Food for thought on prohibited persons

[JRuby]

So, you think its alright for someone to do whatever they want as long as they are coinciding with the law....Many have used this logic and failed.....

There are many laws written and un written but in this case we are talking about legally convicted felons. I believe that if possible it is a good principle to try and follow laws and if they don't make sense fight them - but to blatantly disregard the laws of society simply because you don't like them is asking for trouble. Chariot - do you feel that laws are unnecessary and there should be civil disobedience?

 

[chariot13]

Chariot - do you feel that laws are unnecessary and there should be civil disobedience?

Doesn't matter to me what you do or what you want. People do whatever it is they do and it will prove tomorrow as much as it did yesterday, that laws will not hinder freedom. Enjoy your day JRuby.

 

[redmud]

I think that chariot is saying that there should be way to distinguish between a violent felony offender and non violent felony offenders and a statue of limitations for elapsed time since the last felony for rights to be restored. A new classification or statue of limitations would be pretty easy to pass versus trying to erase existing laws.

The soft society we are turning into are passing new laws every day to restrict more of our freedoms.

In my opinion, if you have paid your debt and have proved yourself to be an upstanding citizen with a set amount of elapsed time and have nothing violent on your record owning firearms shouldn't be a problem.

 

[U8395279]

Oh, those pesky facts...

Well, but those pesky facts show that your silly and outrageous allegation that most people commit a felony every day is rather absurd, to say the least.

Now if you yourself are committing a felony every day, please explain to us what specific felonies you are guilty of doing on a daily basis.

.

 

[IronMonster]

Considering there are over 10,000 federal laws which are all felony charges, I doubt even a good lawyer could keep you up to date on what you can and can't do.

Here are some examples

<broken link removed> makes criminal an importer who violates "any foreign law"—regardless of whether you knew of the foreign regulations.

Real-life example: American businesswoman Diane Huang was convicted under this far-reaching provision, despite her unawareness of the supposed Honduran law banning the shipment of lobsters in clear plastic bags. Lack of criminal intent, the <broken link removed> argued on behalf of Huang and her co-defendants, should make the government's criminal charges inappropriate. To make matters worse, the Honduran law governing such shipments was not valid at the time of Huang's arrest—a fact that the Honduran government pointed out to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Nonetheless, the federal court found Huang guilty in March 2003 and imposed a two-year prison sentence.








<broken link removed> .






Real-life example: Well-known automobile racer <broken link removed> found himself in this position in 1997. He spent two nights in blizzard conditions; when he was finally rescued by Forest Service rangers, they charged him with a provision of the Wildness Act that prevented motor vehicles in protected areas. His presumed accident—he claimed he never meant to end up on that territory—did not spare him from the subsequent charges.








<broken link removed> ."






Real-life example: This hypothetical has yet to come to our attention (although it wouldn't be shocking if such a case actually exists), but that doesn't mean the conduct isn't covered by the infamously vague federal law. In fact, after the Supreme Court declined to hear an "honest services" case in February 2009, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a rare dissent to his colleagues' refusal to review the conviction.In this dissent, Scalia wrote that the law has been used to criminalize a "staggeringly broad swath of behavior," and if the 28-word statute "is taken seriously and carried to its logical conclusion, presumably the statute also renders criminal…a salaried employee's phoning in sick to go to a ball game." This admonition has led the high court to accept three cases that challenge the scope of the "honest services" statute in the current term.










Espionage Act to criminalize the receiving and distribution of confidential national security information by private individualsunder circumstances where the statute appears to coveronly governmental officials.






Real-life example: A recent federal case—involving not journalists, but lobbyists—showed that this scenario is a distinct possibility. After all, prosecutors attempted to apply this nearly century-old statute to lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and at least one federal judge agreed that the charges had merit, despite the fact that lobbyists don't have the same confidentiality obligations as government employees. Such a stretching of this provision undoubtedly leaves the press and investigative reporters—in exercising what they deem to be their constitutional rights—vulnerable to federal prosecution.









<broken link removed>.








Real-life example: Philip Russell, a lawyer from Greenwich, Connecticut, was indicted in 2007 for obstruction of justice. A church had contacted this well-respected attorney when it found images of child pornography on an employee's computer. Russell knew that child porn is illegal even to possess ("contraband") and that holding, rather than destroying it, arguably would be criminal. He decided to destroy the images in the best interest of his client. He didn't know that the government had launched an investigation of the church employee just days before. For this, he was charged with obstruction of justice, and eventually pleaded to a lesser crime in an agreement with prosecutors. With this same logic, prosecutors could indict parents that choose to destroy—rather than report to officials—narcotics that they find in the possession of their son or daughter.









