Wednesday, September 17, 2003
More on Terror Laws and Common Crimes
Arnold Kling in Corante: The Bottom Line cites Marginal Revolution in an article called Transparency and Patriot-ism:
My comment: Yes! But it *will* be hard, which is part of the problem with these new laws. And the law and order people (i.e., the police, the prosecutors and the courts) are going to have to *want* to do it, which is the other part.
First, the credit card companies caved into government pressure and refused to process gambling related transactions. Initially, gamblers shrugged this off and routed their transactions through PayPal but a U.S District Attorney accused PayPal of violating the USA Patriot Act and to avoid charges PayPal was forced to pony up 10 million dollars. (Why am I not surprised that a law intended to go after terrorists has been used to most affect against peaceful gamblers?).Kling comments, "Any law that is passed in the name of stopping terrorism should be written so that it only applies to terrorism. How hard is that to do?"
My comment: Yes! But it *will* be hard, which is part of the problem with these new laws. And the law and order people (i.e., the police, the prosecutors and the courts) are going to have to *want* to do it, which is the other part.
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