This is truly material for the next episode of Sam & Max. I hope this nonsense will not spread to the United States.

There is more on this from the Institute for Justice.

I seriously doubt that law will survive challenge. Our judges arent crazy yet, so they will prolly do the right thing, and if they dont, they get replaced next election.

Let's back up a minute. What is the stated reason for this law in the first place? It sounds like a favor to a lobbyist, but being Texas, it could be just about anything.

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If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
-Dorothy Parker

"...and now for the rest of the story..."

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The Private Eyes of Texas are upon youuuuuu....

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If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
-Dorothy Parker

News flash!
Texas is part of the United States!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

But is the Ledge?

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If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
-Dorothy Parker

giddyup:
"It might not be the easy way, but it's the cowboy way!"

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Here's the text of the bill:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodo...f/HB02833F.pdf

It does not mention computer repair technicians needing licenses.

This is a strange story on several counts.

Texas laws go into effect 90 days after the Lege adjourns; the Lege meets for 120 days every odd-numbered year. HB 2833 went into effect on Sep 1, 2007. No board or commission can alter a law on its own. So this is not a "new law."

The only mention of computers is Section 4 paragraph (b), which does not seem to apply to computer technicians, but to investigators reviewing computer databases.

It seems to me that someone is blowing smoke. Or smoking blow.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

What about all those "US Out of Texas" bumper stickers?

My first thought on reading the story was, "yeah, and that reporter is buying a bridge tomorrow." It's actually disheartening how quickly one will believe a story about an obviously stupid law getting passed if it is in one of several frequently-stereotyped states, when a more reasonable response to seeing the story would be, could the journalist be wrong (yet again)?

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I didn't say we liked it! Besides, if we had our druthers, We'd prefer "Texas out of the US"! You know "Secede Now"!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Very likely blowing.

The Private Investigator News and Information blog last January brought up the issue of computer repair and support companies doing computer forensics work. A related article, by John Leyden, notes that more US states are moving to restrict computer forensics work to licensed investigators.

If computer repair shops avoid such unlicensed work, they probably will have nothing to worry about.

So this is a matter of a law that requires a PI license in order to do forensics work on a PC, something which was previously done by regular repair shops, a law which makes quite a lot of sense since a standard repair shop is unlikely to know how to record their findings so they would be useful as evidence and it's reported as if all repairs should require a PI license?

Why am I not surprised by the stupidity of the common or garden variety journalist (capulalo capulalo).

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

You could always live in the state where I grew up, West Virginia, the only state that had successfully seceded in the 1800s. Well, from Virginia anyway.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

And I guess WVa liked the 1800's so well it just stayed there?

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If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
-Dorothy Parker

Many towns are well in the 21st century light-pollution-wise. The darkest skies I've ever observed from are still my parent's back yard 3 miles north of Moorefield, WV, but still Scorpius is mostly washed out at culmination because of Moorefield, and that annoying billboard that went up a year ago and shines right into the field I observe from--I was putting a pine tree between it and myself till my uncle decided he didn't want the pine trees anymore and removed them.

So, I'll break my personal dark sky record (weather permitting) the end of this month camped out on Spruce Knob, the highest point in WV and one of, if not the, darkest place in the US east of the Mississippi, at the Almost Heaven Star Party.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

This is ridiculous: "Consumers who knowingly take computers to an unlicensed company for repair can face the same penalties."

So a consumer cannot simply sign a special power of attorney allowing the computer repair person the right to inspect the owner's system and all the contents therein...

That's a FEDERAL law. Good luck, Texas, in your attempts to strip your citizens of the right to assign power of attorney to others.

Makes me wonder what's next? Declare everyone taking their computers to the shop legally insane so as to render their special powers of attorney null and void?

Loophole (more like a sink hole, it's so big): SPECIAL POWER OF ATTORNEY

No state, including Texas, has the right to take that away from you.

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Ethics Economics - When a company's ethics are determined by what they can ethically get away with (minimal net profit) as opposed to what's good for their long-term bottom line (maximal net profit).

"...only nuclear power can now halt global warming." - James Lovelock, independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist, and an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy

Or, the customer can sell the computer to the repairman for the duration of the repairs and then buy it back. Then the technician would be working on his or her own property.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Taking one step back from the rude mechanics of the thing, the mind-set creating this in the first place seems to say a bit about how far down the paranoid path we've strolled.

As a mental exercise, how long before you are not allowed to erase anything on your computer since it could potentially be used for... something, I dunno.

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If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
-Dorothy Parker

And set himself up to be fined twice as both the owner and the repairman!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

I don't think you need an investigator's license to repair your own computer.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

The law does not make that distinction!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

You would not be investigating anyone by looking at your own data. The law would not apply at all.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Sometimes the law is a horse's patootie.

Hey, fellahs, listen to yourselves! Instead of looking at the law and saying, "Wow! I can grow mushrooms in this!" you're playing Talmudic games around it. So:

what is the purpose of this law, and is it so constructed to accomplish it without doing other harm?

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If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
-Dorothy Parker

At work, our news summary included this one--it appears the changes to the law mean companies need a license to do any kind of forensic work on computers, but the definition of forensic work is essentially anything involving searching the data on the computer for information (e.g. you take the computer to a repair shop to determine who your kids are talking to on MySpace). The repair shops are worried that the law could catch them for not having a sufficiently-narrow definition of "forensic".

Perhaps a phrase such as "(not allowed to do whatever) without the owner's permission" would fix the concerns (though might involve the owner signing more papers before anything is done).

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info