[Young Scholar]

I meant that no one has any idea how it is actually properly applied. Something like this (even were it illegal) does not even come close.

[EDINVA]

RICO is set up to nab those who commit seemingly independent crimes which are connected by an overarching criminal goal.

So, one could say, were the publication of these articles a criminal act, that the publication, first of the NSA surveillance program, and then the publication of the SWIFT program, with interspersed articles on Abu Grahb, or Haditha, would conspire to achieve the overarching goal of undermining the US WOT effort.

You may recall that RICO was used against Operation Rescue, whose overarching goal was shutting down those facilities that performed abortions. The various protests at abortion clinics around the country, as part of the Operation Rescue program, were brought forward by the pro-abortion groups under RICO as part of an overarching criminal enterprise.

[CGVet58]

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear." -
Marcus Cicero

The above is also the best description of the ACLU.

Why, you may ask, do I point this rather obvious fact out to you? Because I suspect your career goals have you headed for a seat in that organization.