Democracy for Vancouver

And in a bad way…

In a little-noticed executive order issued on Tuesday, President Bush directed the Treasury Department to block the U.S.-based financial assets of anyone deemed to have threatened “the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq” or who “undermin(e) efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq.”

The order empowers Treasury, in consultation with the State and Defense Departments, to target those individuals or organizations that either “have committed, or … pose a significant risk of committing” acts of violence with the “purpose or effect” of harming the Iraqi government or hindering reconstruction efforts. It applies to “U.S. persons,” a category including American citizens. It had not previously been disclosed — and still hasn’t — that U.S. persons are abetting the Iraqi insurgency, nor that Iraqi insurgents have property in the United States, raising questions about who in fact the order targets.

“The part where they reserve lots of discretion to themselves is the list of conditions that goes beyond determination of acts of violence. ‘Threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq,’ that could be anything,” says Ken Mayer, an expert in executive orders and a University of Wisconsin political scientist. “Think of the possibilities: it could be charities that send a small amount of money (to groups linked to) the insurgency, or it could be the government of Iran that has assets in the U.S. and has money that flows through a U.S. bank or something like that.”

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It’s hard to say at this point how this will be implemented, but obviously opens the door to even further abuses of our rights. Who will be deemed enemies of the state and have their assets seized as in the Endless War On Drugs?
This administration continues to set policy and precedents that erode every freedom granted by our Founding Fathers. We will be decades unraveling this mess.