Most Americans are criminals and don’t know it

This is a story that should be a warning to Americans, regardless of political party, because it dramatically illustrates what pre-eminent civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate documents in his current book, "Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent" by means of the ever-increasing broad and vague federal laws that allow prosecutors to "pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, even for the most seemingly innocuous behavior."

Consider what happened to an unemployed American, Bruce Shore, because of e-mails he sent to the website of Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning. I suggest you keep in mind what Irving Brant wrote in what is my bible, "The Bill of Rights: Its Origin and Meaning":

"Men (and women) are truly free only when they do not have to ask themselves whether they are free."

As reported by Arthur Delaney on the Huffington Post site, Shore, watching the Senate in inaction on C-SPAN, was angered when Bunning complained that, gosh, he has missed the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game because he had to be in Congress to debate an unemployment benefits bill. (Bunning's contribution by being there was to delay the bill from being voted on.)

"I was livid, I was just livid," recalled Shore, 51. "I'm on unemployment, so it affects me." Here is part of his Feb. 26 messages to Bunning staffers: "Are you'all insane. No checks equal no food for me. DO YOU GET IT?"

The next month, FBI agents came calling to Shore's home in Philadelphia. They read him excerpts from his citizen's complaints and asked whether he was the author, which Shore readily admitted. Apparently these agents had heard something about the First Amendment, and told this indignant American, "All right, we just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything to worry about."

But the ever-vigilant Obama administration's executive branch was not satisfied. On May 13, Delaney writes, U.S. marshals appeared at Shore's door and handed him a grand jury indictment.

Shore "did utilize a telecommunications device, that is a computer, whether or not communication ensued, without disclosing his identity and with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, and harass any person who received the communication."

Says this newly indicted "person of interest," Shore, to the Obama administration: "At this point I'm just looking at my government and going, anything is possible. When do the adults wake up and say, 'This gentleman is just angry and frustrated?' I'm just speechless. Shocked."

Actually, says this unusually straightforward judge, "most Americans are criminals and don't know it."

Original report here



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