Hey, blogger The consumer protection police would like a word with you

slate.com

3 pointschuck_taylor2 comments

This is just another example of the disturbing trend of increasing body of "crimes of omission". These are crimes that involve what might be considered ordinary daily activities that now require permission seeking or special compliance efforts in order to prevent them from being criminal activities. Some of these regulations are clearly reasonable, but they seem to be getting less so of late, and the penalties for non-compliance (even through reasonable ignorance) much harsher.

"Ignorance of the law" may be no excuse but it will not be reasonable for much longer to expect ordinary citizens to be able to comply.

Ignorance of the law was no excuse when the laws were roughly the ten commandments, or my personal golden rule, passed down to my sons: Don't be a douchebag.

Now, even professional lawyers can't keep up with what is/isn't may be/may not be illegal. It's insane.

It's like I mentioned in a previous thread -- if we write laws such that everyone is a criminal, then obviously we won't be able to enforce them on everyone... then it becomes a matter of staying in the good graces of the enforcers.

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