Somewhat, I think. I think a good way to judge a society is by how it treats its worst citizens. Holding someone without a fair trial is bad if you say your core value is that all people deserve a fair trial. Arresting someone without a warrant is bad if you say that the police is not the judge, jury, and executioner.
However, there is a difference here in frequency/intensity. My great grandfather's brother was innocent as far as I can tell. He held a fairly high city-level position as a factory manager, so when he spent enough years in his job someone decided that he got a little too comfortable and might nt fall in line if push came to shove (remember this was Stalin, the paranoid maniac bank robber who killed tens of millions of people for fear of being replaced). This kind of stuff does not happen in the US. You have to piss someone off at the Federal level to get on a kill list. Bad mouthing the government is still fine so long as you do not leak actual facts.
While I agree we've seen worse regimes in history, I'm not sure we've seen much worse "democracies" in recent memory.
Circumstantial evidence is apparently now enough to both be disappeared and assassinated (never mind the collateral damage). No judge, no jury. This isn't the rule of law any more.
Add to all this the fact that we can now assume the NSA possess comprehensive evidence that could be used to indite major financial institutions in the wake of 2008 -- and yet that is seemingly impossible. The fact that "it's not quite as bad as Iraq was under Saddam Hussein, only with less government health care" -- isn't a very strong argument.
"So the poor and the ignorant go to jail
while the rich go to San Clemente"
-- We Beg your Pardon America
Gil Scott-Heron, 1975
Circumstantial evidence is perfectly legal and does get many people convicted every day. One piece may not be enough, but you get supporting evidence and you have your case --it's a very basic tool.
Indicting savvy bad bankers is very very hard. That and when the investigative ranks (those who understand the intricacies of finance law, etc.) are reduced to a fraction of what they were makes it even more difficult.
I should've made an effort to make two distinct points:
1) killing someone over circumstantial evidence alone is questionable
2) killing someone based on unilateral interpretation of any evidence (as opposed to the result of a verdict from a court) is questionable
Other than that: Are you seriously arguing that it is harder to verify if someone conspired to defraud, assuming the NSA could provide rich evidence of both communication and content, than it is to prove that someone is conspiring to do harm?
That is: in the latter case you (would/should) have to prove intent before any crime is committed (and that a crime is likely to be committed) -- while in the latter case you would only have to be able to document the most likely path that led to recorded events taking place? You're even able to document profit, in the case of the banks.
I agree with your points 1 & 2. It's questionable.
to the other point, yes. Securities laws, from what I can tell, are very convoluted. Even experts find it hard to tell when one enters or exits the grey areas. In addition, in 2008, there were other considerations to take. Until, I know better, I don't think the NSA is allowed to use whatever information they have, to prosecute domestic crimes. They may 'tip off' the SEC, etc. but the SEc must gather their own info and evidence. Also, it's not as if the NSA are experts in Securities. They look for physical threats rather than soft threats to the economy/population.
IgorPartola, it's not about where we're at at the moment, it's about where we're going, and currently, that doesn't seem to be a good place.
No, this isn't Stalinist Russia, but the question is, if we continue down this route, could we BECOME Stalinist Russia, or something similar? I think that the consensus on that is definitely yes. Intimidation of journalists, secretive detainment, interrogation and assassination, the USA is definitely headed down a dark path.
I cautiously agree. The government watching people is a very bad thing. It should be the other way around.
However, I want to emphasize that if you invoke the slippery slope argument, you better realize that the slope is very very slight. Instead, I think it makes sense to talk about things on a case by case basis. For example "NSA does more harm than good" is a more rational and direct argument than "NSA is the coming of Stalin to America".
On top of this, there is the big picture: the US's largest export is weapons. This leads to a lot of people hating the US, which leads to terrorism. That leads to counterterrorism in the form of drones and spy agencies. Even if the US made nice with the various governments around the world that do not like us, we would be stifling our main export, so there is no incentive to do that.
