Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

The Parchin IAEA Iran Deal Agreement Revealed

Posted on by

The original draft agreement between the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran covering inspections at the Parchin military site has been viewed by Associated Press. The media outlet was only allowed to take notes rather than have an exact copy.

AP: VIENNA (AP) — An AP report has revealed that the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has agreed with Iran that Iranian experts and equipment will be used to inspect Iran’s Parchin military site, located in not far from Tehran, where Iran is suspected of conducting covert nuclear weapons activity more than a decade ago.

Here are some questions and answers about the document, and what it means for the larger deal between Iran, the United States and five other world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions against Iran.

WHAT HAVE IRAN AND THE IAEA AGREED?

According to a draft document viewed by AP, Iran has agreed to cooperate with the U.N. in answering longstanding allegations about possible past work to develop nuclear weapons at its Parchin plant – but only with the Iranians conducting the inspections themselves. Iran would collect its own environmental samples on the site and carry out other work usually done by IAEA experts. The IAEA will be able to review the Iranians’ work after the fact. The deal on Parchin was between the IAEA and Iran. The Obama Administration was not a direct party to the agreement, but apparently was aware of it.

—

WHAT DO OPPONENTS OF THE DEAL SAY?

Opponents of the broader deal are seizing an opportunity to say the entire exercise of negotiating with Iran is flawed, that it relies too much on trust of the Iranian government.

—

WHAT DOES THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SAY?

The Obama administration and other supporters say the wider agreement say it is focused on the future, with ample inspections, and that the side accord between Iran and the IAEA is focused on Iran’s activities in the past and therefore is not central to the overall deal.

—

HOW UNUSUAL IS THE AGREEMENT ON PARCHIN?

Any IAEA inspection of a country suspected of nuclear irregularities is usually carried out by agency experts. They may take swipes of residue on equipment, sample the air or take soil samples in attempts to look for signs of clandestine work on atomic arms or other potentially dangerous unreported activity.

The document on Parchin, however, will let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny – past work on nuclear weapons. It says “Iran will provide” the agency with environmental samples. It restricts the number of samples at the suspect site to seven and to an unspecified number “outside of the Parchin complex” at a site that still needs to be decided.

The U.N. agency will take possession of the samples for testing, as usual. Iran will also provide photos and video of locations to be inspected. But the document suggests that areas of sensitive military activity remain out of bounds. The draft says the IAEA will “ensure the technical authenticity of the activities” carried out by the Iranians – but it does not say how.

In contrast, the main nuclear deal with Iran gives IAEA experts greatly expanded authority compared to what it has now to monitor Iranian nuclear activities as it works to ensure that Tehran is hewing to its commitments; reducing the scope and output of programs that Iran says it needs to generate energy but which can also be turned to making the fissile core of atomic weapons.

—

WHY IS THE PARCHIN AGREEMENT IMPORTANT?

Any indication that the IAEA is diverging from established inspection rules could weaken the agency, the world’s nuclear watchdog with 164 members, and feed suspicions that it is ready to overly compromise in hopes of winding up a probe that has essentially been stalemated for more than a decade.

Politically, the arrangement has been grist for American opponents of the broader separate agreement to limit Iran’s future nuclear programs, signed by the Obama administration, Iran and five world powers in July. Critics have complained that the wider deal is built on trust of the Iranians, while the administration has insisted it depends on reliable inspections.

The separate agreement on past nuclear activities does not affect the broader deal signed in July. And it doesn’t appear yet that the revelation will change any votes in Congress for or against a resolution of disapproval, which President Barack Obama is expected to veto if it passes.

—

HOW DID THIS AGREEMENT HAPPEN?

It could be a matter of priorities.

The Obama administration’s main focus in the broader Iran deal – signed by the U.S., Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – is crimping Iran’s present nuclear activities so they cannot be used in the future toward making a bomb. Faced with more than a decade of Iranian resistance to IAEA attempts to probe the allegations of past weapons work at Parchin, there may be a willingness to settle for an agency report that is less than definitive – and methods that deviate from usual practices.

