"Identifying a criminal" doesn't imply that it's done by the government, and being done by the government doesn't imply that it's done to a criminal. This comment seems like quite a leap.

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jstanley 6 hours ago | parent [-]

It's the government who defines what "criminal" means.

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wat10000 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Not necessarily. I'm free to make my own determination on the matter.

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zaphar 5 hours ago | parent [-]

You are certainly free to make up your own definitions for words and speak a dialect that is niche but you will not be effectively communicating when you do. By commonly understood definition criminality is a matter of law.

	▲	wat10000 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, the dude here hasn't been put on trial, let alone convicted, as far as I can tell from the article. So he's not officially considered a criminal by a government. Yet we all seem comfortable calling him one, so I'd say that it is not, in fact, commonly understood to be exclusively a matter of law.