Unfortunately for you and Anaya, the courts -- and America in general -- do count that as a crime. Aiding criminals has long been a crime and will continue to be a crime. In the same way getaway drivers, launderers, and trafficking in stolen goods are criminalized, so too are building tools for criminals, with features only needed by criminals (odor control to avoid drug-sniffing dogs), mostly or exclusively used by criminals, with explicit knowledge they're being used by criminals. (What on earth would Anaya have counted as knowing his clients where selling drugs? From this article and the court documents, nothing short of his clients running up to him and shouting, "Hey everybody! I'm transporting drugs!")
Pretending that criminalizing helping to commit crimes erodes civil liberties is somewhere between silly and stupid. Particularly to anyone sympathetic (as I am) to arguments that we should legalize most drugs and redirect those moneys to harm abatement.
> Aiding criminals has long been a crime and will continue to be a crime.
Not exactly. And saying what will be is a little presumptuous.
Here's what you can find in the wikipedia entry about criminal conspiracy in Common Law:
"There was an additional problem that it could be a criminal conspiracy at common law to engage in conduct which was not in itself a criminal offence (...) Henceforward it would only be an offence to agree to engage in a course of conduct which was itself a criminal offence."
Or, in other words, it would only be an offence if making the tools that helped the criminals was a criminal act in itself.
As an (extreme) example of the problem of criminal conspiracy: you could end up in prison for giving/selling food to someone you know will commit a crime.
With this in mind, it's not really surprising to see people baffled by the possibility of being put in jail for doing something that is, in itself, legal.
Now, it might be illegal under the current US laws, but that's what's surprising. Most people expect to NOT be sent in prison for obeying the laws.
> Pretending that criminalizing helping to commit crimes erodes civil liberties is somewhere between silly and stupid.
Eh no, it's really not. It's pretty much the definition. By criminalizing an action, your are reducing the civil liberties.
Pretending that criminalizing helping to commit crimes erodes civil liberties is somewhere between silly and stupid. Particularly to anyone sympathetic (as I am) to arguments that we should legalize most drugs and redirect those moneys to harm abatement.