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Author Topic: Occupying Wallstreet  (Read 294380 times)

Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3960 on: October 23, 2012, 03:53:09 pm »

The government treating anarchists like pariahs isn't new, at all.

Just because it isn't new doesn't mean it isn't news.

I'd argue it's just that: Not news. They're not even martyrs, they're just being held because they're being incredibly impossible to deal with even after being offered fucking immunity from prosecution. They're acting like they're martyrs when they're being held on a technicality [probably out of spite at this point] for holding up a federal investigation.
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Nadaka

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3961 on: October 23, 2012, 03:56:04 pm »

The government treating anarchists like pariahs isn't new, at all.

Just because it isn't new doesn't mean it isn't news.

I'd argue it's just that: Not news. They're not even martyrs, they're just being held because they're being incredibly impossible to deal with even after being offered fucking immunity from prosecution. They're acting like they're martyrs when they're being held on a technicality [probably out of spite at this point] for holding up a federal investigation.

An investigation that is a witchhunt that began before the crime that it is supposedly investigating. It smells bad in every way. This is how mcarthyism began.
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Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3962 on: October 23, 2012, 04:05:10 pm »

I don't think it's any surprise at all that the government tracks and goes to great lengths to find out more about networks like those. Her house being stuffed to the brim with anti government and anarchist literature doesn't help. Look, they wouldn't be offered immunity from prosecution for no reason. They know something or they're getting off scotch free for federal vandalism charges. Sounds like they've got the better end of the deal than their friends who they will eventually crack and tell on.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2012, 04:06:42 pm by Mictlantecuhtli »
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Scelly9

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3963 on: October 23, 2012, 04:07:18 pm »

Never said it was a surprise, however it is wrong.
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Reelya

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3964 on: October 23, 2012, 05:16:01 pm »

I don't think it's any surprise at all that the government tracks and goes to great lengths to find out more about networks like those. Her house being stuffed to the brim with anti government and anarchist literature doesn't help. Look, they wouldn't be offered immunity from prosecution for no reason. They know something or they're getting off scotch free for federal vandalism charges. Sounds like they've got the better end of the deal than their friends who they will eventually crack and tell on.

You're right, they definitely were not given immunity for "no reason". It's because she invoked the 5th amendment, and "immunity" revokes that protection. Giving her immunity thus stripped her of the right to silence, hence they were able to incarcerate her without judicial process.

Immunity wasn't something she sought, nor were there charges against her that she was protected from. It seems that "immunity" to a grand juries investigations actual gives them an excuse to detain you with little judicial oversight. They can just repeatedly ask you questions until you decline to answer even a single one of them, then they can unilaterally declare you as in contempt, and "detain" you without a trial or access to lawyers until the grand jury expires (18 months in this case)

Anyway, articles cite that this grand jury was convened on march 2nd 2012, yet the crimes they are supposedly investigating are a protest on may day (which happened in may, funnily enough), and none of the incarcerated people attended or organized this event, or were even in the same city. It's clear from the dates involved, that this is an anti-occupy tribunal, and the "crimes" which they are "investigating" are mere pretexts for witch-hunting.

http://www.sparrowmedia.net/2012/10/leah-lynn-plante-grand-jury/
« Last Edit: October 23, 2012, 05:37:36 pm by Reelya »
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3965 on: October 23, 2012, 05:37:56 pm »

I don't think it's any surprise at all that the government tracks and goes to great lengths to find out more about networks like those. Her house being stuffed to the brim with anti government and anarchist literature doesn't help.
... having anarchist literature IS NOT A CRIME. It's not even political activism in itself. I wonder if you realize the kind of bizarre totalitarian assertions you're making right now.
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Look, they wouldn't be offered immunity from prosecution for no reason. They know something or they're getting off scotch free for federal vandalism charges. Sounds like they've got the better end of the deal than their friends who they will eventually crack and tell on.
OR, after all this fuss  they have to blame someone for something, anything, in order to not look stupid and tyrannical. Hence they start a witch-hunt.
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Reelya

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3966 on: October 23, 2012, 05:46:17 pm »

It seems a good time to bring up the 1990 secret service raid on Steve Jackson Games, where they held up copies of GURPS: Cyberpunk a frikking dice-based RPG on TV and called it a "handbook on computer crime". They almost destroyed that pen-and-paper RPG game company, because they needed a "BIG BUST" for their anti-hacker efforts, and fiction publishers are easier to track than real hackers.

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While reality-checking the book, Loyd Blankenship corresponded with a variety of people, from computer security experts to self-confessed computer crackers. From his home, he ran a legal BBS which discussed the "computer underground," and he knew many of its members. That was enough to put him on a federal List of Dangerous Hoodlums! The affidavit on which SJ Games were raided was unbelievably flimsy . . . Loyd Blankenship was suspect because he ran a technologically literate and politically irreverent BBS, because he wrote about hacking, and because he received and re-posted a copy of the /Phrack newsletter. The company was raided simply because Loyd worked there and used its (entirely different) BBS!

