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evil_lurker
National Hazard
Posts: 767
Registered: 12-3-2005
Location: United States of Elbonia
Member Is Offline
Mood: On the wagon again.
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Well by no means am I an expert in law, in this country or otherwise.
All that I do know, is that in the USA you are presumed guilty until you can post bail money up until the court reaches a verdict. And, that drug
"sting" operations, which I and most of the population would deem "entrapment" is par for the course with law enforcement and furthermore sanctioned
by the courts... I would even go as far as to say that is their primary modus operendi.
The thing which was once known as "privacy" no longer exists, having been slowly whittled away by court rulings and new laws such as the Patriot
Act... privacy has essentially been replaced with anominity simply because there is not enough people to dig thru the mountains of information
contained in countless databases.
Bitch if you want to, but thats the way it works. You can tell that to the 1 in 100 adult americans currently behind prison or jail bars or if you
lump all the justice system together the other approximate 1 in 30 that are currently behind bars, on probation, or parole.
The costs of the american justic system are staggering. Lets say it costs approximately $35,000 per year on average to house an inmate. If on average
1 in 100 adults of the population are incarcerated, that comes out to around $350 (probably somewhat less considering fines and what not) each adult
taxpayer has to shell out to maintain the prison system.
Give it another 5 or 6 years of massive deficit spending, a collapsed economy, huge national debt and I bet the USA will start reducing sentencing
guidlines and/or see the return of federal parol and "safety valve" releases.
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in
beer.
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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
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Just because you choose to callsomething entrapment does not make it entrapment. Entrapment has specific and rather narrow meaning in law. Lots of
people scream entrapment without knowing what entrapment is and is not.
LSD25, I think the language is "case(d) to be imported into the United States" and that has nothing to do with the Internet or Internet case law,
recent or otherwise. Nor contracts law. They shipped contraband to the US. They shipped a LOT of contraband to the US MANY TIMEs to the tune of
c.$450,000. They allegedly knew that the contraband red P was going to be used for making meth, they were in possession of articles on such use. So
any claim that they were selling pyrotechnics hobby materials and were ignorant of drug applications is at best feeble. God only knows what telephone
conversations were recorded (lawfully) and what testimony will be introduced by coconspirators turned government witnesses (to get themselves off the
hook or plea bargained.) But make no mistake about it. These people are in deep shit and the case will not turn on distance-sales business law,
Internet law, contracts law, or anything else but the US Criminal Code and the Code of Federal Regulations and the criminal case law surrounding
similar cases in the past.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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LSD25
Hazard to Others
Posts: 239
Registered: 29-11-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: Psychotic (Who said that? I know you're there...)
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Rather disingenius, even obfuscatory, reply for mine - of course the case, once they are extradited to the United States, will turn on the criminal
law of the United States, that is hardly the point and quite frankly, is pretty much precisely what I was warning against if you read the original
statement and the first reply.
The basic premise of what I was saying was not that criminal conduct would be measured by something other than the ordinary criminal law of the
relevant jurisdiction, but rather went to which jurisdiction could assert 'ownership' of conduct which was not criminal in some other jurisdiction
(such as the geographical location in which the conduct took place).
The issue is that similarly to the suggested problem, they engaged in an activity which was not illegal in the UK - namely the export of pyrotechnic
supplies - without recourse to the law of conspiracy, which is not at issue in this aspect of the case - and are consequently charged not with the
legal export of a chemical from one jurisdiction but the illegal import of the same into another jurisdiction, despite there being no evidence that
they ever exerted or attempted to exert control over the same in that jurisdiction.
While the link between the KNO3 case and internet publication law may be somewhat too tenuous for you to see in this context, although I am willing to
suggest that it will most certainly be prominent, surely the law relating to the publication of material on the internet being held to have occured
wherever such material is accessed and/or downloaded is somewhat more easily linked to the publication of material on the internet?
Now, what happens when both the publication and the access are illegal in the place where the access takes place? The publication, which is illegal,
is deemed to have taken place in that jurisdiction, surely this is not too complex for you? Thus the publisher (the forum and the administrator's
thereof once they are able to be held to have been aware of the existence of the same) is liable for the illegal publication of material and allowing
access to the same in a jurisdiction other than the one they are in.
The USA/UK both have very cosy extradition treaties with Australia and extradition is almost assured. This is because a publisher is taken to be aware
of the reach of the medium in which the publication took place and to have intended to have published the material in the jurisdictions in which it
was published, thus they are taken to have intended to be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions (the majority opinion in Berezovsky v Forbes
& Gutnick v Dow Jones are both on point in this respect).
Freedom of speech in countries without Constitutional protection of the same is a far lesser protection than it is in the USA, and is of no value
whatsoever when it can be shown that both the publication and the receipt of the information is specifically prohibited by law (laws are prima facie
manifestations of the public interest, thus things done contrary to the same are ipso facto contrary to the public interest).
This is not complex legal theory, it is fairly straightforward, the application of the law to the facts. This is the difficulty posed by
multi-jurisdictional publications such as the internet facilitates. The degree of argument before the High Court of Australia in Gutnick v Dow Jones
(they allowed numerous other parties to intervene) suggests that the High Court will be less than willing to revisit the correctness or otherwise of
their decision in the near future.
By the way, the issue the topic was originally aimed at - the use of requests for information as a means of gianing evidence of an offence committed
solely because of the original solicitation of the same by police, is entrapment and falls well within the legal definition of the same.
