The Supreme Court has been active this week, issuing a variety of rulings on topics that are of importance to progressives. In general, the “social” rulings have not gone in favor of a progressive agenda, and have been made mostly along the ideological divide in the court (5 - 4 rulings).

One ruling went largely unnoticed in the press. On a 7 - 2 vote, the court has decided to allow federal agencies to act as racketeers, and in doing so, ruled that the RICO act doesn’t apply to the government:

The rancher, Harvey Frank Robbins, alleged that the BLM officers retaliated against him after he refused to give the agency access to his land. He further alleged that the officers violated the RICO Act and his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights as recognized in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents by revoking his grazing permits and extorting him to gain access.

The court held that administrative and judicial remedies already exist to address the various injuries that Robbins alleged. The court further held that Robbins could not bring a RICO claim against the officials in their personal capacities because the 1946 Hobbs Anti-Racketeering Act, which provides the definition of illegal racketeering activity included in RICO, does not apply when the government is the intended beneficiary of the alleged extortion…[emphasis mine]

So, in essence: the government can extort a private individual (or company) so long as the government benefits from the extortion? Yeah, I did a double-take on that one as well. For all intents and purposes, it would appear that any verb describing the operation of a criminal enterprise could be substituted for “extortion”, and it’s OK - as long as it’s the federal government doing the crime.

The specifics of this case are, to a degree, unimportant. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management may have been well within its rights to pressure the plantiff, particularly since the plaintiff was apparently benefitting from access to the public land, and a prior easement had been granted before he bought the property. It’s the ruling itself that seems to set a precedent.

Over the course of the Bush regime, many progressive political bloggers (including ASZ) have argued, sometimes tongue in cheek, sometimes not, that the current regime is the ultimate criminal enterprise. The many potential crimes that have been committed by the regime certainly rise to the threshold of racketeering, and any prosecutor worth his/her salt would be able to prove multiple instances of collaboration and coordination of the crimes. No more has to be proven in order to bring RICO Act charges.

With the short sighted SCOTUS ruling, it would seem that all agencies of the government are now immune from such charges, regardless of the branch or the circumstances. I have no doubt that true legal minds can pick apart this ruling, or support it with further research. On the face of it though, it seems that one of the legal tools available for dealing with a government that has become a criminal enterprise has now been removed from the prosecutorial toolbelt.