Computer Fraud and Abuse Act outlaws anyone from sending information, with the intent to cause damage, to a protected computer. The law's definition of damage includes "impairment to integrity" of a system or data—a phrase so ambiguous that could turn a well-intentioned whistle blower into a convicted felon.






Real-life example: In 2003, Bret McDanel became a convicted felon after prosecutors pursued his altruistic whistle-blowing using this vague federal law.








<broken link removed> provisions have proven so elastic that this seemingly innocuous conduct could be defined as a federal crime.






Real-life example: The so-called "Myspace suicide" made headlines in 2009, when Missouri mother Lori Drew allegedly impersonated a teenage boy to taunt her neighbor, a young woman. After the young woman's suicide, the case became a cause célèbre for those looking to criminalize "cyber bullying"—a decidedly modern phenomenon by which Internet users taunt and annoy, perhaps belittle, others. In the federal prosecution of Ms. Drew, prosecutors charged that she violated the Myspace terms of use, and thus had violated the aforementioned Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Though the judge dismissed this chargethis time, he did so only after a jury conviction, andthere's little reason to think a similar case could be brought on the equally elastic federal wire fraud provisions. And, even if that fails, Congress is currently considering a federal law that would specifically outlaw "cyber bullying," or the transmission of "any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means."As Harvey Silverglate pointed out when he <broken link removed> in September 2009, the vaguely-worded law, if passed, would threaten the expression of almost every blogger, journalist, and publisher who uses the internet.








<broken link removed> .






Real-life example: Sami Omar al-Hussayen, a Saudi graduate student in Idaho, was reportedly the first person to be indicted under the USA Patriot Act, which expanded the notion of "material support" for terrorism to include those who render "expert advice or assistance" to the terrorists and their cause. The feds alleged that al-Hussayen, in his role as Webmaster for a Muslim charity website, was providing such assistance. The charity sites focused on normal religious training, but the indictment asserted that if a user followed enough links off his site, he would find violent, anti-American comments on other sites. Such was the elasticity provided by Patriot Act provisions. A properly instructed jury acquitted, but the set of anti-terrorism laws leave little reason to believe that prosecutors will not infringe on important civil liberties in their pursuit of terrorist suspects, as indeed they have in various parts of the nation. In fact, an upcoming Supreme Court case—Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project –challenges the vagueness of this federal statute.








False Statements to a Federal Official.Any false statement made to a government official – even when it is made in conversation and not under oath nor in writing – can leave a citizen vulnerable to a "false statement" charge.








Real-life example: Consider the case of Emadeddin Muntasser, a Massachusetts man (and one-time client of Harvey Silverglate)whom the feds suspected of having terrorist ties. When a federal judge tossed out charges claiming that Muntasser's charity organization was linked to terrorist activity, the government was left with only a "false statements" charge. This was based on a single FBI interview in which Muntasser supposedly lied about his travel activity. A close examination of the transcript revealed that, when he voluntarily agreed to be questioned by two FBI agents, he had initially denied travelling to Afghanistan, but then immediately "requested to consult with an attorney" and asked interrogators to "not pursue the issue of travel to Afghanistan." To any reasonable person, this would signify that Muntasser was not purposefully trying to deceive interrogators, but rather had doubts about his original answer and felt he needed advice from legal counsel. Nonetheless, he was convicted on this single count of "false statements," which he has appealed. The text of the statute makes a false statement to any federal official—whether it is a park ranger or FBI interrogator—a federal crime. And the definition of "false" is often very strained and contrary to common sense, as in the Muntasser case.

 

[Redcap]

Well, but those pesky facts show that your silly and outrageous allegation that most people commit a felony every day is rather absurd, to say the least.

Now if you yourself are committing a felony every day, please explain to us what specific felonies you are guilty of doing on a daily basis.

.

What color is the sky in your little world, kiddo?

 

[Gunguy45]

I had a conversation with someone I know very well and respect a great deal in Law Enforcement. We were were talking about civil asset forfeiture laws, which allow for the seizing of property from citizens even though no criminal charge is brought, much less proven. He was making the case for asset forfeiture laws based on his organization's judicious use of them.

As I pointed out, it's not HIS organization that may be the problem. It's the thousands of others who may NOT be judicious. Who may have an axe to grind, or a political point to make, that can use the law to destroy an otherwise harmless person through sheer malice AND BE LEGALLY CORRECT, if morally disgusting.

The notion that gun owners, who are routinely the object of overzealous prosecution and harassment , would blithely follow along with the idea that ANY law, merely because it's the law, should permanently remove a fundamental human right, regardless of the harm, or even intent, much less the rational basis for prosecution, leaves me speechless.