The IAEA also appears to have recognized that Iran will continue to insist the allegations are lies, based on false U.S., Israeli and other intelligence. After a decade of stalemate it wants to close the books on the issue and allow the U.N. Security Council to do so as well.

The alternative might well have been no inspection at Parchin any kind.

—

WHAT DOES THE IAEA SAY?

Director General Yukiya Amano says, “The arrangements are technically sound and consistent with our long-established practices. They do not compromise our … standards in any way.” He says agreements with Iran on clearing up the nuclear arms allegations “are confidential and I have a legal obligation not to make them public – the same obligation I have for hundreds of such arrangements made with other IAEA member states.”

—

WHAT DO OTHERS SAY?

Ned Price, spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House: “We are confident in the agency’s technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran’s former program, issues that in some cases date back more than a decade. Just as importantly, the IAEA is comfortable with the arrangements, which are unique to the agency’s investigation of Iran’s historical activities.”

Olli Heinonen, in charge of the Iran investigation as IAEA deputy director general from 2005 through 2010, says he can think of no similar arrangement – a country essentially allowed to carry out much of the probe of suspicions against it.

—

HOW CRUCIAL IS PARCHIN TO THE OVERALL DEAL?

U.S. intelligence officials do not consider the Parchin inspections a critical part of the broader deal, according to one official, commenting only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted. The U.S. believes most weapons work occurred there in 2003, the official says, and the site has been thoroughly cleaned up since then.

*** In short, noted below:

Separate arrangement II agreed by the Islamic State of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency on 11 July 2015, regarding the Road-map, Paragraph 5

Iran and the Agency agreed on the following sequential arrangement with regard to the Parchin issue:

1. Iran will provide to the Agency photos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

2. Iran will provide to the Agency videos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

3. Iran will provide to the Agency 7 environmental samples taken from points inside one building already identified by the Agency and agreed by Iran, and 2 points outside of the Parchin complex which would be agreed between Iran and the Agency.

4. The Agency will ensure the technical authenticity of the activities referred to in paragraphs 1-3 above. Activities will be carried out using Iran’s authenticated equipment, consistent with technical specifications provided by the Agency, and the Agency’s containers and seals.

5. The above mentioned measures would be followed, as a courtesy by Iran, by a public visit of the Director General, as a dignitary guest of the Government of Iran, accompanied by his deputy for safeguards.

6. Iran and the Agency will organize a one-day technical roundtable on issues relevant to Parchin.

For the International Atomic Energy Agency: Tero Varjoranta, Deputy Director General for Safeguards

For the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ali Hoseini Tash, Deputy Secretary of Supreme National Security Council for Strategic Affairs

The Argument for Terminating Passport/Visa Waiver Program

Posted on by

Other countries are taking a hardline stance against immigration and those foreigners seeking refuge. Failed nations are to blame when advanced countries do little to control crime, terror insurgencies and financial tailspins. The United States is experiencing historic influxes of people seeking asylum, refuge and otherwise aliens from worldwide locations. However, the United States is not alone when it comes to failed international relations and policy but Europe is as well, where a larger debate on the matter is required.

Europe migrant crisis: Surge in numbers at EU borders

BBC: The number of migrants at the EU’s borders reached a record high of 107,500 in July, officials say, as a sharp surge in expected asylum requests was reported in Germany.

Germany has seen a wave of migration from Syria and the Balkans, and now says it could receive as many as 750,000 asylum seekers this year.

The EU has been struggling to cope with migrant arrivals in recent months.

France and the UK say they will sign a deal to tackle the crisis in Calais.

Over the summer, thousands of migrants have sought to get to the UK through the Channel Tunnel from makeshift camps around the northern French city.

 

France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and his British counterpart, Theresa May, say they will sign a deal there on Thursday to strengthen their countries’ co-operation on security, the fight against criminal smugglers, human traffickers, and clandestine immigration.

In early August, the UK pledged to add €10m (£7m) to a fund established in September 2014 to secure the port of Calais, and initially endowed with €15m over three years.

‘Third consecutive record’

EU border agency Frontex said the number of migrants surpassed the 100,000 mark in a single month for the first time since it had begun keeping records in 2008.

