For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 7:32 AM
Subject: re: For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Through president George W. Bush's years, SEC prosecutions fell drastically. In that climate of non-enforcement, bankers ran amok and our economy crashed. Now this culture of non-prosecution has infected the entire Department of Justice.  We know that men were tortured while in U.S. custody and that torture is a crime, but no one has been shown to have committed the crime. We know that citizens' phonelines were tapped in violation of the FISA statute and their constitutional guarantees against unreasonable search, but no one has been shown to have committed the crime. We learn that men go on dying because coal executives violated safety laws, but we don't finger those executives.  It is not enough that we--through our elected representatives--pass laws. If our executive doesn't deign to enforce them, we don't enjoy the Rule of Law that our forefathers fought for.

Barry Haskell Levine