What the frak is the Texas legislature up to? According to this article, a law passed last year requires that anyone who analyzes computer data in Texas has to have a private investigator's license:

"Computer repairman and AustinPCTech owner Mike Rife had no idea - until a month ago - that he frequently breaks the law when he repairs his customers' computers.

"The Institute for Justice, a legal advocacy group for entrepreneurs, informed Rife last month of a Texas state law requiring computer repair shops to have a private investigator's license to fix computers."

I've been expecting for a while that the high tech industry would eventually fall prey to government's desire to regulate everything to death. I anticipated that eventually network admins, network security consultants and even computer techs would have to be licensed (after all, even hair stylists are required to pass a test and pay a fee to the state in order to practice their trade).

But a private investigator license required before you can collect information off a computer's hard drive? A license that you can't get unless you have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice or spend three years as an apprentice to a licensed PI? In other words, you could have an advanced degree in computer forensics but that doesn't qualify you for this license.

And although it's the computer repair techs who are bringing this to our attention, the way it's written the statute would prohibit any employer from conducting a background investigation on a potential employee with hiring a PI (of course, that's exactly what the Board of Private Security and Private Investigators, who instigated this thing, want). In fact, it would prohibit a parent from using "investigative practices" to find out what web sites the kids are visiting.

In other words, it's a ridiculous law. To the state's credit, I find no record of it ever having been enforced this way. My guess is that this is one of those cases where lawmakers intended one thing and ended up saying something completely different. I hope they fix it in the next session - if the Court doesn't throw it out before that happens.

Just one more example of government gone wild (and/or legislators who were asleep when they were casting their votes).