The Warsaw-based agency said in a statement that the figure of 107,500 migrants for July was the “third consecutive monthly record, jumping well past the previous high of more than 70,000 reached in June”.

The German government had earlier forecast that 450,000 asylum seekers could arrive in 2015, but is now set to increase that to 650,000 or higher.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said more countries in Europe should share the burden.

“It is unsustainable in the long run that only two EU countries, Germany and Sweden, take in the majority of refugees,” he told German daily Die Welt.

Hungary’s southern border marks the edge of the EU’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel and is thus a target for migrants seeking to enter the EU.

Its government has said it will send thousands of police officers to its southern border with Serbia in its latest step to stem the flow of migrants. More here.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Walking into Mexico at the nation’s busiest border crossing with the United States is no longer an uninterrupted stroll for foreigners.

Starting late Wednesday, pedestrians going to Tijuana from San Diego at the San Ysidro crossing must choose between a line for Mexicans who get waved through, and a line for foreigners who must show a passport, fill out a form and — if staying more than a week — pay 322 pesos, or roughly $20, for a six-month permit.

About a dozen foreigners stood in line Wednesday night, directed by English-speaking agents to six inspection booths where they got passports stamped. It took about 10 minutes from start to finish.

Travelers have long followed similar protocol at Mexican airports, but the new border procedure marks a big change at land crossings that weren’t designed to question everyone. Pedestrians and motorists have generally entered Mexico unencumbered along the 1,954-mile border with the United States.

“This is about putting our house in order,” said Rodulfo Figueroa, Mexico’s top immigration official in Baja California state, which includes Tijuana.

The changes, which have been in the works for years, come as Donald Trump has surged to the top of the Republican field in the U.S. presidential race. He has insisted that Mexico sends criminals to the U.S. and pledges to build a border wall at Mexico’s expense.

For Mexico, it is a step toward closing an escape route for American criminals who disappear in Mexico. Border inspectors will tap into international criminal databases. Motorists will see no change, and if lines get too long, officials will also wave pedestrians through.

More than 120 Americans expelled from Mexico this year while living in Baja California had arrest warrants in the U.S., according to Figueroa, delegate of the National Migration Institute. Some ordered to leave last year were on the FBI’s most-wanted list.

But authorities say benefits extend beyond stopping unwanted visitors. A recent hurricane stranded twice as many Americans in Cabo San Lucas than U.S. authorities thought were there, Figueroa said, and registering as a foreigner would have made it easier to identify those who needed help.

Figueroa said Mexico can initially process about 1,000 foreigners daily, up from about 50 currently.

“If the line becomes clogged up, we will just let everybody through,” Figueroa said. “If we can’t check everybody, we won’t.”

Figueroa said San Ysidro is believed to be the first U.S. land crossing to have a separate line for foreigners to show passports and that it will serve as a model for others as they are upgraded. Aurora Vega, a spokeswoman for the National Migration Institute, referred questions to other departments. Officials at the Foreign Relations Department and Mexican Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.

About 25,000 pedestrians (and 50,000 motorists) cross daily at San Ysidro to work, shop and play but it is unclear how many are foreigners in Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says about one-third entering San Diego are U.S. citizens, one-third are U.S. legal residents and the rest are from other countries, largely Mexico. An unknown number have dual citizenship or residency in the U.S. and Mexico.

Both countries have long wrestled with logistical hurdles of stopping people going to Mexico by land. The U.S. occasionally stops motorists and pedestrians as they leave — mainly to check for guns and cash — but it doesn’t have a system to record exits like at airports, seen by many as a significant shortcoming in border security.

Previous efforts to question more foreigners entering Mexico met resistance in Tijuana, whose economy partly relies on Americans who visit restaurants, beaches, doctors and dentists. Lines to enter the United States at San Ysidro have exceeded four hours.

Roberto Arteaga, who has made tacos, shined shoes and sold tickets for private bus and van rides in Southern California during 28 years as a street vendor near the border crossing, says requiring passports and imposing a fee for longer stays sends the wrong message.

