Category: Fifth Amendment rights

Brussels Conference Squelched

Post author By Editor
Post date April 19, 2024
3 Comments on Brussels Conference Squelched

What happened in Brussels?

“In Brussels, in the heart of the European Union, in a western liberal democracy, we’re unable to have a conversation about identity, migration, borders, family, and security without facing attempts to have it shut down,” says Matt Goodwin, a British professor.

The mayor of a Brussels district, Emir Kir, had ordered the shutdown of the National Conservatism Conference in order, he said, to “guarantee public safety.”

But Kir also stated the real reason, that in his neck of the woods “the far right is not welcome.” He apparently disagrees with viewpoints to be elaborated at the conference.

Police took steps to stymie would-be attendees.

Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán said: “The last time they wanted to silence me with the police was when the Communists set them on me in ’88. We didn’t give up then and we will not give up this time either!”

This is a more open targeting of political speech than erasing the “misinformation” of social media posts. Does it signal a new strategy throughout Europe?

Hard to say. The immediate reaction of other European politicians, including many on the left, was dismay and shock that anybody would attempt such a thing.

“Banning political meetings is unconstitutional. Full stop,” proclaims the Belgian prime minister.

“Extremely disturbing,” says a British spokesman.

Could be sincere; could be a realization that “Uh oh, we’ve gone too far”; could be a mixture of both.

The next question: will it happen again?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags authoritarianism, Belgium, censorship, conservative, freedom

Fifth Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights national politics & policies

Time to Slap Grabby Hands

Civil Asset Forfeiture, theft, law enforcement, crime

Is the House of Representatives readying itself to do something to limit civil asset forfeiture initiated by federal agencies?

The legislation has emerged from the Judiciary Committee, so there is hope.

The Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR) would impose substantial limits on federal civil asset forfeiture — on the power of officers to grab someone’s cash or other belongings on the unsupported suspicion that it was involved in a crime.

Currently, this power to steal based on zero evidence and zero due process remains untrammeled. And forfeited funds thus grabbed can then be spent by the agencies that did the asset-grabbing.

Victims must spend years in the courts to get their stuff back, if they ever do.

FAIR would require “clear and convincing evidence” of wrongdoing. It would also prohibit law-enforcement agencies from being able to spend forfeited funds, eliminating a perverse incentive to rob people naïve enough to be carrying “too much” cash for whatever reason.

At National Review Online, Jill Jacobson says that the bill is “a step in the right direction” but doesn’t go far enough. Arguing on the premise of innocent until proven guilty, she insists “there is no reason why federal law enforcement should be seizing personal property from everyday citizens on tenuous suspicion.”

Or even non-tenuous suspicion, I would add, for not everyone strongly suspected of doing wrong can be proven to have done wrong. And citizens caught on the wrong end of a government official’s steely gaze should not be regarded as a public resource.

The reform isn’t finished until civil asset forfeiture is abolished altogether.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags civil asset forfeiture, constitution, crime, police

Fifth Amendment rights general freedom property rights

Government Greed Swept in Double-Header

Post author By Redactor
Post date June 2, 2023
3 Comments on Government Greed Swept in Double-Header

Geraldine Tyler lived long enough to see the U.S. Supreme Court rule against those who robbed her. She is 94.

On May 25, 2023, the Court determined in a 9-0 ruling that Hennepin County, Minnesota, is not constitutionally entitled to pocket the entire sale-price value of a condo in massive excess of the property taxes that Geraldine Tyler owed on the property when the government seized it for unpaid taxes.

Including penalties and interest, Tyler had owed about $15,000. But after selling the condo for $40,000, the county government seemed to think that $25,000 was a reasonable brokerage fee.

Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Tyler in the case, argued that the county violated the Takings Clause of the Constitution by taking private property for public use “without just compensation.”

The Court agreed, saying that exploiting the debt “to confiscate more property than was due” effected “a ‘classic taking in which the government directly appropriates private property for its own use.’ ”

The ruling also rejects the county’s argument that Tyler somehow forfeited her constitutional rights by failing to pay her property taxes.

The same day, PLF also won another huge victory in the U.S. Supreme Court when the Court ruled that the EPA does not have limitless authority to block property owners from building on their own land if the agency chooses to designate a soggy part of the land a protected “wetland.”

Two for two. Not a bad batting average.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags property rights, Supreme Court, takings

Fifth Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights international affairs

The Chinazis Next Door

China, spies, police, Canada, USA, America

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

This 1966 comedy about the accidental grounding of a Soviet submarine off the coast of New England was nominated for four Academy Awards and captured the Golden Globe Award for best motion picture.

But a remake exclaiming “The Chinese Are Coming!” would be old hat: They’re already here.

“The People’s Republic of China has opened at least three police stations on Canadian soil as part of an alleged attempt by the country’s security state to keep an eye on the Chinese-Canadian diaspora,” The National Post informed last month.

“Canada-based dissidents of the Beijing government have long warned Canadian authorities that they face organized harassment from Chinese authorities,” The Post added.

A new report by Safeguard Defenders, a Spain-based foundation working for human rights in Asia, reveals there are now 54 of these Chinese “service stations” in 30 countries . . . including one in New York City.

The organization warns of “China’s growing global transnational repression,” explaining that in the last year 230,000 expats were “persuaded to return” to China but “these returns are often obtained by visiting extreme sanctions on the families of those targeted, such as asset seizures and prohibition from seeking government health care or education.”

In another recent report noted by The Globe and Mail, “the United Nations human-rights office said it found ‘patterns of intimidations, threats and reprisals’ against Uyghurs and other Chinese nationals living overseas who had spoken out against Beijing.”

Just last week, “El Correo published direct corroboration from Chinese authorities” of “illegal policing operations” with an anonymous Chinese official telling the Spanish paper, “The bilateral treaties are very cumbersome, and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China. I don’t see what is wrong with pressuring criminals to face justice. . . .”

The message to Chinese dissidents is clear: “You’re not safe anywhere.”

Are we?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags China, human rights, police

Fifth Amendment rights First Amendment rights general freedom nannyism national politics & policies

Just a Board Whose Intentions Were Good?

Post author By Redactor
Post date August 26, 2022
1 Comment on Just a Board Whose Intentions Were Good?

Homeland Security, censorship, spying, social networks, free speech, disinformation

They say it was all a terrible misunderstanding.

The Department of Homeland Security has caved and is now closing its new Disinformation Governance Board. Critics had been disinformatively saying that the board would probably be used for censorious purposes.

Au contraire, says DHS — even though the board was originally headed by an exponent of countering wrongthink about such matters as the “alleged” Hunter Biden laptop. No. Per DHS, this board really, truly, deep down, supposedly had only benign intentions.

When announcing the shutdown, DHS also announced that it has a bridge to sell you.

(Gotcha! DHS didn’t announce anything about a bridge. That’s just a bit of disinformation that I perpetrated with the help of my woefully abused First Amendment–protected freedom of speech!)

In May, DHS Secretary Mayorkas insisted that the board was no threat to free speech. The point was to address threats “without infringing on free speech.” Rather, the board would be doing things like disputing the strangely persuasive misinformation that the U.S. now has an open southern border.

Even early on, though, the board had been planning to coordinate its anti-disinformative efforts with Big Tech social media firms, which have been censoring on behalf of government. And various government officials will still be working to delegate the nuts and bolts of violating the First Amendment to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, et al. No letup on that front in sight.

DHS may be ending its ill-named board. But beware: its spirit and agenda live on.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTE: This board was previously discussed in these pages on May 2, in “Homeland Censorship Board.”

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