This is just a bit bizarre:
To repair PC’s in the state of Texas, you now have to have a private investigator license, which requires either a criminal justice degree, or a three-year apprenticeship.
Here’s the story, and here’s where it was reported on Slashdot.
Those shops that refuse to participate will be forced to shut down. Violators of the new law can be hit with a $4,000 dollar fine and up to a year in jail, penalties that apply to customers who seek out their services.
–James
PC sales and repairs liable to increase in Arkansas, New Mexico, Kansas and Louisiana.
a $4,000 dollar fine! The wimps. They should have gone the whole hog and made it the death penalty.
Does this mean I don’t have to fix my parents computer anymore?
I’m glad to see there are still many other things out there the government can stick their noses into.
good luck with that!
From the linked slashdot coverage:
I think the biggest issue here, is that police and other criminology people are concerned that if a computer tech stumbles across illegal information on a computer, that since they are not a licensed private investigator, the evidence cannot in any way be used. Even if say, it’s for a child-pornography case. “Your evidence was siezed improperly, sorry, but it’s excluded, next time do things the right way!”
I’m having trouble seeing how a law mandating that all computers in need of repair be searched by law enforcement personnel could fail to be an illegal search. Surely that’s the epitome of ‘fishing expedition’. I mean apart from the Bush administration’s illegal telephone data-mining operation, the other epitome of ‘fishing expedition’.
I’m with s1m0n on this. Is there no mechanism where a member of the public can contact the law if they stumble across questionable information in the normal course of their activities?
But Texas wants you anyway
I think the biggest issue here, is that police and other criminology people are concerned that if a computer tech stumbles across illegal information on a computer, that since they are not a licensed private investigator, the evidence cannot in any way be used. Even if say, it’s for a child-pornography case. “Your evidence was siezed improperly, sorry, but it’s excluded, next time do things the right way!”
From the slashdot comments.
Surely the right fix is to change this bit of the law, not make computer techs require a PI license?
Cracking a peanut with a sledgehammer as usual.
This is because nobody in Oklahoma knows how to fix tabumulating machines.
I was always a bit worried about what they wanted me for…
“Texas: It’s like a whole nother planet. We mean, country.”
Or in Mexico, of course.
How is Best Buy going to find qualified employees for their Geek Squad if they’ve been desperate enough in the past for repair technicians that they resorted to hiring people who never even bothered to finish high school?
Oh qeeze! I just now actually read that site.
Was Geek Squad the start of it all?
Today Texas. Tomorrow the world!
Or were never presented with the opportunity.
Well, one of my shirt tail relatives down in Texas (who has bought a house, a pick-up truck, and health insurance for his parents and siblings with his Geek Squad job) would have you believe high school just got in the way of having a career at Best Buy.
And he doesn’t represent all the people who never finished high school. I’m sure he’d agree.
Compoosa done geeksquadded theirselves out of business… if what they were doing qualified as business.
And you’re saying the folks who were “never presented with the opportunity” to finish high school are computer knowledgeable enough for Geek Squad?
How?
No matter.
They’re all out of a job now.