In the early 1970s, when I was a freshly minted Special Attorney with the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Justice Department, my fellow newly hired colleagues and I attended a lecture at Main Justice given by John Dowd, a well-regarded veteran prosecutor. His topic was the then little known and almost never used Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Dowd explained in detail the vast sweep of the statute and described the mind-boggling powers that Congress had conferred on us. In those long gone days of limited federal jurisdiction, we had a hard time processing what...