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Read "Three Felonies a Day" by Harvey Silverglate to understand the fed's rationale. The ends justify the means. After all, Capone ended up in Alcatraz for tax evasion. The book is sickening reading.

http://www.harveysilverglate.c...
http://www.threefeloniesaday.c...
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Fe...

None of this excuses the youngster's behavior.

Speaking as a wrongfully convicted person, the paranoia left behind after being unjustly arrested and dragged through court cannot be understated. When you learn that anything on your computer can be massaged into evidence against you, aggressive action to destroy data--and not create it in the first place--becomes standard operating procedure. It is unsurprising that a law exists which makes this a felony. Does being full-on paranoid that anything (no matter how seemingly benign) can be used as evidence against you mean that all personal data destruction counts as a felony under Sarbanes-Oxley? If so, that seems very unconstitutional.

Anyone who thinks that tens of thousands of pages of federal laws can be boiled down into "don't steal" and "don't commit assault" is an idiot. How about "don't copy an MP3 file" or "don't create, possess or distribute a piece of software to circumvent DRM"?

The OP is right. We are neither free nor safe because the federal government has created so many laws that we're all guilty of something.

http://harveysilverglate.com/B...

"Even the most intelligent and informed citizen cannot predict with any reasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinary activities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies."

Not just three laws, but 3 felonies a day

And the obligatory quote:

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

Three Felonies A Day, by Harvey Silverglate, Constitutional Lawyer:
http://www.harveysilverglate.c...

It is impossible to even count the number of Federal crimes:
http://online.wsj.com/news/art...

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu

Three felonies a day: http://harveysilverglate.com/B...

http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx

Doesn't change the fact that the Federal code base is so vast and so vague that the average citizen commits three Federal Felonies per day. Throw in laws that are secret and you're fucked if they want you. How do you even try to follow a secret law? Talk about a tool of tyranny.

Headline: "Intelligence Director declassifies law to explain massive phone, Internet surveillance"

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/06/3437545/white-house-defends-collection.html

An average person in the U.S. commit about five hundred felonies without them even knowing about it.

http://www.harveysilverglate.com/TheSilvergLatest.aspx

"So, when will Wikileaks start releasing Soviet and Communist archive material? Thats right, Assange probably doesn't consider them "bastards" to be crushed. Well, he going to Ecuador if he can, isn't he?"

Assange is retreating to Ecuador because many of those "free Western" democracies you seem so fond of have given him little choice.

Sure the country is free, until you embarrass the government. Then it becomes a police state faster than you can say donut.

I'm not saying Assange might not have legitimately got himself in trouble. As the girl getting arrested in Montreal shows, once the government and police see a person as a dissident they watch them closely. With the number of crimes that are vaguely defined, easy to make up, or just plainly something a reasonable person would not realize where a crime, it is not hard to put someone behind bars if they try.

http://rt.com/news/montreal-girl-arrested-instagram-370/
http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx
Aaron Swartz

With the number of politically minded prosecutions and arrests making the news, it is hard not to say that Western society has become a police state.

The fact that the law is so complex that everybody could be charged and jail for something is definitively true and a major problem. Though I do not see how government involvment is related to any of it.

I don't understand. Who makes the laws? It is the government. If the legal codebase is so large, vague, and complex, that every person commits a Federal felony every day, and the government made that law, how is the government not to blame?

http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx

The US Justice System is there to enforce the law.

No it isn't. Start with this: https://secure.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/myths-of-the-criminal-justice-system_n_879768.html

And the problem is that it's becoming nearly impossible to know what the law actually is. The U.S. Constitution outlines just three federal crimes -- treason, counterfeiting, and piracy. Various projects have tried to count the number of federal criminal laws passed since, and many have simply given up. But by most estimates, there are at least 4,000 separate criminal laws at the federal level, with another 10,000 to 300,000 regulations that can be enforced criminally.

In his most recent book, the civil libertarian and defense attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that most Americans now unknowingly commit about three felonies per day.

link to the book referenced: Three Felonies a Day, how the Feds target the innocent: http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.aspx

The Federal criminal system is designed to give the Feds total power and control. A government can take such control in several ways. The transparent manner is for a government to just do what it wants without explanation. Such governments are rightly despised as despotic. The US Federal government has chosen a different method. It has made so many crimes of such a vague nature, that everyone commits them without even knowing it. As a result, the Feds have no difficulty figuring out how to persecute a person should they decide they don't like that person for one reason or another. They just shuffle the deck and "pick a crime, any crime."

Now, whether Swartz committed a crime or not is sort of beside the point. Even assuming that he did, how does a 35 year prison term fit into what he did? It doesn't. It lacks all proportionality. What this lack of proportionality does do howver, is give the Feds absolute despotic control over people's lives, a power which they can exercise at will, with total immunity, against any person they decide to hate.

And worse, despite its ruthless disproportionate persecution, a signficant portion of the population will respond like you by blaming Swartz for being a crook. Problem is, with so many laws on the books -- you too are a crook. You just don't know it and not knowing the law is not a defense (except for police and prosecutors). That's a nice catch 22. You can't use lack of knowledge to defend yourself, but the code is so vast, vague, and disorganized, you can't know the laws.

No wonder there's so much crime in the states, when being innocent is that risky.

Haven't read it yet, but many have suggested I read "Three Felonies a Day".