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Since you have nothing to hide, is it safe to talk? There can still be real danger in speaking to a government agent in these circumstances. To begin with, you

Since you have nothing to hide, is it safe to talk? There can still be real danger in speaking to a government agent in these circumstances. To begin with, you are not qualified to know whether you are innocent of wrongdoing under federal criminal law. Critical system failure. There should be red lights blinking and klaxons wailing.

hvs 15y ago
"Ignorance of the law excuses no man: Not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him." - John Selden I'm not defending the ridiculously complicated U.S. Code but, even if it was much simpler, there is no way you can honestly say, "I know I did nothing illegal."
- Symmetry 15y ago
  That's a subtly different point. Its ok that ignorance of the law can't be used as a defense. That an honest person who attempts to study the law so that they can comply with it has basically no chance of succeeding is the problem.
  - hvs 15y ago
    An honest person can attempt to do that, and they are called "lawyers." Again, it is way too easy to run afoul of the U.S. Code. I get that. But, even if that wasn't true, it would still not be advisable to speak to law enforcement officers.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      Even a lawyer would have to be superhuman to achieve that, unless we extent his being to include a law library and his colleagues.
    - chc 15y ago
      The definition of "lawyer" is not "a person who earnestly tries to comply with the law." Lawyers have a particular role in the legal system that goes well beyond merely being a law-abiding citizen.
      - Natsu 15y ago
        The definition of "lawyer" is "someone who has graduated from law school" while "attorney" is "someone who is licensed to practice law." There are people who are one of those things but not the other.
        rprasad 15y ago
        In America, a lawyer and an attorney are one and the same; both refer to licensed practitioners of the law. You do not come become a lawyer merely by going to law school (except in Wisconsin, if you go to a law school in Wisconsin). People who graduate from law school but who do not become licensed to practiced are referred to as "law graduates" or "JDs" (after the degree).
    - timwiseman 15y ago
      An honest person can attempt to do that, and they are called "lawyers." I am in law school right now, and the first thing I learned is how little I know, the second is how little I will know about the entirety of the law when I graduate. More recently I started realizing how quickly even law professors and experienced lawyers will plead ignorance (or at least state they need time for research) when you ask questions even slightly outside their specialty.
  - ctdonath 15y ago
    Short of some form of becoming a lawyer, what percentage of the general population, or even just those following HN, have ever read a nontrivial amount of actual law? any laws at all? (Took me years to comprehend just NY weapons laws.) Ignorance of the law is the norm. When the laws one is subject to can be measured in cubic yards, something is awry. Contrast with the entire US Constitution fitting on one piece of paper.
    - onemoreact 15y ago
      I had a collage assignment where I read a fair amount of laws relating to computer crimes. The problem is not reading the law it's lacking the context to understand what it means outside of the most trivial cases. Consider, if you sneeze and cause a traffic accident other factors are far more important than the sneeze, but in some cases it might reduce your culpability.
    - droithomme 15y ago
      I spend a considerable amount of time studying case law and I can say confidently that I have no idea whether I am committing a crime even doing something that seems to me to be completely innocuous such as sitting in my office posting on HN right now. In fact, I suspect I probably am in some obscure way that never occurred to me. Actually, there is a way that occurs to me. The article said "if you lie to your employer on your time and attendance records and, unbeknownst to you, he submits your records, along with those of other employees." My employer does have some government contracts and it's possible I am not supposed to be using the computer for personal reading. Perhaps my time now, even though after a solid 8 hr day, accounts by percentage of total work per day which is being reported to the government. By posting on HN I am defrauding the government of the taxpayer's hard earned cash. So actually I probably am committing a serious crime, see, I didn't even have to think to hard to come up with a possibility. Maybe someone will say this is not a crime, but how can they really know? Just because I haven't been charged yet doesn't mean this isn't illegal. Now the rest of life is the same way. It's possible that every minute of the day some crime is being committed unwittingly by myself. Talking to police and saying anything at all virtually guarantees that they will be made aware of some sort of illegal activity that I am engaged in. Perhaps I watered my lawn at the wrong hour. Maybe I failed to signal before changing lanes. Maybe I accidentally threw away a lithium battery that wasn't supposed to go to the landfill.
funkah 15y ago
> Since you have nothing to hide, is it safe to talk? Since you typically have nothing to gain by talking to law enforcement, why would you? It's all downside.
- Hisoka 15y ago
  Well said. It's not like you get brownie points or cash if you talk to them, give them helpful information, or prove your innocence.
- tsotha 15y ago
  The problem is if nobody talks to law enforcement, it's going to be very difficult for society to function properly.
  - funkah 15y ago
    Eh, you can always drop dimes anonymously if you know something. (I mean, you can now. Hopefully that will remain possible.) And there will always be people who talk to the police; they're just people with a tenuous understanding of risk versus reward.
  - jxcole 15y ago
    Tell them: "If you really feel that way, you can always write your local congressman to repeal 18 USC Section 1001. Until that law is removed, I really do not have a choice."
- VMG 15y ago
  I think the problem he is addressing is that third parties suffer due to inefficient investigation if you are a witness of a crime.
narrator 15y ago
Also, if you say something inconsistent, no matter how trivial, whether it has anything to do with the alleged crime or not, even if you are completely innocent, it will likely destroy your credibility in front of the jury and thus they will believe whatever paranoid fantasy the prosecution makes up. It could be something as trivial as you came back from your trip two months ago in the afternoon not in the evening as you had claimed, for example.
- randallsquared 15y ago
  If you say something inconsistent, you've lied to a federal officer, which is itself good for a prison term, as Martha Stewart learned (leaving aside the actual lie, which if I recall correctly was asserting that she did not do something which they couldn't get enough evidence of her doing to convict her for it...).

hvs 15y ago

"Ignorance of the law excuses no man: Not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him." - John Selden I'm not defending the ridiculously complicated U.S. Code but, even if it was much simpler, there is no way you can honestly say, "I know I did nothing illegal."

