[pyre]

You are both missing the plethora of articles about how every breaks at least 3 federal laws a day (unknowingly). We are rapidly approaching a state where everyone is a criminal, and all it takes it putting your life under a microscope to cart you off to jail.

If the FBI are creating a file on everyone that goes to a protest, then fewer people will be willing to go to protests to avoid having their life under the microscope. This has a chilling effect on a free speech.

[Note: This is the result of a system in which very few people are looking at the bigger picture, rather than a system of some 'elite evil masterminds.' Also, no one in power is incentivized to fix it.]

[jeffdavis]

"Creating a file"

This is not a problem.

"You are both missing the plethora of articles about how every breaks at least 3 federal laws a day (unknowingly)."

Citation needed.

However, it's a general problem anyway. I agree that laws should be simpler, fewer in number, and more evenly enforced. But I don't see what this has to do with the article in question, which doesn't offer much.

[pyre]

Creating a file by definition 'puts you on their radar.' In many cases, this may be enough to draw the ire of people in power. It doesn't have to happen to everyone. As long as enough people are made examples of, others will think twice before voicing their opinions.

Edit:

  > "You are both missing the plethora of articles about
  > how every breaks at least 3 federal laws a day 
  > (unknowingly)."
  >
  > Citation needed.

http://blog.themillionairenurse.com/tag/breaking-federal-law...

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_white...

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...

[CamperBob2]

Citation needed.

Here's a few, ranging from the humorous to the heinous.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19450_6-laws-youve-broken-wit...

http://mises.org/daily/5759/Decriminalize-the-Average-Man

http://www.economist.com/node/16636027

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...

The only question is, which laws "count?" And who decides?

[jlgreco]

The idea is less "which laws count?" and more "which man counts?". Most people will never be picked up for breaking the laws that they break, the few who are will be selected not for which laws they accidentally broke that day, but for who they are.

The purpose of everyone being a criminal is not to allow the arrest of everyone, but rather anyone.

[CamperBob2]

Exactly. That's what I meant by "And who decides?"

[anigbrowl]

the plethora of articles about how every breaks at least 3 federal laws a day

...which are mostly not founded in fact, but designed to tell you what you want to hear in order to sell advertising.

[pyre]

In Canada, there is a product called Kinder Surprise. It's illegal in the United States, but it's just a hollow chocolate egg with a toy inside. The FDA says you can't put a toy inside of food. If you buy one at a convenience store in Canada, and come back across the border with it? Federal offence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder_Surprise#Prohibition_on_...

[anigbrowl]

That doesn't support your argument very well. We've had this conversation before, and in it I suggested you stop focusing on anecdata and isolated examples and employ some statistical rigor instead.

[pyre]

What statistical rigor do you suggest? How do you gather stats on "people that unwittingly were convicted of Federal crimes that most normal people wouldn't know about (or wouldn't think are crimes)?"

[jlgreco]

Even more importantly, since the idea is not to arrest everyone but rather to be able to arrest anyone, how do you gather statistics on how many people are breaking laws without knowing it, and not being arrested for it?

Because that is, by design, what will happen the majority of the time.

[anigbrowl]

Data on number of actual prosecutions and convictions. you're arguing like someone who finds a bug in a piece of software and decries the entire computer industry as a conspiracy to part him from his money. Of course the law fails on occasion, look at how many lines of code are in it.

But the idea that everyone is breaking 5 or 6 federal laws every day and is at risk of financial ruin or indefinite incarceration at the whim of an indifferent judiciary (or as jlgreco asserts below, as part of an evil plot to render us legally helpless) is utter nonsense. You could, theoretically, break numerous laws in one day and place yourself in substantial legal jeopardy...but only via a sequence of unlikely coincidences. Stop taking the linkbait for fact: the reality is that young black men or ex-felons bear a far, far higher burden of extralegal discrimination than anyone does as the result of ham-fisted federal rulemaking.

This essay is from 1964, and no less relevant today: http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-ame... I urge you to read it and consider the possibility that the federal government does not, in fact, exist for the purpose of making your life miserable.

[kbolino]

There is no doubt that the legal system is institutionally unjust in statistically significant ways to certain groups of people. And there is also no doubt that it is short-sighted and selfish for people not in those groups to expend more effort decrying infrequent injustices instead.

But two wrongs do not make a right. You are not likely to fall into a situation where you are arrested/convicted/imprisoned for an act that most people perform on a regular basis and do not consider a crime. But such laws do exist, real people have been arrested/convicted/imprisoned because of them, and it is still wrong.

Also, every person is subject to more jurisdictions than just the Federal government. I presume that we elide them from most discussions because of the wide variation from place to place, but they are no less able to arrest, convict, and imprison people (some can even execute).

Furthermore, one can recognize the effect of something--e.g., the existence of frivolous laws enables abuses of the justice system--without attributing it to willful intent. It may not be an "evil plot" by an all-knowing mastermind, but that doesn't mean it's not happening (also known as, unintended consequences).

[cstejerean]

Will a jury of your peers convict you for one of these things that supposedly everyone is violating?

[pyre]

Many judges will not allow mention of jury nullification[1] in court. The jury is instructed at as long as you broke the law, they must find you in violation.

There's also the fact that you went through a trial that counts against you, even if it shouldn't count against you. Even being accused of a crime is a crime in and of itself in the court of public opinion. Being accused of paedophilia is an extreme example of this (i.e. doesn't matter if you are or not, the claim makes you 'tainted' and people will always wonder).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

[jlgreco]

> There's also the fact that you went through a trial that counts against you

Quite right. Even more concerning: merely being arrested, even if all charges are dropped a few hours later, can count against you.

[kbolino]

Will a jury of your peers...

There are many objections that can be made to this line of argumentation.

1. You will not, in fact, sit before a jury of your "peers", especially if you are knowledgeable about the law. Juries are generally selected to find the most pliant, least informed individuals.

2. Juries are not immune to the problems of group mentalities. You could easily be in a situation where a majority of the jurors, if asked on the street, would never consider such an act criminal, but when placed in an isolated group with one or more authoritative-sounding busybodies, will agree to convict (see the Milgram experiment).

3. Jurors are specifically instructed to evaluate the case on its merits (does the law as written apply to the act committed by this individual?), and to disregard personal opinions and feelings about the nature of the law itself. This is related to the discussion on "jury nullification" by other posters.

4. A trial is an exhausting, humiliating, and possibly financially devastating process. You will not even get the opportunity to present your case, if you are under duress from the circumstances created by the prosecution and agree to a plea bargain instead.