One of the most common rationalizations from the citizenry to permit continued surveillance is that “If you don’t have anything to hide, then it doesn’t matter if the government is watching you”. Maybe, but “not having anything to hide” isn’t the same as “not having done anything illegal”. The difference can be critical. This month we spotlight two books that tell you how many things that aren’t wrong can still land you in trouble with the Man.
Don’t panic… that bright light isn’t a prison searchlight, it’s this month’s Book Spotlight falling on our two selections. Just click the cover to escape to the Powell’s website page for either book.
Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything
Gene Healy (Editor)
The American criminal justice system is becoming ever more centralized and punitive, owing to rampant federalization and mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. Go Directly to Jail examines these alarming trends and proposes reforms that could rein in a criminal justice apparatus at war with fairness and common sense.
Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
Harvey A. Silverglate
The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have not only exploded in number, but, along with countless regulatory provisions, have also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how the federal criminal justice system has become dangerously disconnected from common law traditions of due process and fair notice of the law’s expectations, enabling prosecutors to pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to ”white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the continued functioning and integrity of our constitutional democracy hang in the balance.
