[IMC-Editorial] Letter on Injustice Against Waksal and Stewart

[ARI Media]

Dear Editor:

Sam Waksal's criminal sentencing to seven years and a multi-million
dollar fine, and Martha Stewart's status in judicial purgatory,
indicted for "lying" about her innocence, demonstrates that America
has turned 180 degrees away from its founding principles.

The laws under which these two have been charged and persecuted are
precisely the kinds of laws--general warrants and writs of
assistance--that were debated and declared unconstitutional not only
in many pre-Revolutionary colonial courts, but by Charles Pratt, Lord
Camden, who was chief justice of Britain's Court of Common Pleas, in
1765!

When our own Constitution was being framed some 20 years later,
general warrants, which allowed the government to arrest someone
without specifying charges, and writs of assistance, which allowed
government agents to search one's property on mere suspicion of
violating a commercial or fiat law, and who were indemnified against
any suits for damages, were not incorporated anywhere in the
Constitution by the Founders, who abhorred them. These extralegal
powers constituted one of the reasons Americans began a revolution! 

Sincerely,

Edward Cline, Ayn Rand Institute
2121 Alton Parkway, #250
Irvine, CA  92606
United States
949-222-6550 ext. 226
media at aynrand.org

Please let me know if you decide to publish my letter. Thank you.

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