Comment by delichon
16 hours ago
Unmarked no-fly zones at unannounced times and locations are a remarkable innovation. Hopefully they will tell you when and where you shouldn't have been when they charge you for it, but that may be classified.
16 hours ago
Unmarked no-fly zones at unannounced times and locations are a remarkable innovation. Hopefully they will tell you when and where you shouldn't have been when they charge you for it, but that may be classified.
Ambiguous laws (which in this case are by definition impossible to comply with) which are capriciously enforced are a hallmark of authoritarian and fascist regimes. Sadly ironic, the US government used to highlight this fact:
"Authoritarian regimes’ unclear laws make anyone a suspect" - https://ge.usembassy.gov/authoritarian-regimes-unclear-laws-...
“For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.” ― Oscar R. Benavides, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Óscar_R._Benavides
Of note, the article seems to mention 3 things: 1) Vague laws 2) Arbitrary Enforcement 3) Lack of due process
All three seem to be important facts for an Authoritarian Regieme
I point this out, because I believe the US has long had vague laws, and our Due Process helps kick out arbitrary enforcement. I also believe that our Checks and Balance system (part of Due Process) is currently broken
Given the astronomically high legal cost to individuals, the sheer presence of arbitrary enforcement can already cause a lot of fear and damage.
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Vague laws were/are a hallmark of racist American law enforcement. It's what the US has always done.
Reminds me of this:
"They devise laws that are broad and vague, but then they apply them like a scapel against those that they deem a threat" - William Dobson
If laws are ambiguous, governments run the risk folks will conclude they'll get in trouble no matter how diligently they try to suss out the spirit of said laws.
When combined with a comical inability to secure government systems, it's honestly super cute that any federal agency thinks engaging in such dark patterns is in any way, shape, or form going to achieve their goals.
If the goal is chilling dissent, then it sounds like it would be working perfectly.
Your point only holds if the government is trying to act fairly on behalf of the people and actively uphold justice.
> If laws are ambiguous, governments run the risk folks will conclude they'll get in trouble no matter how diligently they try to suss out the spirit of said laws
Well, yeah, but that's the goal. People will correctly conclude that their ability to act unmolested is entirely contingent upon remaining in the good graces of local and remote authority figures. This produces extreme chilling on dissent or disagreement and promotes deals, bribes, and bootlicking. The law is transformed into a transparent legitimization mechanism for what the powerful wanted to do anyway, applied and ignored according to the real power structure adjacent to the legal bureaucracy. This is the default state of human civilization when the rule of law is not proactively defended.
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being specific is the essence of lawmaking and the whole difference between having a Congress and having a mom
~ P. J. O'Rourke, "Parliament of Whores"
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Heck if they do tell you, ICE swaps plates and tries to hide in various ways.
The evidence could be just some regular looking vehicle you can't find anything about and it's just "trust me bro those were feds" and you're out of luck.
For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think these rules would stand under the APA. Which means any criminal convictions would be thrown out.
Losing your licence and many fines are FAA administrative processes so they don’t care. No courts involved.
> Which means any criminal convictions would be thrown out.
and in the meantime people rot in jail but i guess no harm no foul :shrug:
Not to mention the monetary costs of defense
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> in the meantime people rot in jail but i guess no harm no foul
Nobody claimed no foul. Constraining a problem isn't the same as saying it's not one.
Up next, secret interpretations of laws to do things with zero accountability or public overaight. Oh wait we already have that.
And have had that for a while.
Before you know it, they'll be detaining people without legal representation, shipping them to overseas black sites, and murdering citizens in the street. Oh, wait that's been the entirety of this treasonous administration.
> Oh, wait that's been the entirety of this treasonous administration.
That's been the case for at least 25 years. Still bad, but not new or unique to Trump. I'm too young to have a good idea of what the pre-Patriot Act American military/intelligence/secret police was like, but the historical stuff that comes to light from time to time doesn't lend much confidence that they were all that much better - they just did it illegally and ashamedly whereas now it's quasi-legal and fully acceptable.
"The authoritarianism is getting worse and more accepted" is not a great response here.
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Congratulations you found the key to fascism: Create vague laws that could apply to anyone, then you can pick the people who broke it. Of course you try to only pick your enemies.
Only: the person in charge of that decision is the meanest, most stupid idiot you have ever met and they envy you for your wife and want to live in your house once you have been dispossessed.
The brother of my grandfather was in jail in Germany during WWII because he offended the original Nazis. He said what roughly translates to: "Nazis are all just dumb plebs." And the thing is, he was right.