The Copyright Czar
Just when you thought the red scare was over and that the Manchurian Candidate was nothing more than a harmless Sinatra flick, congress moves to place us under the watchful eye of a new Czar. First there was the drug Czar and now thanks to the recent passage of the Pro Intellectual Property bill America has a new Copyright Czar. What really causes me to scratch my head is why congress found it necessary to put such a Czar in place. If the Justice department couldn’t stay on top of all the piracy going on, what makes them think that sending the problem over to another department will somehow magically improve the situation? I think we should drag the Drug Czar in here and have him check to make sure that our politicians aren’t smoking crack, because there is something awfully fishy about this whole Copyright Czar nonsense.
What if the next time you are pulled over for speeding, the officer asks to see your license, registration, and MP3 player or other media content storage device? I mean, is this so far fetched? The Copyright Czar may push congress to introduce legislation that obligates an officer to run a check on your MP3 content. Of course, since the content on your MP3 player was downloaded from some other source, it would be up to you to prove that your downloaded content was legitimately purchased and that you have the right to possess and use it. Copyright infringements and piracy concerns just becomes another very convenient excuse for the government to open a door into your rapidly vanishing privacy rights–especially if there is a new Copyright Czar in town pushing policy into place to enhance his/her newly found powers at your expense.
Then there is the matter of paying this new master that the government felt should be watching over your shoulder. Of course, it is the tax payers who will have to foot the bill for this new Copyright Czar. If congress wants to hire someone to fill a position that they made up out of thin air, then let the politicians who create these positions of power pay for this out of their own pockets. But, there is a deeper scandle going on here. How many Czars that you do not actually vote into positions of power will the government have to slip in under your nose, before you realize that more and more of your masters are people you can neither elect into office nor vote down?
