Comment by Twey
2 days ago
The problem with precise law enforcement is that the legal system is incredibly complex. There's a tagline that ‘everybody's a criminal’; I don't know if that's necessarily true but I do definitely believe that a large number of ‘innocent’ people are criminals (by the letter of the law) without their knowledge. Because we usually only bother to prosecute crimes if some obvious harm has been done this doesn't cause a lot of damage in practice (though it can be abused), but if you start enforcing the letter of every law precisely it suddenly becomes the obligation of every citizen to know every law — in a de facto way, rather than just the de jure way we currently have as a consequence of ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’. So an increase of precision in law enforcement must be preceded by a drastic simplification of the law itself — not a bad thing by any means, but also not an easy (or, perhaps, possible) task.
The reason speed limits make such a great example for these arguments is because they're a preemptive law. Technically, nobody is directly harmed by speeding. We outlaw speeding on the belief that it statistically leads to and/or is correlated with other harms. Contrast this to a law against assault or theft: in those kinds of cases, the law makes the direct harm itself illegal.
Increasing the precision of enforcement makes a lot more sense for direct-harm laws. You won't find anyone seriously arguing that full 100% enforcement of murder laws is a bad idea. It's the preemptive laws, which were often lazily enforced, especially when no real harm resulted from the action, where this all gets complicated. Maybe this is the distinction to focus on.
This unwritten distinction exists only to allow targeted enforcement in service of harassment and oppression. There is no upside (even if getting away with speeding feels good). We should strive to enforce all laws 100% of the time as that is the only fair option.
If a law being enforced 100% of the time causes problems then rethink the law (i.e. raise the speed limit, or design the road slower).
> If a law being enforced 100% of the time causes problems then rethink the law (i.e. raise the speed limit, or design the road slower).
Isn't this the point of the whole conversation we are having here?
Laws on copyright were not created for current AI usage on open source project replication.
They need to change, because if they are perfectly enforced by the letter, they result in actions that are clearly against the intent of the law itself.
The underlying problem is that the world changes too fast for the laws so be fair immediately
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The speed limit example is a great one. Consider a road that has a 35mph limit. Now - which of the following scenarios is SAFER: a) I'm driving on the road in a brand new 4x4 porsche on a sunny day with great visibility and brand new tyres. Doing 40mph. b) I'm driving on the same road in a 70s car with legal but somewhat worn out tyres, in the dark, while it's raining heavily. Doing 35mph.
Of course technically option a is violating the law but no sane police officer will give you a fine in this case. Nor should they! A robot will, however. This is stupid.
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A system that solves for absolute compliance in every individual case does not result in the emergence of a fairer society.
There are numerous cases, both in history and in fiction, that demonstrate as much.
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Laws can't be enforced 100% of the time because many laws require intent, which is unknowable. You have to make an educated guess behind it. Even if someone tells you their intent, straight up, you still don't know their intent. You just know what they want you to think their intent is, which may or may not be the same thing. It's legitimately unknowable.
Ideally, for a lot of things we want to punish people who knowingly do bad stuff, not people who do bad stuff because they thought it was good.
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What about drunk driving laws?
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If speed limits were automated rigidly enforced 100% of the time, it would be impossible to drive.
>only to allow targeted enforcement in service of harassment and oppression
That's absurd hyperbole. A competent policeman will recognise the difference between me driving 90 km/h on a 80 km/h road because I didn't notice the sign. And me driving 120 km/h out of complete disregard for human life. Should I get a fine for driving 90? Yea, probably. Is it a first time offence? Was anyone else on the road? Did the sign get knocked down? Is it day or night? Have I done this 15 times before? Is my wife in labour in the passenger seat? None of those are excuses, but could be grounds for a warning instead.
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There is an upside: oppressing people who consistently engage in antisocial behavior is good and necessary.
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Actually it does harm people. High speed traffic is noisy and unpleasant, flows unpredictably, and tears up roads faster.
I think I would expect certain laws that are currently considered statutory / strict-liability laws, to be shifted to instead constitute only "evidence of negligence" and/or act as "aggravating conditions."
So, in the case of speeding:
- Speeding on its own would only automatically "warrant" the police to stop you / interview you / tell you off, and perhaps to follow you around for a while after they pull you over, to ensure you don't start speeding again (and to immediately pull you over again if you do.) I say "warrant" here because this doesn't actually give them any powers that private citizens don't have; rather, it protects them from you suing them for harassment for what they're doing. (Just like a "search warrant" doesn't give the police any additional powers per se, but rather protects them from civil and criminal damages associated with them breaking-and-entering into the specified location, destroying any property therein, etc.)
