"The website describes the trend in America - and particularly in Congress - to use the criminal law to 'solve' every problem, punish every mistake (instead of making proper use of civil penalties), and coerce Americans into conforming their behavior to satisfy social engineering objectives."
— mediamatters.org
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What a weird twist on this theme. We're more used to seeing liberal First Amendment groups fighting some safe-web-surfing law that the Heritage Foundation would want to use to comb indiscriminately through public library lending records, looking to see who rented a video with previews from Equus.
I wonder why this change of heart for HF? It's unlike them to protest a bill that seems to require a life sentence, up from 15 years, for the possession of child pornography.
"Unbeknownst to many, the Heritage Foundation produces the website Overcriminalized.com, which advocates the theory that 'as a result of rampant overcriminalization, trivial conduct is now often punished as a crime.'"
Child pornography is both creepy and dangerous but also subjective and easily able to be planted. Life sentences would need to be provided in the most extreme and conclusive cases.
"Overcriminalized.com sends out legislative update alerts to 'e-mail subscribers interested in legislation pending in Congress that could perpetuate the dangerous trend of criminalizing more and more social and economic activity.'"
But does this bill use a fine toothed comb, or can it haul hair-trigger victims of any kind of witch hunt off to jail and ruin their lives just because they clicked on the wrong link forwarded to them from some quadruple X porn freak?
Will we see Reaganesque penalties such as there were entire properties confiscated by state and municipal governments just because a pot seed was found there? Is the ACLU and Heritage Foundation in rare agreement over this one, or are they just fighting some arcane one-upmanship battle for a House seat or something?
It IS really fun to go, "See! those guys at the Heritage Foundation really ARE hypocritical child molesters!" But we also need an article delving into what's really going on, because that's probably pretty interesting, too.
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