Labor history is replete with the pleasures of  Pinkerton’s busting the heads of striking workers for the good of the country.  Well, maybe not so much the country, but it was awfully good for the factory owner who needed to break the strike and remind the workers who was the boss.

But this country has a short memory, and we are slowly returning to the days when the government’s police powers are being turned over to private business again, slowly but surely.  First, we have  the recording industry going after children under pain of destroying family’s financial survival by monumental and unjustifiable fines. 

Then we have the airlines, where ordinary people’s lives are being toppled by flight attendants who don’t like the way they look, protected by governmentally endowed immunity to encourage them to harm people at will. 

And of course, there are the telecoms, who exist to serve the Department of Justice, their nice TV commercials notwithstanding.  Well, if you thought the idea of post-hoc immunity for violating your privacy wasn’t good enough, they are back again to help us even more.

Always thoughtful lawprof Frank Pasquale at  CoOp posts about the latest, greatest craze in telecom intrusiveness.  This time, they want to help us by screening our communications to make sure that they don’t contain illegal content, like copyrighted songs or pictures of your mother-in-law. 

AT&T announced that it is seriously considering plans to examine all the traffic it carries for potential violations of U.S. intellectual property laws.

Okay, so maybe not picture of your mother-in-law, according to who you married.  But what business does a private corporation have in vetting our communications for what it deems to be illegal content?  Does it flow downhill from there, with screening calls and emails for anti-American sentiment that might support terrorism?  And then there’s content that suggests a crime?  And content that doesn’t say nice things about AT&T?  Or it can sell other corporations on its power to screen and keep bad content about them from crossing the air?

This scheme of treating private business as if it was endowed with the power to police us is disastrous policy.  The public has no control over how private business will abuse this police power.  Where do you go to argue that a telecom has wrongfully intercepted your communications?  You can sue them, at huge expense and with years of litigations ahead, but this offers no real remedy.

We are already well down the slippery slope of confusing the limited police power that government derives from the People with corporate fiat allowed and endorsed by our government to keep people in their place.  It is happening already, and, as shown by this wonderful new idea, will continue to increase its hold on us. 

It’s bad enough that our government is  comprised of people who think that their whims are above the law, but when corporate America actively assumes the role of America’s policeman, who will you complain to?  There’s no 4th amendment for telecoms.  Do you expect to get justice from a call to the customer service rep?