This is pure evil, and morally worse in my opinion than going after Swartz. At least he almost certainly actually violated a law. Trying to fill government coffers by seizing the assets of innocent bystanders is ridiculous.
Based on the information in the article, I cannot see how they can be just to go after him. With that logic they could go after owners of apartment buildings or even arenas (music festivals/shows tend to have people doing drugs there).
Hypothetically, how would you feel if a business owner knowingly profited off of illicit activity while keeping jusssst enough distance between himself and the criminal to say "I didn't see nuthin!"?
THAT is the argument here. Not saying it's totally righteous, but that the theory isn't preposterous and litigating the case isn't absurd.
In this case I think the real failure of the gov't was not taking more aggressive steps at a paper trail. Giving this guy notice, so to speak.
There are special people there that their job is to find such properties so that government can seize them and get some cash from it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5090520
Hard to believe this is happening in America, but here you go, yet another gift that keeps on giving from the War on Drugs, most insane of all American wars.
jkeel|13 years ago
encoderer|13 years ago
THAT is the argument here. Not saying it's totally righteous, but that the theory isn't preposterous and litigating the case isn't absurd.
In this case I think the real failure of the gov't was not taking more aggressive steps at a paper trail. Giving this guy notice, so to speak.
smsm42|13 years ago