As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
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As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
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Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#2This is why deregulation is important. I think a perfect government has a slightly liberal congress, with an extremely conservative judicial branch. I'd rather be judged using the original meaning of the constitution rather than some activist judge's interpretation of "the spirit of the constitution that applies today".
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#3Exactly the reasoning behind never speaking to police as detailed in these 2 videos a while back:
http://boingboing.net/2008/07/28/law-prof-and-cop-agr.html
The risk of self-incrimination is incredibly high since no person can even be aware of all of the laws that exist and may be violated.
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#4Is this Hacker News? I suppose it might be tied to our theme by the story of the inventor.
I think it's a shame that the US federal government has ballooned the way it has, and I believe it's a slap in the face of the Constitution. Discarding the concept of mens rea while maintaining more than 250,000 pages of regulation is malicious, and anyone supporting this movement is not someone who should be in political power.
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#5People complain about activist judges but I think a bigger problem is activist prosecuters who look to stretch the law to include targets that were not intended by the law. The biggest example of this that I can think of is the anti-hacking laws that are being made to charge people of simply using a web browser.
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#6Thanks to the State of California, virtually every private university president and trustee is now a criminal, too.
http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/The-California-Law-That...
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#7Thanks to the State of California, virtually every private university president and trustee is now a criminal, too. http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/The-California-Law-That...
Meh, every single person in the US is already a felon. We all possess schedule I drugs in our bodies[1], and there is plenty of legal precedent saying that you can be convicted of narcotics possession for drugs that are in your body.
[1] DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, Anandamide, etc.
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#8Is this Hacker News? I suppose it might be tied to our theme by the story of the inventor. I think it's a shame that the US federal government has ballooned the way it has, and I believe it's a slap in the face of the Constitution. Discarding the concept of mens rea while maintaining more than 250,000 pages of regulation is malicious, and anyone supporting this movement is not someone who should be in political power…
What I don't understand (as a non-US-citizen, mind you) is how the fact that these are federal laws is relevant at all. It sounds to me like the problem is the number of obscure laws, the vagueness of the offenses, and the lack of mens rea requirement.
Surely it would be just as bad if these were state laws (for the citizens of that state, anyway)? Or are there for some reason no state laws of that kind? If so, what could be the reason?
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#9"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 in 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 law-breakers." -- Ayn Rand
Re: As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
#10Is this Hacker News? I suppose it might be tied to our theme by the story of the inventor. I think it's a shame that the US federal government has ballooned the way it has, and I believe it's a slap in the face of the Constitution. Discarding the concept of mens rea while maintaining more than 250,000 pages of regulation is malicious, and anyone supporting this movement is not someone who should be in political power…
What I don't understand (as a non-US-citizen, mind you) is how the fact that these are federal laws is relevant at all. It sounds to me like the problem is the number of obscure laws, the vagueness of the offenses, and the lack of mens rea requirement. Surely it would be just as bad if these were state laws (for the citizens of that state, anyway)? Or are there for some reason no state laws of that kind? If so, what…
IANAL but it's bad for citizens because it gives federal courts wider purview on what they'll prosecute for and how they punish for it; needless to say, if your case is getting pushed to federal courts you're fucked, especially when you're being charged under statutes you've never heard of rather than state laws which you may or may not know.