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> No they don't. They have prosecutorial discretion. If the application of the law in a particular case is ridiculous, they have no legal or professional obliga

> No they don't. They have prosecutorial discretion. If the application of the law in a particular case is ridiculous, they have no legal or professional obligation to press those charges. You either break the law, or you don't. The law should be the same for everybody and should NOT be applied selectively. It's actually outrageous that you imply otherwise. Because this happens it's precisely the reason for why we have ridiculous laws in the first place. If this goes on pretty soon everybody will be a criminal, but the world will still turn for you, until you manage to upset somebody you shouldn't have. And since we are on the subject, that's how the law works in totalitarian states.

erichocean 14y ago
You either break the law, or you don't. This viewpoint is incredibly naive, and also wrong. The law is not black or white, it is selectively enforced all the time, and context does matter in its application.
- rapind 14y ago
  Exactly, and the reason for this is that we can't cover all possibilities with enough granularity for black and white to be close to reasonable. If it was illegal to break a lock (black and white), then the guy who breaks a lock to steal your TV gets the same sentence as the guy who breaks his own lock because he forgot his keys, and the same as the guy who breaks a lock to get into a burning building to save a child, etc. Obviously this is ridiculous, but even so, how could we possibly cover all of the motivations for breaking a lock? How could we cover all of the motivations for hiding your identity? How could it ever be black and white if we can't? If we could, then the entire justice system could then be automated.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    >Obviously this is ridiculous, but even so, how could we possibly cover all of the motivations for breaking a lock? But here's the thing: That's why it isn't illegal to "break a lock." It's illegal to e.g. steal things. Because that's what we want to prohibit, not breaking locks, even if breaking locks is a thing mostly done by criminals who are trying to steal things.
    - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
      I don't believe you have to actually steal anything to be guilty of "breaking and entering". http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/breaking-and-entering.html http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/breaking-and-enteri...
      - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        Neither are you guilty of "breaking and entering" if you break your own lock. And you might also notice that the penalty for breaking and entering is a lot lower than it is for e.g. grand larceny (or, for that matter, murder).
        jack-r-abbit 14y ago
        Neither of your points refute my point so I just agree and move on.
        rapind 14y ago
        You're missing the point (intentionally or not, I can't say). So to take a bad analogy even further... I'm a lock troll. I like to go around breaking people's locks. I never steal anything, I just break locks because I'm a prick like that. This guy I know, Franky, broke a lock the other day in order to save a child from a burning building. How would you propose a black and white system handle this? Do I get to run around breaking locks with impunity, or are we going to punish Franky for the method of his good deed. I mean, the good deed's nice and all, but irrelevant to the matter at hand right?
        AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        1) You don't have a law against breaking locks. You have a law against willful destruction of other peoples' property, and locks are property. 2) You have an exception to such laws for exigent circumstances or implied consent. Here is the flaw in your argument: We don't have to nail everything down to nail part of something down. We don't have to define "exigent circumstances" mathematically or put the badge number of authorized fire marshals in the statute. That doesn't mean we can't do better than obscenely broad and vague nonsense like "unauthorized access to a computer." There is a reason we have laws more specific than "anyone who does anything bad shall be punished by a fine of up to one hundred trillion dollars or up to one thousand years in prison."
randallsquared 14y ago
> If this goes on pretty soon Actually, we're well past that point. Until the past few years, only tiny special interest groups ever heard about things like this. Now, it has the potential to blow up into national news. Maybe this is progress.
AnthonyMouse 14y ago
>You either break the law, or you don't. The law should be the same for everybody and should NOT be applied selectively. It's actually outrageous that you imply otherwise. I'm not implying anything. That is actually how it works now. If you don't like it, change it. But good luck, because first you're going to have to fix all of the laws before you try to force prosecutors to prosecute all of them or we'll all be going to trial at the same time and the entire world will grind to a halt. >If this goes on pretty soon everybody will be a criminal There is no "pretty soon" about it.
timwiseman 14y ago
"The law should be the same for everybody and should NOT be applied selectively." It depends on how the selection is done. If a prosecutor declines to prosecute because the law breaker is of a particular race, rich, politically powerful, etc. then that is an abuse of discretion. However, we want prosecutors to be selective when it comes to saying that someone might have been justified even if the law as written doesn't explicitly acknowledge the justification (or acknowledges it but as a factor for the judge to consider). Speeding and running red lights because you are impatient and reckless is a different matter than speeding and running a red light because your passenger is bleeding profusely. We also need to give prosecutors some discretion just to manage the case load. Unless we are willing to spend a lot more on both prosecutors and the court systems, we want them to be able to say "I will focus my time and attention on this murderer even if it means letting that shoplifter go with an extremely favorable plea bargain or even unpunished."

