I'm not so convinced Nacchio is an innocent victim. And I also find it rich that a former telecom CEO guilty of numerous financial crimes is being held up as an example of targeted political persecution using frivolous laws. Insider trading is not the type of crime you commit unknowingly. Has anyone even refuted his guilt convincingly? That is a serious crime and also one with a clear paper trail. If he did it, there would have been no need to frame him for defying the NSA; the SEC would have got him soon enough anyway.
You commit three felonies a day
61–70 of 172 posts
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I want to know what felonies I commit.
You're probably guilty of having violated the Lacey Act (16 USC §3370-3378) at some point in your life. It is unlawful for any person to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, possess, or purchase any fish, wildlife, or plant taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any Federal, State, foreign, or Indian tribal law, treaty, or regulation. What's interesting is that, under the Lacey Act, if p…
Not being a strict liability crime, violations of the Lacey act would need to be committed knowingly.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I want to know what felonies I commit.
Maybe one of these: * Illegal downloads. * Forwarding a corporate email. * Some weird term of service in one of the dozen "I read and accept these terms" check-boxes you clicked.
How would "forwarding a corporate email" be charged as a felony?
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably guilty of having violated the Lacey Act (16 USC §3370-3378) at some point in your life. It is unlawful for any person to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, possess, or purchase any fish, wildlife, or plant taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any Federal, State, foreign, or Indian tribal law, treaty, or regulation. What's interesting is that, under the Lacey Act, if p…
Not being a strict liability crime, violations of the Lacey act would need to be committed knowingly.
Rereading it now, I see that you are correct. For some reason or another, I originally read it to mean that only the civil forfeiture provisions were strict liability.
Thank you for the correction.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#65From 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.”
Like everything else Rand ever did, this was expressed better by other sources. Can we please stop quoting this hack [1]?
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/15r6sj/why_is...
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
> 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".* For one, if it happened to "lots" (in realit…
Also "government surveillance" of "gay men"? When? For who? A few prominent figures people wanted to blackmail?
Police, based on where they socialized. The modern gay rights movement started in the USA with the Stonewall riots, when LGBT people fought back & rioted after yet another police raid of where gay & trans people congreated.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#67As 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 differe…
This is a false equivalence. Just the fact that the US government feels compelled to hide a program like PRISM is a strong indication that there is a big difference between the Russian government and the US government (and certainly the Soviet government).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#68I'm not so convinced Nacchio is an innocent victim. And I also find it rich that a former telecom CEO guilty of numerous financial crimes is being held up as an example of targeted political persecution using frivolous laws. Insider trading is not the type of crime you commit unknowingly. Has anyone even refuted his guilt convincingly? That is a serious crime and also one with a clear paper trail. If he did it, there…
Insider trading is only a crime when people want to find you guilty of a crime. That's why congresscritters are not prosecutable for insider trading. Insider trading is the entire point of trading, you wouldn't make any money if everyone had the same information.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#69From 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
The humor in your reply is that many non-Randians -- especially people in government -- see themselves as essential to society, and give themselves additional power and prestige on that basis.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#70Earlier 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.
The reproduction or the distribution of copyright material is a felony.
(Who knows, the MPAA and RIAA might be up on Capitol Hill as we speak begging for access to this data.)