On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Tim May wrote:
1. The "tobacco agreement." Supposedly a deal involving the transfer of 2. The "voluntary ratings" agreement being announced today by Al Gore and
The issue, it seems to me, is that ordinary concepts of illegality and civil liability are being swept aside in favor of these huge "deals" to reduce liability in exchange for various actions. Well, who is bound by these deals?
I think that in the first case it is a "template" for legislative action, so that if congress passes it, it binds the states and the companies. Otherwise you have the lawyers and lobbyists for both sides getting all the money. The second case is more of an industry standards type argument - If Gore was not there, then instead of one network saying "moderately nasty language" and a second flashing L3 on the screen, everone will use the same method, something like the SAE standardizes on tool sizes. Politicians gather around because it makes it look like they are doing something useful.
(Caveat: My personal and libertarian view is that lawsuits against cigarette companies are wrong and should not be supported in a free society. And lawsuits by various states to "recover health care costs" are especially bogus. By this logic, McDonald's could be sued by California because California paid out more health care benefits to meat-eaters than it did to vegetarians. Utterly bogus.)
I think people have the right to sue, but no tobacco company can be found guilty of witholding information (the warning on the cigarette pack was by statute adequate notice - in the same law that required the notices). One of the problems is that such agreements specifically limit my right to use the courts to address torts - which should be for the court to decide the validity. Our legal system needs other reforms (e.g. loser pays), but eliminating all civil courts isn't the way to correct it. If states don't like paying medicaid and medicare to smokers, they are free to pass laws (or have congress pass laws) denying public health care to anyone who has smoked in the last X years. Add drug and/or alcohol use and our welfare rolls would nearly disappear. I don't think anyone has any more right to smoke and collect welfare than drink and drive. (I go further, but this is a proper subset of my views).
Anyway, the free speech aspects of these deals are also worrisome. The "voluntary restrictions" on advertising, for example. Would the aforementioned "Tim's Tobacco Company," not a party to this Grand Deal, be somehow bound by a deal wherein it could not sponsor sporting events? Or advertise? Or even speak out against the deal?
As when the banks encourage you to "Buy Savings Bonds"? Tim May could probably say whatever he wanted in any place they would accept the ad, but commercial speech seems to be more limited. It would depend if the contract was passed as a bill.
These huge mega-deals are a crummy way to interpret the U.S. Constitution. I fear the "Grand Compromise" deal that the telecom and crypto companies are being drawn into.
The problem is they are bills masquerading as contracts. The industry assumes that congress will do the wrong thing if they don't act to get something first. Normally congress doesn't revisit an issue after something is done and everyone forgets about it, and no one ever reads the fine print. The larger question is whether I, as a US Citizen, can write and publish a program under the first ammendment, and could US Citizens use such a program, if there were any crypto agreement in place or law passed covering programs sold by US companies. I don't think code-as-speech is as threatened as code-as-product. At least not yet. --- reply to tzeruch - at - ceddec - dot - com ---