erichocean 14y ago

You either break the law, or you don't. This viewpoint is incredibly naive, and also wrong. The law is not black or white, it is selectively enforced all the time, and context does matter in its application.

rapind 14y ago
Exactly, and the reason for this is that we can't cover all possibilities with enough granularity for black and white to be close to reasonable. If it was illegal to break a lock (black and white), then the guy who breaks a lock to steal your TV gets the same sentence as the guy who breaks his own lock because he forgot his keys, and the same as the guy who breaks a lock to get into a burning building to save a child, etc. Obviously this is ridiculous, but even so, how could we possibly cover all of the motivations for breaking a lock? How could we cover all of the motivations for hiding your identity? How could it ever be black and white if we can't? If we could, then the entire justice system could then be automated.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  >Obviously this is ridiculous, but even so, how could we possibly cover all of the motivations for breaking a lock? But here's the thing: That's why it isn't illegal to "break a lock." It's illegal to e.g. steal things. Because that's what we want to prohibit, not breaking locks, even if breaking locks is a thing mostly done by criminals who are trying to steal things.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    I don't believe you have to actually steal anything to be guilty of "breaking and entering". http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/breaking-and-entering.html http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/breaking-and-enteri...
    - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
      Neither are you guilty of "breaking and entering" if you break your own lock. And you might also notice that the penalty for breaking and entering is a lot lower than it is for e.g. grand larceny (or, for that matter, murder).
      - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
        Neither of your points refute my point so I just agree and move on.
      - rapind 14y ago
        You're missing the point (intentionally or not, I can't say). So to take a bad analogy even further... I'm a lock troll. I like to go around breaking people's locks. I never steal anything, I just break locks because I'm a prick like that. This guy I know, Franky, broke a lock the other day in order to save a child from a burning building. How would you propose a black and white system handle this? Do I get to run around breaking locks with impunity, or are we going to punish Franky for the method of his good deed. I mean, the good deed's nice and all, but irrelevant to the matter at hand right?
        AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        1) You don't have a law against breaking locks. You have a law against willful destruction of other peoples' property, and locks are property. 2) You have an exception to such laws for exigent circumstances or implied consent. Here is the flaw in your argument: We don't have to nail everything down to nail part of something down. We don't have to define "exigent circumstances" mathematically or put the badge number of authorized fire marshals in the statute. That doesn't mean we can't do better than obscenely broad and vague nonsense like "unauthorized access to a computer." There is a reason we have laws more specific than "anyone who does anything bad shall be punished by a fine of up to one hundred trillion dollars or up to one thousand years in prison."

randallsquared 14y ago

> If this goes on pretty soon Actually, we're well past that point. Until the past few years, only tiny special interest groups ever heard about things like this. Now, it has the potential to blow up into national news. Maybe this is progress.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago

>You either break the law, or you don't. The law should be the same for everybody and should NOT be applied selectively. It's actually outrageous that you imply otherwise. I'm not implying anything. That is actually how it works now. If you don't like it, change it. But good luck, because first you're going to have to fix all of the laws before you try to force prosecutors to prosecute all of them or we'll all be going to trial at the same time and the entire world will grind to a halt. >If this goes on pretty soon everybody will be a criminal There is no "pretty soon" about it.

timwiseman 14y ago

"The law should be the same for everybody and should NOT be applied selectively." It depends on how the selection is done. If a prosecutor declines to prosecute because the law breaker is of a particular race, rich, politically powerful, etc. then that is an abuse of discretion. However, we want prosecutors to be selective when it comes to saying that someone might have been justified even if the law as written doesn't explicitly acknowledge the justification (or acknowledges it but as a factor for the judge to consider). Speeding and running red lights because you are impatient and reckless is a different matter than speeding and running a red light because your passenger is bleeding profusely. We also need to give prosecutors some discretion just to manage the case load. Unless we are willing to spend a lot more on both prosecutors and the court systems, we want them to be able to say "I will focus my time and attention on this murderer even if it means letting that shoplifter go with an extremely favorable plea bargain or even unpunished."