While we can rejoice in Frank Quattrone’s temporary victory, in truth, the overall news continues to become increasingly depressing. Increasing numbers of Americans are finding themselves in the federal crosshairs, being charged with federal crimes that do not reflect the reality of a given situation.

The other night, while at the ASC, I had dinner with friends of ours. The husband is an Auburn faculty member, and the wife has homeschooled their three children. They are members of a local Baptist church and would be considered to be Christian conservatives.

Yet, much of our conversation centered around people that they knew who had been charged with federal crimes, yet were not guilty of anything. One mutual friend, a woman who had been issued an airline ticket for the wrong flight, found herself being assaulted by a TSA officer, thrown onto the floor, handcuffed, arrested, and thrown into jail. She had said nothing violent, but that did not matter to the airport gestapo.

Then they talked about a friend who was a doctor who was working at a pain management clinic, who was convicted of rather specious evidence and sentence to about 20 years. Now, you have to remember that we can multiply this across the population, and we are finding that regular people now are finding themselves in trouble with federal law.

This is both bad news and good news. The bad news is that more innocent people are going to federal prison. The good news is that many Christian conservatives are waking up to what their “family values” politicians have done. Now, I wish that this meant that an outcry would ensue, which would then result in a rollback of these malicious prosecutions, but I doubt that will happen. Still, it is good to know that more people are having their eyes opened, even if it is too late to do anything about it.