There are reasons lots of good legislation never happens.

Hidden in the Higher Education Act (HR 4137) is one provision that brings up privacy concerns.

It is a bad idea that would cost universities money and set a bad example for future Internet right cases.

There are many, many things to like about the proposal. Pell grants would be available year-round, high tuition raises would trigger an examination into the causes, several occupations would get tuition assistance or forgiveness and a few attempts to lower textbook prices.

That’s why it’s hard to say no to this bill; it’s not a simple decision but there are a few concerns to be aware of.

The worst part of the bill would make colleges and universities responsible for stopping students from illegal downloads. (How do you think that’s gonna work?)

Many people have claimed it is simply pork for music industry lobbyists.

More importantly than how it came to be is that it’s just bad policy.

Universities who suggest offering legal download services usually get the idea shot down by students who know they are going to download illegally, or from bigger and better legal sites, anyway and don’t want to pay for a bad service they’ll never use.

Students have spoken on this issue – don’t make universities responsible for policing the Internet.

It would drive up higher education costs by $400 million a year, according to Educause, a non-profit orginazation that advances higher education to good use of information technology.

CMU officials have said that this university is ready to comply with the new proposal, but is waiting until it becomes law because they too have privacy concerns.

Even more than the yearly costs, this bill would be the first major legislation passed regarding Internet rights.

It shouldn’t be hidden in an education bill.

Making universities responsible is the first step toward holding Internet Service Providers responsible for the content their users access.

A ruling in Belgium last June held that ISPs should take preventative action and could be held liable if they did not do enough.

That would put providers into the business of policing their networks, putting the freedom the Internet provides at risk.

Securing Internet rights is an issue for higher education as much as funding is and students and university leaders should recognize that Internet freedom is the greatest advance for education in generations and needs to be defended as such.

When the legislation was written, it was common knowledge that college students were 44 percent of the illegal downloading problem.

Now that it turns out the industry study was ridiculously wrong and we’re really more like 15 percent of the problem (roughly proportionate to the number of wired people in the country), this specific part of the bill needs to be re-examined and then tossed out.

E-mail the author: defaultuser