As for GURPS Cyberpunk, it had merely been a target of opportunity . . . something "suspicious" that the agents picked up at the scene. The Secret Service allowed SJ Games (and the public) to believe, for months, that the book had been the target of the raid.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2012, 05:57:28 pm by Reelya »
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Scelly9

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3967 on: October 23, 2012, 05:59:58 pm »

I don't think it's any surprise at all that the government tracks and goes to great lengths to find out more about networks like those. Her house being stuffed to the brim with anti government and anarchist literature doesn't help.
... having anarchist literature IS NOT A CRIME. It's not even political activism in itself. I wonder if you realize the kind of bizarre totalitarian assertions you're making right now.
So much this. I have a guide to environmental terrorism sitting on my hard drive because I'm writing a story about it. Does this mean I would ever go burn some mining equipment? Hell no, however I'm probably on some government watch list for dong that.
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sluissa

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3968 on: October 24, 2012, 02:48:54 am »

You guys are straw manning the crap out of this situation.
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SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3969 on: October 24, 2012, 04:12:24 am »

You guys are straw manning the crap out of this situation.

Explain?  You mean we're constructing the opposition's point of view to be easily attacked?  We're judging the situation on the information that is available, mainly two pieces of information that would be very hard to excuse with added context.  By a strict definition of strawmanning, it is very difficult not to strawman the motives of a secretive organization.  If the government doesn't want people making paranoid assumptions, maybe they should communicate better.  It would also help if the information they communicate is internally consistent.
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sluissa

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3970 on: October 24, 2012, 08:36:23 am »

They're not being any more secretive about this than any other case would be. The whole thing is being done before a grand jury at this point which has no power at all except to decide whether an actual court should be convened. Grand juries are brought together in order to investigate situations when it's not entirely clear whether a case exists or not.

You keep talking about confiscation of political materials. And while it's true they did take them, it was because the organization that they were investigating was politically motivated and since they were refusing to talk, that evidence became the only link they had to go on. And nobody has even suggested that he possession of such materials in itself was illegal. Nobody's suggested that they were going to face charges for the materials themselves... it's just evidence with which to continue the investigation for the people they are looking for.

The jailing happened because of the refusal to cooperate with the grand jury. You keep bringing up 5th amendment rights, but that only applies if you're at risk of incriminating yourself... and it doesn't even apply to grand juries anyway. Maybe that is all messed up, but it's nothing to be shocked or horrified over. We're talking about a rule that hasn't changed in well over 200 years. Nowhere does it say that you can refuse to cooperate with police investigations. If that were the way it worked, then the judicial system wouldn't have any teeth at all to investigate crimes.

You also all seem to be forgetting, or ignoring, that serious crimes did occur. Large amounts of property damage and assault on other people. This, all in the middle of an otherwise peaceful protest. By defending the violent ones you're giving a bad name to the more peaceful ones.

There's also the issue that the grand jury was convened before the crime was committed. That's not anything unusual. As said before, grand juries are meant to investigate. Given some kind of hint or warning that this might happen, it's not unusual that they would form some investigative body before the fact. Perhaps just to keep an eye on things, but also perhaps to look for evidence in the hopes they might prevent it from happening.

It's absolutely stupid that you treat this like some special case of abuse of power, since this is all just standard procedure and if it hadn't involved people with political motivations and ways to get their message out and stir up sympathy, then you'd never have said a word. If this had been a murder and these three people were obviously connected to the murderer somehow, but refusing to cooperate with the investigation to protect the murderer, would you be singing the same tune?

I am not a fan of the judicial system, I'm not a fan of the police, I'm not a fan of most of what these people claim to be fighting against, but the judicial system, the police, they're a necessary part of society. The methods they use can sometimes be considered questionable. But in this case, it seems to me they're doing exactly what they should be doing. And the 'anarchists', they're going about things the wrong way.
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Nadaka

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3971 on: October 24, 2012, 09:07:02 am »

They're not being any more secretive about this than any other case would be. The whole thing is being done before a grand jury at this point which has no power at all except to decide whether an actual court should be convened. ...
The problem with your assertion here is that it explicitly DOES NOT match the facts of this case. This grand jury has imprisoned people for failure to out other members of their political organization.
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Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back...
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I turned myself into a monster, to fight against the monsters of the world.

sluissa

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3972 on: October 24, 2012, 09:12:54 am »

They're not being any more secretive about this than any other case would be. The whole thing is being done before a grand jury at this point which has no power at all except to decide whether an actual court should be convened. ...
The problem with your assertion here is that it explicitly DOES NOT match the facts of this case. This grand jury has imprisoned people for failure to out other members of their political organization.

Other members that DID ILLEGAL ACTS. Those three are at best, in contempt of court and at worst, accomplices in a crime. You can't just throw the label "political organization" on something and make anything it does okay.
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Nadaka

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3973 on: October 24, 2012, 09:14:01 am »

They're not being any more secretive about this than any other case would be. The whole thing is being done before a grand jury at this point which has no power at all except to decide whether an actual court should be convened. ...
The problem with your assertion here is that it explicitly DOES NOT match the facts of this case. This grand jury has imprisoned people for failure to out other members of their political organization.

Other members that DID ILLEGAL ACTS. Those three are at best, in contempt of court and at worst, accomplices in a crime. You can't just throw the label "political organization" on something and make anything it does okay.

No. Other members who WHERE NOT EVEN THE CITY THAT THE ILLEGAL ACTS WERE COMMITTED IN.
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Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back...
I don't care cause I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me...

I turned myself into a monster, to fight against the monsters of the world.

MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3974 on: October 24, 2012, 09:15:45 am »

Then they'll be fine. If they weren't even in the city, they can hardly be indicted for crimes committed in the city.
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