Whhhoooppps, that sure didn't work
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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
Member Is Offline
Mood: metastable
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Bullshit. Have you been retained to write a brief for the defense? Why are you characterizing red P as "pyrotechnic supplies" when it is obvious that
they KNEW that the buyers were overwhelmingly engaging in methamphetamine production? I'd be surprised if more than a trivial percentage of their red
P sales were for any other purpose. To maintain otherwise is simple dunderheaded. You can't rack up $450,000 of sales of red P at outrageous prices
for "pyrotechnic purposes" but you can, and they did, for drug cookery. Frankly I have no sympathy for them at all, and hope they rot in prison for a
good long while. They DESERVE to.
Their business depended on red P being proscribed in USA, if it was not, and freely available at ordinary prices, NO ONE would have bought any red P
at inflated prices from a UK seller and paid transatlantic shipping. NO ONE.
So stop with the hearts and flowers. These people thought they were legally untouchable by Uncle Sam and that John Bull would embrace and protect
them. THEY WERE MISTAKEN.
Your "legal theories" hold water about as well as a coarse sieve. You are attempting to raise the specter of a draconian prosecutorial ability by
Australia to pluck Americans from their hearths and homes and do them for "thought crimes" in Oz, but the extradition treaty between US and Australia
also requires that the crime be a crime under US law, which in regard to possession or publication of information CANNOT be so.
So your chimerical legal bogeyman evaporates.
You don't seem to appreciate that the silly-ass Aussie law you cite makes libraries, publishers of scientific and technical references and journals,
government patent offices including Australia's own, universities, and so on, liable, criminally, because all of those publish instructions on how to
make controlled substances, and have done for a hundred years and more. The Australian prisons will be crowded, and the court dockets backed up, won't
they? Who's first? Wiley? RSC? The ACS? The Library of Congress of the US Patent & Trademark Office? Elsevier? Thieme? Come ONB. Your cute little
Ozzie legal fiction is not worth the peper and ink. It is STUPID.
By the way I do not believe there is a single paragraph you have written in this entire thread that is not disingenuous and obfuscatory.
I am wondering if you ever take a breath that is not disingenuous and obfuscatory.
I am through bandying words with you. It is a waste of time.
[Edited on 6-5-2008 by Sauron]
[Edited on 6-5-2008 by Sauron]
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
Posts: 1554
Registered: 19-9-2007
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Suspicious
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| Quote: | | which in regard to possession or publication of information CANNOT be so. |
Yes, constitutionally. But take into consideration the direction that abiding by the constitution is headed. IMO, the fact that firearms must now
have a "sporting purpose" is proof. Not to mention the abuses in the PATRIOT Act.
| Quote: | | Frankly I have no sympathy for them at all, and hope they rot in prison for a good long while. They DESERVE to. |
I disagree. But then again I don't believe someone should "rot in prison for a long time" unless they murder, rape or maim another human being. I
don't consider selling drug precursors, even for the purpose of manufacturing said drugs, one of those three things. Because, ultimately, it is the
drug abuser's choice of whether or not to use the drugs and thus possibly destroy his life. We don't hold Anheuser-Bush or Glock (although some try)
accountable for deaths related to their products even though they are much higher for alcohol and firearms than methamphetamine. The sentence should
fit the crime. And IMO, the sentences in the case of methamphetamine are overinflated.
Besides it being illegal (jaywalking is illegal) what is the logical basis we have for throwing drug manufacturers in jail and throwing away the key?
Is it that they (in a roundabout way that technically, should be the user's fault) destroy people's lives? Okay, well, so does alcohol and tobacco
and to a greater extent, so we obviously can't use that argument. So, what is it?
I don't mean to stand up for drug manufacturers but what's right is right and I will always stand on the side of logic instead of emotion.
My emotions say to throw all the meth cooks in a giant hole. Logic, however, tells me they should be treated no different then big alcohol or
tobacco. I mean there's a pharmaceutical company that makes methamphetamine. What if a person were to destroy their lives with their product, would
they be liable? (Rheotorical question. I know they won't be because it's not illegal. I'm talking beyond what is illegal and legal. What makes
sense.) Or what about the many people who destroy their lives with adderall (prescription amphetamine, I have seen this almost as often as
methamphetamine life destruction)? When do we start throwing the CEOs of these companies in jail?
[Edited on 5-6-2008 by MagicJigPipe]
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Pulverulescent
National Hazard
Posts: 793
Registered: 31-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Torn between two monikers ─ "hissingnoise" and the present incarnation!
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| Quote: | | Logic, however, tells me they should be treated no different then big alcohol or tobacco. |
MJP, you've brought us right to the rotten core of prohibitions on substances which are used for recreational purposes!
They're fundamentally illogical, and based partially on some kind of dubious religious moral ground which stands very little scrutiny.
As long as drug cooks don't set out to actually poison people they're doing nothing wrong, as far as I'm concerned.
At least the WOT has some legitimacy, give that 9/11 did happen.
The WOD is an ongoing tradegy for millions of people!
P
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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It looks like this is turning into a broad politics thread. I have many legal/political grievances too but I decided some time ago that Sciencemadness
is not served by airing them here. Please start a fresh thread if there is a sub-topic of relevance to hobby chemists that merits further discussion.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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