The history of conspiracy, according to Justice Robert Jackson, exemplifies the "'tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.' "" This same phenomenon is present today in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO). RICO has moved beyond logic and intent into areas far removed from racketeering. Originally intended to combat organized crime, RICO is used increasingly in ideological disputes. For example, it has been used against abortion clinic protesters and anti-pornography groups. This Article argues that using RICO in ideological disputes is inappropriate and harmful because it results in the chilling of first amendment rights. Indeed, it argues that RICO threatens civil liberties. Part II of the Article describes the legislative history of RICO, shows the intention of Congress to use RICO against organized crime involvement in economic endeavors, and argues that RICO was not meant to encompass non-economic crimes. Part III examines the key statutory provisions of RICO and the Supreme Court's interpretation of these terms that expands RICO's intended scope. Part IV discusses RICO's predicate acts. After a brief description of techniques used by antiabortion organizations to publicize their views, Part V determines which of these methods the first amendment protects. Part VI reviews three illustrative examples of "mixed" conduct and what happens when RICO clashes with the first amendment. Part VII examines situations in which there is "mixed" conduct, some conduct protected by the first amendment, and some that is not, and how the Court has protected against a chilling effect through use of the doctrines of void for vagueness and precision of regulation. Part VIII argues that RICO should not apply to demonstrators on policy grounds. Part IX analyzes the RICO reform proposals currently before Congress and makes some recommendations for change. Part X concludes that RICO should include an exemption for advocacy activity.
In: Ewing , K D , Mahoney , J & Moretta , A 2018 , ' Civil Liberties and the Korean War ' , Modern Law Review , vol. 81 , no. 3 , pp. 395-421 . https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12339
This article addresses the unsuccessful attempts to suppress free speech during the Korean War, and in particular explains the attempts to silence three reporters of alleged atrocities by United Nations forces. In the absence of carefully targeted legislation, the three individuals – Alan Winnington (a journalist), Monica Felton (a women's movement activist) and Jack Gaster (a solicitor) ‐ were threatened with or investigated for prosecution for treason or sedition, and Winnington was unable to renew his passport until 1968. Drawing heavily on archival sources (including MI5 files, which unusually fail to redact the identity of one of the lawyers who was reporting to Special Branch about Gaster's activities), the article explores the threat to civil liberties from the administrative as well as the legislative and the judicial power of the state. The article concludes by drawing contemporary parallels, and highlighting the continuing relevance of the writings of Winnington, Felton and Gaster.
Comments on the role of the first chief justice of Upper Canada, William Osgoode (1754-1824), on shaping the law during a period of "counter-revolutionary and anti-democratic repression throughout the British Empire." Concludes that laws were often presented as emergency legislation that nevertheless effectively became permanent, challenging civil liberties in times of political or social conflict
When the Conservative-led Coalition government was elected in 2010, it was at a time when terrorism had started to decline, both domestically and on a global level. In the UK, only one person1 had been killed as a result of international terrorism since the 2005 London attacks. Globally, after a sharp rise in the mid-2000s, by 2008, the number of terrorist incidents and deaths caused by terrorism had begun to level out.3 And in 2009, the UK's armed forces had withdrawn from military operations in Iraq. At the same time, the Coalition's Programme for Government included a proposal to 'reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion'. It was in these particular circumstances, that on entering office, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May initiated an internal review of the UK's counter-terrorism and security powers. The purpose of the review was to 'look at the issues of security and civil liberties in relation to the most sensitive and controversial counter-terrorism and security powers and, consistent with protecting the public and where possible, to provide a correction in favour of liberty.' The review did indeed lead to the repeal of some of those controversial powers, including control orders,6 stop and search, and the 28 day period of extended pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects.8 The extent to which it actually provided a correction in favour of liberty is somewhat less clear. Control Orders were repealed, but immediately replaced with the only slightly less stringent TPIMs – Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures. The controversial stop and search powers in section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 were repealed, but only after the European Court of Human Rights found that they breached the right to respect for private life in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The maximum period of extended pre-charge detention was reduced from 28 days to 14, albeit the government also laid a Draft Detention of Terrorist Suspects (Temporary Extension) ...
This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).
This article examines the historical origins of civil liberties and shows their importance to systems of government rooted in the principles of representative democracy. It argues that the subject of civil liberties needs to be distinguished from issues related to criminal justice and human rights, and that too broad a deployment of the language of civil liberties can lead to the importance of civil liberties being underappreciated by the wider public. The article considers how the integrity of the language of civil liberties and the representative system of democracy as a whole can be preserved in the face of the strong challenge to these values that has become increasingly apparent since the 9/11 attacks.
