Which is better: legal discretion or automatic enforcement?

[exploited]

The Canadian government has been definitively proven to be breaking its own laws. Those laws revolve around internet surveillance of Canadians without a warrant, which is unambiguously illegal in Canada. The government itself has stated that the watchdog that checks them hasn't found evidence of abuse, which is true... even though Edward Snowden has provided clear and essentially irrefutable proof. It's one of those situations where the law has clearly been broken, and the people who haven't been arrested yet know it, but there has been no response from law enforcement.

Thing is, there won't be. Even though the law was broken, there is no political will to prosecute - and therefore it won't be done.

Is this sort of situation preferable to clear, precise, unavoidable rules governing the behavior of public officials? In order to realistically see the Canadian government abide by the law would require extrajudicial acts or automatic law enforcement. On the other hand, the Canadian public largely seems to desire the kill/capture of Islamic terrorists, the security of Canada, etc.

Which approach is preferable? Allowing illegality in the sense of not punishing it (and therefore creating leeway), or removing all leeway and never allowing illegality, no matter how disastrous the results?

[Saz]

Obviously the first.

[exploited]

Rationale?

[Saz]

Second is impossible to employ in practice.

[exploited]

[Saz]

No.

[exploited]

[Saz]

[eynon81]

Saz speaks for me in this thread.

we've seen this shit playing out with "0 tolerance" policies and the Bloody Code. shit don't work.

[The Comrade]

to be fair zero tolerance works too well