The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have not only exploded in number, but, along with countless regulatory provisions, have also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how the federal criminal justice system has become dangerously disconnected from common law traditions of due process an fair notice of the law's expectations, enabling prosecutors to pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior.
The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to "white collar criminals," state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the continued functioning and integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.
The IRS (Gestapo) has written so many laws and regulations that every one reading this response has unknowingly violated some Gestapo law or regulation. The same applies with all other government rules, regulations and laws.
We are all unknowing criminals. It’s just a matter of whether we piss off some bureaucrat somewhere in any level of government as to whether we too, will face our day in court.
Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"