Rights of U.S. Citizens Abroad

Many criminal statutes that are now used in white-collar prosecutions originated in far different contexts. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) (18 U.S.C. ” 1961 et seq.) was enacted in 1970 to fight the “highly sophisticated, diversified and widespread” activity of organized crime, as was the 1968 wiretap law (18 U.S.C. ” 2510 et seq.). Now, both are often used in white-collar prosecutions. Similarly, statutes enacted to fight the “war on drugs” came to have significant impact on business prosecutions. The same may turn out to be true of the government's newly acquired weapons in the “war on terror.” For example, two recent Second Circuit decisions may have serious implications for the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens living abroad who become involved in increasingly global antitrust and anti-bribery investigations. The cases, however, are about the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In re Terrorist Bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa (Fourth Amendment Challenges), 552 F.3d 157 (2d Cir. 2008), petition for cert. filed (U.S. Aug. 31, 2009) (No. 09-6231); In re Terrorist Bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa (Fifth Amendment Challenges), 552 F.3d 177 (2d Cir. 2008), cert. denied, Odeh v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 2765 (2009).