This is a tactic used by authoritarian governments and is a distinct reason why laws that are poorly enforced are bad laws.
A poorly enforced law provides a tool for executives (the law enforcers) to legislate (make their own laws) without any say from the real legislators. It's a loophole of sorts in the US's separation of powers.
Take marijuana. It's illegal to smoke marijuana. It's not illegal to be black. Yet the selective enforcement of the marijuana law allows authorities in any given district to shape policy on race without ever having to explicitly put a law on the books.
This is why the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is so dangerous. It is broad enough to be used as a tool to enforce laws that would be too unpopular to explicitly pass.
It's also why threats from the US government to "ban encryption" should not be taken idly. You think to yourself, "Certainly they couldn't ban encryption, nothing would work without it." But they wouldn't enforce it across the board, only selectively.
This is very specifically a tactic used in Russia to exploit control over policing powers into corrupt control or exploitation of businesses. They make byzantine laws that are extraordinarily difficult to comply with, then provide unofficial licenses to ignore those laws to those who remain in their favor. (And even if you did manage to comply with the laws, your corrupt competitors don't, and will out-compete you).
I remember reading a story of a multi-billion dollar corporation in Russia being sold for pennies on the dollar, essentially at gunpoint. Otherwise, they'd prosecute it for being run illegally, since essentially all corporations are run illegally, because that's how Russia's legal system is set up.
Last I checked, encryption _is_ banned in the U.S., isn't it? So it's already the case that the government could selectively jail people for using encryption, as it sees fit.
I've seen it happen in passerby and to my father. It is an excuse, yes, but when you are always guilty, officers can pull you over at their discretion whenever they have the slightest whiff of suspicion about you.
The officers argument to my dad was "why would you go so much slower than traffic (this is on i78 in PA, mean traffic is around 75 and he was going the posted 55) if you aren't trying to hide something by going the speed limit" when the back of his covered pickup was full.
Turns out he was just bringing china plates to my grandparents.
He didn't get ticketed for it, but it gave the police a legal reason to pull him over beyond arbitrary suspicions.
With respect, I have a feeling the police officer didn't give your father a ticket because he never intended to give a ticket for that reason; it's probable that it's not actually a real offense and he would have lost that battle in if it was fought. As long as he came up with a halfway decent excuse for pulling your father over, he'd be able to check out the truck without needing to commit to anything. Rational, and effective.
A poorly enforced law provides a tool for executives (the law enforcers) to legislate (make their own laws) without any say from the real legislators. It's a loophole of sorts in the US's separation of powers.
Take marijuana. It's illegal to smoke marijuana. It's not illegal to be black. Yet the selective enforcement of the marijuana law allows authorities in any given district to shape policy on race without ever having to explicitly put a law on the books.
This is why the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is so dangerous. It is broad enough to be used as a tool to enforce laws that would be too unpopular to explicitly pass.
It's also why threats from the US government to "ban encryption" should not be taken idly. You think to yourself, "Certainly they couldn't ban encryption, nothing would work without it." But they wouldn't enforce it across the board, only selectively.