Bottom line, these laws WILL be used against you and people you care about. The consequences will affect YOU. All you need to do is get unlucky.

NO ONE engaging in this conversation has suggested that violent criminals or thieves should get soft treatment. *I* for one, am perfectly happy with a lifetime bar for felony violence. But if you're going to argue that it's just, reasonable or in any way makes society safer to strip someone of the most fundamental of all human rights who, for instance, (not under oath) fibs to a federal agent because they aren't sophisticated to tell them to go take a hike when being given the third degree, you have a very strange notion of justice.

 

[IronMonster]

I just stumbled across this. Its not quite on topic but close enough that its worth sharing.


Authored by <broken link removed> , originally posted at Bloomberg View,

On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.

I wish this caution were only theoretical. It isn't. Whatever your view on the refusal of a New York City grand jury to indict the police officer whose chokehold apparently led to the death of Eric Garner, it's useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, in violation of New York law.

The obvious racial dynamics of the case -- the police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, is white; Garner was black -- have sparked understandable outrage. But, at least among libertarians, so has the law that was being enforced. Wrote Nick Gillespie in the Daily Beast, "Clearly something has gone horribly wrong when a man lies dead after being confronted for selling cigarettes to willing buyers." Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, appearing on MSNBC, also blamed the statute: "Some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so they've driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive."

The problem is actually broader. It's not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It's every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they're right. I often tell my students that there will never be a perfect technology of law enforcement, and therefore it is unavoidable that there will be situations where police err on the side of too much violence rather than too little. Better training won't lead to perfection. But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.

The legal scholar Douglas Husak, in his excellent 2009 book "Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law," points out that federal law alone includes more than 3,000 crimes, fewer than half of which found in the Federal Criminal Code. The rest are scattered through other statutes. A citizen who wants to abide by the law has no quick and easy way to find out what the law actually is -- a violation of the traditional principle that the state cannot punish without fair notice.

In addition to these statutes, he writes, an astonishing 300,000 or more federal regulations may be enforceable through criminal punishment in the discretion of an administrative agency. Nobody knows the number for sure.

Husak cites estimates that more than 70 percent of American adults have committed a crime that could lead to imprisonment. He quotes the legal scholar William Stuntz to the effect that we are moving toward "a world in which the law on the books makes everyone a felon." Does this seem too dramatic? Husak points to studies suggesting that more than half of young people download music illegally from the Internet. That's been a federal crime for almost 20 years. These kids, in theory, could all go to prison.

Many criminal laws hardly pass the giggle test. Husak takes us on a tour through bizarre statutes, including the Alabama law making it a crime to maim oneself for the purpose of gaining sympathy, the Florida law prohibiting displays of deformed animals, the Illinois law against "damaging anhydrous ammonia equipment." And then there's the wondrous federal crime of disturbing mud in a cave on federal land. (Be careful where you run to get out of the rain.) Whether or not these laws are frequently enforced, Husak's concern is that they exist -- and potentially make felons of us all.

Part of the problem, Husak suggests, is the growing tendency of legislatures -- including Congress -- to toss in a criminal sanction at the end of countless bills on countless subjects. It's as though making an offense criminal shows how much we care about it.

Well, maybe so. But making an offense criminal also means that the police will go armed to enforce it. Overcriminalization matters, Husak says, because the costs of facing criminal sanction are so high and because the criminal law can no longer sort out the law-abiding from the non-law-abiding. True enough. But it also matters because -- as the Garner case reminds us -- the police might kill you.

I don't mean this as a criticism of cops, whose job after all is to carry out the legislative will. The criticism is of a political system that takes such bizarre delight in creating new crimes for the cops to enforce. It's unlikely that the New York legislature, in creating the crime of selling untaxed cigarettes, imagined that anyone would die for violating it. But a wise legislator would give the matter some thought before creating a crime. Officials who fail to take into account the obvious fact that the laws they're so eager to pass will be enforced at the point of a gun cannot fairly be described as public servants.

Husak suggests as one solution interpreting the Constitution to include a right not to be punished. This in turn would mean that before a legislature could criminalize a particular behavior, it would have to show a public interest significantly higher than for most forms of legislation.

He offers the example of a legislature that decides "to prohibit -- on pain of criminal liability -- the consumption of designated unhealthy foods such as doughnuts." The "rational basis test" usually applied by courts when statutes face constitutional challenge would be easily met. In short, under existing doctrine, the statute would be a permissible exercise of the police power. But if there existed a constitutional right not to be punished, the statute would have to face a higher level of judicial scrutiny, and might well be struck down -- not because of a right to eat unhealthy foods, but because of a right not to be criminally punished by the state except in matters of great importance.

