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prolific serial killer in history. According to Interpol chief Rajiv Singh,
nearly all the deaths had previously been ruled as being from natural causes.
Francisco was studying computer science and nanotechnology at Université de
Provence, in Aix-en-Provence, France. Coincidentally, while addressing the UN
General Assembly only last month, Singh referred to the prospect of a serial
killer with nanotechnology expertise as utterly chilling.
Once upon a time, the tale goes, a man was sentenced to death by the king.
Wait! he cried. If you delay my sentence by six months, I ll teach your
horse to talk.
The king agreed.
Later that day the man s wife asked him, Why would you make such an offer?
You can t possibly teach a horse how to talk.
Well, he answered, I figure a lot can happen in six months. There could be
a revolution and a new king. Or the king could get sick and die. Or the king
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could change his mind. Or the horse could die. Or I could die. Or maybe the
horse will talk.
Pete Armstrong read the new Amnesty Bill and considered the implications. If
he turned himself in for Scoggins s murder now, the court would probably
sentence him to jail time, maybe 10 to 12 years, or declare him insane and
order him to undergo treatment; either way, he would not be executed. But if
he waited and his crime was discovered, any judge would be obliged to sentence
him to death.
In the latter part of the 20th century, the famous UCLA sociologist James
Q. Wilson wrote, What most needs explanation is not why some people are
criminals, but why most people are not. Wilson s assumption was eloquently
stated, popular, and false.
A few decades later, the introduction of the ACIP into American society had
created an unprecedented self-image crisis. Virtually all Americans had
previously considered themselves honest and law-abiding. Once the ACIP entered
the equation, it became clear that this had almost always been a
rationalization.
In fact, we now know that nearly every adult alive prior to the ACIP,
technically speaking, was not just a liar, but also a criminal (i.e. nearly
everyone had committed at least one crime during his or her life). Most were
guilty of minor offenses such as traffic violations, underage drinking,
illegal drug usage, minor tax evasion, cheating on expense reports, that sort
of thing. Violent, relentless, or hard-core criminals comprised but a tiny
percentage of the population.
The Amnesty Laws weren t designed to help solve crimes; thanks to the
ACIP, solving crimes was no longer a problem. The real purpose of the new laws
was to deal with all the previous crimes being uncovered and to help prevent
serious crimes in the future.
The ACIP had already rendered moot the right to avoid self-incrimination as
guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. I won t go into the
political mess that created at the time; suffice it to say it was an
emotional, historically divisive issue. Americans still had the right not to
testify against themselves in court, but so what? Most licensing applications
were now administered under scip. In order to receive licenses to operate
machinery, carry firearms, visit other countries, or receive many other
privileges, applicants were legally required to confess any crimes committed
after April 30, 2006, the date the
Truth Machine Bill was enacted. It was becoming virtually impossible to exist
in
American society without confessing all.
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Each week, millions of pre-ACIP crimes, mostly non-violent white-collar
offenses, were discovered in the course of everyday scipping for licensing,
commerce, and other application processes. Nearly all these infractions had
been committed by people who wouldn t consider breaking the law now that they
were sure to be caught. For example, before the ACIP, some 40 percent of
Americans cheated on taxes to some degree. By 2031 the number had fallen to
.061 percent.
Since very few of these offenders remained a threat to society, the three
principal goals of the Amnesty Laws were (1) to encourage pre-ACIP criminals
to turn themselves in for relatively mild punishment, usually just a nominal
fine or reparations to any victims, (2) to minimize the stigma associated with
pre-ACIP
crimes, and (3) to discourage future lawlessness through the threat of more
severe penalties, especially for violent crimes.
During the first six years of the ACIP s existence, astounding advances had
been made in the field of criminology. Many misconceptions about criminal
motivation were cleared up and unimaginably useful statistics compiled. The
most important finding was that as long as criminals believed there were
reasonable prospects for getting away with their crimes, the length of a
prison sentence had almost no affect on its deterrent value. For example, a
15-year prison sentence had less than 10 percent more deterrent power than a
five-year sentence. (The threat of a sure death penalty was several times more
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