The Papers, 1933-1981, of Stetson Kennedy comprise correspondence; subject files on various organizations, individuals, and ideas; typescripts of articles written by Kennedy; newsclippings; press releases; bulletins and fliers; pamphlets; periodicals; and photographs. The subject files pertain to economic conditions, labor and anti-black violence, peace groups, peonage, Southern politicians, Mexico, the Spanish Civil War, and Kennedy's own campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Florida in 1950. Articles, clippings, and pamphlets concern civil rights, international affairs, the Ku Klux Klan, labor (particularly CIO) organizing, and southern politics. The photographs depict WPA work in progress, attacks against Negroes (including lynching), and various organizations. The many periodicals include two issues (1947) of Eugene Talmadge's The Statesman, twenty-one issues (1943-1950) of The Southern Patriot, and eight issues (1939-1943) of Lillian Smith's North Georgia Review. The correspondence covers the period 1935-1979, and includes as correspondents students and peace groups, several committees to aid Spanish loyalists, social reform and civil liberties groups, government agencies, writer's organizations, publishers, literary agents, newspapers and magazines, and the New York Public Library, which obtained some Kennedy manuscripts for its Schomburg Collection in 1952. [L1979-37]
The Papers, 1933-1981, of Stetson Kennedy comprise correspondence; subject files on various organizations, individuals, and ideas; typescripts of articles written by Kennedy; newsclippings; press releases; bulletins and fliers; pamphlets; periodicals; and photographs. The subject files pertain to economic conditions, labor and anti-black violence, peace groups, peonage, Southern politicians, Mexico, the Spanish Civil War, and Kennedy's own campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Florida in 1950. Articles, clippings, and pamphlets concern civil rights, international affairs, the Ku Klux Klan, labor (particularly CIO) organizing, and southern politics. The photographs depict WPA work in progress, attacks against Negroes (including lynching), and various organizations. The many periodicals include two issues (1947) of Eugene Talmadge's The Statesman, twenty-one issues (1943-1950) of The Southern Patriot, and eight issues (1939-1943) of Lillian Smith's North Georgia Review. The correspondence covers the period 1935-1979, and includes as correspondents students and peace groups, several committees to aid Spanish loyalists, social reform and civil liberties groups, government agencies, writer's organizations, publishers, literary agents, newspapers and magazines, and the New York Public Library, which obtained some Kennedy manuscripts for its Schomburg Collection in 1952. [L1979-37]
From Summary: This report discusses recommendations made by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) which include: "creation of a board within the executive branch to oversee adherence to guidelines on, and commitment to defend, civil liberties by the federal government."
[Extract] Queensland has over recent weeks passed a number of laws declaring guilt by association for those who are members of or associate with "criminal" bikie gangs. Twenty-six gangs have been declared criminal organisations but a criminal organisation also includes three or more people who have as their purpose engaging in serious criminal activity. Under amendments to the Criminal Code, participants in a criminal organisation who are "knowingly present" in a public place with two or more other participants in a criminal organisation, are guilty of an offence charged with a minimum sentence of six months to be served "wholly in a correctional facility". A list of addresses – bikie clubhouses (though they are not named as such) – are "prescribed places" under the new laws. It is an offence under the Criminal Code for a member of a criminal organisation to enter any prescribed place. It is also an offence to wear or carry clothing and jewellery marked with the insignia or names of a criminal organisation into licenced premises.
