* * * * *
                                        
                  Peak government, I tell ya! Peak government!
                                        
> Take Eddie Leroy Anderson, a retired logger from Idaho whose only crime was
> loaning his son “some tools to dig for arrowheads near a favorite
> campground of theirs,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Anderson and
> his son found no arrowheads, but because they were unknowingly on federal
> land at the time they were judged to be in violation of an obscure Carter-
> era law called the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.
> 
> The government showed no mercy. Wendy Olson, the Obama appointee
> prosecuting the case, saw to it that father and son were fined $1,500
> apiece and each sentenced to a year's probation. “Folks do need to pay
> attention to where they are,” she said.
> 
> Statutory law in America has expanded to the point that government's
> primary activity is no longer to protect, preserve and defend our lives,
> liberty and property, but rather to stalk and entrap normal American
> citizens doing everyday things.
> 
> After identifying three federal offenses in the U.S. Constitution— treason,
> piracy and counterfeiting—the federal government left most matters of law
> enforcement to the states. By the time President Obama took office in 2009,
> however, there were more than 4,500 federal criminal statutes on the books.
> 

Via Instapundit [1], “Op-Ed: How to end overcriminalization |
WashingtonExaminer.com [2]”

Remember, ignorantia juris non excusat, so better start reading [3].

[1] http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/164390/
[2] http://washingtonexaminer.com/how-to-end-
[3] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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