Reason

The Justice Department assault on it:

Sadly, the Department of Justice can probably annoy everyone a great deal before it either loses or gives up trying. “The government doesn’t need reasonable suspicion or probable case to use grand jury subpoenas to seek information,” White confirms. “Regrettably, the government can probably abuse the Grand Jury subpoena power this way.” What it almost certainly cannot do, though, is win in court. Indeed, it is especially bizarre that the DOJ would pick this fight given that just last week the Supreme Court made it clear that, in order for a person to be found guilty of issuing “true threats,” prosecutors must demonstrate not only that a reasonable person would construe the words at hand as a “threat” but convince a jury that he knew what he was doing. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts concluded that “federal criminal liability generally does not turn solely on the results of an act without considering the defendant’s mental state.” Under this standard, jokes, hyperbole, and rank stupidity in the comments section of a website are, frankly, not going to cut it. Good old mens rea would make sure of that.

Mens rea doesn’t seem to mean much any more. Few people are aware of the multiple federal felonies per day that they are probably committing.

3 thoughts on “Reason”

  1. This is the political game that is being played now, over and over. Call it indirect tyranny. First you make everything illegal. Then you selectively enforce or grant waivers. Practically this is no different from direct tyranny, but with deniability.

  2. Expect Baghdad Jim to check in here with the knee-jerk faithful-serf party-line defense of Big Brother.

  3. Had the government acted like this during the Bush years, over half the country would still be in jail right now.

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