it,” including through hard-hitting press releases as well
as lobbying. Chevron further stretched the notion of a “criminal enterprise”
to encompass the wider movement behind the Lago Agrio litigation. It filed
discovery lawsuits against the original Ecuadorian plaintiffs and their
consultants in over two dozen U.S. courts and subpoenaed the emails of about
100 environmental activists and other supporters not directly associated with
the lawsuit. Through the discovery process, Chevron attempted to force
these groups to turn over all internal planning and strategy documents as well
as the identities of their supporters.
Chevron’s RICO litigation is estimated to have cost up to $2 billion USD
in legal fees (even before ancillary costs such as PR firms are factored in),
with the company using more than two thousand legal professionals from sixty law firms.80 Nonetheless, it eventually achieved its aim. In March 2014,
U.S District Judge Kaplan issued an injunction against Donziger and two
Ecuadorean co-defendants, prohibiting them from attempting to enforce the
judgment in any U.S. court and creating a constructive trust
for Chevron’s benefit to hold any proceeds they obtained elsewhere in the
world.81 Whether or not this result was worth the time and expense (the New
Yorker reported that the case could have been settled for $140 million in
2001) remains arguable: Chevron’s CEO John Watson was challenged in
three shareholder resolutions in May of this year for “materially
mishandling” the Ecuador litigation, and an announcement followed a few
months later that Watson would be stepping down. Crucially, however, the
result was successfully presented as an unqualified victory in the media. As
such, Gibson Dunn – Chevron’s lead law firm (who had 114 attorneys
working on the case) – was able to fully capitalize on this perceived success.
At an Energy Litigation Conference in November 2014, a Gibson Dunn
partner presented a PowerPoint entitled “A RICO Guide for Energy
Litigators” and described it as a means of responding to “fraudulent lawsuits”
to the industry representatives present.
Still glad we have RICO? Is this what you’re defending?
Feral Finster
“Mary Bennet
Mr. Welsh, I think our own courts can decide whether or not the RICO laws are constitutional. Most of us Americans do think they are both constitutional and useful. So far as I know they are used to go after actual law breaking, not speech. Most of us also think membership in a certain faction, family, etc. should not confer immunity from prosecution.”
Well, that makes me feel so much safer, knowing that the government would never ever even think to abuse these broad powers to suppress freedom of speech, in fact, democratic majorities supposedly agree that the laws are only used on bad people!
Seriously, there are kittens whose eyes have just opened who are less willfully naive.
Wadangala Kaladoota
The fuck are the Brits gonna do about it? They can’t even get proper knives, never mind firepower.
Willy
They should have a plan! How clever that would be. Maybe they could undestroy themselves as a first step.
They clearly don’t and are thus easily stymied by those who do. Have a plan. In local state college I knew a future lawyer who’d tell me he “never wanted to establish any credibility gaps” with anybody. He’d go on to post grad at two of the three top ivy league schools. The punch line is that he was far from an elite student, and based on what I can see from his online videos, far from an elite law professor. But his parents, both profs, were inside with the system. And now guys like that get to write the laws.
As for the rest of us, I’m seeing far too often (in various comment sections) the ‘logic’ that liberals are the problem, even worse than conservatives. ‘Shitlibs’ a few even call them. I try to follow that kind of logical progression:
Conservatives believe Hamas = all Palestinian civilians = all Islam. Conservatives have lost the ability to know right from wrong and are thus so far gone that trying to reach them is foolish.
Liberals are even worse, because by expressing mild concern they demonstrate that they do have the ability to know right from wrong, yet they do nothing (or in the case of Biden, still continue the ever-ongoing governmental policy of empowering zionism).
Far leftists obviously feel the very worst about events and demonstrate this by doing all the protesting. Yet since they’ll go home to their jobs, homes, and families, instead of giving up everything and flying straight to the middle east to fight, they must be the very worst of all.
Purple Library Guy
A lot of people have been saying various substantive things about the US RICO laws. But I just want to quickly take issue with Mary Bennett’s first point:
“Mr. Welsh, I think our own courts can decide whether or not the RICO laws are constitutional.”
Oh, you think that, do you? Have you LOOKED at your own courts lately? Not just the Supremes, LOTS of your own courts, couldn’t be trusted to decide what to give a group of daycare kids at snack time.
Purple Library Guy
On the British issue itself . . . I think in recent years Britain’s descent has really been made easier by their lack of a constitution. If you have a solid constitution, governments will still do the horrible stuff, but they will have two problems. First problem is, some of their horrible laws will get struck down as unconstitutional. Second problems is, even if they can corrupt the courts and ram stuff through anyway, there is this clear yardstick sitting there saying “This shows the government is not measuring up to what the country should be like. Look, right here, it’s a foot short.”
In Britain anyone who wants to say these horrible laws shouldn’t exist has to argue from first principles; it’s more complicated and easier for weasels and pseudo-patriots to argue around.
mago
So Willy, if true lefties were to stick by their guns, they’d become Middle East mercenaries. Brilliant.
Kill and show your true stripes.
Sheesh.
Who’s the baddest of them all?
Oh, yeah, Liberty Valance.
Contemplate the meaning of that name Liberty Valance.
I shot Liberty Valance. . .
It’s a song from the sixties and maybe on a movie soundtrack.
I don’t know but I’ve been told that the heart of a liberal is mighty cold.
mago
Not usually given to correcting my wayward comments, but it’s second person, not first person re: Liberty Valance.
He shot Liberty Valance/he shot Liberty Valance/he was the bravest of them all.
Because, you know, you gotta kill the baddies, even some dude whose name means balanced liberty, which is nowhere to be found except maybe in the charnel grounds.
We’ll keep you posted. . .