Prediction #12 Comes True…(kind of)

Prediction #12, Comes true…(kind of)

From my Predictions for 2007:

12. There will be a concerted attempt by a group of corporations to make actions similar to the well-publicized investigation by the board of HP during their ‘leak’ investigation legal. These efforts will be both in the form of the contracts which both board members and high level employees will be asked to sign and legislative attempt(s) to make corporations able to carry out investigations, which would otherwise be illegal, of their employees and board members. The corporations will attempt to make even the existence of these clauses exempt from disclosure, as a ‘trade secret.’ There will also be an attempt to introduce legislation to help make these practices legal, and the legislation will be attempted to be passed by ’stealth’ in an eleventh hour amendment to an unrelated bill, possibly posing as an anti-terrorist, anti-espionage item, or as an item concerning corporate liability limits, perhaps as part of tort reform.

And now here we have the MPAA, (which does qualify, I think as a ‘group of corporations’) opposing, and killing the anti-pretexting bill which almost passed in California. The Bill, SB1666, written by state Sen. Debra Bowen, would have forbade the use of “false, fictitious or fraudulent” statements or representations to obtain private information about an individual. Reported by Wired News:

MPAA Kills Anti-Pretexting Bill
by Ryan Singel

A tough California bill that would have prohibited companies and individuals from using deceptive “pretexting” ruses to steal private information about consumers was killed after determined lobbying by the motion picture industry, Wired News has learned…

The bill won approval in three committees and sailed through the state Senate with a 30-0 vote. Then, according to Lenny Goldberg, a lobbyist for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the measure encountered unexpected, last-minute resistance from the Motion Picture Association of America.

“The MPAA has a tremendous amount of clout and they told legislators, ‘We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading,'” Goldberg said.

So the MPAA thinks the ends do justify the means, and that they have the right to extra-judicially execute investigations of American citizens. Everyone should be outraged regarding this.

Need we a more naked example of Corporate Fascism? We should all boycott the MPAA, and especilly write to movie studios, the members of the MPAA, to ask them to leave that organization.

To be fair, this prediction hasn’t totally come to be true, but is another example which shows corporations are unwilling to adapt their practices to the realities of a free society, but are seeking to adapt societies freedoms to their business goals. Or in two words: Corporate Fascism…