Too many laws

Clark Neily over at Townhall.com asks If the Law is This Complicated, Why shouldn't Ignorance Be an Excuse? It is a fact that the average person can no longer know what the law is, and even lawyers do not really know all the law. Neily:

"Because I said so.” “Life isn’t fair.” “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” These are some of the great cop-outs of all time, and the last one is particularly troubling in a country with so many laws that it is impossible to count—let alone read—them all. When was the last time you sat down with a complete set of the federal, state, and local codes setting forth the tens of thousands of criminal violations for which you could be sent to jail? If you answered “never,” you’re in good company. Nevertheless, America’s judges still cling to the proposition that it’s perfectly fine to lock people up for doing something they had no idea was illegal. But it’s not fine, and the justifications for that palpably unfair rule have only grown more threadbare with time.

Things have gotten so bad that even an act as innocent as sharing a Netflix password or a bank website password with a family member could potentially carry criminal penalties if the website disallows password sharing. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 bans intentionally accessing a computer “without authorization,” and the Supreme Court has recently declined to hear a case from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, United States v. Nosal, that held that password sharing could be prohibited by the Act. Although the majority opinion did not explicitly mention innocent password sharing, the dissent noted that the lack of any limiting principle meant that the majority’s reasoning could easily be used to criminalize a host of innocent conduct.

Emphasis is mine.  Nosal, for instance, was engaging in shady, unethical behavior if not outright fraud.  But there appears no provision for, as Neily notes, sharing a Netflix password with a family member.  Neily goes on to note that there are estimated to be 4000 Federal crimes, and 300,000 Regulations that carry the effect of law enforcing fines and jail time on the unfortunate who get caught up in them.  Then there are the State and local laws, ordinances, and rules that can further trip a person up.

One of the problems is the increasing number of laws prohibiting morally blameless activity that nobody would naturally think would be a criminal act.   For example, picking up a feather you find on the forest floor while out hiking:

Moreover, as noted, the increasing criminalization of morally blameless conduct makes the punishment of innocent mistakes even more likely. For example, federal law makes it illegal to possess the feather of any native migratory bird even if one just picks it up off the ground, and the potential penalties for doing so include fines and even time in prison. Think federal prosecutors would exercise their discretion to prevent miscarriages of justice under such obscure laws? Think again. Contrary examples are as numerous as they are horrifying.

Neily goes on to cite a number of examples. But we have seen other examples of the overcriminalization of the law before. Back in 2011 a Missouri family faced a $4 million fine for selling more than $500 worth of bunnies in a year. The Dollarwhite family didn't abuse their rabbits, and kept them exceptionally clean and well cared for. Apparently the Dollarwhites did not know about the obscure requirement to obtain a license when they sell to another for resale.  The license is to ensure that they are not abusing their rabbits.  But why didn't the USDA merely inform them of this "paperwork violation" and help them get licensed?  In my opinion the reasons for putting this family through hell can only be because of malice on the government's part.  And in the end, the Dollarwhite family did not do their due diligence by hiring an attorney and paying him to find out all the laws rules and regulations pertaining to the practice of rabbitry. 

But this gets to the heart of the problem, doesn't it?  If one has to consult an attorney before taking any action, knowing that one could be liable even if your attorney thinks you are allowed to do it, maybe the law has become to complicated.  Maybe its time to clip the wings of the regulators, and maybe its time to force our Congress to do its real job, and legislate sensible laws that we can all live with.