It used to be easy. Don't kidnap, don't murder, don't rape, and you could avoid becoming a felon in the eyes of the national government.
Well its not that easy anymore.
The federal law book now contains at least
4,450 offenses, according to an investigation done by Louisiana State University law professor John S. Baker Jr. and his team of researchers.
In 1983 the Justice Department concluded that there were a mere (in comparison) 3,000 federal laws on the books. That means that in 15 years Congress has added more than 1,400 new laws.
Between the years 2000 and 2007 the feds have created at least 454 new crimes, an average of 56 per year, or more than one per week.
Law abiding citizens must still take heed, however, as both Prof. Baker and the Justice Department have admitted that they may not have found all of the federal laws. Many of the laws are hidden, by Congress, in tens of thousands of pages of the United States Code.
Since the Justice Department and a law professor were unable to locate all of the laws I think it would be fair to suggest that everyone stops using the tired cliché that says, "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Maybe it really is.
Take, for instance, the case of an Alaskan man who improperly labeled a UPS package. He was raided by a SWAT team, armed with assault rifles, who threw him to the ground and proceeded to handcuff him. He is now spending two years in a federal prison with other "hardened" criminals.
Over federalizing crimes also creates more dangerous environments for individuals in the United States. When a federal crime is committed local officials often turn the investigation over to the federal government so they can focus their attention elsewhere. The FBI, however, does not have offices in most cities, let alone officers patrolling the streets. The FBI has more important things than street crimes to focus on anyway.
Thus, I hereby humbly request that Congress kicks the habit of creating a new federal crime every week. Heck, they could even *Gasp!* start repealing some of those laws and returning their jurisdiction to local or state governments. Congress has more pressing issues to deal with than creating new felonies.
