Despite the incessant adulations heaped upon Chicago US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, he has consistently proven to be a usurper of Constitutional rights and an exceedingly political prosecutor.

Fitzgerald?s prosecution of Black represents a Spitzer-esque attack on private enterprise, using federal code as a dubious blunt instrument of intimidation. In most cases, this intimidation has yielded impressively frightening results - a stream of guilty verdicts and lengthy sentences. But is justice being served? Or is the federal government vastly over-stepping its foundational law enforcement principles and impeding the private decision making abilities of private citizens?

Even if one concedes that the non-competes and perquisites remanded to Hollinger Inc and Black himself were ill-conceived and produced limited value for the public shareholders of Hollinger Intl, the stark fact remains that Black (via super-voting shares) almost wholly controlled Intl and its board. Further, the Board approved these arrangements with full disclosure - from which these questions were raised in the first place.

Therefore anyone purchasing Intl shares knew de fact that Black controlled the company, despite minority share percentage. Further, such holder implicitly voted with their capital to endorse Black as CEO and leader. When the Board decided to oust Black it acted as Board?s are entitled, and sometime required, to act. But never, until outsiders got involved in a regulatory ?takeover? of a then-healthy company (much more on Breeden, Paris et al later), did this scenario rise to the level of federal crimes.

As we will discuss further, Fitzgerald has long used some pretty abusive statutes to seriously harm our rights and capitalist principles. In this case, he thankfully encountered a target with the resources and guts to go to the mat against the Feds.