“We should be welcoming,” he said during a lull in business Tuesday. “This will hurt Tijuana’s economy.”

Other crossers said the move was overdue.

“Anything to keep the country safer is much better for everyone,” Cynthia Diaz of Oceanside, near San Diego, said as she stood in line to return to the U.S with her niece, who visited Tijuana for a root canal. “It’s safer for us on the other side too.”

Sunken Ordnance and Chemical Weapons, Re-think BP Oil Spill?

Posted on by

It was April 2010, that the Horizon platform blew in the Gulf of Mexico where British Petroleum has been blamed resulting in one of the largest disasters in recent years, destroying much of the shoreline and salt water life.

BP took full responsibility for the disaster, but given the theories on the cause of the destruction of the pipeline and the drilling platform, was it really all BP’s fault? What did BP know, what did the oil producer not know and what was hidden that does reside on the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico?

Redstone Arsenal, Alabama

Further information noted here.

In part from Maritime Executive: As time passes, more and more people are working on the seafloor and the chance of encounter with these bombs and other ordnance is becoming greater.”

With the ship traffic needed to support the 4,000 energy rigs, along with commercial fishing, cruise lines and other activities, the Gulf can be a sort of marine interstate highway system of its own. There are an estimated 30,000 workers on the oil and gas rigs at any given moment.

Bombs used in the military in the 1940s through the 1970s ranged from 250- to 500- and even 1,000-pound explosives, some of them the size of refrigerators. The military has a term for such unused bombs: UXO, or unexploded ordnance.

One huge problem is that record keeping of the military dump sites is incomplete and sketchy at best. It’s also believed that many of the munitions were “short dumped,” meaning they were discarded outside designated dumping areas by private contractors hired at the time.

“The real mystery is that no one knows what is down there, or where all of it is,” Slowey notes.

“Although most of these bombs do not  have triggers in them, some types of ordnance , such as torpedoes and mines, can become more unstable over time, so their case the chance of an accidental explosion is increasing.

 

“Because chemical weapons potentially pose environmental contamination risks, and because explosive material in many of the standard bombs and other ordnance  may still be viable, we need to determine exactly where they are and then have a plan for removing them or at least monitoring their condition,” Slowey says.

Forgotten hazards: Unexploded WW2 bombs and chemical weapons STILL pose serious threat to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

  • After WW2 unexploded bombs were dumped in the ocean
  • 70 years later no one knows exactly how many were dumped and where
  • 500-pound bombs found 60 miles off Texas coast
  • At least one Gulf pipeline laid across a chemical weapon dump
  • Call for oil and gas industry to do more to address the problem

 

Millions of pounds of unexploded bombs dumped in the Gulf of Mexico by the U.S. government after World War Two pose a significant risk to offshore oil drilling, warn researchers.


It is no secret that the United States, along with other governments, dumped munitions and chemical weapons in oceans from 1946 until the practice was banned in the 1970s by U.S. law and international treaty, said William Bryant, a Texas A&M University professor of oceanography.
As technological advances allow oil companies to push deeper into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, these forgotten hazards pose a threat as the industry picks up the pace of drilling after BP’s deadly Macondo well blowout in 2010 that lead to the largest oil spill in U.S. history.  Unexploded ordnance has been found in the offshore zone known as Mississippi Canyon where the Macondo well was drilled.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will auction 38 million acres of oil and gas leases in the central gulf in March.
The U.S. government designated disposal areas for unexploded ordnance, known as UXO, off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as in the Gulf of Mexico. But nearly 70 years after the areas were created, no one knows exactly how much was dumped, or where the weapons are, or whether they present a danger to humans or marine life.
‘These bombs are a threat today and no one knows how to deal with the situation,’ said Bryant.
‘If chemical agents are leaking from some of them, that’s a real problem. If many of them are still capable of exploding, that’s another big problem.’
Disposal zones were designated from Florida to Texas, said Bryant, who will discuss his research findings at the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions conference that begins Monday in San Juan, Puerto Rico.


