Smart criminals punished harder than idiots

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This one caught my eye this morning. Apparently, as of November in the USA, the use of a proxy when conducting a crime might increase one's sentence by up to 25%, as this is seen as evidence of sophistication. I mean, come on, many people don't even know they are behind proxies! Admitted, they shouldn't commit crimes, and it may be harder to track someone that did commit a crime through a proxy, but hey its not impossible... and to increase the sentence for it? That's just totally irrelevant.

It would be like increasing the sentence for someone because they formatted a hard drive or deleted a partition table to cover their tracks. It makes the job of the investigator a tad harder, but not impossible!

And should one's sentence be increased for it? I don't really see the link between the adversary being 'smart' and him being punished harder than an idiot :)

UPDATE: The U.S. Sentencing Commission decided to drop above mentioned amendment as the language used to describe it was too general.

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