On Wednesday, May 14, 2003, at 03:24 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 11:05:26AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
We hold corporate employees liable for criminal acts. Why should government employees be exempt from the same standard? And why should a judge who is able to withstand pressures not to sentence corporate employees to prison be unable to withstand similar pressures when it comes to government employees?
Agreed... I'm not disagreeing about the problem, just the remedy. As an example, Sen. Leahy thought his "morphed child porn" bill was constitutionally problematic, but introduced it anyway: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03545.html
Same with debate over other bills -- "let the courts figure it out."
I would craft the rules for prosecution so as to cut Leahy a break on this, as it was the _first_ time the "morphed child-like images" law was tested. (Assuming for the sake of argument this was in fact the first such law...I dimly recally morphed images being outlawed half a dozen years ago in another law.) My main point was not to criminally prosecute those who pass laws _later_ found to be unconstitutional, when tested for the first time, but to prosecute those who keep passing the same unconstitutional laws. They know the laws "won't pass constitutional muster," as the lingo goes, but they get enough other career criminals to sign on anyway. None of this is going to happen, we all realize, but the point is valid. Passing obviously bad laws ought to have the consequences that cooking the books does with with corporate fraud.
--Tim May "The Constitution is a radical document...it is the job of the government to rein in people's rights." --President William J. Clinton