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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

>>So, what is the point in doing this if not to target law abiding citizens.

It's the old rule known to governments all over the world - there is no such thing as an innocent citizen, there is only a citizen who you haven't investigated enough. Call me cynical but storing ALL of your digital data allows the agencies to basically find something, anything, that will allow them to further blackmail you into complying. Even the most innocent person will have something that can be misconstrued as criminal, from jokes about tax evasion to pictures of your toddler in a pool - threaten going to trial if the person doesn't do X, and most people will comply, not because they aren't innocent, but because the might of the American justice system is such that you really don't want to fuck with it on the receiving end.

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To add to your point, our laws are so overly broad that it is impossible to exist without breaking some law. (your point talks of 'digital data' my comment refers to real-life)

From driving 1mph over the speed limit, to skipping FBI warnings on DVDs, to countless other "innocent" infractions. If they look hard enough they will find SOMETHING. And that's all they need.

Three Felonies a Day by Silverglate (ISBN 1594035229) and even https://twitter.com/CrimeADay make it obvious. Every citizen escapes prosecution only by the grace of Federal law enforcement.

For people renting it is routine to receive mail for several previous tenants. Everytime you throw away a credit card sign-up offer for someone else, you are committing a felony.

Yup! Write "Not at this Address" and put it in the outbox if you have one, or back in your mailbox with flag up.

I've been routinely receiving junk mail for a person that I know for a fact has been dead for about a decade. I used to do this with that mail, but stopped a couple of years ago. Now I just toss it directly in the recycling bin.

It is understandable, I just know not to fuck with the Postal Service. I doubt you will get convicted, but I don’t have great luck with things lol.

It's not that dangerous. They'll talk to you about what your intent was. On the other hand it could be the companies mailing you junk with no reply for decades have the ill intent because they're trying to get people into committing felonies (entrapment) with dogshit offers nobody would ever take that are littering the mail system. So if they accuse you, tell them that accusation must be redirected--like mail is--to like a middle-manager in the company doing mass-mailings.

They didn't pay you anything to wade through their junk. You aren't their slave unless you sign.

Yes, this.

And I don't open the mail -- that's a crime the postal service would take very seriously indeed. Sure, perhaps my practice is technically illegal, but I don't think it's the sort of illegal that the USPS would spend a lot of time and money on.

I'm not opening someone else's mail, I'm not preventing it from being delivered to the address on it, and I'm not preventing the recipient from receiving it. His death does that.

I did this with mail from the tax service addressed to the previous tenant. The result? A few days later I received the same mail in my inbox again, plus another one. Returned both of them, a few weeks later I received 4 mails.

When I started receiving more than 20 mails in one day, all from the tax service to that previous tenant, I bought a shredder and shredded the entire stack of mails. Some years later, I was still shredding mails. My magnanimity to correct for government failures only goes so far.

why is this specific to renting? what about previous owners? and yes I do get stuff for people not here for more that 12 years now, and I toss it, and I dare them to do anything about that.

These systems are perpetuated on the backs of the naive or sanctimonious enough to believe, and loudly proclaim, that they have nothing to hide; they haven't been targeted and haven't ever been in trouble; why are you breaking the law, you criminal scum?

Generations pass and everything remains the same. We're all on the same boat, so why are people so quick to judge against those targeted for violations of a contrived status quo?

"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

"...give me six lines..." - Cardinal Richelieu

Lavrentiy Beria didn’t even need six lines - “show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime.”

The criminal should have the strongest civil rights protections, so hands will be tied should the government try to go after inconvenient citizens.

No in the USA. We have rights on paper, but the threat of the trial tax convinced most to waive all of their rights in a plea agreement. That takes away things like their right to appeal their sentence, challenge illegal police behavior, etc. What would you pick? Keep your rights but face the entire weight of the US Government with unlimited budget and risk 20-40 years, or a plea for 3-5? All you have to do is give up all your rights. 95% pick to give up their rights.

Plea agreements were illegal up until the 70s for a reason.

Richelieu said this:

“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.”

This became clear when the border police checked my phone and ended up in my spam box… it was not pretty

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