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"The wicked man flees when no one pursues." If everyone was constantly breaking the law then there would be no known criminals who haven't been arrested. There

"The wicked man flees when no one pursues." If everyone was constantly breaking the law then there would be no known criminals who haven't been arrested. There would no John Gottis or Whitey Bulgers. As soon as the government wanted someone arrested, they would just immediately arrest them for breaking copyright law or whatever. No need for the FBI to meticulously build cases, we're all guilty all the time and our only hope is to boycott Dropbox. And if the government suddenly decides to start enforcing ex post facto violations of the law, we're all screwed anyway. There's no point in living your life by being afraid of what might be in and out of fashion in the future. If the government decides to start arresting people who have broken existing laws (not to mention future ones) there there are literally millions of people who have openly admitted to doing drugs or otherwise violating existing prohibitions. I can't think of many cases where the average citizen was prosecuted because they admitted to a minor crime on facebook, not to mention any cases where the government changed their minds on the law and started going after people. I live a normal, boring life and do normal, boring things. I'm not going to get arrested for eating fast food while watching reality tv, or drinking beer and watching sports. I don't do anything that harms (or helps) anyone else, I'm the average American. I have nothing to hide and absolutely no fear of government intelligence collection.

TrevorJ 12y ago
I specifically mentioned selective enforcement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement There are over 3000 FEDERAL criminal offenses on the books. (As an estimate, even the gov can't tell you exactly how many. If you think ALL of these fall under common sense then you are kidding yourself. Have you read the thousands of pages that span dozens of volumes to be sure you aren't an offender? You've conveniently side stepped my main first point, which is that we have a right to privacy, and that right has NOTHING to do with our presumed guilt or innocence. To use the argument "I have nothing to hide" misses the point entirely. If you want to walk around exposed, that's fine, but don't argue that the rest of us should be made to.
icebraining 12y ago
If everyone was constantly breaking the law then there would be no known criminals who haven't been arrested. There would no John Gottis or Whitey Bulgers. As soon as the government wanted someone arrested, they would just immediately arrest them for breaking copyright law or whatever. The unquestioned premise in your argument is that the government wants all criminals to be arrested.

TrevorJ 12y ago

I specifically mentioned selective enforcement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement There are over 3000 FEDERAL criminal offenses on the books. (As an estimate, even the gov can't tell you exactly how many. If you think ALL of these fall under common sense then you are kidding yourself. Have you read the thousands of pages that span dozens of volumes to be sure you aren't an offender? You've conveniently side stepped my main first point, which is that we have a right to privacy, and that right has NOTHING to do with our presumed guilt or innocence. To use the argument "I have nothing to hide" misses the point entirely. If you want to walk around exposed, that's fine, but don't argue that the rest of us should be made to.

icebraining 12y ago

If everyone was constantly breaking the law then there would be no known criminals who haven't been arrested. There would no John Gottis or Whitey Bulgers. As soon as the government wanted someone arrested, they would just immediately arrest them for breaking copyright law or whatever. The unquestioned premise in your argument is that the government wants all criminals to be arrested.