US mulls stiffer sentences for common Net proxies | Sacramento Bee — The crime is the crime, why hammer people even more for a common practice? The fact is we just want to keep people in prison as long as we can. And I suspect there is some RIAA guy lurking in the background of this idea.

A key vote Wednesday on new federal sentencing guidelines would classify the use of proxies as evidence of “sophistication,” increasing sentences by about 25 percent – which could mean years or even decades longer behind bars, depending on the crime. It’s akin to judges handing down stiffer sentences when a gun is used in a robbery.

Yet digital-rights advocates are worried. Although they aren’t absolving criminals, they complain that the proposal is so broad, it could lead to unnecessarily harsh sentences for tech neophytes who didn’t know they were using proxies in the first place or who were simply engaging in a practice often encouraged as a safer way of using the Internet.

“It sends a bad message about protecting your own privacy,” said John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology. “This is the government saying, ‘If you take normal steps to protect your privacy, we’re going to view you as a more sophisticated criminal.’”