Today, I shipped out 4 copies of The Conscience of Abe’s Turn. And I’m thankful that shipments have started small, because that gives me time to work the last few kinks out of the ordering and fulfillment process. Meanwhile, my wife is sitting across the room from me enjoying her copy of the book.
Today, I got a piece of direct mail from Perry Marshall (whom you may recognize from my acknowledgments in the book’s preface) regarding Bill Bailey, inmate #60733-066, who is speaking at Perry’s upcoming seminar.
Who is Bill Bailey? He spent time in federal prison for computerized snooping that’s way less offensive than what Clydene is engaged in. Now, Clyde is a computer geek. She read about the BBS raids of the 1990’s. She read all about Randall Schwartz, and knew enough about the technology to take sides. She knows way more about the computer crime laws than (I’m sure) the politicians who voted for them. If you ever doubted that she would be terrified of being caught, just read Bill Bailey’s story.
(While Bill ended up in a relatively good prison, what terrifies Clyde is the fact of prison at all. Baedes would take great joy in that. The thing is, there’s no guarantee that Clyde would end up in as “good” a situation as Bill Bailey had.)
In a post on his blog the past June he wrote about a Heritage Foundation seminar that was entitled “Go Directly to (Federal) Prison: The Criminalization of Almost Everything”:
I love the title because I have come to believe that any sufficiently motivated prosecutor could put anyone in prison for the violation of some federal law. In other words, if I randomly selected a citizen and assigned a federal prosecutor the task of investigating and prosecuting that individual, the scope (and ambiguity) of federal law and prosecutorial discretion and the severity of federal sentencing is such that he could put that citizen in prison. Even if that citizen if absolutely innocent, the plea bargaining leverage a prosecutor has would induce almost any rational person to accept a short prison term in order to avoid the expense of a trial and possibility of a very long sentence.
This is what Clyde and her cohorts have been facing, day in and day out, all around them, people being arrested and put away at will. And ironically, this is what will push them, one by one, over the edge. To put it another way, if a rising tide lifts all boats, a big enough torpedo sinks all ships. And if simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to get Clyde or any of her friends into trouble—and more and more are they likely to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—then they have less and less to lose by donning a cape and mask and becoming el zorro, the fox.
This is in fact exactly what will happen with Anthony’s case, in the upcoming episode. He’s completely innocent, as you probably have figured out by now. But evidence in rape cases is always iffy at best. That’s why sexual assault laws are excessively tilted in favor of the accuser.. or “victim” if you prefer. Except that in this case, as in many real-life cases, Anthony is the real victim, not having done anything wrong but being used as a scapegoat. And none of the exonerating facts he knows about can even be admitted in court in his defense, because that’s what the law says. He’s going down, unless the Conscience can find a way to help him.
Stay tuned.
-TimK
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