The last refuge of a scoundrel

[Requia ☣]

Same as every other dual body legislation, both have to approve it or it doesn't happen.

[Cain]

@Cain: as if obeying the law wasn't able to cover pretty much everything, damn i'm pretty sure that in most countries just knowing the law is impossible.

Very true.  I know more than the average person (I have a depressing habit of reading legislation) and even then I dont know enough.  I suspect that is the point.  Passing so many laws no-one knows whether they are guilty or innocent would seem the perfect tool of control.  It would mean that, faced with authority, most people would be uncertain, perhaps labouring under some level of guilt, and fear.  Because they think they are innocent....but they cannot be certain.

[Jack of Turnips]

In the USA some trials are now decided by the fact that the evidence must remain secret.

In other words, the state can defeat you in court just by invoking secrecy.

The next step is to make knowing about the secrecy laws illegal. That will follow from the already-established logic that knowing that something exists threatens the state by allowing opponents to develop effective counter-strategies.

Then you will be convicted not only on secret evidence, but on the basis of laws which you are legally prohibited from knowing about.

That is the same thing as totalitarianism. The state has total control. Challenging the state is impossible.

~~ Jack of Turnips

[LMNO]

In the USA some trials are now decided by the fact that the evidence must remain secret.

[citation needed]

[East Coast Hustle]

patriotism discordianism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

fixed.

[Cain]

A qualitively better sort of scoundrel, however.

Also, I believe certain pieces of evidence are kept secret in drug trials, terrorism trials and anything involving national security.

[LMNO]

Well, yes, but I was looking for a citation where the trial was decided because the evidence was secret.  As in, "if the evidence is secret, then you are guilty."

[Requia ☣]

Very true.  I know more than the average person (I have a depressing habit of reading legislation) and even then I dont know enough.  I suspect that is the point.  Passing so many laws no-one knows whether they are guilty or innocent would seem the perfect tool of control.  It would mean that, faced with authority, most people would be uncertain, perhaps labouring under some level of guilt, and fear.  Because they think they are innocent....but they cannot be certain.

I know enough about the law here to know I'm a felon, at least once over.

Also, evidence that is secret from the public, or evidence that is secret from the defendent?  (I'm going to assume it's not so horrific as to be secret from the judge and jury).

[Golden Applesauce]

I think the cases he is referring too were tried by military commissions, so there weren't any juries to begin with.

[Requia ☣]

Military commisions have a jury of military people.  Not necessarily a jury of peers though since iirc, the jury is all officers.

[LMNO]

Still, none of this is convicting a person simply because the evidence is a secret.

[Cain]

Still, none of this is convicting a person simply because the evidence is a secret.

I believe maybe it was miswritten, in that a person could be found guilty on so called evidence that is secret*, but not that secret evidence automatically convicts a person.

I took it as the former meaning.


*evidence has the same root meaning as evident, yet if it is not publically given in a court of law, it is clearly not evidence, merely testimony.

[Requia ☣]

I'd say if the defendant does not have access to the secret evidence then they have no abilty to defend themselves.

[Reginald Ret]

I'd say if the defendant does not have access to the secret evidence then they have no abilty to defend themselves.

true.


and your point?