Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
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Books Politics & Social Sciences Politics & Government
The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets. The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.
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Harvey Silverglate
Reddit Posts and Comments
0 posts • 55 mentions • top 48 shown below
3 points • quarthomon
The average American commits three felonies per day.
Imagine being so squeaky clean that not only can they not find evidence of the crimes you commit unknowingly, but they even fail to frame you!
2 points • jerkin2theview
>So the idea is to stop enforcing QOL problems because of hypothetical bad interactions with cops?
A few thoughts on this:
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Eric Garner's death was not hypothetical. It actually happened. It was a direct result of cops having to enforce bullshit QOL fines.
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When we're talking about public policy changes (like your $500 fine idea) it is 100% appropriate to talk about the hypothetical consequences of those policies. That's sort of the whole point, isn't it? The policy is hypothetical and so the consequences are also hypothetical.
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Yes. You absolutely should ease up on QOL enforcement to prevent constant police intervention. We have a lot of laws. You probably broke one of them today. Should the cops come harass you about it? How about tomorrow? And the day after that? At some point, when the cops are constantly having to enforce disproportionate QOL fines, enforcement becomes counterproductive.
2 points • arcxjo
Nothing illegal now. That you know of.
4 points • ZippyZebras
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
Not to mention it was just pointed out why they would not call...
They don't care why you were denied, they care that you didn’t stash some drugs and turn around. Give them a satisfactory response and they will do the least amount of work possible, give them an excuse and they’ll fuck you over because they can.
This kind of naivete is what fucks even innocent people over with the law. Do not treat the law like your friend, do not screw yourself over on technicalities like “oh federal agent so now I have to tell my life story cus lying to him is illegal”.
4 points • RamonaLittle
>if the gov cant pin anything on you
what are the odds of that, when "prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior"?
>they'll just plant pizza on your computer
Ideally the defense team would include an expert who could prove when and how the content was added.
It's a convoluted case for sure. But as someone said in a prior thread, "If he was set up, it looks like he sure made it easy for them."
1 points • coweatman
it's totally normal:
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • Pyrphos
There's a book about exactly that.
It's largely hyperbolic and exaggeratory, but a good read nonetheless.
1 points • OverlyPersonal
Thats up for debate but if you’re saying most people don’t get prosecuted for three felonies a day I’d agree with that.
1 points • hypnofedX
>Stories like this scare me. Who knows how many other things there are that I don't realize are illegal?
There's a book about this exact thing called Three Felonies a Day.
1 points • NodeDotSwift
Depends on the person. Educate yourself
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • 1637999
Three felonies a day
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • PoopMobile9000
I don’t think this is a feeling, this is an objective fact. By one analysis, the average person commits three federal felonies a day.
1 points • KingCodyBill
Here's a book For those of you who keep saying " don't break the law" Three felonies a day https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229/ref=sr_1_1?crid=298D98X6LUWNN&dchild=1&keywords=three+felonies+a+day&qid=1600122592&sprefix=three+fe%2Caps%2C202&sr=8-1
1 points • HumblerSloth
Yes, they would be aghast at the over criminalization. Have you read Three Felonies a Day? https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229? Fascinating but terrifying. It’s my go to defense whenever a leftist says “There should be a law!”.
That over criminalization goes hand in hand with the police abuse we are seeing nationwide.
1 points • DrinkMoreCodeMore
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
Try reading a book or two.
1 points • rodgerdodger12345
Amy Coney Barret agrees with you on that one at least. As do I. No issue here loosing your gun rights if you commit a crime with a gun or a serious violent felony but your right how many people have felonies for stupid shit like weed it's a lot.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • c_ray_b
Everyone in the world is guilty of something. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594035229/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_p44lEbPT2NA3P
1 points • grumpyfatguy
>The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
Our country is so fucked, and somehow people like you are convinced this is how it should be despite no other country on earth having a prison population as large as ours. And you all vote accordingly. It's insane.
1 points • mission_improbables
> Trying to peep into every single person's personal lives, the vast majority of them innocent,
From the eyes of law enforcement the vast majority of people ARE NOT innocent.
They feel for whatever reason that most are criminals by caught in the act, or criminals who have yet to be caught.
This is backed up by how much behavior has been legislated into crime which should have never been in the first place.
Checkout "Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent"
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
In short everyone is scum except them. They are the anti-virus.
1 points • bitusher
>99% of US politicians never commit felonies. I've never committed a felony.
You never have been convicted of a felony, I am sure you regularly commit them.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
>Really?
Yes, politicians tend to be extremely corrupt. I don't know why you are feigning incredulity here.
>you think we should just go ahead and let Russian agents into our country and blatantly break our laws and just sit there and twiddle our thumbs?