Of course, activists on the right and the left tend to believe that all of their causes are of great importance. Whatever they want to ban or require, they seem unalterably persuaded that the use of state power is appropriate.

That's too bad. Every new law requires enforcement; every act of enforcement includes the possibility of violence. There are many painful lessons to be drawn from the Garner tragedy, but one of them, sadly, is the same as the advice I give my students on the first day of classes: Don't ever fight to make something illegal unless you're willing to risk the lives of your fellow citizens to get your way.

 

[Nick Burkhardt]

 

[U8395279]

What color is the sky in your little world, kiddo?

Look, all I was asking was for you to elaborate on your comment, and explain what you said. I am not the one here that is claiming that everyone commits a felony every day. You are the one who is making this claim.

If you cannot elaborate on or offer any explanation of any kind for your statement, then it is obvious that you are just blowing smoke here, nothing more.

And by replying to me with this weak attempt to change the subject by making an ad hominem attack on me, all you are effectively doing here is to prove my original point of how outlandish your claim is. It is clearly indefensible.

.

 

[IronMonster]

Well, I might not be able to give examples of an average person committing three felony's a day but how about this?

Everything Hitler did in Germany was supported by German law.

There is a relatively unknown Martin Luther King quote to this effect "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was Legal"

 

[JRuby]

I cannot make laws I can only agree to support those laws which make sense to me. As a country of 317+ million people we need laws to carry on day to day activities. Dont believe me - next time you meet some one at a four way stop sign consider what would happen if no one stopped. I believe that many / most crimes are committed willingly. Why should there not be long term retribution for those that think the laws are for everyone else especially when they are convicted of a felony. People need to own up and except the consequences of thier own choices.

 

[PiratePast40]

.....I can only agree to support those laws which make sense to me......

As usual, your reasoning has no consistency and bounces all over the place.

 

[IronMonster]

So that kid in New York who died at the hands of a cop because he was selling cigarettes without paying the tax, you support that? The consequences of a minor tax infraction is death? Because all too often that is the world we live in.

We need the rule of law, we are a nation of laws. However you need to understand that these laws are sometimes enforced by the barrel of a gun, no matter how trivial.

All I'm saying is justice should be just. Punishment should be fitting of the crime.


A person who has no history of violence and has not committed a crime against a victim (such as failing to pay tax) should not be stripped of their Second Amendment rights. The right to protect oneself should not be stripped lightly. The right to keep and bare arms should be restored to those who have paid there debt and have demonstrated they are productive members of society.

 

[JRuby]

As usual, your reasoning has no consistency and bounces all over the place.

Thank you once again for your opinion It is worth to me what I paid for it. Now if you want to dispute it that would be welcomed. Have a nice day.

 

[JRuby]

Show me a crime that has no victim please? Drugs is one that ok s often sited however you ever been around a family that has lost its child to drugs.

 

[IronMonster]

I think the example I posted is pretty good. The guy killed by the New York cop because he was selling cigarettes without paying the tax.

You're honestly going to tell me that someone was harmed by him avoiding that five dollars for the tax on the packs of cigarettes?

How about some of my earlier examples?

The lady who is charged with the federal crime for possessing a lobster?


How about the guy who is charged with a federal crime for getting lost on Federal lands?

 

[IronMonster]

Or how about this, I personally know a guy who spent two years in the federal pen for possession of unregistered machine guns.


Nobody was attacked nobody was threatened nobody was harmed. Is crime was he possessed something that the government didn't think he should. That cost him two years of his life and his second amendment rights.

And the crazy part about it was his he did not even have the guns in his possession.


Who was harmed by those actions? Who is the victim?



He was no different than the people the government said are legally allowed to own machine guns, He just failed to pay the tax to the required agency.

 

[JRuby]

I dont think anyone disagrees that excessive force was used except the police, however he was technically taking commerce from other businesses in the area at the very least. Now people will say this is all of the cities fault yet he had been doing this many times to the police knew him. This criminal made many bad choices in his life. What about his famiiy not having a father now because of his choices. He died because he did obey the police making a legal arrest the cigarretes was simply a catalyst.

 

[U8395279]

I think the example I posted is pretty good. The guy killed by the New York cop because he was selling cigarettes without paying the tax.

You're honestly going to tell me that someone was harmed by him avoiding that five dollars for the tax on the packs of cigarettes?

Actually, I believe that case is even more egregious than that. He was only selling loose single cigarettes, from what I understand. So the tax not being paid in that incident was more like 20 cents, and not $5.00