Sunday, August 27, 2006

Live, Free, or Die [pick two]

(thanks L'Inq)


New Hampshire is going crazy.

First we had the police getting upset with being recorded.

And now we have the State Supreme Court in the capital getting confused as to whether items which have not been declared as contraband can be confiscated...

Dissenting, Justice Linda Dalianis wrote, perceptively, that “the majority does not explain how statutes prohibiting the production, publication, or sale of certain works render possession of such works unlawful.”
Although no-one seems yet to have made the connection yet between such "indefinitions" of possible crime (cp "Pre-crime") and asset forfeiture.

The article opines:
It should go without saying that speculation by a few judges that a crime might have been committed is a frightening basis for taking someone’s property.
but doesn't take the article's conclusion:

If the government can seize and keep a citizen’s property by simply asserting that it is contraband, even when the assertion is unsupported by the facts, then we have entered into dangerous territory.
to its logical conclusion: asset forfeiture (very often here in South Africa) is mostly speculative and should therefore not be allowed.

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