I would venture to say that the people who make the laws don't understand technology in the least. Think about your average parent or grandparent who equates AOL (or the Internet Explorer icon) to being "the internet". Now try to get them to understand a concept like jailbreaking, it's a daunting prospect, technology is emerging and changing at a rate faster than they can possibly comprehend. Society is asking them to make judgement calls about something they're not the least bit qualified to...and yet they're doing it anyways.