The other way to do is to pass general 'catch-all' laws. Something like the 'obstruction of justice', or 'looking suspicious'. Combine that with total surveilance and selective enforcement and you have a perfect police state.<p>It gives the state the power to come and arrest you at any time, for any reason, as they will probably find something in your history to convict you of. Yes, most of the time they won't bother, just like insurance companies won't bother checking your illness history for discrepancies, until you become 'inconvinient' to them then they can find any reason to arrest (or deny coverage in case of insurance companies).<p>In general, as applied to any institution, the rule is to make complicated processes and regulations, such that any particular individual the institution controls, has a very high chance of breaking some of them. That makes it very easy to selectively enforce laws and the institution can choose to enforce based on any reason, legal or not, since there is always a legal 'cover' -- the 'official' broken rule (law).<p>EDIT: changed "rate" to "chance" in last paragraph