HISTORYPerfectly Normal Things That Could Have Gotten You Arrested Not Long Ago4 min read

Federal Crime: The Crossword Puzzle Edition

The U.S. Ethics Reform Act of 1989 was designed to stop corruption — lawmakers accepting cash for speeches, appearances, op-eds. Reasonable enough. But the honoraria ban was written so broadly that it swept up ordinary civil servants doing nothing remotely corrupt.

One federal investigator was told he had to quit his job or stop selling crossword puzzles to a newspaper. An IRS employee with a geophysics degree was barred from giving talks on earthquake preparedness. Another IRS worker couldn’t cover baseball or hockey games as a freelance journalist. A government employee who taught dance classes in the evenings was informed that instruction counted as prohibited paid speech.

The Supreme Court struck down that portion of the law in 1995, ruling it an unconstitutional restriction on free expression. The crossword guy presumably got his byline back.

A Fine for Kissing in a Connecticut Courtroom

Henry VI banned kissing in England in 1439, worried it spread bubonic plague — a public health rationale that at least had some logic to it. The Puritan version had no such excuse. In colonial America, public affection was simply an offense against God, full stop.

On May 1, 1660, Sarah Tuttle and Jacob Murline stood before a Connecticut court charged with “sinful dalliance.” The evidence: witnesses had seen the pair sitting on a chest, arms around each other, for roughly half an hour. There had also been kissing. The court was not amused. Both were fined 20 shillings — about $240 today — for the scandal of touching each other in public.