tolerate a certain measure of guilt<\/a> because of the lack of enforcement.<\/p>\nIndeed, the real point I am after might be understood as applying only a little to any existing laws, for it also has a forward-looking aspect: in times to come we may be confronted with new laws that are asinine or much worse, and when that happens the government’s limited ability to enforce its wishes because of practical constraints will serve as an important brake on its overreaching.<\/p>\n
An example the author gives is the speed limit — if there were an effortless method for the authorities to ticket anyone who goes 1 m.p.h. over the speed limit, how happy would folks be about that? Would we change speed laws? Or …<\/p>\n
On this view, perfect enforcement would amount to a change in the law itself from a pragmatic standpoint, and sometimes an undesirable one. If the government suddenly were able to costlessly identify and jail everyone who has used illegal drugs in the past X number of years, I expect that the underlying substantive laws in question would be changed very promptly. Some of our distinguished public officials would, ahem, be leading the way.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s a good thing — the tolerance of minor law-breaking could very well be argued to allow a broader, incremental rot in what we consider to be acceptible behavior, a slippery slope where exceeding the speed limit by 5 mph becomes exceeding it by 20 mph or more.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the real world is probably not as binary (legal\/illegal, or, more importantly, moral\/immoral, right\/wrong, allowable\/unallowable, tolerable\/intolerable) as all that. Having our legal system, including its enforcement, reflect that may be uncomfortable, but we should at least consider the discomfort of “Total Information Awareness” — and the potential of acting on it — as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the continued moves by various agencies in the Federal government to expand the data it collects and the way it makes use of it for law enforcement anti-terrorism purposes,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":134502,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/01\/california-rejects-idea-never-ending-generic-police-investigations.html","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":0},"title":"California rejects the idea of never-ending generic “police investigations”","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Sep-17 9:14am","format":false,"excerpt":"The ACLU and EFF have won a ruling in the California Supreme Court that the massive databases California law enforcement collect by simply recording the license plates of every car that passes by a given spot cannot be held indefinitely or in secret just because they might some day be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/police-surveillance.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1041,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/22\/fbi_v2.html","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":1},"title":"FBI v.2","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Oct-01 9:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times reports that the FBI is looking at significantly changing its role. \"In\" are counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence, complex white-collar fraud, organized crime and political corruption. \"Out\" are...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43412,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/09\/literal-highway-robbery.html","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":2},"title":"Literal Highway Robbery","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Jul-14 6:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If forfeiture laws (a) included a rigorous requirement of a criminal conviction, or at least a preponderance of the evidence that the assets involved were the results of or the tools for a crime, and (b) didn't directly profit law enforcement, then I suspect this sort of crap wouldn't be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31114,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/02\/because-joe-miklosi-loves-murderers-especially-yours.html","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":3},"title":"“Because Joe Miklosi LOVES MURDERERS \u2026 especially YOURS!”","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 2-Nov-12 7:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing the pretty consistent peppering of flyers (and, apparently, broadcast ads, though I don't listen\/watch those) from a worried Mike Coffman against his Democratic challenger Joe Miklosi, we get a doozy here, as a follow-up to previous ad campaigns: JOE MIKLOSI VOTED AGAINST KATIE'S LAW. Sometimes, a single strand of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2012","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2012"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132783,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/07\/trying-again-on-an-email-privacy-bill.html","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":4},"title":"Trying again on an email privacy bill","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Feb-17 8:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"For all I criticize the GOP-majority House of Representatives, kudos to them for once again passing and sending on to the Senate a bill that protects email and other file privacy, requiring law enforcement get a warrant before riffling through the contents of your old emails. (Currently, anything within 180\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49277,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/17\/a-welcome-step-toward-forfeiture-reform.html","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":5},"title":"A welcome step toward forfeiture reform","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 17-Jan-15 7:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Civil forfeiture laws have been a travesty of justice for the last few decades. They were originally designed to let \"War on Drugs\" law enforcement seize assets (airplanes, boats, etc.) alleged to be used directly in drug-running activities, but they've since turned into a cash cow for local police, who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}