Three felonies a day

What Hacker News says

1. aksssOct 2026
   It's certainly not unique to western legal systems, and I'd even say not generally(!) a characteristic of them. That quote comes from the Soviet Union and is more associated with totalitarian regimes where nebulous thought crimes are on the books and laws spun out of whole cloth. Think China.

   Sure, when the state wants you, they'll get you. Read Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. I'm not one to say otherwise (quite the opposite), but for most people, most of the time, in most of their lives, western legal systems are pretty top notch in protecting people from arbitrary and corrupt application of the law.

   In systems that truly embrace arbitrary and corrupt enforcement, it's quite a bit different system than largely objective traffic laws which society has agreed upon but which are rarely enforced (e.g. turn signals, lane merging in intersections, etc.) which turn into selective enforcement. I say this as someone who firmly believes that selective enforcement is ripe for abuse and has inherent problems, but on the balance I prefer the latitude I have as a driver in today's system than one where all traffic regs are enforced through automation at scale (which may be where we're headed in the next few decades, honestly). The reality is that as drivers, we probably curse the fact that these laws aren't enforced more often until we're the ones cited.

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2. LoFiSamuraiOct 2026
   Check out Three Felonies a Day by Silvergate. The writing is poor and it’s one of the only sources that dares suggest that the Enron executives were victims but regardless, there are points relevant to exactly what you’re asking about.
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3. pdonisAug 2026
   > He did something illegal

   Read the book Three Felonies A Day. The law is so bloated now that we all do illegal things all the time, we can't help it.

   What Swartz actually did was to download copies of scientific papers that should be in the public domain to begin with, because we paid for the research already with our tax money. The fact that such information is considered "proprietary" and JSTOR and other companies are able to keep it locked behind paywalls is an outrage.

   Further, after Swartz returned all the material he had downloaded and agreed not to do it again, both JSTOR and MIT said they were satisfied and no further action was needed (though JSTOR was more emphatic about it than MIT was). Which, combined with the above, should have ended the case then and there.

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4. leonidasrupJul 2026
   The US was moving in the wrong direction for a long time.

   Three Felonies a Day

   " Silverglate’s book first explains how law should work, and then demonstrates how federal law really works as he weaves through dozens of cases showing clear prosecutorial abuse. An ugly, recurrent feature is that prosecutors often manipulate the media. "

   https://fee.org/articles/three-felonies-a-day-how-the-feds-t...

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5. burnt-resistorNov 2025
   It's a feature, not a bug because it's a weapon of authoritarians wearing badges on up the government punishment pipeline.

   Furthermore, in the areas of business owner and employee it's even worse because of the vague, contradictory, and expansive commercial code plus the rest of applicable city, county, state, and federal laws that apply too that sometimes criminalize trivial transgressions with occasionally excessive penalties. There's a whole book about it: Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent

   I'm not one for no regulations or "all gubberment bad", far from it; the core problem is the almost complete lack of effective guardrails on malicious enforcement and prosecution.

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6. banish-m4Jul 2024
   There's an excellent book about this topic. Three Felonies a Day by Harvey Silverglate. Convictions for white-collar crimes aren't about stopping significant crime, they're about building statistics by sacrificing the most convenient bodies for expedient wins.
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