While the practice of dumping bombs and chemical weapons, including mustard and nerve gas, in the ocean ended 40 years ago some effects are just beginning to be seen, said Terrance Long, founder of the underwater munitions conference.
‘You can find munitions in basically every ocean around the world, every major sea, lake and river,’ Long said. ‘They are a threat to human health and the environment.’
The oil industry is no stranger to leftovers from the World War Two.
Last year, BP shut its key Forties crude pipeline in the North Sea for five days while it removed a 13-foot (4-metre) unexploded German mine found resting cozily next to the pipeline that transports up to 40 percent of the UK’s oil production.
BP discovered the mine during a routine pipeline inspection, then spent several months devising a plan to lift the bomb and move it far enough from the pipeline to safely detonate it.
In the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for 23 percent of U.S. oil production and seven percent of domestic natural gas output, the hazards are known, but generally ignored.
In 2001, BP and Shell found the wreckage of the U-166, a German World War II submarine, 45 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River during an underwater survey for a pipeline needed to transport natural gas to shore.


Bryant said he and colleague Neil Slowey have documented discarded bombs and leaking barrels over the past 20 years while conducting research for energy companies in the Gulf of Mexico.
Records of where these munitions were dumped are incomplete and experts believe many dangerous cargoes were ‘short-dumped,’ or discarded outside designated zones.


Bryant said he has come across 500-pound (227-kgs) bombs about 60 miles off the Texas coast and other ordnance 100 miles offshore, outside designated zones. At least one Gulf pipeline was laid across a chemical weapon dump site south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, he said.
While the risk of an underwater bomb exploding may be small, environmental damage from chemical weapons, such as mustard gas, is worrisome and needs to be researched, Bryant said.
‘We would like to do a survey to be able to say if (this material) is harmful or not,’ he said. ‘The condition of these barrels is deteriorating, so does it affect anything or not? We ought to know.’

The 2 Emails that Jumped the Hillary Server Investigation

Posted on by

They destroyed the Blackberry Phones…what????

WashingtonTimes: The State Department destroyed the BlackBerry devices issued to two top aides of former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and never issued Mrs. Clinton a device at all, officials told a federal court Wednesday in a filing that raises still more security questions.

The filing came a day before officials will have to appear in court to detail the steps they took to try to track down Mrs. Clinton’s emails, and whatever computers or other devices she may have used to send them. For sure keep reading here.

If you don’t think Trey Gowdy of the Benghazi Investigation group in Congress is not on top of things, then you need to think again. Further, it must be noted, the co-chairman of the Benghazi Commission serving with Gowdy is Elijah Cumming of Maryland and to date, he has done nothing but obstruct the investigations.

Classified emails from Clinton aides kick-started FBI probe, candidate downplays controversy

FNC:

EXCLUSIVE: An email from a top Clinton adviser containing classified military intelligence information, and one from a top aide containing classified information about the Benghazi terror attack, were the documents that kick-started the FBI investigation into the mishandling of classified information, Fox News has learned.

The emails, among thousands on Hillary Clinton’s personal server, were released to the Benghazi select committee in May and have been widely discussed but Fox News for the first time has identified which Clinton aides sent them and the subject matter.

The revelation came as the Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state tried to brush aside the burgeoning scandal, joking at a campaign event when asked by Fox News whether she had wiped her private server clean, “What, with like with a cloth or something? I don’t know how it works at all.”

Clinton last week handed the FBI her private server, which she used to send, receive and store emails during her four years as secretary of state.

Fox News has identified two of the Benghazi-related emails on the server that were deemed to contain classified information at the time they were sent.

The first was forwarded by Clinton adviser Huma Abedin and contained classified material from military intelligence sources. The 2011 email forwards a warning about how then-Ambassador Chris Stevens was “considering departure from Benghazi” amid deteriorating conditions in a nearby city. The email was mistakenly released by the State Department in full, and is now considered declassified.

New details raise concerns over security of Hillary’s server
The second was sent by Clinton aide Jake Sullivan and contained classified information as well as sensitive law enforcement information on Benghazi. The partly redacted November 2012 email detailed how Libyan police had arrested “several people” with potential connections to the terror attack.