Symmetry 15y ago
That's a subtly different point. Its ok that ignorance of the law can't be used as a defense. That an honest person who attempts to study the law so that they can comply with it has basically no chance of succeeding is the problem.
- hvs 15y ago
  An honest person can attempt to do that, and they are called "lawyers." Again, it is way too easy to run afoul of the U.S. Code. I get that. But, even if that wasn't true, it would still not be advisable to speak to law enforcement officers.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Even a lawyer would have to be superhuman to achieve that, unless we extent his being to include a law library and his colleagues.
  - chc 15y ago
    The definition of "lawyer" is not "a person who earnestly tries to comply with the law." Lawyers have a particular role in the legal system that goes well beyond merely being a law-abiding citizen.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      The definition of "lawyer" is "someone who has graduated from law school" while "attorney" is "someone who is licensed to practice law." There are people who are one of those things but not the other.
      - rprasad 15y ago
        In America, a lawyer and an attorney are one and the same; both refer to licensed practitioners of the law. You do not come become a lawyer merely by going to law school (except in Wisconsin, if you go to a law school in Wisconsin). People who graduate from law school but who do not become licensed to practiced are referred to as "law graduates" or "JDs" (after the degree).
  - timwiseman 15y ago
    An honest person can attempt to do that, and they are called "lawyers." I am in law school right now, and the first thing I learned is how little I know, the second is how little I will know about the entirety of the law when I graduate. More recently I started realizing how quickly even law professors and experienced lawyers will plead ignorance (or at least state they need time for research) when you ask questions even slightly outside their specialty.
- ctdonath 15y ago
  Short of some form of becoming a lawyer, what percentage of the general population, or even just those following HN, have ever read a nontrivial amount of actual law? any laws at all? (Took me years to comprehend just NY weapons laws.) Ignorance of the law is the norm. When the laws one is subject to can be measured in cubic yards, something is awry. Contrast with the entire US Constitution fitting on one piece of paper.
  - onemoreact 15y ago
    I had a collage assignment where I read a fair amount of laws relating to computer crimes. The problem is not reading the law it's lacking the context to understand what it means outside of the most trivial cases. Consider, if you sneeze and cause a traffic accident other factors are far more important than the sneeze, but in some cases it might reduce your culpability.
  - droithomme 15y ago
    I spend a considerable amount of time studying case law and I can say confidently that I have no idea whether I am committing a crime even doing something that seems to me to be completely innocuous such as sitting in my office posting on HN right now. In fact, I suspect I probably am in some obscure way that never occurred to me. Actually, there is a way that occurs to me. The article said "if you lie to your employer on your time and attendance records and, unbeknownst to you, he submits your records, along with those of other employees." My employer does have some government contracts and it's possible I am not supposed to be using the computer for personal reading. Perhaps my time now, even though after a solid 8 hr day, accounts by percentage of total work per day which is being reported to the government. By posting on HN I am defrauding the government of the taxpayer's hard earned cash. So actually I probably am committing a serious crime, see, I didn't even have to think to hard to come up with a possibility. Maybe someone will say this is not a crime, but how can they really know? Just because I haven't been charged yet doesn't mean this isn't illegal. Now the rest of life is the same way. It's possible that every minute of the day some crime is being committed unwittingly by myself. Talking to police and saying anything at all virtually guarantees that they will be made aware of some sort of illegal activity that I am engaged in. Perhaps I watered my lawn at the wrong hour. Maybe I failed to signal before changing lanes. Maybe I accidentally threw away a lithium battery that wasn't supposed to go to the landfill.

funkah 15y ago

> Since you have nothing to hide, is it safe to talk? Since you typically have nothing to gain by talking to law enforcement, why would you? It's all downside.

Hisoka 15y ago
Well said. It's not like you get brownie points or cash if you talk to them, give them helpful information, or prove your innocence.
tsotha 15y ago
The problem is if nobody talks to law enforcement, it's going to be very difficult for society to function properly.
- funkah 15y ago
  Eh, you can always drop dimes anonymously if you know something. (I mean, you can now. Hopefully that will remain possible.) And there will always be people who talk to the police; they're just people with a tenuous understanding of risk versus reward.
- jxcole 15y ago
  Tell them: "If you really feel that way, you can always write your local congressman to repeal 18 USC Section 1001. Until that law is removed, I really do not have a choice."
VMG 15y ago
I think the problem he is addressing is that third parties suffer due to inefficient investigation if you are a witness of a crime.

narrator 15y ago

Also, if you say something inconsistent, no matter how trivial, whether it has anything to do with the alleged crime or not, even if you are completely innocent, it will likely destroy your credibility in front of the jury and thus they will believe whatever paranoid fantasy the prosecution makes up. It could be something as trivial as you came back from your trip two months ago in the afternoon not in the evening as you had claimed, for example.

randallsquared 15y ago
If you say something inconsistent, you've lied to a federal officer, which is itself good for a prison term, as Martha Stewart learned (leaving aside the actual lie, which if I recall correctly was asserting that she did not do something which they couldn't get enough evidence of her doing to convict her for it...).