| A DSD Highlight….
From The Wall Street Journal I knew John Emshwiller when he was editor-in-chief of The Daily Californian at UC-Berkeley….. By GARY FIELDS and JOHN R. EMSHWILLER Eddie Leroy Anderson of Craigmont, Idaho, is a retired logger, a former science teacher and now a federal criminal thanks to his arrowhead-collecting hobby. In 2009, Mr. Anderson loaned his son some tools to dig for arrowheads near a favorite campground of theirs. Unfortunately, they were on federal land. Authorities “notified me to get a lawyer and a damn good one,” Mr. Anderson recalls. There is no evidence the Andersons intended to break the law, or even knew the law existed, according to court records and interviews. But the law, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, doesn’t require criminal intent and makes it a felony punishable by up to two years in prison to attempt to take artifacts off federal land without a permit. Faced with that reality, the two men, who didn’t find arrowheads that day, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and got a year’s probation and a $1,500 penalty each. “We kind of wonder why it got took to the level that it did,” says Mr. Anderson, 68 years old. Wendy Olson, the U.S. Attorney for Idaho, said the men were on an archeological site that was 13,000 years old. “Folks do need to pay attention to where they are,” she said. The Andersons are two of the hundreds of thousands of Americans to be charged and convicted in recent decades under federal criminal laws—as opposed to state or local laws—as the federal justice system has dramatically expanded its authority and reach. As federal criminal statutes have ballooned, it has become increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side of the law. Many of the new federal laws also set a lower bar for conviction than in the past: Prosecutors don’t necessarily need to show that the defendant had criminal intent…. continued at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703749504576172714184601654.html |
As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared…..
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They should get rid of half the laws in the country
And cut law enforcement agencies substantially
Why people believe that the number of laws and the number of cops you have roaming around has ANYTHING to do with the crime rate is beyond me
Rhode Island, under an independent governor who was an early endorser of Barack Obama, is busy trying to get the Feds to stop enforcing laws for her, or to allow Rhode Island to execute her own laws.
Examples include:
Secure Communities, a surefire way to make immigrants (and anyone who looks like or is related to an immigrant) think about eight times more and eight times harder before seeking assistance from or offering assistance to the local police. [This is the program that requires every police department to send all its arrest records and fingerprints to Homeland Security.]
Medical Marijuana dispensaries, endorsed by public opinion, the General Assembly and the Governor, and planned for a very strictly-controlled rollout (only three in the whole state, adminstered by impeccable collaboratives), but nixed by Eric Holder’s Department of Justice
The Death Penalty, not imposed since the 1840′s and effectively banned in 1851 (second in the nation after Michigan), but being threatened by a federal capital bank-robbery indictment for the entirely in-state (and frankly appalling) killing of a gas station employee making his daily bank deposit.
Civil Unions, Rhode Island’s second-best alternative to marriage equality, which will be even less effective if the Defense of Marriage Act (signed by Bill Clinton) is read too broadly.
Ok….I agree with your first Jack….
Cut the laws that are ancient and no longer relevant….cut the stupid bullshit laws……
Keep the cops….
You never know what’s gonna happen that they might be needed…
But you see that’s the problem Dog
Maybe you really believe that bs about the diligent cop selflessly trying to solve crimes
The reality is much different
Indeed police depts are the biggest bureaucracies in government
They are generally top heavy with numerous officers performing mundane tasks that could easily be done by part time clerks
The rest?
They are to a large extent enforcing a lot of silly laws that few
people are even aware of
I believe in slim trim law enforcement dedicated to solving REAL crimes instead of huge bureaucracies justifying their own existence by charging people for violating this or that “law”
Ok…Listen Jack…..
Cops are a needed part of ANY social system…..
While you make a point about police inefficiencies’ that is valid…
The major reason for law enforcement are varied and essential….
You get into fight with some family member and someone’s gonna get hurt…
You dial 911…
Somebody is driving right at you drunk….
You dial 911…
Someone falls to ground sick….
You dial 911…..
The enighbor next door is playing music too loud….
You dial 911….
Traffic is backed up because someone is pissing in the middle of the street…
You dial 911…
Some fuckhead is going around exposing himself to little kids and females…..
You dial 911…
The guy next to you at work says he’s goona break your face…
You dialk 911……
Jack this is another example of your disregard for other people’s problems….
I’ll give you this….
You ARE consistent….
Yeh we all remember your empathy for the MILLIONS of lives ruined on the Gulf Coast
All you wanted to do was “move on”(your words two days after the disaster
The ONLY thing you were worried about were the criminals at BP and their damn stock price
Also your well known empathy for Afghan civilians dying daily in that dumb war you support
To(once again in your words to preserve “honor)
Indeed you are the LAST person that should be questioning anyone scaring for other people
Now as to your litany of horrors
My response to that as so much of your I’ll found hysteria is
So?
Not ONE thing I said would prevent any of what you talked about
Instead and as usual you read what you want and disregard the substance
Police depts ARE well known bureaucracies and should be trimmed considerably so tha an officer can respond instead of being tied up running “statistic al analysis”to secure additional “funding”
Running evidence rooms with a uniform and gun on as if they ar RREALL doing police work
Conducting “crime prevention” seminars
All this kind of “stuff” can be done by damn claerks thus freeing up limited resources for REAL crime fighting
We could use a lot more informed discussion on thesubject instead of Rush Limbaugh like anecdotal silliness from hung ho “law and order” types like you!
The Gulf Coast is experincing a banner tourist season…..
When I visited New Orleans this spring there was NO mention of the spill by anyone there…
I got tons of questions from up here about it….
Not to defend BP and the companies involved….
But…
Feinberg is STILL paying out from the 20 Billion trust fund why BP cries about it everyday….
As for your comments on police departments….
Until Bill Bratton introduced statical measures into local law enforcement police department’s where guilty of not doucumenting and using concrete means of tracking crime and other problems…..
For most big departments ….
Those days are long gone….
Second look at what you wrote….
Police departments SHOULDN’T use stats to back up budget needs???
Let me see Jack…..He, he, he…
You want some cleck to give the local’s information that you are paying the cops for???
Come on…
Why have the cops that patrol you town and live in it sit down and show the human side of their job as the SHARE your concern’s and their’s in solving problems ….
Be those problems code enforcement, crime, streetlights, or loacl kids getting high…..
YOU are the one mentioning ‘Law and Order”
I have not…..
I case you missed it…
Police Officers are people first…
The men and women are OUR means of having a well run society…..
Irrelevant
When it happened you couldn’t have cared less about those people
I only point this out because you accused me o not caring about people when the reforms I am advocating would in fact help those people you anecdotally mention
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones
When I need pompous morality lectures from you
I will ask for them!
He, he, he….I provide then free for you ALL THE TIME…….
I won’t miss them for the world!
Once again you simply read what you want
I NEVER said statistical analysis wasn’t need
I said we don’t need COPS doing it
And No I’m not paying cops to “give information”
I’m paying them to patrol streets
No I don’t need a cop go “talk with me” about “problems
Once again I want him patrollin the streets
Oh and thanks for telling me that cops are people
I didn’t know that!
Bachmann’s ‘in’ right now…..
As I said before….. Go ask a cop…..She’ll tell ya 5 to 10% of her work is crime related….. The rest is service related……..