I never suggested anything of the sort. All countries should try and prevent this from happening. Lets not pretend the USA doesn't do it to other countries and that it isn't commonplace since forever though.
1 points • Dongalor
The '3 felonies' estimate was coined by Harvey Silvergate in his book.
It's worth the read, and appears to hold up when you look at the average person's activies. It's a symptom of the over-policing and over-incarceration the system operates under. Our lawmakers are constantly criminalizing behavior rather than addressing the systems to prevent the behavior, and much of that is at the behest of special interests.
Cops then selectively enforce those laws to punish or advantage certain groups (consciously or unconsciously). That is why simply having more cops policing a given community inevitably leads to more criminals in that community. The act of "being a criminal" mostly depends on whether is in the vicinity to bust you for shit you are already doing.
1 points • ZheeDog
Dershowitz was 100% correct in legal theory and on the law in the von Bülow case and he's also a prolific author. But of the books he's involved with, the one I recommend most is one written by a peer of his, for whom he wrote the forward. See that here: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229/
1 points • TherapeuticMessage
Likely so are you
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
Description Product description The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets. The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.
1 points • tocano
Honestly, I've had this thought before. If the state makes a stupid inane law, I've wondered if advocates of liberty should begin 911 calling to report instances of things like "Holding a cell phone while driving." or "Selling lemonade without a permit" or "Not wearing a mask" or most of the things in 'Three Felonies a Day.
If the state is going to make stupid laws that they enforce when, where, and at whom they wish purely at their own discretion, then perhaps they should feel the pain of understanding just how frequently those stupid laws actually get broken.
1 points • wavefunctionp
TBF, the law is an unknowable mass of legalese even for experts, which is why we have this whole legal system to navigate it.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
This book is about the average person committing numerous felonies a day. Now, there is some debate about the specific number the author uses, but but to me that is not the point. It is the fact that a reasonably knowledgable and otherwise law abiding person can break the law in good faith in the first place.
And a the risk of being hyperbolic, this is a tactic used by totalitarian/fascist regimes to make it so that anyone and everyone can be arrested on the whim of the leadership.
1 points • YARNIA
You're a goddamned fool if you don't care about privacy. That's your right, but that right does not regulate our concern.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
i am glad that you don't care about your rights. I hope you get the treatment from your government that you deserve.
1 points • INTPx
everyone is a criminal https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • AndyLorentz
> Who knows how many other things there are that I don't realize are illegal? I totally understand how one can arrive at posting "Is it legal to do magic tricks in front of the monkeys at the zoo?".
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • Seicair
Do you have one in mind or are you asking?
He’s not calling out any specific crime, just the fact that pretty much every commits felonious acts daily.
1 points • falls_asleep_reading
I'm guessing you haven't read this book.
1 points • Isair81
Everything is illegal. The only reason the cops haven’t raided your home, or mine yet is because no cop or ambitious prosecutor has figured out what laws we may have broken today, unwittingly or otherwise.
1 points • brontide
> If you’re not committing crimes
Good luck, most people commit crimes every day.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • cysghost
Three Felonies a Day, here’s a link, in case anyone is interested.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
I haven’t read it yet, but it’s still on my to be read list, though it will probably just piss me off, without having much I can do about it.
1 points • 58Spruce
A lot of people do things that aren't good.
Three Felonies a Day by Harvey Silverglate
0 points • MyUsername168
Do yourself a favor, read a book and figure out how to grow a soul. I’m not responding to your idiocracy again. I’ll pray for you though.
Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594035229/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_t0gtFbABHBFTM
1 points • ASYMT0TIC
You should give this a read:
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
0 points • rebeltrillionaire
It’s called whataboutism and you can do it for anything.
Why ever bother investigating corrupt politicians when the average US citizen cheats on their taxes, or the average American commits 3 felonies a day.
Why should we lower taxes when most people don’t contribute positively to the federal government.
1 points • dnelson3
Not personal bias, at all....
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
1 points • myohmymiketyson
Yes, there is.
Most people can fly under the radar. But because of overcriminalization, it's very easy for the government to find a pretense if they become aware of you and want to target you.
But it's not just the number of laws, any of which could be used against you. It's also where the government directs so many of its efforts - drugs.
1 points • HairlessWombat
Probably available at the library. https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229. The book takes the data from the original research and puts anecdotal stories to them. Okay read. When it comes to shining the light on how jacked up our system is, I can only take so much.
As for the road being closed, I didn't know that. I assume they put those white and orange striped blockers across the road.
Yes, in the situation which occurred the police should have at least contacted the driver to figure out the specifics before making a decision. I understand we'll probably disagree. I do believe in giving everyone the same level of justice but I side on leniency at the low level (police discretion) which is something Black people don't get.
