> The law is not an algorithm that can be applied to tell you whether something is legal or not.
That may be true in practice, but that's what the law is supposed to be -- an unambiguous social signaling system, that applies to all persons equally, without vagueness or the possibility of terminological confusion.
If a given law can be shown to be vague or confusing, it can be declared unconstitutional. Whether it will be declared unconstitutional depends on whether anyone is willing to fight about it in court.
But the principle of public law is -- yes! -- that it is an "algorithm that can be applied to tell you whether something is legal or not." A failure in this role represents a failure in the legal system itself.
> Both intent and context come into it heavily.
Absolutely false. Someone who breaks the law can't argue that their intent or the context makes any difference. That might affect the punishment, but it doesn't affect the question of guilt.
> Absolutely false. Someone who breaks the law can't argue that their intent or the context makes any difference. That might affect the punishment, but it doesn't affect the question of guilt.
How would you explain the difference between murder and manslaughter then? If someone dies on the operating table because the surgeon accidentally nicks an artery that's different from them actively trying to kill someone. The act is identical, only the intent is different.
Intent is, and should be, a deciding factor in whether or not someone is guilty of a crime.
> If someone dies on the operating table because the surgeon accidentally nicks an artery that's different from them actively trying to kill someone. The act is identical, only the intent is different.
In one case, there was a crime, in the other there wasn't.
> Circumstances, which can only affect the punishment, not the judgment that a crime has taken place. But I already said this.
The circumstances which change the crime committed. Not just punishment.
I shouldn't have made my original claim without thinking about the fact that there really are crimes that are defined by what is in a person's mind, apart from their actions. One thought, acceptable. Another thought, crime. Thought crime.
So I was being naive and you are right. And George Orwell was right.
I, uh, don't know about that, but I will say that thought and intent are not the same.
Thinking about murdering someone and not taking any action to that effect, then actually killing that person; VS taking action to do it, strike me as different.
It's possible that they are legally the same, but I doubt the court can do much to prove thought without a confession.
> I, uh, don't know about that, but I will say that thought and intent are not the same.
True, but it's to some extent splitting hairs, because intent is often (but not always) constructed from thoughts.
> Thinking about murdering someone and not taking any action to that effect, then actually killing that person; VS taking action to do it, strike me as different.
Most courtroom battles on these issues revolve around trying to reconstruct intent based on things that actually happened and that can be presented as testimony. Premeditation, for example -- the difference between degrees of murder in many states -- might be inferred by a person's actions leading up to a crime, and afterward.
> It's possible that they are legally the same, but I doubt the court can do much to prove thought without a confession.
It's commonplace for prosecutions to proceed on the basis of a record of actions that are used to infer thoughts and intents.
I agree that this is how the law should be applied, it makes logical sense. But it isn't how it works. I'd like every cop that kills someone to be tried for murder and then let the courts determine if it is justified, not the prosecuting attorney.
But IIUC US Federal law generally ignores intent -- in a bad way for the accused. A lack of bad intent isn't a mitigating factor.
Prosecutorial discretion is tricky enough to begin with. But also mix in disregarding intent, and season with charging people multiple times for the same act? Federal prosecutors can be little Putins.
What the law "should" be is very little comfort if you land in jail anyway. Makes it worse, in fact. I agree with you on what the law should be, but it doesn't matter here, unless you're prepared for an enormous fight.
By the way, have you heard of "hate crimes"? Those are a real thing, according to the law, anyway.
seriously? I thought most laws literally have "intent" as a requirement written into them.
With the OP's service dedicated to explicitly revealing unintentionally insecure rsync servers, I can only imagine the plethora of horrid cyber security laws he would be vulnerable to.
That may be true in practice, but that's what the law is supposed to be -- an unambiguous social signaling system, that applies to all persons equally, without vagueness or the possibility of terminological confusion.
If a given law can be shown to be vague or confusing, it can be declared unconstitutional. Whether it will be declared unconstitutional depends on whether anyone is willing to fight about it in court.
But the principle of public law is -- yes! -- that it is an "algorithm that can be applied to tell you whether something is legal or not." A failure in this role represents a failure in the legal system itself.
> Both intent and context come into it heavily.
Absolutely false. Someone who breaks the law can't argue that their intent or the context makes any difference. That might affect the punishment, but it doesn't affect the question of guilt.