Abedin and Sullivan now work for the Clinton presidential campaign. A spokeswoman for the intelligence community inspector general confirmed to Fox News that the information was classified at the time it was sent.

But Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon says the information was not classified at the time the emails were sent. In maintaining this position, the campaign pointed to the fact that the State Department shared this judgment, as the Abedin email was released in full by the State Department on its FOIA website. The campaign spokesman acknowledged there is disagreement with the intelligence community inspector general.

A State Department spokesman said they shared Fallon’s stance.

The emails are now just a fraction of those under review by the intelligence community. On Tuesday, while Clinton joked about her server’s apparently missing contents, Fox News has learned the FBI is aggressively trying to recover the data.

An intelligence source familiar with the review told Fox News that FBI investigators are confident they may be able to recover some of the deleted files, a detail first reported by NBC News.

Yet at the contentious press conference on Tuesday, Clinton insisted anything she did with her email server was “legally permitted.”

In the press conference following a Las Vegas town hall meeting Tuesday, Fox News’ Ed Henry pressed the Democratic presidential candidate by pointing out that leadership is about taking responsibility.

“Look, Ed, I take responsibility,” Clinton replied. “In retrospect, this didn’t turn out to be convenient at all and I regret that this has become such a cause celebre. But that does not change the facts. The facts are stubborn — what I did was legally permitted.”

The FBI is holding Clinton’s server in protective custody after the intelligence community’s inspector general raised concerns recently that classified information had traversed the system.

Clinton told reporters she was “very comfortable that this will eventually get resolved and the American people will have plenty of time to figure it out.”

When asked whether she oversaw the process to wipe the server clean, Clinton said, “my personal emails are my personal business. Right? We went through a painstaking process and through 55,000 pages we thought could be worth relating,” she continued. “Under the law, that decision is made by the official. I was the official. I made those decisions.”

As she departed the room, a reporter asked whether the email scandal will ever end, Clinton turned to reporters shrugged and said, “Nobody talks to me about it other than you guys.”

Fox News’ Ed Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

*** There is a history of Obama giving a pass to those in his administration when it comes to violating law and controlling classified material. There are some names missing in the story below such as Thomas Drake at the NSA but, you are encouraged to read the summary here and consider if the Obama White House will in the end give Hillary ‘executive privilege’ much as he did with Eric Holder over Fast and Furious. My vote is yes.

 

 

You Broke the Law, But did you Know?

Posted on by

Before you even get out of your driveway or leave the parking lot, how many laws did you break?

You’ve probably broken the law, and you don’t even know it

FreedomWorks: April 1790, the first Congress passed the Crimes Act, a law that established a criminal code in the United States. The Constitution listed only three crimes — counterfeiting, piracy, and treason. The Crimes Act codified those crimes and added a little more than a dozen others, including murder, larceny, and perjury. The list of federal offenses was short and easily defined.

Today, however, there are more than 4,500 federal statutes that carry criminal penalties. That is, at least, the best estimate. There has not been a full accounting of the number of criminal penalties since 2008. In 2013, the House Over-Criminalization Task Force asked the Congressional Research Service to, once again, take on this task. “CRS’ initial response to our request was that they lack the manpower and resources to accomplish this task,” Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), co-chair of the task force, said at a June 2013 hearing. “And I think this confirms the point that all of us have been making on this issue and demonstrates the breadth of over-criminalization.”

This onslaught of federal criminal offenses is relatively recent in the United States’ history. The American Bar Association, in a 1998 report, noted that “[m]ore than 40% of the federal provisions enacted since the Civil War have been enacted since 1970.” If this explosive growth in the federal criminal code was not jaw-dropping enough, it pales in comparison to the number of federal regulatory crimes.

A 1991 study, Does ‘Unlawful’ Mean ‘Criminal’? Reflections on the Disappearing Tort/Crime Distinction in American Law, noted that “there are over 300,000 federal regulations that may be enforced criminally.” Twenty-four years later, some estimate that there are as many as 400,000 regulatory offenses, many of which are punishable by fines and prison sentences.

