Digital police
The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 turns the Information Technology department into a digital detective agency.
One section of the act, which the House Education and Labor Committee recommended to be considered by the House, requires universities to develop a plan to deter illegal downloads.
This section has been lauded by the Motion Picture Association of America. As many bemoan college students' cost to the industries from which they pirate, perhaps a university-led effort seems appropriate.
But the act shoulders universities with a burden that should not be theirs - the investigation of digital pirates.
Roger Rehm, CMU's Information Technology vice president, said CMU could enforce such a plan with marginal costs, but the plan remains locked in developmental stages because the department feels strongly it should not function as a surrogate police agency.
Rehm's concerns summarize what is wrong with this particular amendment.
The amendment's driving force is that it targets a class of especially high-download pirates: college students. But the MPAA, fervent to create retaliatory legislation, earlier this year admitted that it had grossly overestimated college students' initial share of 44 percent.
The revised estimate, closer to 15 percent, still pushes film industry executives behind the bill, but does not provide their arguments nearly as much force. When off-campus students are taken into account, the mandates would have only a marginal effect on the industry they are designed to save.
The bill's impotence aside, it also draws colleges into an insurmountably uphill battle against Internet pirates, and drains resources that could be better and more effectively spent on almost anything else.
At the more fundamental level, however, the bill transfers responsibility in an unsettling way: The network becomes responsible for tracking its users' activity.
The MPAA may be frustrated in its seemingly impossible fight against digital piracy. But the battle remains its own; if the MPAA wishes to hunt illegal downloaders, then it can devise its own insidious techniques.
A network provider should never spy on its own users without any warrant or cause.
The IT department, as is the case with any consumer Internet Service Provider, has no choice but to provide information when presented with an illegal charge, but it should not be forced into becoming proactive in the crusade against piracy.
This little, seemingly innocuous part of the larger bill steps beyond reasonable expectations, blurring the lines between who should and should not be the police.