The M. H. Ross Papers contain information pertaining to labor, politics, social issues of the twentieth century, coal mining and its resulting lifestyle, as well as photographs and audio materials. The collection is made up of five different accessions; L2001-05, which is contained in boxes one through 104, L2002-09 in boxes 106 through 120, L2006-16 in boxes 105 and 120, L2001-01 in boxes 120-121, and L2012-20 in boxes 122-125. The campaign materials consist of items from the 1940 and 1948 political campaigns in which Ross participated. These items include campaign cards, posters, speech transcripts, news clippings, rally materials, letters to voters, and fliers. Organizing and arbitration materials covers labor organizing events from "Operation Dixie" in Georgia, the furniture workers in North Carolina, and the Mine-Mill workers in the Western United States. Organizing materials include fliers, correspondence, news articles, radio transcripts, and some related photos. Arbitration files consist of agreements, decisions, and agreement booklets. The social and political research files cover a wide time period (1930's to the late 1970's/early 1980's). The topics include mainly the Ku Klux Klan, racism, Communism, Red Scare, red baiting, United States history, and literature. These files consist mostly of news and journal articles. Ross interacted with coal miners while doing work for the United Mine Workers Association (UMWA) and while working at the Fairmont Clinic in West Virginia. Included in these related files are books, news articles, journals, UMWA reports, and coal miner oral histories conducted by Ross. Tying in to all of the activities Ross participated in during his life were his research and manuscript files. He wrote numerous newspaper and journal articles on history and labor. Later, as he worked for the UMWA and at the Fairmont Clinic, he wrote more in-depth articles about coal miners, their lifestyle, and medical problems they faced (while the Southern Labor Archives has many of Ross's coal mining and lifestyle articles, it does not have any of his medical articles). Along with these articles are the research files Ross collected to write them, which consist of notes, books, and newspaper and journal articles. In additional to his professional career, Ross was adamant about documenting his and his wife's family history in the oral history format. Of particular interest are the recordings of his interviews with his wife's family - they were workers, musicians, and singers of labor and folk songs. Finally, in this collection are a number of photographs and slides, which include images of organizing, coal mining (from the late 19th through 20th centuries), and Appalachia. Of note is a small photo album from the 1930s which contains images from the Summer School for Workers, and more labor organizing. A few audio items are available as well, such as Ross political speeches and an oral history in which Ross was interviewed by his daughter, Jane Ross Davis in 1986. All photographic and audio-visual materials are at the end of their respective series. ; Myron Howard "Mike" Ross was born November 9, 1919 in New York City. He dropped out of school when he was seventeen and moved to Texas, where he worked on a farm. From 1936 until 1939, Ross worked in a bakery in North Carolina. In the summer of 1938, he attended the Southern School for Workers in Asheville, North Carolina. During the fall of 1938, Ross would attend the first Southern Conference on Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama. He would attend this conference again in 1940 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. From 1939 to 1940, Ross worked for the United Mine Workers Non-Partisan League in North Carolina, working under John L. Lewis. He was hired as a union organizer by the United Mine Workers of America, and sent to Saltville, Virginia and Rockwood, Tennessee. In 1940, Ross ran for a seat on city council on the People's Platform in Charlotte, North Carolina. During this time, he also married Anne "Buddie" West of Kennesaw, Georgia. From 1941 until 1945, Ross served as an infantryman for the United States Army. He sustained injuries near the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944. From 1945 until 1949, Ross worked for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, then part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), as a union organizer. He was sent to Macon, Georgia, Savannah, Georgia and to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he worked with the United Furniture Workers Union. He began handling arbitration for the unions. In 1948, Ross ran for United States Congress on the Progressive Party ticket in North Carolina. He also served as the secretary for the North Carolina Progressive Party. Ross attended the University of North Carolina law school from 1949 to 1952. He graduated with honors but was denied the bar on the grounds of "character." From 1952 until 1955, he worked for the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers as a union organizer, first in New Mexico (potash mines) and then in Arizona (copper mines). From 1955 to 1957, Ross attended the Columbia University School of Public Health. He worked for the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund from 1957 to 1958, where he represented the union in expenditure of health care for mining workers. By 1958, Ross began plans for what would become the Fairmont Clinic, a prepaid group practice in Fairmont, West Virginia, which had the mission of providing high quality medical care for miners and their families. From 1958 until 1978, Ross served as administrator of the Fairmont Clinic. As a result of this work, Ross began researching coal mining, especially coal mining lifestyle, heritage and history of coal mining and disasters. He would interview over one hundred miners (coal miners). Eventually, Ross began writing a manuscript about the history of coal mining. Working for the Rural Practice Program of the University of North Carolina from 1980 until 1987, Ross taught in the medical school. M. H. Ross died on January 31, 1987 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. ; Digitization of the M. H. Ross Papers was funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Based on a two-year project launched by the Journal. Its goal was to engage students, faculty, and all members of the wider Osgoode and professional communities in an ongoing discussion about the nature and limits of law, seen through the lens of civil disobedient conduct in a legal polity that had developed mature democratic and civil liberty enhancing institutions. To this end, a variety of panels, seminars, and lectures were organized, beginning in the Fall of 2001. They were interpellated into the law school's curriculum. A culminating event was a conference in the Fall of 2002, to which a select number of scholars, professionals, and activists were invited. The contributions in this collection were generated from this project's activities.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic constitutes not only a danger for public health, but may also threaten civil liberties. Looking at the examples of recent events in Poland and Hungary, the authors argue that governments may misuse pandemic for their political advantage, thus endangering public health. Political decisions taken to stem the spread of pandemics should be limited and strictly proportionate to the situation.