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Editorial
Responding to dangers real and perceived
Security of all sorts has been a leading topic of both conversation and policy making in recent months, as it has been from time to time over the years. If history is any guide at all, this bodes ill, because invariably the baby is thrown out while the fate of the bathwater remains unclear.
Indeed, history could not be more unmistakable in its depiction of a completely consistently wrong-headed approach when government seeks to enhance the security of the citizens it supposedly represents.
A president is shot, so firearms laws are passed that inconvenience only the law-abiding citizen who is less of a danger to those around him than is the average automobile owner.
Some lunatic tampers with cold remedies and over-the-counter pain killers, so now the headache sufferer wishing to get to that relief-giving aspirin must first, head pounding away, remove a plastic cap shield, line up the arrows so that the cap can be removed (government's response to bad parents who do not themselves secure pharmaceutical items), and fight through a piece of plasticized foil so tough one wonders why the material isn't employed in bulletproof vests, and only then be allowed to do battle with the wad of cotton that was placed there to keep the aspirin from beating each other into dust during shipping.
At the first Earth Day, 32 years ago, there were signs with slogans that included "Nuclear power now!"; but nine years later came Three-Mile Island and the entire industry was demonized because one company had failed to do things correctly, so now a safe and efficient -- if done properly -- means of energy generation has been legislated into near oblivion.
Terrorists hijack airplanes and fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, so airline travel is made a hellish experience for everyone, even though far more common-sensical security procedures are obvious and available.
It is said that good cases often result in bad laws. And it is true that political leaders are sometimes quick to jump onto a wave of public sentiment and rush into law measures that are ill-considered or opportunistic advances of some other agenda or both.
Today, you slap the word "security" on almost anything and its chances of being taken seriously are enhanced.
Which brings us to the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, the subject of this week's Guest Essay by Catherine Olanich Raymond. As she notes, it is a very foolish law. No one would give it a second thought but for the fact that it is promoted as a "security" measure. Its purported thesis, that we do not have access to high quality digital content because such content is not safe from piracy, is, as she notes, nonsense. Its real motive, to protect and enrich a certain group of content providers at the expense of everyone else, is something we are not supposed to notice. And were it passed, its effects -- tremendous expense and inconvenience for all of us, while those who pirate material will continue as usual -- is in keeping with other government approaches to security, in which the only people punished are those who observe the law. It makes the assumption that everyone who has the ability to break the law will break the law. Which is ridiculous.
There is a body of computer users, DVD viewers, and music listeners who believe that they are entitled to fling down and dance upon the copyright laws. This, of course, is wrong. There are always problems when people base their observance of the law on that which is convenient to them. But the way to deal with such persons is to prosecute them under the existing law. The CBDTPA, as the various gun-control laws, as the safety measures to prevent product tampering, as the airline "security" measures of the last few months, is the lazy way out -- the philosophical equivalent of rounding up and jailing everyone because there might be in their midst someone who deserves it.
This foolishness has made it into law largely because it divides and legislates: gun owners are a minority, so it's safe to infringe on their rights; a relative few have a headache or cold at any given time, so it's safe to issue regulations that will make their sorry condition even unpleasanter; more people hate the utility companies than love them; there are more people on the ground than in the air, so anything that is supposed to make it less likely for a plane to whack into them is uncritically accepted. And now we learn that a minority actually gives a damn about rights when using computers.
The old joke has it that one of the biggest lies in the world is "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Beware when you hear those words. The wall that keeps us safe from tyranny can be knocked down with a wrecking ball, sure, but history demonstrates that if it's taken down a brick at a time, we're less likely to notice. After government has legislated its way to our "security" and safety from everything, we'll have just one thing to fear: the government itself.