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You commit three felonies a day

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Re: You commit three felonies a day

#41

Post by rmc »

coldtea wrote: post #35
rmc wrote: post #23

Sometimes I get a whiff of nostalgia from posts like this. As if everything was great back in the good old days, where the police weren't able to hassle you, when laws were fair and simple. Of course that was only if you were a white anglo cis straight christian. Anyone who didn't fit that was able to be prosecuted/killed/oppressed/jailed. But if we pretend those people don't exist, then everything was great in the p…

> Sometimes I get a whiff of nostalgia from posts like this. As if everything was great back in the good old days, where the police weren't able to hassle you, when laws were fair and simple. People keep repeating this reasoning. I can't understand why. "Everything" doesn't have to have been "better in the old days", and nobody, except strawmen, argue that. But SOME aspects of the old days, e.g pertaining to LESS fuc…

There was lots of government surveillance and invasion of privacy of (say) gay men back in the "good old days". Maybe it's just because the white anglo christians are affected by government surveillance and intrusion that's new?

My point isn't "this old thing was bad", my point was "this thing has been happening to lots of people before, now it's happening to everyone".

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#42

Post by chiph »

300bps wrote: post #21
ck2 wrote: post #5

And the felony history never goes away now. Just think, a child who gets their first smartphone today, will have their entire phone history recorded until death. Their geolocation saved. Their email saved. All their financial transactions. All their friends and family will be known. Every intercontact in society. Where they shop, eat, etc. Who they date. I mean why would the NSA ever delete it? They can just get taxp…

I work with a Muslim from Yemen at an investment bank. He's as American as anyone I know but be recently got a gun permit and got a visit from the FBI about a week later. They wanted to know if he felt threatened, if there were problems at his Mosque, why he wanted a gun, if there was anyone at his Mosque who used hate speech, etc. Something tells me he government knows if you have a gun.

The ATF form 4473 (purchase record) is a paper record that gets stored at the local gun shop until they go out of business (upon which they all get sent to the ATF for scanning). It records the model, serial #, purchaser, etc. However, when you make a purchase the national instant background check (NICS) people do a national records search (to see if you're a felon, or other class of person not permitted to own a gun). The systems they query record who ask for information (security audit records, basically) so in those systems it will show that a NICS check was performed. Thus tying together the info that John Q. Public just bought a gun of some type.

At the state & local level, several states require you to get a Firearm Owners ID (FOID) or purchase permit. The background checks for these are also an indicator that John Q. Public is a (probable) gun owner.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#43

Post by chiph »

Kiro wrote: post #20
einhverfr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silverglate talks about a number of cases, some of which have been addressed either before the book was written or after, but the overall problem is still out there. For example, see the honest services fraud charges against Jeff Skilling (of Enron fame), on the idea that anything dishonest any corporate executive might do would be depriving the corporation of honest services. Now the Supreme Court reversed Skilling'…

No, I want to know what felonies I commit.

You're here talking about it, so... conspiracy is one.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#44

Post by menubar »

ck2 wrote: post #28
300bps wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with a Muslim from Yemen at an investment bank. He's as American as anyone I know but be recently got a gun permit and got a visit from the FBI about a week later. They wanted to know if he felt threatened, if there were problems at his Mosque, why he wanted a gun, if there was anyone at his Mosque who used hate speech, etc. Something tells me he government knows if you have a gun.

Hmm, well "muslim" isn't a nationality, it's a religion almost as big as christianity. is he an American citizen? Because otherwise that is profiling. They don't show up and ask others if there is any problems at their church or anyone using hate speech about the government at the church.

almost as big?

check your data.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#45

Post by Uchikoma »

ubernostrum wrote: post #15
Uchikoma wrote: post #9

From Atlas Shrugged: “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. [...] 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.”

Since posting this quote is apparently now a thing that happens in practically every HN thread, I will take the opportunity to repost this reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5708196

Not sure what your rant against Rand has to to with the quote in this context? Whenever someone uses "alea iacta est" to make a point, it's usually not the case to discuss Julius Caesar.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#46

Post by kahirsch »

menubar wrote: post #44
ck2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, well "muslim" isn't a nationality, it's a religion almost as big as christianity. is he an American citizen? Because otherwise that is profiling. They don't show up and ask others if there is any problems at their church or anyone using hate speech about the government at the church.

almost as big? check your data.

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#47

Post by gambiting »

As a person coming from a former soviet republic, I am very familiar with the saying "show me a man, and I will show you the crime he is guilty of" - which basically meant that if KGB wanted to charge you with something, they always could find a paragraph for you, because there were so many and so vaguely defined. As an outsider, to me it seems that the USA is not a "free" country and I honestly don't see any difference between what the US and Russian governments are doing to journalists and people who disagree with them.

Edit: Oh, and we already had massive surveillance back then. If you wanted to travel out of your town - you had to register that fact with the nearest police department. Wanted to travel abroad - had to apply for a passport, which was only issued for a strict number of days and had to be returned upon return. If you were placing a phone call, it would always start with a warning "This call is being monitored. This call is being monitored". The post office would open your parcels and letters. There was book censorship on a massive scale. What the US government is doing has already happened. "Those who don't remember history are bound to live through it again".

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#48

Post by rayiner »

einhverfr wrote: post #4
molf wrote: post #2

So what are those three felonies?

Silverglate talks about a number of cases, some of which have been addressed either before the book was written or after, but the overall problem is still out there. For example, see the honest services fraud charges against Jeff Skilling (of Enron fame), on the idea that anything dishonest any corporate executive might do would be depriving the corporation of honest services. Now the Supreme Court reversed Skilling'…

So the argument is all handwavy bullshit?

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#49

Post by noarchy »

jacquesm wrote: post #12
Uchikoma wrote: post #9

From Atlas Shrugged: “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. [...] 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.”

It may help to remember here that Ayn Rand wrote that stuff as an ex-citizen of a country with a communist regime that employed exactly those tactics against their citizens, I highly doubt that she intended or foresaw those words to be used against the rulers of the country that she chose to live in.

The context you've mentioned is important. I'm not a fan of Rand's overall philosophy (sympathetic to parts of it, perhaps, but that's not terribly important), but surely one can appreciate this quote in the appropriate context, even if they reject the greater body of her work.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#50

Post by ccera »

I read that book when it came out. The title is sensationalist garbage -- the book shows how some people get snared by some fairly stupid federal laws and have their lives messed up by willfully malicious prosecution, which isn't good, of course, but nowhere does the author demonstrate how an average person commits three felonies in a YEAR, or in a LIFETIME, let alone in a day.
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