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Enter Thought Crime, the term Orwell repeatedly used to signify an idea one possessed that was considered inappropriate, and thus illegal, by the reigning government. Think this kind of stuff doesn’t happen in the US? Wrong.

An Ohio man was arrested and sentenced to seven years in jail for writing private thoughts in a personal journal. The journal entries were not intended to be seen by anyone, and, in fact, were entirely fictional. However, when the man’s probation officer discovered the journal in a routine search of the man’s home, the find escalated into a prison sentence for thinking vile thoughts.

Nevermind that Mr. Dalton, the man convicted of Thought Crime, had previously served some months in prison for a child pornography case. There’s a huge difference between doing and thinking, and we should not blur the two.

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