There have been stories recently of police arresting someone for a legal act because the officer thought it was illegal. If I remember correctly a lawsuit was started in one of these cases and it determined the officer's ignorance of the law was not a suitable reason for the lawsuit. Or something to that point.
That's already true, as pointed out in Three Felonies a Day: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/.... Everyone is already a criminal if someone wants to look carefully enough.
This is a pretty good quote. It reminded me of two more:
"Honest men have nothing to fear from the police" (said, presumably, by the prolific Anonymous), and
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him" (said, presumably, by Cardinal Richelieu but possibly by the Roman philosopher Quintilian)
This is a great lesson for everyone. I grew up assuming that people in charge of regulations and laws would know them. They could tell you what's legal and what's not.
After interactions with different gov't agencies and law enforcement, I've come to realize that's not true at all. I would be shocked if even 10% of the people in charge of enforcing laws have even read the laws themselves.
Don't be surprised if a police officer arrests you for something completely legal or if a gov't agency tells you can/can't do something even though the opposite is true.
It's pretty disheartening when the people chosen to enforce a law aren't even informed enough to do it correctly. It's not that hard to get up to speed.