Patriot Act Used to Snag Rush Limbaugh?

2003 Insight/News World Communications Inc. /World Net Daily ^ | December 29, 2003 | John Berlau

[joesnuffy]

If we're using the new terrorism money-laundering laws to broaden our tax-cheat powers, that would be a mistake.

-- Paul Rosenzweig, a former Justice Department official and adjunct professor at George Mason University Law School

If these provisions are good enough to go after terrorists, they're good enough to go after drug dealers and child molesters.

-- Mark Corallo, Justice Department spokesman

[backhoe]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1047970/posts
Money Laundering and Mission Creep (most onerous & costly element of Patriot Act engineered by Dems)
Insight Magazine ^ | 26 December 2003 | John Berlau


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1047908/posts
WITH A WHISPER, NOT A BANG (Patriot Act II signed by President on December 13, 2003)
San Antonio Current ^ | 12/24/03 | David Martin

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...if these provisions are good enough to go after terrorists, they're good enough to go after drug dealers and child molesters...

Mission creep, before the ink's dry.

Can you imagine how the PATRIOT Act will be abused, ten years down the track?

[snopercod]

Florida law requires a subpoena, not a warrant, to sieze medical records. And not until an attempt has been made to obtain a release from the victimpatient. Even then, they can't take the entire record - just a list of visits and other non-personal stuff. See this post.

I believe that there is a good chance that the Patriot Act was used to sieze these records.

[philman_36]

The genie is already out of the bottle and there is no way in hell that it's going back in!

[marty60]

Rush caught himself. Don't blame the law. No one wants to give illegal aliens a break (I don't) because they are breaking the law. The problem I have with Rush ( I don't respect him anymore) is that he was paying blackmail money to drug dealers, rather than go to the FBI, and have them put in prison. Now that would have been a really courageous thing to do.

[KarlInOhio]

Can you imagine the Patriot act under Reichsführer President Hillary?

[Byron_the_Aussie]

Yep.

Wacos and Elians, every week.

[buffyt]

Can you imagine a President Hillary? ME NEITHER~

[HankReardon]

Drug addiction is very powerful, trumps all. It sets ones value sytems on it's head. Every addict will violate his personal morality when necessary, doesn't make it right, just a fact. Maybe you can respect Rush for courageously take measures to arrest this physical, mental and spiritual affliction. regardless of what prompted him to do this.

[Hillary's Folly]

Drug addiction is very powerful, trumps all. It sets ones value sytems on it's head. Every addict will violate his personal morality when necessary

This is true, which is why I hope that Rush will finally come around to understanding that no drug addict should be "treated" through the criminal justice system.

[greasepaint]

I would think that, if the warrant is disallowed,
the prosecutors will get a subpoena to look at
Rush's records.

[yoe]

The senatorial offices of Daschle, Sarbanes and Kerry did not return Insight calls asking for their views about the nonterrorism uses of the USA PATRIOT Act provisions they championed, and neither did Kerry's presidential campaign.

Good articles and I've no doubt the facts are correct - it will be interesting to hear the spin if any that 'this is Bush's fault...'.

[Abundy]

But there also are increasing numbers of prosecutions in which a money-laundering charge appears to be added just to beef up cases where the underlying charges are minor, say critics. In a case to which Meese points that now is on appeal to the Supreme Court, money-laundering charges were added to the weak "environmental-crime" case of David McNab. The fisherman was charged in 2000 with violating the Lacey Act, which makes it a crime to "import fish or wildlife taken in violation ... of any foreign law."

The foreign law in question was a Honduran regulation that made it a crime to harvest lobsters with tails less than 5.5 inches long. While Honduran government officials testified that the law actually was null and void, and only about 3 percent of McNab's lobsters had tails less than 5.5 inches, prosecutors somehow convinced the courts that McNab's depositing of the proceeds of this "crime" in his bank account constituted money laundering.

Heritage's Rosenzweig and civil-liberties groups, such as NACDL, have signed a letter urging the Supreme Court to hear the case and free McNab, who has spent the last four years in prison. (The Justice Department had no comment on McNab's case.)

4 years for depositing money? WTF.

So who will they charge next with "structuring," the older couple who start giving Christmas gifts to their 6 children from the money they saved all their lives in the amount $9,999?

Oh, and I like that statist biatch who thinks that people who don't want the government to know what they are doing with their money should be charged with a crime....

[ConservativeMan55]

Rush Ping!

Freepmail me if you would like on/off the Rush Pinglist! Search for the latest Rush Limbaugh news on Free Republic. Limbaugh Prosecutor a Janet Reno Democrat Lawyers accuse maid of blackmail. Limbaugh takes off the gloves! Limbaugh medical records ordered resealed! ACLU Offers Help to Limbaugh Rush Limbaugh Question.... Kendall Coffey Comments on the Rush Limbaugh Case Rush Limbaugh.com

[TheFrog]

Re:"Can you imagine how the PATRIOT Act will be abused, ten years down the track?" Can you imagine how Reno would have used it against Gun Owners. The thing to remember is chances are in 2008 there will be a Reno clone!

[E.G.C.]

Bump in support of Rush!!!!!!

[jmc813]

WOD Ping

[Captain Kirk]

Your statement about addiction is mythology and invitation to victimology. The most addictive drug of all is tobacco and thousands of people quite each year. In fact, there are more ex-smokers in the U.S. than smokers. How did they quit if addiction makes people so "helpless?"

People who smoke, drink, and use other drugs on a habitual basis are not slaves, and you keep excusing if you are argue that they are.

[ConservativeMan55]

Bump back at ya in support of Rush!