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Is this destined to be the latest manifestation of “cattle prod culture”?

“I’m sorry, but I really did order a vodka and tonic”

ZAAAP!

That something like this is even being contemplated by some is frightening. All that rhetoric about how terrorism must not be allowed to change our way of life. For some it was obviously just that,  rhetoric.

And even if we ignore the personal liberty ramifications, I think it’s obvious what this would end up being used for in 99.9% of cases, yep, “educating” beligerent passengers and those foolish enough to disagree too vehemently with airline employees.

(*Thanks to a wag on reddit.com for the title)

Oops! Our bad. When we wrote that stuff in our Universal Declaration of Human Rights about ‘Freedom of Expression’, we omitted a qualifying clause along the lines of ‘provided the content of your expression doesn’t offend anyone, particularly those whose ethical frameworks derive their ultimate authority from superstitious belief’.

You see, a theist’s right to be protected from the offensive opinions and actions of non-theists, outweighs the right of non-theists to be protected from the offensive opinions and actions of theists. Quite why this should be so no one is really sure, but regardless, someone should add this inviolable rule to the Declaration for it’s so often invoked that it could really do with some codification.

This is yet another poignant illustration of why the Declaration document should be a user-editable wiki rather than an inflexible, static HTML page. The latter is so Ethics 1.0.

Let’s see now, the RIAA is on to something here. Just think of how many other organizations could benefit from filters on consumers’ private property. A quick, off-the-top-of-my-head list as I drink my morning coffee includes:

• Software-license checking filters: various helpful companies have already provided us with these of course, but a more joined up approach wouldn’t hurt. It would ensure that all the requisite permits are up to date and valid before you attempt to use your computer or connect to the Internet. It would be most unfortunate if a SWAT team were to kick down your front door on account of something silly, like being a day late with the annual subscription payment for your thumbnail viewer, or something.
• Movie filters. When the Hollywood studios and copyright holders see RIAA getting filters installed on users’ machines, you know that they will be demanding the same. And their filters will probably be bigger and better.
• Email filters: not the ones the user creates, but ones put in place by law enforcement agencies, just to be able to “educate” you should those agencies determine that you are engaging in activities or conversations that are liable to lead to any kind of nefarious activity. It’s pretty clear that we already have these out on the network, but getting across that last mile and into the home should increase accuracy and conviction rates educational effectiveness.
• Patent filters: all software activity on users’ machines to be analyzed for potential patent violation. (The fun they’ll have with that one.) Oddly enough, Microsoft is reported to be less than keen on this particular measure.
• Voting filters: helpful state analysis of your online voting behaviour, just to help you correctly discharged your democratic duty, you understand.
• Online banking filters: the Inland Revenue would hate for you to inadvertently be using any services that might be, shall we say, unhelpful to its cause.
• Adblocking filters: just in case you were tempted to install every brimstone beast’s favourite application. Oh, and also to make sure you haven’t accidentally un-installed the mandatory eyeball monitoring app, you know, the one that uses your web-cam to ensure that you are not breaking the terms of the websites you visit by not actually looking at the ads.
• Multi-user monitoring filter: this uses your other web cam to check that no more than two users are viewing a website on any given machine simultaneously. If a user wishes for more than two users to browse the web from his or her machine, the filter will advise that a multi-user licence is required.

If you can think of any more potentially useful filters I’ve missed. Feel free to add them below.

Well aren’t I the prescient one? I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen that it’s only a matter of time before RIAA and its allies start pushing for this kind of measure and here it is, in all its glorious predictability. Cary Sherman, the head of the Recording Industry Association of America, thinks that installing copyright filters on privately owned computers is probably the way forward. That’s right, monitoring devices installed on private property, to prevent that property’s owner from violating copyright held by the Association’s members.

Is there any substantive difference between this and, say, the police demanding to install a listening device on each and every telephone and mobile handset in case their owners ever feel like talking about something illegal? Well, yes there is. The police force, at least here in the UK, is a reasonably accountable organization that is ultimately answerable to parliament. RIAA is neither of these. The police could at least claim that any such action was “in the public interest”, at least where particularly serious crime such as terrorism, kidnap, human trafficking, etc are concerned. I don’t think anyone could claim much moral equivalence between such matters and copyright violation.

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