- But speeding while in the process of committing some other "actual" crime, or speeding that contributes to some other crime being committed, may be an aggravating factor that multiplies the penalty associated with the other act, or changes the nominal charge for the other act.
We might also then see a tweak for "threshold aggravations", such that e.g.
- Speeding while also doing some other dumb thing — having your brake-lights broken, say — may be considered to "cross a threshold" where they add up to an arrest+charge, even though none of the individual violations has a penalty when considered independently.
This would, AFAICT, translate well into a regime where there are little traffic-cop drones everywhere, maximizing speeding enforcement. If speeding is all they notice someone doing, they'd just be catch-and-release-ing people: pulling them over, squawking at them, and flying away. Literal slap-on-the-wrist tactics. Which is actually usefully deterrent on its own, if there are enough of these drones, and they just keep doing it, over and over again, to violators. (Do note that people can't just "not pull over" because they know there are no penalties involved; they would still be considered police, and "not complying with a police stop" would, as always, be a real crime with real penalties; if you run from the drone, it would summon actual cars to chase you!)
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Oddly, I think if you follow this legal paradigm to its natural conclusion, it could lead to a world where it could even be legal to e.g. drive your car home from the bar while intoxicated... as long as you're driving at 2mph, with your hazards on, and avoiding highways. But miss any of those factors, and it "co-aggravates" with a "driving recklessly for your reaction speed" charge, into an actual crime.
>(Do note that people can't just "not pull over" because they know there are no penalties involved; they would still be considered police, and "not complying with a police stop" would, as always, be a real crime with real penalties; if you run from the drone, it would summon actual cars to chase you!)
Or perhaps people will not be able to just "not pull over" because the police drones will be given the power to remotely command their car to stop. Heck, why even have the drones? Just require that the car monitor speeding infractions and report them for fines. Serious or repeat offenders can have their throttles locked out to the speed limit of the current road.
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Not really? If you're caught with burglary tools on private property that's still illegal even if you only took one step.
Likewise if act in a way that makes someone feel that you're going to hit them that's assault regardless of whether you actually ever touch them.
etc. Many such cases.
> I do definitely believe that a large number of ‘innocent’ people are criminals (by the letter of the law) without their knowledge.
Because of that (or rather, to sort out the mess), I always felt that citizens should have a right to be informed of every law that they are expected to obey so that at least in principle, they'd be able to comply (to be effective, plain language explanations would need to be included).
Imagine an app that told you, whenever you cross state boundaries, what is different in the law now from your previous location.
They certainly have the right. All laws are (effectively?) public in every country I can think of, even when the law is ‘don't upset the not-so-benevolent dictator’. The problem is that to try to cover all the corner cases the sheer amount of law in effect in rule-of-law countries is too much for any one human to realistically consume, and that's before getting into the various _interpretations_ of the laws given by case law, precedent, etc. Any ‘plain-language’ explanation would be a) still gigantic and b) wrong in new and exciting ways — this is why the entire profession of ‘lawyer’ exists.
To make this more practicable you might be able to drastically narrow the context of the information, e.g. to the current task. So you could have an app that watches everything you do and tells you if you're (possibly) about to break a law. The extreme version of this looks like wearing a body camera at all times and having a little ‘voice of the state’ in your ear that tells you what your legal options are on every circumstance. Maybe a little dystopian, especially if it starts reporting you if you don't follow its guidance.
Precise law enforcement would motivate political will to proactively law change to be more precise and appropriate, or tuned, to the public sentiment.
Imprecise law enforcement enables political office holders to arbitrarily leverage the law to arrest people they label as a political enemy, e.g. Aaron Swartz.
If everyone that ever shared publications outside the legal subscriber base was precisely arrested, charged, and punished, I dont think the punishment amd current legal terrain regarding the charges leveraged against him would have lasted.
But this is a feature, not a bug.
Code is Law is pretty much demonstrates that it is not possible to precisely define law.
https://www.fxleaders.com/news/2025/10/29/code-is-law-sparks...
Additionally, law is not logical. Law is about justice and justice is not logical.
"Law is about justice" is one of those things a good professor gets every 1L to raise their hands in agreement to before spending the next semester proving why that's 100% not the case.
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I hold the opinion that law is not about justice.