We're all criminals now

More evidence of our fascist state run amuck.  This is another result of a enormous, fabulously wealthy Federal state - infinite numbers of laws passed criminalizing virtually everything.  States, with much more modest resources don't have the ability to oppress.  And if they do, other states stand ready to take their jobs and citizens.  Break it up, break it all up.

That's the term Overlawyered's Walter Olson quotes to describe what the government tried to do to race car legend Bobby Unser, who got lost on a snowmobile in a blizzard, and may or may not have gone on protected government land. It cost him over $860,000 to defend himself from Federal criminal charges. Yes, effectively, for the crime of getting lost in a blizzard:

In other ridiculousness, per the WSJ, from an article by Gary Fields and John R. Emshwiller:

Unauthorized use of the Smokey Bear image could land an offender in prison. So can unauthorized use of the slogan "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute."

Written details of Unser's case here:

Because of this ordeal, Bobby has become an active supporter of overcriminalization reform and is determined to help see that no one is convicted for actions they took without any intending to violate a law or knowing that what they were doing was illegal or otherwise wrongful.

Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski complained of "string of recent cases in which courts have found that federal prosecutors overreached by trying to stretch criminal law beyond its proper bounds."

Brian Walsh writes at Heritage.org:

The term "overcriminalization" may be unfamiliar, but the problem it describes is not. Vague and overbroad laws have become a prevalent part of our legal fabric. In fact, research shows that a single Congress introduces hundreds - and enacts dozens - of non-violent criminal offenses that are poorly drafted, redundant, and lack guilty-mind ("criminal-intent") safeguards adequate to protect the innocent.

Equally as disturbing has been the growth of criminal law in areas typically reserved for civil fines and administrative sanctions. Actions not otherwise morally blameworthy have increasingly become the source of criminal sanction.

The cases of Unser and Schoenwetter are prime examples of such unbridled growth in the criminal law. Unser was convicted of a federal crime for allegedly operating a snowmobile in a national wilderness. If he did indeed enter it, he did so unknowingly while he and a friend were lost for two days and two nights in a ground blizzard.

Schoenwetter spent five years in prison for "smuggling" lobsters into the U.S. in violation of Honduran fishing regulations, despite the fact that none of the regulations were valid at the time. Until last June, the federal "honest services" fraud statute was also another prime example of overcriminalization. The law criminalizes depriving "another of the intangible right of honest services," whatever that means. Violations could be punished by up to 20 years in prison. It had been used to charge thousands of individuals across the socioeconomic spectrum until all nine justices of the Supreme Court ruled in a set of three cases in June that the statute was unconstitutionally vague.

The only thing standing between you and criminal charges, fines, and maybe even imprisonment maybe somebody finding a crime to charge you with. In a world where much of life is criminalized, we're all criminals