In honor of political kerfluffles, congressional sit-ins, and other assorted chaos, I’d like to beg and plead with people to consider this thing called due process and how important it is.
Snagged right off of wikipedia, here it isn nutshell, “Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all legal rights that are owed to a person. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual person from it. When a government harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this constitutes a due process violation, which offends the rule of law.”
Due process is about our right to defend ourselves, it says we must be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. It’s an absolutely critical component of our democracy, one that has taken a profound pounding in the past couple of decades. It is the only thing that protects us from false charges. It matters a great deal.
This is a very serious issue, so I don’t mean to make light of it, but I’ve experienced a couple of ridiculous things that really drove the point home. Due to somebody’s clerical error, I allegedly owed child support in another county for three kids I could not possibly have given birth to on account of the fact that I tend to remember these things. For those who don’t know, owing child support interferes with your credit, your ability to refinance a home, your driver’s license, your employment, your taxes, and will eventually end in a warrant for your arrest. I spent nearly a year trying to untangle myself from this mess.
The second thing that happened was my license to work got misplaced, flagged, lost in cyberspace, whatever. I could not work for six months while I jumped through hoops and tried to untangled red tape. Pretty scary that the government now controls our right to work in so many simple trades.
These were both civil matters, clerical errors mostly, bureaucracy at it’s finest. Unfortunately I am not alone, people go through these things all the time. There is no due process within bureaucracy or rather you can wait 90 days, file a complaint and get in line for an appeal to our grievance policy where you may or may not be given a chance to prove your innocence. Regardless, you are presumed guilty first, penalized first, and really have very limited due process rights.
Take these things from the civil realm and into the criminal world and we will soon have a very chilling situation where people can be penalized without any due process at all.
Paul said:
Oh my – indeed IB, indeed. I’ve run across a few of those myself – more than a few. I moved within the province so I went to the appropriate government office,waited in line for hours and changed my address with all provincial entities, my driver’s licence, my health care,my provincial drug insurance,etc. I actually received a document that listed the address changes. So,I received a new health card, a new licence, etc – all with the new address on them. This was fine. A few months later, I went to use my drug coverage – I’m a dialysis patient and the medication keep me alive – and it was cancelled. I contacted the insurance supplier and they said that they sent renewal forms and I did not complete them. I had my mail redirected for two months so they didn’t slip in between – they were using the old address. I explained that I had moved and had gone through all the required change of address forms but they were unswayed. I faxed them the document that showed that the address was changed. No dice – it was somehow my fault. I had to pay a renewal fee and then get my own drugs during a three month waiting period. It cost me hundreds of dollars for their incompetence and there is no recourse. Then I contacted my old building manager and asked him to watch for correspondence from them. They sent confirmation of my new address – complete with the new address – to the old address. OMG Anyway, I know what you mean IB the same idiocy happens here and the reason is simple – there is no accountability for government employees – if they do it wrong or don’t do it,there are no consequences.
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insanitybytes22 said:
I’m so sorry, Paul. What a nightmare! It’s gotten really creepy in the US and we are being asked to surrender more and more of our rights under the guise of assorted crime prevention and terrorism.
Somewhat funny, I was asked to provide my email and phone number to “secure” a silly little account. The moment I did, I was locked out of my own account, but a few weeks later, hackers managed to access hundreds of thousands of records from that company. Sometimes it seems as if the only person who can’t access my own information is me. Then I started wondering if maybe those hackers were just disgruntled customers frustrated by being locked out of their own accounts. 🙂
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Paul said:
ha! Quite possibly IB. I am anal about personal info and so many look at me quizzically. i had a call from Revenue Canada yesterday. I didn’t know the woman and she asked for my SIN number (US Social Security Number) and I told her I did not give that out to anyone whose identity I could not confirm. Ha! She was speechless. I told her to give me her phone number and I would call her back to confirm – so I did and I gave her the number when I was satisfied.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank y0u and thanks for reading. 🙂
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Jeffrey Liakos said:
I think due process should be applicable to anybody who commits a crime in the U.S., be they a citizen or non-citizen. My belief is in the innocent until proven guilty concept of justice.
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Julie said:
I could tear my hair out and shake my fist with you, because this certainly deserves a fist shaking, or I could just smile and point out that we both used a meme today and we both quoted ol’ wikipedi.
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Fromscratchmom said:
Hey, IB, again this morning, I read something I thought you might like to see. It’s definitely given me some food for thought!
http://www.allanturner.com/blog/index.php/2016/06/24/god-ordained-government-and-the-mark-of-the-beast-a-modern-application/
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you, that was interesting! 🙂
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Jeffrey Liakos said:
Due process should be guaranteed for everyone. Regardless of any crime that was committed.
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