Comment by hn_throwaway_99
15 hours ago
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.
There was a recent high profile of a case where a woman in Tennessee was accused of a crime in North Dakota. She spent months in jail, where she lost her car, home, and her dog. She was not even in the right state, and her life was destroyed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47563384
2 replies →
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.
But to "chill dissent", you must be capable of tracking it down before it hangs you from a gas station. I don't think you're fully grasping how sudden and forceful change could come if just small number of folks decided to stop giving a fuck about the spirit of the law and do whatever they feel they can get away with.
In my experience, folks from a legal/court context who think they can get cute playing the "you can't prove I broke the rules" game will literally void their bowels in fear when the same is done to them by just one skilled hacker, let alone a group of them all focused on a singular task.
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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