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Three Felonies a Day is a very interesting read, and I highly recommend it. https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-audiobook/dp/B07J488Q3B https://www.amazo

by Arrath 4y ago

Three Felonies a Day is a very interesting read, and I highly recommend it. https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-audiobook/dp/B07J488Q3B https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-audiobook/dp/B07J4... > Many of the laws you are referring to are basically dead laws. You couldn't convict someone if you tried. That is really immaterial to the discussion, as charges being brought alone can royally fuck up a life, whether or not a conviction is made in the end.

mercutio2 4y ago
The title of the book has been repeatedly debunked, applies mainly to professionals who are far from the average American, conflates federal crimes with felonies, and is off by one to two orders of magnitude for the cases that are likely to adhere to the average professional. I'm still a fan of reducing the complexity of the legal code and enormously circumscribing plea bargaining false-confession-ammunition, so it's not like I'm not aligned with the overall libertarian impulse here, but I disagree that this is a good book.
that_guy_iain 4y ago
In most countries when a law is basically dead it means they won't even file charges. Prosecutors are overloaded and they don't have all the bag of tricks US prosecutors have for reducing the number of trials so charging an ancient law is one way of increasing your trial count. However, it seems rather odd that I say I have nothing I need to hide I just have things I want to hide. People are insisting I must have somethign I need to hide. This is where I think many activists screw up. They're too busy trying to push their framing of the issue on to people. Instead of getting behind the idea that people have stuff they don't want others to know, which we all do, it seems everyone here is busy talking about the need to hide illegal stuff because what they currently do might become illegal. That isn't going to wash with most people. Most people are going to be againist it because now you're keeping privacy in the mindset of committing crimes and all these privacy tools aren't for keeping your personal secrets but for committing crimes. Who wants to support these crimes? Especially when instantly the other side talks about child porn. It's like how when the protests in the US kicked off in 2020. They framed it as black lives matter which instantly allowed detractors to point out that white people are killed by police more often and silence them. If it wasn't just framed as a racial thing and instead of a police brutality problem against all people, it could have gone further.

by Arrath 4y ago

mercutio2 4y ago

The title of the book has been repeatedly debunked, applies mainly to professionals who are far from the average American, conflates federal crimes with felonies, and is off by one to two orders of magnitude for the cases that are likely to adhere to the average professional. I'm still a fan of reducing the complexity of the legal code and enormously circumscribing plea bargaining false-confession-ammunition, so it's not like I'm not aligned with the overall libertarian impulse here, but I disagree that this is a good book.

that_guy_iain 4y ago

In most countries when a law is basically dead it means they won't even file charges. Prosecutors are overloaded and they don't have all the bag of tricks US prosecutors have for reducing the number of trials so charging an ancient law is one way of increasing your trial count. However, it seems rather odd that I say I have nothing I need to hide I just have things I want to hide. People are insisting I must have somethign I need to hide. This is where I think many activists screw up. They're too busy trying to push their framing of the issue on to people. Instead of getting behind the idea that people have stuff they don't want others to know, which we all do, it seems everyone here is busy talking about the need to hide illegal stuff because what they currently do might become illegal. That isn't going to wash with most people. Most people are going to be againist it because now you're keeping privacy in the mindset of committing crimes and all these privacy tools aren't for keeping your personal secrets but for committing crimes. Who wants to support these crimes? Especially when instantly the other side talks about child porn. It's like how when the protests in the US kicked off in 2020. They framed it as black lives matter which instantly allowed detractors to point out that white people are killed by police more often and silence them. If it wasn't just framed as a racial thing and instead of a police brutality problem against all people, it could have gone further.