I'll just drop this Dave Chappelle sketch. It's sadly funny because it's the truth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH4GMaNWdwU
1 points • BonaquaChaos
> not that I've done anything illegal in the first place
You probably have, but this is beside the point.
> content
I don't think they care, mass surveillance has its name because everybody and everything is spied on, regardless of the content.
> The question is, is Signal, Telegram or Tox the best and most secure/private choice?
Telegram is a terrible choice, I don't where did you get this idea from. Signal is good though.
Tox had some problems going on.
> Also, just out of curiosity, how sure are we that WA actually uses end-to-end encryption and isn't just lying or misleading us about it, given that it's not open source?
As I already said, it's about unsafe backups, not e2e or the lack of e2e encryption.
> Also, I've dealt with people who said "I have nothing to hide" and stopped at that, so, shrugs.
Perhaps you are just boring and they don't value you as a contact or friend as much.
1 points • Darkravin8
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594035229/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_hMIREb220N6ZF
https://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-you-commit-three-felonies-a-day-2009-9?op=1
These aren't right leaning sources either.
1 points • The_toast_of_Reddit
Stuxnet, anything else they'll use some obscure law.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
>Third, a central problem with federal criminal law – especially the laws that fall most frequently in the category of prosecutions I criticize in my book – is that our fraud statutes focus upon the means rather than the substance of a crime. We have, for example, “mail fraud” – fraud committed by the use of the mails. Or “wire fraud” – fraud committed by the use of the means of interstate communications (phone, email). Or “securities fraud” – fraud committed in connection with the purchase or sale of securities. But these statutes do not define what “fraud” means! And often Congress, at the urging of the executive branch and of federal prosecutors, has intentionally kept such definitions vague. See, for example, my discussion in my book, at pp. 114-122, of the federal government’s intentional effort to keep the “insider trading” laws and definitions vague, so that they can prosecute whomever or whatever seems appropriate at the time. This is a veritable formula for tyranny.
.http://ulrichboser.com/how-many-felonies-did-you-commit-today-an-interview-with-harvey-silverglate/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate
>In the United States federal court system, the conviction rate rose from approximately 75 percent to approximately 85% between 1972 and 1992. For 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 93% conviction rate.
Sounds very totalitarian like dear leader getting 99 percent of the vote.
1 points • dCLCp
University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross led a team of experts in the law and in statistics that estimated the likely number of unjust convictions. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that at least 4% of people on death row were and are likely innocent. Gross has no doubt that some innocent people have been executed. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty-study-4-percent-defendants-innocent http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-prisoners-on-death-row-are-wrongfully-convicted/ https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
I have a better idea. How about you read these two articles, this book, and then you go about your merry way.
1 points • liberty_lush
Where did the "Protect and Serve" motto come from? In the mid 1950s LAPD had a contest to find a police academy motto. The winner? "Protect and Serve". In the early 1960s the LA City Council blessed the motto and started painting it on cars [1]. Let your friends know, "Protect and Serve" is a marketing slogan. Any cop that tells you otherwise doesn't understand the role of their position.
Let your friends know that the police have no requirement to protect you. There are ample court opinions to be found where individuals attempted to sue some police force for failure to perform. The Supreme Court has spoken on this issue. The police have no duty to protect you. See Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales for a quick example [2]. Any cop that tells you otherwise doesn't understand the role of their position.
But, but, but .... They are agents of the State. Period. The purpose of Law Enforcement is to enforce the laws, rules and regulations of the State. They do not protect you and they do not serve you. The purpose of law enforcement is to serve the state and incriminate you. An excellent 40 min video [3] and a short book to help someone see the target on their back [4]. If someone ever thought their purpose was to get to the truth of the matter, no, it's not [8].
How did we let it get to be like this? Because we, as citizens, abdicated our responsibility of self governance. Another way of looking at it is that we became a nation of cowards that sacrificed our liberty for perceived security [5] (the preface can be found here [6]). Then we, as citizens, are shocked when the State doesn't return our relinquished liberty and continues to encroach on our remaining liberty. PATRIOT Act anyone? If you think that's going away, put the pipe down. No, the surveillance is only going to increase [7].
I support these people in their demonstrations, but I can't walk with them because of the harmful actions (theft, arson, assault, etc) against others. I also do not believe there is one good cop out there. If there were any these incidents (LE brutality/corruption) would be an anomaly and a blip on the radar.
[1] - http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_view/1128
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
[4] - https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
[6] - https://jim.com/cowards.htm
[8] - https://www.njmoorelaw.com/10-ways-police-can-lie-to-you