Some people are just jerks
Originally Posted by justin1916
At the risk of being one of the "jerks", here is some relevant information.
The law merely updates a measure that has been on the books since it was signed by then-President Richard Nixon in 1971, making it a federal crime to trespass on grounds secured by the Secret Service. No new penalties were added, and the bill was not signed “secretly” as some claim. The White House announced the signing publicly just as it does for other such routine measures.
It merely amended
Title 18, Chapter 84, Section 1752 of the U.S. Code — just as then-President George W. Bush did in 2006
when he signed the Patriot Act. (Click on the link to the U.S. Code and you can see how it was amended in 1982, 1984, 1994 and 2006.)
According to the
official report of the full House Judiciary Committee (which approved it on a voice vote, without recorded opposition), the bill adds two things to previously existing law:
- It specifies that it is unlawful to enter secured areas of the White House and its grounds, or the vice president’s official residence and grounds. Previously, according to the report, the law prohibited unlawful entry to any building or ground, secured by the Secret Service, where the president or vice president is “temporarily” visiting. That forced the Secret Service to rely on a District of Columbia law that “addresses only minor misdemeanor infractions” even if somebody were to breach the White House residence itself.
- The new law revises the standard that prosecutors must meet to gain a conviction, from proving that a violation was committed “willfully and knowingly” to merely proving that it was committed “knowingly.”