In Riverhead, NY on Long Island, the town government is using Google Earth as a tool to find dangerous criminals who failed to get permission to build a pool on their privately owned property.
The chief building inspector in Riverhead, Leroy Barnes, Jr. says, "Pool safety has always been my concern."
Well, of course, sure. That and the $75,000 the town has thus far been able to raise from fines and penalties levied on these scofflaws. But he's only thinking of the children, I'm sure.
The article makes the alternate point that this just an example of "Big Brother using satellite pictures to spy on us. I think that's missing the point. Would it be ok if a town employee drove past the house and looked over the fence to see if you had a pool? Would it be ok if they asked a Census question to see if you have a pool? The point shouldn't be how they get the information but the assumption that the government is responsible for keeping us safe.
If I own a business that installs pools, and I do a shoddy job and someone gets hurt or property gets damaged, I'm responsible. If I want my customers to know that I do good work, I can subscribe to a private third party that will inspect my work when I'm done.
But what about corruption? If the pool instillation company pays the inspector, doesn't that encourage the inspector to give a good rating? After all, that's how the inspector makes his money. However, we already see how the free market deals with these types of situations. There's the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Consumer Reports, and Underwriters Laboratories (UL). These are all private companies that will show the consumer that a product or service is good or safe. These companies have made their money by being honest and trusted. If the BBB or ISO took bribes from companies, the risk of losing the faith of the public (and therefore their business) is far greater than the money they could ever hope to make from bribes.
The government, however, has no risk. We hear about government building inspectors taking bribes all the time from contractors and yet we still trust that since the government said it's ok, it must be.
But back to responsibility. If I make a shoddy product and there is damage done, I'm responsible. That is incentive enough to do a good job. If I'm a homeowner and I want to buy a cheap pool, I understand that it may be a poor product. It could fail and injure someone or damage my, or someone else's, property. The homeowner is certainly free to hire their own inspector to see if the job was done well and take that inspection to the installer if the inspection shows problems.
It has been shown, time and again, people trust certifications. When Consumer Reports says that a car is a good one to buy or not, people believe them. They are still free to buy the bad car, but that is how the free market should work.
If we don't change the nanny-state mindset, "Big Brother" will continue to find ways to "keep us safe" at the same time they line their pockets.
The next thing you know they will devise some way to make those traffic cameras produce revenue. Won't that be a sad day?
ReplyDeleteI do take some solace in the fact that this is just a temporary measure necessitated by the soon to be ended War on Terror. That it also stimulates the economy is just an extra free lunch at no charge that some unknown victim is force to voluntary pay for.