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Friday, June 21, 2013

Guilty! (Of something), the drone has the evidence

Over at Marginal Revolution Alex Tabarrock has a post based on the premise that so many laws and regulations are in place in the United States that all of us break some of them inadvertently. After a couple of specific examples Tabarrock reminds us:
Remember, under the common law, mens rea, criminal intent, was a standard requirement for criminal prosecution but today that is typically no longer the case especially under federal criminal law .

Faced with the evidence of an non-intentional crime, most prosecutors, of course, would use their discretion and not threaten imprisonment. Evidence and discretion, however, are precisely the point. Today, no one is innocent and thus our freedom is maintained only by the high cost of evidence and the prosecutor’s discretion.
Here's the point:
One of the responses to the revelations about the mass spying on Americans by the NSA and other agencies is “I have nothing to hide. What me worry?” I tweeted in response “If you have nothing to hide, you live a boring life.” More fundamentally, the NSA spying machine has reduced the cost of evidence so that today our freedom–or our independence–is to a large extent at the discretion of those in control of the panopticon.
That is not a comforting thought.

2 comments:

  1. yes these happen in all countres

    so what's the difference between the United States and another country?

    nobody knows

    it gained the advantage

    but how and why?

    nobody knows

    of course you can point to all the historiographical details and points of fact

    but that will only be a recapitulation of the question

    ReplyDelete
  2. - do you believ in god?
    - no i believe in science
    - ther you go come on over
    - i'm an atheist remember?
    - yes come on down!

    ReplyDelete