Piracy on the High Seas!
Guess Who the Pirates Are?

May 8, 2007

Hello, Folks;

Remember when we used to rad about pirates and see movies of the bucaneers pillaging on the high seas? Well, guess what? It is still going on, fostered and approved by Congress, and carried out by the United States Coast Guard.

The actual legal boundary of U.S. Territorial Waters is just a few miles out.

On April 28, 2004, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dependable was 180 miles south of the Dominican Republic when it saw a ship named El Conquistador "riding low and "dead in the water"".

The coasties radioed the captain of that ship and there ensued a series of messages from the captain to the coasties, from the coasties to the U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, to Columbia, and back. The upshot was that the coasties boarded the ship and found a load of marijuana and seized the five crewmen for trial in the U.S.

In the case of U.S. v. Bravo, 480 F.3d 88 (1st Circuit 2007), the District Court goes to some lengths to explain how this country has jurisdiction under 46 USC §1903 (a) to seize the ship under international law and the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act.

Folks, I submit that the MDLEA is nothing less than a Letter Of Marque and Reprisal, something forbidden by the Constitution. It is a blanket permission granted by Congress for government ships to attack and seize ships, ad hoc, well away from our shores. Isn't this piracy?

Yes! I know drugs are a problem. I agree that drugs should be dealt with, but in a fashion more suitable to what the Constitution sets out as reasonable, and common sense and reason says should be done in our territorial waters, NOT out in international waters.

When we act like the pirates of old, we are no better than criminals ourselves.

Why do you keep voting for Congress when they do this sort of stuff?

Join the No Vote Party today and send them a message next election.

D. Tom