As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared
28th July 2013
In 2009, Mr. Anderson loaned his son some tools to dig for arrowheads near a favorite campground of theirs. Unfortunately, they were on federal land. Authorities “notified me to get a lawyer and a damn good one,” Mr. Anderson recalls.
There is no evidence the Andersons intended to break the law, or even knew the law existed, according to court records and interviews. But the law, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, doesn’t require criminal intent and makes it a felony punishable by up to two years in prison to attempt to take artifacts off federal land without a permit.
I can see a new Jeff Foxworthy tour: ‘If you were minding your own business, you might be a Federal criminal.’
Wendy Olson, the U.S. Attorney for Idaho, said the men were on an archeological site that was 13,000 years old. “Folks do need to pay attention to where they are,” she said.
How does that help them when they don’t know, and can’t be expected by any rational adult to know, that there is a law that they might be breaking? Was the site posted? Did it say ‘two years in prison if you dig here’? I rather think not.
As federal criminal statutes have ballooned, it has become increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side of the law. Many of the new federal laws also set a lower bar for conviction than in the past: Prosecutors don’t necessarily need to show that the defendant had criminal intent.
Which is a basic component of the Common Law, and its abandonment is a significant step toward tyranny.