I haven't seen this story discussed here, but it's a pretty egregious example of America as an emerging corporate police state.
The
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/used+unmitigated+gall+court+jail+exec/4885987/story.html">Vancouver Sun broke the news of the BC Supreme Court's ruling against Cisco/U.S. last week:
The giant computer company Cisco and U.S. prosecutors deceived Canadian authorities and courts in a massive abuse of process to have a former executive thrown in jail, says a B.C. Supreme Court judge.
The point, said Justice Ronald McKinnon in a stinging decision delivered orally on Tuesday, was to derail a lawsuit launched by the former employee, and involved a series of machinations that would make a normal person "blanch at the audacity of it all."
In a rare move, McKinnon stayed extradition proceedings against Peter Adekeye, a British computer entrepreneur who once worked for Cisco Systems, Inc.
The judge said U.S. prosecutors acted outrageously by having the respected executive bizarrely arrested in Vancouver on May 20, 2010 as he testified before a sitting of the American court he was accused of avoiding.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/used+unmitigated+gall+court+jail+exec/4885987/story.html">more...
Justice McKinnon said Cisco had acted with "duplicity" and "unmitigated gall" and that U.S. prosecutors had provided false and misleading material.
David Sarota picked up this story for
http://www.salon.com/news/david_sirota/2011/06/06/cisco_law_enforcement">Salon on Monday:
As if we needed any more evidence that the United States is fast becoming a Corporate Police State (i.e., systematically deploying police power to protect narrow corporate interests), make sure to check out this jaw-dropping story that broke in Canada late Friday. It details how the British Columbia Supreme Court uncovered what it says is a massive collusion between computer giant Cisco and U.S. law enforcement -- a collusion that seems designed to use criminal prosecution to stop a whistle-blower's antitrust case against a powerful politically connected corporation.
The machinations in this case are complicated, but the basics go like this: Ex-Cisco exec Peter Alfred-Adekeye filed a whistle-blower suit against his former employer Cisco in civil court -- a suit that could compel the company to pay millions in damages for allegedly "forcing customers to buy maintenance contracts," according to the Vancouver Sun.
Cisco subsequently responded with two moves designed to intimidate Adekeye: First, the company filed a counter civil suit against him for allegedly "using a former colleague's computer code to illicitly access Cisco services worth 'more than $14,000.'" Then, the corporation had its allies in U.S. law enforcement cite the civil counter-suit to issue a whopping 97 criminal charges against Adekeye. In other words, instead of following Adekeye's civil case with criminal antitrust charges against Cisco, U.S. authorities were convinced by the corporation to add criminal charges to Cisco's counter civil suit against Adekeye (this move to add state-sanctioned criminal prosecution to a corporation's civil action, of course, is a textbook definition of a Corporate Police State).
Ultimately, U.S. authorities demanded the Canadian government extradite Adekeye for prosecution, and Canadian officials proceeded to follow U.S. orders by arresting and detaining him. However, on Friday, a top Canadian court rejected the extradition request, issuing a stunning ruling that goes way beyond one whistle-blower dispute.
http://www.salon.com/news/david_sirota/2011/06/06/cisco_law_enforcement">more...
Sending SWAT teams to collect student debts, jailing whistleblowers on trumped up charges, appointing crooked Goldman alums to key economic posts, mandating the purchase of private products, colluding with global polluters to downplay environmental damage and health risks... can we call it fascist corporatism yet?
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