It has long been said that ignorance of the law is not a defense, but the laws and regulations on the books in the United States are so voluminous that it is impossible to know when they are being broken. This is why, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you broke the law but did not realise until it was too late, you should get yourself a lawyer. Maybe you should take a look at someone like these Raleigh criminal defense lawyers to give you a better idea of how they could help you. Harvey Silverglate, a civil liberties and criminal defense attorney, has, quite literally, written the book about the epidemic of over-criminalization. In his 2009 book, Three Felonies A Day, Silverglate, who offers several horror stories involving over-criminalization, theorizes that the average American commits, as the title suggests, a trio of felonies on a daily basis, often without ever knowing that a crime was committed.

These offenses can still be successfully prosecuted. Take the case of Alison Capo, for example. Her 11-year-old daughter, Skylar, saved a baby woodpecker from being eaten by a cat. Capo did not know that she ran afoul of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, under which the woodpecker is protected. She was fined $535 and threatened with jail time. The US Fish and Wildlife Service dropped the citation only after the case received publicity in the news.

“Kids should be able to save a baby bird and not end up going home crying because their mom has to pay $535,” Skylar told a local reporter. “I just think that’s crazy.” Indeed, it is crazy. Sadly, there are many more egregious examples of over-criminalization. The Heritage Foundation highlighted 21 specific instances from across the country in a publication, USA vs. You: The Flood of Criminal Laws Threatening Your Liberty, where the purported “criminal” broke laws or regulations that they could not have possibly known about.

Unfortunately, federal law and regulations often lack mens rea, or guilty mind, a requirement that derives from the common law tradition. Essentially, with mens rea, prosecutors would have to prove that the accused had criminal intent for them to be culpable for a crime. The criminal intent requirement has, however, been eroded in American law as the number of criminal offenses passed by Congress and promulgated by unelected bureaucrats have exploded.

A May 2010 report, Without Intent: How Congress Is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirement in Federal Law, from the Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers noted that of 57 percent of the 446 proposed criminal offenses in the 109th Congress (2005-2006) “lacked an adequate mens rea requirement.” Of the 36 proposed criminal offenses enacted by this particular Congress, almost 64 percent had a weak mens rea requirement or none at all.

Testifying before the House Over-Criminalization Task Force in July 2013, John Baker, a well respected and accomplished legal scholar who has written extensively on over-criminalization, explained how the American legal system came to such a perilous state that puts the liberty of the people at risk. “[W]hen we look at state criminal law, it is relatively easy, even though states have added many non-common law crimes, it is easy because the meat and potatoes of a local prosecutor, which I was, in murder, rape, robbery, theft, burglary, that is what we dealt with. And most juries do not have difficulty figuring out what those crimes are,” Baker told members of the task force. “Indeed, in most state prosecutions the issue is not whether there was a crime, the issue is whether the defendant is the person who did it.”

“In Federal law it is just the opposite. The issue is not whether the defendant did something; it is whether what he did was a crime. And we know with 4,500 statutes out there, there are plenty to pick from,” he said. “And it is easy to pick up one that has, if not a lack of mens rea entirely, a confused mens rea.” In his prepared testimony, Baker noted that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, under which Alison Capo was unnecessarily harassed, does not have a mens rea requirement.

“You know, at the state level we know that we found many people who are innocent in jail because they were factually not guilty,” Baker explained. “The problem in federal criminal law is that we have innocent people being convicted not because we have the wrong person, but because they really did not commit a crime” because they did not intend to do so.

In Baker’s view — as well as the view of most conservative, libertarian, and even some progressive legal scholars — is a default mens rea requirement. This would be applied across the board in federal offenses, providing some necessary relief for people who may unwittingly break some arbitrary statute or regulation enacted by Congress or promulgated by a federal agency.

Much of the focus of justice reform efforts in Congress has been on overhauls of front-end sentencing and back-end reentry. These efforts are vital because of the high costs of incarceration and the current approach to corrections, which essentially warehouses offenders, rather than rehabilitate them. But the need for default mens rea is another aspect of justice reform that Congress must consider due to the epidemic of over-criminalization that represents a threat to virtually every American.