7 ms·

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that

• matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.
  • madaxe_again 10y ago
    Deleted as I thought better than posting this retrospectively. Sorry.
    • micaksica 10y ago
      > Of course, from the outside it looks like he was just some Bad Man. Even the prime minister went on the news to condemn him. This is a lot of obfuscation. What happened here? How did they smear him? > From the external actions of the characters who oversee the legal professionals who are drafted into service in these secret systems, they definitely have their own, uh, interpretation of law and ethics. I am friends with some ex-IC guys; from their stories they appear closed in rank more than police, and are indoctrinated to the point that they see themselves as the paladins of American values and democracy. In reality, they are usually only upholding the interests of the powerful, where corporate interest and political value coincide, and those with real power know and reinforce this. To see this is too much cognitive dissonance for the ones that aren't secretly there just because they get off on the power. The paranoia and the power trip are good at reinforcing the "us vs. everyone" mentality that we know is pretty dangerous psychologically.
  • vertex-four 10y ago
    The Constitution is a piece of paper, and might influence certain parts of Government to some degree, the same as any other piece of paper. But the beliefs of the people are what really matters. And if the people don't actually entirely agree with the Constitution to the point that they're willing to fight for it and drag their representatives out of Government over it, it's as useless as any other piece of paper.
    • lettergram 10y ago
      Have you ever tried to get a group of people to protest anything? Like seriously, the black lives matter are more effective, than people regarding the NSA, privacy, or encryption. Even though some of the stuff we know about the government is WAY scarier.
      • vertex-four 10y ago
        The issue is more that there's an incredible amount of people who just don't care about the Constitution. Or pretty much anything else that isn't affecting them in a really direct way right that moment in time. And so, in giving a democratic Government ridiculous amounts of power, we give it power to harm pretty much any minority it chooses, so long as it doesn't piss off too many other people.
      • bdavisx 10y ago
        Not to downplay the NSA issues -- but it's a lot scarier for a black/brown person to realize their life can be ended when they get stopped for having a tail light out.
        • kbenson 10y ago
          Yes. As these things go, every day existential threats generally trump threats to our liberty. I can't fault anyone for that.
        • lettergram 10y ago
          I do agree that people will think that way, but it's actually not scarier. Giving the government the power it has, implies the government can basically do what ever it want. It has secret courts, secret arrests, and secret police. That is way more horrifying than the very small risk of being shot - which the numbers don't even fully support that it's getting worse, unjustified, or even preventable. I recommend the Through the Wormhole episode: are we all bigots?). That being said, I do think we whould always be wary of police and generally question the government. It's important we keep into perspective what's actually a threat and whats just unfortunate. Both should be improved, but one (the NSA) can prevent any sort of improvement, the police shooting rate seems to be more of an over reaction and mistake that almost everyone agrees should be fixed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a... http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/are-we-all-bigots/ http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/...
  • dogma1138 10y ago
    "Secret" arrests are fairly common, they are often used daily when you need to arrest a large group of people without them scattering. Say you have 5 arrests warrants for members of a gang, you often can't arrest them all the once so here is where the "secret" comes into play when they are arrested and the arrest is maintained confidential for 24-48 hours depending on the jurisdiction. This is done to prevent the rest from scattering into hiding as soon as the news of one or more of them getting arrested breaks, this also means they won't hold down somewhere and be ready for a fight, or even go and do something worse like take hostages in order to try to get out of dodge. This also means that in some rights are withheld for the duration of the "gag order" like access to a phone or an attorney, however the police is not allowed to question or formally charge the subjects during that period either, so while there is some violation of rights it is not egregious.
    • jbapple 10y ago
      This arrest happened in late August, it seems. Has SCOTUS set limits on how long prisoners can be held secretly?
      • dogma1138 10y ago
        Criminal justice gags are usually hours to days depending on the case. The longer ones are usually to protect the arrestee if they are being put into protective custody / witness protection or are released as an informant. Since this is national security related who knows, I don't even know if these cases have been brought up to the supreme court before.
      • fredgrott 10y ago
        if its a computer access break-in FED law states 90 days notice..while not directly applying it would seem if someone was caught on illegal access after 90 days FEDs would have to let both the criminal know and theri lawyer so arrest would no longer be secret at thatpoint.
      • pjlegato 10y ago
        Yes, unsurprisingly there is an enormous amount of case law on this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_St...
  • M_Grey 10y ago
    Then you haven't been paying attention to legal precedents set since the late 70's, and think that you can hide behind a devalued piece of paper that courts and politicians and LEO's have been shitting on for decades.
  • mtgx 10y ago
    I guess you haven't heard of this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...
  • thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own. To be fair, what if two people did that and disagreed?
• jonknee 10y ago
  According to the complaint the search happened August 29th so this has been ongoing for a while. Very curious.
• sandworm101 10y ago
  The procedure involves jailing someone under a false name, at least on the paperwork. It isn't that unusual and is normally used in organized crime cases. The arrest is done under the guise of arresting a "material witness" rather than an accused criminal. Doing this bypasses various protections (lawyers, hearings etc) for a significant period of time. The use of false names is to protect the "witness" from intimidation. The suspect is then re-arrested on criminal charges while in custody once the need to keep him secret is over. An infamous case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield
• tptacek 10y ago
  I'm guessing it just means the indictment is sealed, and maybe (but probably not) that the accused and their counsel are under some kind of gag order. There's no statute or authority or even articles at ACLU or in law journals I can find that suggest that federal law enforcement can detain US citizens without counsel in "secret arrests", or, for that matter, suspend habeas. Obviously: they can do that. But it's a very big deal when they do. They had to back off charges from Jose Padilla because of how they mishandled that case.
  • joering2 10y ago
    good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012#cite_note-56 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization... ... under the NDAA "an American citizen can be detained forever without trial, while the allegations against you go uncontested because you have no right to see them"
    • tptacek 10y ago
      The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda.
      • dragonwriter 10y ago
        > The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda. No, they don't either in principal (the application in the text is much broader than specifically al-Qaeda -- it includes al-Qaeda, the Taliban, "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners", and other who commit a belligerent act against the US or its coalition partners that is seen to be "in aid to" those organizations), nor in practice, because the specific allegations justifying the detention need not be disclosed, nor even the specific detention publicly disclosed, and detentions under the act, while they permit trial by military tribunal, do not require any juridical process or access to counsel to be provided -- that's rather the point of indefinite detention -- there's essentially no practical boundary to their application (if some sympathetic third party becomes aware of the detention, its possible they might be the subject of habeas corpus proceedings, which would require some showing that there was reason to believe that the person was within the fairly broad scope in the text of the act, but that's by no means a certainty in any particular detention.)
• elif 10y ago
  It is legally an indefinite detention pending formal charges, but due to the nature of "indefinite," those charges never have to actually exist. It performed under section 1021 of the original National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA 2012), which has been upheld as constitutional by an appellate court, a ruling which the supreme court declined to subsequently hear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • mikecb 10y ago
    This is not a detention under the NDAA. This case has nothing to do with the NDAA. Further, Obama's signing statement of that law stated that his Administration believed such provision to be unnecessary and unconstitutional: "Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law." Hedges v. Obama did not affirm the constitutionality of that law, but rather that that plaintiff did not have a sufficient interest in that provision in order to ensure that they would present the best case that can be made, which is important because US Court's follow precedent. If you'd like to read more, look for the constitutional requirement of Standing.