“Unintended Consequences”: A Feature, Not a Bug

“There’s a whole range of laws, originally passed for some noble-sounding and limited purpose, whose present function is mainly to allow government thugs to shop for a pretext to go after people they don’t like.  If you want to get somebody, you just look through the statute book (like Neo in the gun shop before the lobby scene) until you find some arcane law that’s tailor made for busting him.  There’s no such thing as too much of a stretch.”