Some laws are there not to guarantee compliance, but to enforce rules, fines, and punishment. For example the laws forcing you to declare bribes in various situations are not there to make you actually declare them.
States can already sue the US AG. The AG gets sued all the time. States just don't have the ability to actually enforce any judgement that comes from that and that's what this bill is for.
> Creates a private right of action allowing state attorneys general, district attorneys, other authorized State officials, members of Congress, and victims to challenge and sue the U.S. Attorney General for unlawfully withholding, redacting, delaying, concealing, removing, or failing to publish Epstein-related records.
It's nice that they're passing some laws like this allowing people some chance to a get a remedy.
I have a sort of science-fiction story premise that I haven't worked out. A US president finds twenty or so monsters in the security state, people with the highest type of the security clearances and who can possibly be induced to become something like Beria, and he makes an executive order using something like the Atomic Energy Act to create an office for securing US nuclear material-- very obviously this office must be exceedingly secret and have, within its domain, very great powers. But he appoints these twenty men he finds to it, and he arranges for many of his political opponents to travel to the District of Columbia, where he uses ordinary policemen to arrest them contrary to law, but using administrative warrants so as to secure the co-operation of the policemen, in bringing his political opponents to places where they are killed to by these men working for this new office; he continues to use administrative warrants and certain other deception to get people to D.C. to be killed.
Now of course, you could imagine that this would be some sort of fascist takeover story, but instead the guy lets courts continue, with them working as they do in real life, unhindered-- no threats, no special instructions, nothing.
Instead we get to see prosecutors not bringing suit, because they can't, because they of course work for the executive branch, state prosecutors not being able to bring suit, because it's D.C., civil lawsuits dismissed because the executive invokes the state secrecy privilege-- all while the government is ordering people to D.C. and conducting mass executions.
I was inspired by the El-Masri case, and some other cases of this sort and it eventually became clear to me that it the US executive could basically conduct an actual straight-up holocaust, obviously illegally, but without the courts intervening. This is why I think things like the duty to prosecute and the right of courts to evaluate evidence freely, that we have in Sweden, and the ECHR right to an effective remedy are so important.
We've failed in this sort of thing too though. In North Macedonia the men working for North Macedonia who held El-Masri for some time have not been prosecuted even now, even though North Macedonia has sent an official apology and paid him what the the ECtHR asked. Still the CoM of the CoE should have intervened more aggressively and ensured that North Macedonia actually prosecuted at least those of the perpetrators who are among their politicians and bureaucrats.
I think we in the EU might even need to bring back some limited form of private prosecutions or other measures to deal with the worst-case situations, where states go after people, because there should not be impunity even for people working in state security.
Can we see the Congress Files now? Our congress members have spent millions of tax-payer dollars paying off their sexual assault and rape victims. And unlike the Epstein files there is no unsubstantiated gibberish submitted by crazy people that didn't withstand the smell test. One hundred percent of the content of the OCWR files will be substantiated and factual.
Massie has certainly upped his overall profile lately. Still, the whole saga is at heart 'who guards the guards' and there is no easy solution to that beyond engaged ( and thoughtful ) populace.
More of a temper tantrum. This happened back in July, after he lost the primary to a MAGA Trump supporter. (He has been fighting with Trump for a while, so he was targeted for primarying.)
So he introduced this bill, where it promptly died in committee. I don't know why anybody would submit it to HN now. I suppose that might be election theatrics.
Somehow most of the hackernews links related to epstein files end up getting flagged in under an hour, even when there are hardly any negative comments.
Is this coming up for a vote just now? Is congress actually in session, or has Mike Johnson called for yet another vacation, in order to stall embarrassing motions from being introduced?
skinfaxi | 20 hours ago
yako21000 | 19 hours ago
viraptor | 19 hours ago
petcat | 19 hours ago
skinfaxi | 19 hours ago
> Creates a private right of action allowing state attorneys general, district attorneys, other authorized State officials, members of Congress, and victims to challenge and sue the U.S. Attorney General for unlawfully withholding, redacting, delaying, concealing, removing, or failing to publish Epstein-related records.
impossiblefork | 19 hours ago
I have a sort of science-fiction story premise that I haven't worked out. A US president finds twenty or so monsters in the security state, people with the highest type of the security clearances and who can possibly be induced to become something like Beria, and he makes an executive order using something like the Atomic Energy Act to create an office for securing US nuclear material-- very obviously this office must be exceedingly secret and have, within its domain, very great powers. But he appoints these twenty men he finds to it, and he arranges for many of his political opponents to travel to the District of Columbia, where he uses ordinary policemen to arrest them contrary to law, but using administrative warrants so as to secure the co-operation of the policemen, in bringing his political opponents to places where they are killed to by these men working for this new office; he continues to use administrative warrants and certain other deception to get people to D.C. to be killed.
Now of course, you could imagine that this would be some sort of fascist takeover story, but instead the guy lets courts continue, with them working as they do in real life, unhindered-- no threats, no special instructions, nothing.
Instead we get to see prosecutors not bringing suit, because they can't, because they of course work for the executive branch, state prosecutors not being able to bring suit, because it's D.C., civil lawsuits dismissed because the executive invokes the state secrecy privilege-- all while the government is ordering people to D.C. and conducting mass executions.
I was inspired by the El-Masri case, and some other cases of this sort and it eventually became clear to me that it the US executive could basically conduct an actual straight-up holocaust, obviously illegally, but without the courts intervening. This is why I think things like the duty to prosecute and the right of courts to evaluate evidence freely, that we have in Sweden, and the ECHR right to an effective remedy are so important.
We've failed in this sort of thing too though. In North Macedonia the men working for North Macedonia who held El-Masri for some time have not been prosecuted even now, even though North Macedonia has sent an official apology and paid him what the the ECtHR asked. Still the CoM of the CoE should have intervened more aggressively and ensured that North Macedonia actually prosecuted at least those of the perpetrators who are among their politicians and bureaucrats.
I think we in the EU might even need to bring back some limited form of private prosecutions or other measures to deal with the worst-case situations, where states go after people, because there should not be impunity even for people working in state security.
wang_li | 19 hours ago
iugtmkbdfil834 | 19 hours ago
skinfaxi | 19 hours ago
sharts | 19 hours ago
myersj | 18 hours ago
jfengel | 14 hours ago
So he introduced this bill, where it promptly died in committee. I don't know why anybody would submit it to HN now. I suppose that might be election theatrics.
freakynit | 19 hours ago
slowin | 18 hours ago
toxic72 | 17 hours ago
k310 | 15 hours ago
Is this coming up for a vote just now? Is congress actually in session, or has Mike Johnson called for yet another vacation, in order to stall embarrassing motions from being introduced?
I looked for reasons but couldn't find any.