Posted on 07/01/2015 6:02:51 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s
Laws have become too vague and the concept of intent has disappeared.
When we think about the pace of change in technology, it's usually to marvel at how computing power has become cheaper and faster or how many new digital ways we have to communicate. Unfortunately, this pace of change is increasingly clashing with some of the slower-moving parts of our culture.
Technology moves so quickly we can barely keep up, and our legal system moves so slowly it can't keep up with itself. By design, the law is built up over time by court decisions, statutes and regulations. Sometimes even criminal laws are left vague, to be defined case by case. Technology exacerbates the problem of laws so open and vague that they are hard to abide by, to the point that we have all become potential criminals.
Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls his new book "Three Felonies a Day," referring to the number of crimes he estimates the average American now unwittingly commits because of vague laws. New technology adds its own complexity, making innocent activity potentially criminal.
Mr. Silverglate describes several cases in which prosecutors didn't understand or didn't want to understand technology. This problem is compounded by a trend that has accelerated since the 1980s for prosecutors to abandon the principle that there can't be a crime without criminal intent.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
It also brings to mind the quote from Atlas Shrugged about making every man a criminal in order to control him.
PFL
Professor, does that apply to politicians too, sir?
Every American should watch this...
Don’t talk to the police.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Was just thinking of this topic and book.
Six years have passed since publication, and things have only gotten worse.
For example:
US banks have been recently instructed to report any bank customers who withdraw $5000+ from their account to the DOJ, supposedly to prevent structured money movement tax evasion.
2012 NDAA provisions include indefinite detention of US citizens deemed hostile to the USA.
Sh!T is happening so fast...
“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against—then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there it that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”—Atlas Shrugged
Pull the other one. The gruberment has lost all credibility.
Everything they do is at gunpoint, now.
Now that the fascists are making speech a crime, I probably commit a dozen a day. And enjoy doing every one.
Speaking as a former Prosecutor ... this is so VERY true. The State (and I don’t just mean the Feds) has more power than you can possibly imagine and it is just getting worse.
They want you in jail, you WILL go to jail.
but Jon Gruber, Al Sharpton and Jon Corzine are laughing all the way to the bank.
Dakota County(MN) to start collecting DNA from some charged with crime
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3303930/posts
And when everything’s a crime, eveyone can be swabbed, poked, and put in a database.
I hope Americans understand the truth in this statement, before it is too late:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
How many a day do you commit online? I've not tried counting mine but I imagine it's far more than I verbally say!
At my age, I don't really care what other people think. I don't care what "labels" they try sticking on me, and I damn' sure don't care about their stupid arguments.
Hmmm. Ok, so I finally found ONE GOOD THING about getting older: I don't give a sh*t!
It’s called selective enforcement.
But, quite frankly. why should any citizen care about accidentally breaking some obscure law when the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government have completely rejected the rule of law?
If you are going to break the law anyway, make it count. Aim for the bulls-eye.
I usually reply on FR at least 6 per day.
The first crime is talking to the police if you are being questioned.
No i do not.
How absolutely timely and perfect Thank you SO much for sharing this.
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