Minority Report and Rand Paul

[frank scarangello]

 

 

Remember the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report" released in 2002? Sure it seemed liked science fiction at the time.

Washington D. C. is virtually crime free in the year 2054 due to the effectiveness of the "Pre-Crime Unit". This unit arrests and jails individuals before they even commit the crime thus sparing society from the scourge of lawlessness.

How is it determined who will commit a crime in the future? A crime that hasn’t happened yet?

Why the "pre-cogs"- pre-cognitives provide the names of future criminals. The pre-cogs are three gifted humans who can see the future, give the information to the Pre-Crime Unit so that hero Tom can go out and sweep these pre-criminals off the street..

Being a pre-criminal can make jury trials and those pesky constitutional issues a major annoyance. After all, no crime has a yet been committed so the system can’t exactly charge the perp with any wrong-doing. There may be some circumstantial evidence of a pre-crime but maybe not.

The system can be made to work however if the "people" can be convinced that the pre-cogs are always right and that their information is the only accusation needed. No one has to actually see the pre-cogs or their information. One need only believe that the pre-cogs exist, their information is received and interpreted by those we can trust and the information is always correct. No other evidence is needed.

Thereafter, in the name of public safety, the "people" support sweeping the pre-perps off the streets.

Silly eh?

Last year  US Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated the administration's support for their controversial program of secretly targeting US citizens for execution without notifying them of the accusations against them, officially charging them with a crime or offering them the opportunity to respond. Since the whole world is a battlefield in the vague 'war on terror,' the only due process afforded to someone who has been targeted for extrajudicial execution is a secret 'review' by the executive branch.

A. G. Holder and the "Justice" Department had consistently refused to release the legal memoranda outlining the basis for this "due process"

As Salon writer Glenn Greenwald put it: "the 'process' which Eric Holder argued constitutes "due process" as required by the Fifth Amendment before the government can deprive someone of their life: the President and his underlings are your accuser, your judge, your jury and your executioner all wrapped up in one, acting in total secrecy and without your even knowing that he's accused you and sentenced you to death, and you have no opportunity even to know about, let alone confront and address, his accusations.

Now the Administration is arguing it has the legal right to use drone strikes within the borders of the United States against American citizens under "extraordinary circumstances", such circumstances as yet undefined to congress, the courts or the public.  I guess the President has the sole power to define "extraordinary".

The government of the United States has killed American citizens far from the battlefield essentially arguing that the "pre-cogs" had predicted that this individual was going to do bad things or had actually done bad things. These individuals have been killed without charges or evidence in a public forum.

Now few if anyone got their hackles up over the killing of Anwar al Aulaqi, the American Iman in Yemen accused of being an Al-Qaeda chieftain (presumably we only kill American citizens who are Al Qaeda agents) although he was killed in a drone strike far from any battlefield, without public charges or due process, a right accorded to any American citizen.  Oh well.

 But what about the killing of his 16 year old son, born in Denver just two weeks later?   Was he an Al Qaeda agent too or just "collateral damage"?

If left unchallenged, this secretive program could continue to expand under Obama and future presidents, and further erode America's most basic principles of justice. Does anyone think that a sitting President ever gives up powers of the Office left to him by previous Presidents?  I mean if he can kill you, he can certainly arrest you and hold you in a camp.

Today, this very day, guys armed with automatic weapons and dressed in kevlar could break down your door and whisk you away under Presidential order without public charges, without the right to face your accuser (the pre-cogs!), without the right to trial, habeas corpus or judicial due process - all under the umbrella of "protecting Americans" and fighting future "terrorism".  And then they can water board you.

Seems kind of vague to me.

Now one would think that true conservatives would also find such actions unacceptable. Unfortunately I have heard no cries of outrage from Dems or Repubs other than from the likes of Firedoglake, which we all know is one of those "commie, pinko, leftie, librul" slug organizations. 

Until yesterday.   Rand Paul filibustered over the issue of using drones on U. S. soil.  It's about time but will probably be of little consequence.

At one poont he asked "What will be the standard for how we kill Americans in America?"  Good question.

 I rarely if ever agree with Paul but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Conservatives  should think back to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and those nice "re-education" camps. Right wingers are not exempt from identification by the pre-cogs.

In this day and age does anyone NOT believe there are people who would gladly man the watch towers of the camps? That there are people with POWER who would set these camps up and put you in them if they could?

"Oh Toritto! You are being so melodramatic! Nobody is gonna be breaking down my door!".

I see little difference between a President who claims the authority to sweep you off the street and make you disappear and the divine Tiberias.

Oppression always starts slow.

Reading this may be drawing pre-cog attention your way at this very moment.

[Veronica Corso]

I've been trying to get a handle on this issue. Your post filled in many of the blanks.

[JMac1949 Memories]

Frank, I'll reiterate my comments from Koshersalami's post here and Libbyliberal's post on Open Salon:

Rand Paul may be a wingnut but when he's going after Obama's hypothetical legal justifications for Drone attacks against US citizens on US soil, he ignores the day to day realities of law enforcement here in the Good Ole USA.  These are some questions I asked in a comment on Libbyliberal's Rand Paul filibuster post over on Open Salon: Would Rand Paul filibuster Obama's nominee for US Attorney if that attorney sanctioned the death of an American citizen by a police sniper in a helicopter who'd just witnessed the death of his partner at the hands of that citizen? Or justified the shooting death of a driver through the wind shield of a pick up truck pinned into a parking space by a police officer who only needed to step three feet to his left to avoid any danger to himself? Or how about the fusillade than killed a seventy something black woman who was brandishing a screwdriver on a sidewalk in broad daylight in Los Angeles?  It happened and I watched it happen on TV and ultimately none of the officers involved were disciplined, because these incidents were considered "clean shoots."

Perhaps a nonsequitor but does anybody remember the name  Trayvon Martin?  Zimmerman's about to walk away clean because the prosecution just told the judge that the young woman who claimed she was on the phone with Martin when he encountered George Zimmerman lied.  I wonder what Paul Rand has to say about that?

[frank scarangello]

jmac - No, I am sure Rand Paul would not have filibustered based on the realities of law enforcement today - and no one else has either.

I consider Rand Paul a bit of a kook - but as I said, even a broken clock is right twice a day.  I did it for the publicity and for his 2016 Presidential primary run.  But he brought some attention to the issue by filibustering the old fashioned way.

And yes, living here in Florida I remember Treyvon Martin - and I wrote about him extensively on O/S when he was killed.

Regards,

Frank

 

 

[frank scarangello]

Veronica - glad I helped.  Regards, Frank

[JMac1949 Memories]

Just sent this PM to Frank and thought it might be a good idea to post it as a supplementary comment: I went back and read my comment and I guess it can be read as condescending... didn't mean it to be, just got carried away with the rhetoric.  To tell the truth, if you could get past his abrasive personality, a lot of Rand Paul's Libertarian confrontational rhetoric makes much more sense than the lame sound bites that a lot of Dems and Republicans spew out for broadcast news consumption.  There are some big issues that need to be put on the table over the next few years, and the abrogation of due process in a huge one.  I just hope that Obama can find some way to get this stuff out into some kind of open, public debate.  Sorry if it read like I was talking down to anyone.

[frank scarangello]

Jmac - Please believe me when I say that I did not consider your comment condescending at all.   It is not.  No need for any sort of "apologies".

Best regards and thanks for reading and commenting.

Frank