On Dec. 25, 1776, just before midnight, General George Washington crossed the icy Delaware River with 5,400 troops, surprising a Hessian mercenary force early the next morning, Dec. 26. Washington’s men captured close to 1,000 Hessians still groggy from Christmas festivities, and the military triumph provided a much needed boost to morale after months of military defeats.
“I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.”
On Dec. 24, 1745, Benjamin Rush was born. Rush founded Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and signed the Declaration of Independence. A physician, writer, educator, and humanitarian, he was also an early opponent of slavery and capital punishment. Dr. Rush may be most famous today for reconciling the friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams by encouraging the two former Presidents to resume writing to each other.
Judge Andrew Napolitano has a few questions:
“There are so many things about this story that are crazy,” according to a detailed and exasperated report at Techdirt.com, “it’s difficult to know where to start.”
What story? The one you’ve probably heard nothing about.
Back in late 2010, the federal government seized Dajaz1.com, a popular Internet blog devoted to hip hop. The Justice Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shut down the website domain claiming it was infringing on music copyrights. ICE “put up a big scary warning graphic on the site, suggesting its operators were criminals.”
The government then failed to abide by the legal requirements for filing an asset forfeiture case, conducting a secret legal effort, instead. Motions, hearings, and court decisions were filed in secret and placed under “seal,” denying the website owners and their attorney any opportunity for challenge.
Freedom of speech? Due process of law? Obliterated. And yet, earlier this month, the government admitted it had no legitimate case, no probable cause to go after this website in the first place, and, after a year of censorship, finally returned the web domain to its rightful owners.
That a website can be seized by our government, without a charge being publicly made and the crime proven in a fair and open court of law, is absolutely frightening.
What’s even scarier, though, is that legislation currently being considered by Congress — Protect IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act — would give the federal government even more sweeping powers to regulate and control the Internet.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.”