R Street: Small Regulatory Reforms That Can Help People During the COVID Pandemic

Small Regulatory Reforms That Can Help People During the COVID Pandemic
Mar 18, 2020

While the federal and state governments figure out the appropriate way to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, there are plenty of narrow regulatory reforms they can implement to help people deal with the fallout. This is not to say that regulatory reform is the only solution, but it can be helpful as people struggle to access medical care and food.

All of these are common-sense proposals. While we definitely need government action in some areas to help fight this virus, there are many areas where we would be best served if government would get out of the way and let those with critical skills and jobs do what they do best without getting bogged down in red tape.

The FCC's (lack of) a new rule and government overreach

In the news today, the FCC chairman nixed plans to allow in-flight cell phone usage. That's not worth commenting on. But his reasoning is. He wrote:

I stand with airline pilots, flight attendants, and America's flying public against the FCC's ill-conceived 2013 plan to allow people to make cellphone calls on planes. I do not believe that moving forward with this plan is in the public interest. Taking it off the table permanently will be a victory for Americans across the country who, like me, value a moment of quiet at 30,000 feet.

Please note his rationale. This has nothing to do with airline safety. Nothing to do with overburdening the cell phone infrastructure. Not even to do with airlines keeping their monopoly on in-flight communication. It's because he doesn't want someone next to himself talking on the phone.

What a complete BS answer. I guess he's unaware that people have been yapping on (expensive) AirPhones for over a decade and that anybody today can have data access to the Internet if they want to pay the airline for on-board Wi-Fi. And I guess he's never sat next to a couple having a loud conversation or a crying baby. Or for that matter, the plane's own engines. There is no such thing as a "moment of quiet at 30,000 feet" and never has been.

But that's not even my point. My point is that this is none of the government's business. The FAA is responsible for making sure that our planes safely get where they're going. The FCC is responsible for making sure our communication system works properly. It is not the responsibility of either (nor anybody else) to decide whether or not someone is allowed to talk while in the air.

Only the airlines should be making rules like this. Let them, and let the market decide what policies should be. If United wants to allow cell phones and American wants to prohibit them, both should be allowed to make their respective decisions. If I want to use my phone in the air, then I'll book my ticket on an airline that allows it. And if I don't want to be on a plane with phone usage, then I'll book my ticket on the airline that prohibits it. But under no circumstance do I want a bunch of government bureaucrats to be making that decision if it doesn't affect the safety of air travel or the stability of the mobile phone network.

Scientific American: It's Time to End the War on Salt

It's Time to End the War on Salt
The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science
By Melinda Wenner Moyer - July 8, 2011

For decades, policy makers have tried and failed to get Americans to eat less salt. In April 2010 the Institute of Medicine urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate the amount of salt that food manufacturers put into products; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already convinced 16 companies to do so voluntarily. But if the U.S. does conquer salt, what will we gain? Bland french fries, for sure. But a healthy nation? Not necessarily.

This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urine—an excellent measure of prior consumption—the greater their risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous.

I'm going to show this article to everybody who gets in my face about salt consumption.

Junk science combined with megalomaniacal politicians is not justification for controlling what people are allowed to eat, especially when the scientific evidence shows that it actually endangers health.

Sign Installer Cited for Violating Rule on the Sign He Was Installing

Santa Barbara, CA: Dan Greding was installing parking signs with a 75 minute time limit when he got a parking ticket for being parked there longer than 75 minutes - even though he just put the signs up 20 minutes ago.

The judge upheld the ticket, with the argument that he was parked there more than 75 minutes and the signs said so, and he knew about the signs because he installed them.

IMO, the 75 minutes shouldn't start ticking until after the sign is installed because, like most places, you can't be ticketed for a parking violation where there is no sign.

Dilbert for September 16, 2013

If only it was that easy...

EZ-Pass is watching you all over New York

Forbes writes, in E-ZPasses Get Read All Over New York (Not Just At Toll Booths) that New York City has EZ-Pass readers all over the city. They track the devices, allegedly for the purpose of detecting congestion and directing traffic:

It's part of Midtown in Motion, an initiative to feed information from lots of sensors into New York's traffic management center. A spokesperson for the New York Department of Transportation, Scott Gastel, says the E-Z Pass readers are on highways across the city, and on streets in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island, and have been in use for years. The city uses the data from the readers to provide real-time traffic information, as for this tool.

Maybe so, but, as the article cites, the EZ-Pass terms and conditions do not state that this is a permitted use of the device. And if one agency is using it for one purpose, you can be sure that in the future, more agencies in more jurisdictions will use it for more purposes, and some may be a lot more intrusive than dynamically adjusting on-line traffic maps.

I never got EZ-Pass, because I don't travel through toll booths that often, and I don't like the idea of paying a monthly service fee to have the device. With this piece of news, now I think I've got a much stronger reason than "I don't want to pay for it."

TechDirt: Feds Threaten To Arrest Lavabit Founder For Shutting Down His Service

Here's the link to the TechDirt article, and the link to the NBC News article it references.

In case you haven't been following this case, Lavabit is (or was) a secure e-mail service. All mail is encrypted so no unwanted third parties (not even Lavabit) can snoop the content. The US government didn't like the idea of an e-mail service they couldn't spy on so they sent him threatening letters demanding access. According to the above linked articles, they wanted a full tap into the content of all messages from all users. Rather than comply with this blatantly unconstitutional abuse of power, the owner shut down the service.

And now the Feds are threatening to prosecute him for doing that!

I'm sure my left-wing friends will see no problem with this, but for the rest of us, this is just another example of the abusive totalitarian nature of the US government today.