Patriot Act: U.S. can seize assets, no conviction required.

[Guest guest]

> M

> Wed, 25 Aug 2004

> U.S. can seize assets, no conviction

required

 

>

> From the Providence Journal:

>

>

http://www.projo.com/sharedcontent/east/patriotact/content/projo_20040710_pa

> tday7x.21fb25.html

>

> U.S. can seize assets, no conviction required

>

> BY GERALD M. CARBONE

> Journal Staff Writer

>

>

> Section 806 of the USA Patriot Act allows the

> president of the United

> States to take the property of anyone who is

> " perpetrating " or " planning "

> terrorism against the country, its people or their

> property.

>

> Any person or group found to be planning to

> commit a criminal and

> dangerous act to coerce government policy could lose

> all assets, regardless

> of whether they actually commit the crime.

>

> In an analysis of the Patriot Act written for

> Congress, Charles Doyle of

> the Library of Congress wrote: " broad as the

> president's war powers may be,

> they would hardly seem to provide a justification

> for section 806, which . .

> . is neither limited to foreign offenders nor

> predicated upon war-like

> hostilities. "

>

> This section of the Patriot Act employs

> " forfeiture of estate, "

> allowing the government to take all property. This

> is unusual in American

> legal tradition, which has historically employed

> " statutory forfeiture, "

> limiting seizure to assets derived from, or used

> for, a crime.

>

> A person whose property is seized under 806 also

> loses the right to pass

> property to heirs, creating what the U.S.

> Constitution calls " the corruption

> of blood. "

>

> Article III of the Constitution protects people

> from punishment for the

> acts of their ancestors.

>

> This is why, Doyle noted in his analysis,

> " President Lincoln insisted

> that the confiscated real estate of Confederate

> supporters should revert to

> their heirs at death. "

>

> Waiving the rules

>

> The Patriot Act also addresses property

> forfeiture in Section 106,

> titled Presidential Authority.

>

> This section says that when the United States is

> " engaged in armed

> hostilities, " the president may seize " any property "

> within U.S.

> jurisdiction from " any foreign person " that the

> president determines has

> aided in " such hostilities. "

>

> This section has its roots in a 1917 law called

> the Trading With the

> Enemy Act, which gave the president power to seize

> assets in any national

> emergency.

>

> This power had been weakened under the 1977

> International Emergency

> Powers Act, which limited it to times of war.

>

> Section 106 of the Patriot Act amends the 1977

> law to restore the

> president's authority to seize property in any

> national emergency.

>

> The Trading with the Enemy Act once involved

> President Bush's family.

>

> In 1942, the U.S. government seized assets of

> the Union Bank because it

> was controlled by Fritz Thyssen, who helped bankroll

> Adolf Hitler's rise to

> power. Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather,

> was a director of that

> bank when the United States seized it.

>

> The government later reimbursed him $1.5 million

> for his single share in

> the bank.

>

> Section 106 also reinforces the government's

> authority to make its case

> for property forfeiture in the secrecy of a judge's

> chambers, and without

> the defendant present.

>

> This section also lets courts waive the Federal

> Rules of Evidence to

> protect national security, permitting hearsay and

> other evidence that might

> normally be inadmissible.

>

> Sections 106 and 806 do not require conviction

> of a property owner for

> the government to seize assets.

>

> Section 106 applies only to foreign-owned

> property, but 806 applies to

> " any individual, " including any American, who the

> government says is

> planning to coerce people or government policy

> through a criminal and

> dangerous act.

>

> Doyle told Congress that besides Article III of

> the Constitution, these

> amendments might violate two of the amendments in

> the Bill of Rights: the

> Eighth Amendment, barring excessive fines, and the

> Fifth Amendment's

> double-jeopardy clause, which applies to forfeitures

> that are so punitive

> " as to negate any presumption of remedial purposes. "

>

> Gerald M. Carbone