Pubdate: Thu, 20 Dec 2012
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559

OUR TWO-TIERED JUSTICE SYSTEM

HSBC Case Shows How The Rich And Powerful Are Immune From
Prosecution

Currently more than 500,000 Americans are imprisoned for nonviolent
drug offenses, including tens of thousands of people whose only crime
was simple possession of a substance the law states they shouldn't
have. And yet when Britain's biggest bank, HSBC, was determined last
week to have laundered $800 million of drug money in violation of U.S.
banking laws, nobody was charged with a crime.

The reason: Department of Justice prosecutors decided that bringing
criminal charges would pose such a risk to the continued operation of
the bank that it would destabilize the entire banking system. Instead
HSBC was fined $1.9 billion, which amounts to about five weeks' profit
for the banking behemoth.

The DOJ found that HSBC had spent years committing serious crimes
involving money laundering for terrorists as well as drug cartels and
moving tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups,
including al-Qaida. The abuse was so flagrant that Mexican drug
cartels would bring cash to HSBC branches in boxes specially
constructed to fit through teller windows.

The penalty for top HSBC executives? They will defer part of their
bonuses for five years.

This immunization from prosecution for the rich and powerful is
nothing new. As Glenn Greenwald, author of With Liberty and Justice
for Some, points out, it dates back to President Gerald Ford's 1974
pardoning of disgraced former President Richard Nixon, who had
committed numerous felonies. The idea was that it would be too
disruptive to bring the president to justice and he should be pardoned
"for the good of the country."

The DOJ officials who used the same rationale to let HSBC off the hook
are the same officials, Greenwald writes, "who previously immunized
Bush-era torturers and warrantless eavesdroppers, telecom giants, and
Wall Street executives, even as they continue to persecute
whistleblowers at record rates and prosecute ordinary
citizens-particularly poor and minorities-with extreme harshness for
even trivial offenses."

What we have, in other words, is a system in which, as Greenwald
states, "some actors are simply too important and too powerful to
punish criminally." This is an intolerable degree of corruption and
lawlessness. Every American should be outraged by it.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D