The Deterioration of Publicly-Supplied Justice
December 8, 2014
The deterioration of government legislation and law-making is part of the more general deterioration of publicly-supplied justice. Plainly, justice supplied by public authorities in America has deteriorated. Hans-Hermann Hoppe has been foremost in pointing out that services of all kinds supplied by government monopolists deteriorate over time. Without competition from new entrants, with captive markets and with captive financing, these monopolists tend to produce services of lower and lower quality at higher and higher costs of production.
As an important example of this deterioration, the 9/11 Commission Report in chapter 5 reported that its reconstruction of events leading to 9/11 was not based on questioning witnesses first hand, but was limited to “intelligence reports”:
“Chapters 5 and 7 rely heavily on information obtained from captured al Qaeda members. A number of these ‘detainees’ have firsthand knowledge of the 9/11 plot.
“Assessing the truth of statements by these witnesses-sworn enemies of the United States-is challenging. Our access to them has been limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations where the actual interrogations take place. We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting. We were told that our requests might disrupt the sensitive interrogation process.”
As far as we can tell, detainees were tortured by the CIA or other U.S. operatives, making their statements in these reports of questionable validity. The justice system was subverted, polluted and circumvented entirely by the ways in which suspects were handled. Potential sources of evidence became useless. Government secrecy and mishandling of suspects replaced open hearings and established procedures for trials and evidence.
The alleged key plotter of 9/11 is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was arrested on March 1, 2003. The American justice system has mishandled his case for over 10 years. He was tortured a great many times. No trial of him has as yet been completed.
The U.S. attacked Afghanistan after being unable to supply its government with evidence linking Osama bin Laden to 9/11. Methods of justice were in this case completely blotted out and replaced by the injustices of aggressive war, as was also done in Iraq and as Congress now proposes to do in Ukraine by helping its government renew its prosecution of a bloody war in Donbass.
The overseas deterioration in justice goes hand in hand with the domestic deterioration in the public justice system. They are both results of government monopolies.
I Have Been Saying This for Years