To further clarify my opinion on no-knock warrants and overcriminalization

Linoge and Old NFO bring up a couple of points in the comments to my post on no-knock warrants, so I’m going to take more space here to hash out some things.

I mainly think that no-knock warrants in and of themselves are more a symptom of the problem than the actual problem itself; the root cause is the criminalization of damn near everything.

We are often told that ignorance of the law is no excuse; this statement has two main problems.

First, it ignores mens rea, one of the key components of common law.

And the main problem with the claim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” is that Title 18 of the United States Code (the criminal & penal section) is 2,725 sections long.

Two thousand. Seven hundred. And twenty-five.

For the most part, ignorance of the law is rational!

Search warrants are required to be reasonable and specific; if you look at the warrant the Dept. of Ed. used to justify their SWAT raid the other day, it’s quite specific.

It specifies practically every item that someone’s house would contain (especially when it gets down to the electronic equipment)!

If everything but the clothes on your back (probably) and your furniture (maybe) are to be seized by the police, then practically anything you do between the announcement that the cops are there with a warrant and when you answer the door could be destruction of evidence.

So obviously, the police have no choice but to bust down your door and charge in with rifles at the ready; you’re destroying evidence!

I don’t see any effective way to reduce the number and scope of the laws on the books; any time something bad happens, there’s a big clamor for new laws to make this tragedy (whatever it is) the last of its kind, so won’t you please make bullying illegal, or making fun of people on the internet illegal, or whatever, it’s for the children!

And since everyone loves children, the laws get enacted, even though they’re badly written and vague and overbroad.

Then the rest of us are stuck rationally ignorant, hoping that we’ve done nothing to draw Johnny Law’s attention to ourselves, and that no SWAT team will kick in our doors in the middle of the night.

If the man goes through your life with a fine-toothed comb, he’ll find something that you did that broke the law, and then he’ll crucify you for it. The war on drugs has made this painfully evident, and with the ever-increasing number of federal agencies with police powers and SWAT teams, the war on everything else will take care of the rest of us.

Gun’s & Roses

Yes, I know the title looks wrong, but trust me: it’s not.

Baccano! is a 16 episode OVA series based on a series of light novels; it’s set during Prohibition, and follows the intersecting adventures of a few different mafia families, non-mafia bootleggers, cultists, and immortals.

You read that right. Several of the characters drank (whether knowingly or unknowingly) the brew of alchemists, the grand panacea, and if there’s one thing the roaring 20s and 30s didn’t need, it’s a bunch of immortal mafiosos, crooks, and bootleggers.

It makes for an entertaining (if bloody) show, though. The cast is large, and because it jumps back and forth through time (sometimes several times each episode), it’s hard to keep track of who’s who and exactly when and what is going on, but if you can get past that, it’s worth the watch.

If that’s too much work for you, though, you can always just listen to the opening music. It’s as jazzy as Tank!

No-knock warrants ought to be abolished

Especially when they result in tragedies like the Pima County SWAT team’s killing of Jose Guerena.

I’ve mentioned the incident in passing a time or two before, and the more information that comes to light, the worse the SWAT team looks.

I’d like to blame this on the war on drugs, but when every federal department has its own SWAT unit and is itching to use them, the problem is deeper.

I don’t know that I’m as ready to stick a fork in the republic as Linoge is (Update: Linoge clarified in the comments that he doesn’t think the republic isn’t dead yet, just that the decline is inevitable at this point), but unless there’s a major turnaround in the next several years, I’m afraid the US’s transition to police state will be unavoidable.

It used to be that you could assume that as long as you were law-abiding, the police would leave you alone. That’s no longer the case; when non-violent crimes draw down the wrath of the mall ninjas, no one is safe.