Law of Unintended Consequences?

Stealth taxation disguised as a public service to ease the worries of the uneducated public, who are so wound up by the daily bombardment of 'the world hates the US' media hype. You have to admire they ingenious ways the political types have for fund raising though. Consider this, every time a utility worker has to enter a manhole they must first test the air quality, does it make sense to have a permit for every time they do this, or charge the utility for a license to do a test designed and legislated to protect the worker? This sort of test is carried out hundreds of times every day by many different workers in different vocations. Air test instrument are carried by anyone working underground in cities. When was the last time someone panicked because a sewer system engineer was wearing an air quality instrument?

Another silly cash grab, but that is just my opinion.

Its Flippin New York City.

You expect common sense?

Of course it needs to be thought through a little more, those people live in la la land east.

BTW extreme interpretation of the law= The simplest rendering that could be accomplished by a technically ignorant person- ie, a judge, lawyer or jury. so of course that would mean even laboratory equipment as well as professional equipment. when they find out what I cando with a cup of tea to determine pH. They'll be licensing Tea bags.

milo

Does my multimeter, used to measure potentially lethal voltages, count as an environmental sensor?

It reminds me of the old science fiction stories where robots/aliens "helped" humanity by making the world completely safe. Ultimately stopping all human technology and enterprise. ffeJ

Does your multimeter give any beep sound that may be mistaken as an environmental disaster alarm then perhaps you need to watch out? In fact when your vehicle sounds a horn it means there is danger on the road and immediate. Perhaps horns are also banned at many public places. When Undertaker, Ken and Khali walk on the road, do they sound un-heard ultrasonic alarm?

Once I was travelling by a train and I was carrying a long tong (2m) to pick the radioactive material from a distance and many mistaken it with some kind of gun and were walking away from it very fast. Some people closed windows or the car and some were looking at it with wide open eyes. Some asked if it was some kind of cannon.

I think public is unaware of many scientific tools and only source of information is fiction movies that scare then to death giving ideas of Aliens appearing anytime from nowhere near to them for a kill. Has any one in 6 billion people of the world ever found any Alien near to them with those antenna on the head, wide eyes, and tentacles holding those small special guns and coming and going using funny disc like aircrafts?

If the law is intended to protect people in the best sense of the word, and is applied with common sense, then all will be fine.

But in this day and age of empire building, greed and power control, and stealth taxes, we can expect the law to be twisted and bent to suit the benefit of a few.

Many years ago in the early days of nuclear power stations, when radiation laws were being developed, I was told by a power station technician that for the best 'political' reasons, the station worked to an in-house standard that was set well below national standards. Good PR. Fine.

But in doing so, and in particular when applied to anything leaving the station, the security people had been given powers (by default) to impound equipment emitting radiation above the station limits. Again, it makes sense, and good PR.

Then the 'Law of Unintended Consequences' kicked in.

The poor old sales rep from an instrument company, bemoaned the fact, that having taken some meters in to demonstrate how they worked (something to do with cracks in welded joints, found he was not allowed to take them off the premises - because the meters emitted radiation (from an internal radioactive cell in full compliance with all the national standards) that failed the 'tighter' station standard.

It was all sorted out amicably in the end - the station had a viable use for the meters, so they kept them and paid for them.

But what a fine line to tread - and so open to abuse.

There will have to be a lot of licenses issued for CO detectors, because that is a poisonous gas. Some smoke detectors also detect the dangerous products of combustion. Would you need a license for each detector in your home?

This is about the stupidest thing I ever heard of. CO detectors, smoke detectors, pool chemical test kits, pregnancy test kits, pH sensors, water test kits and on and on.

Even if the legislation is more narrowly defined to chemical/biological/radiological warfare agents, it still would be a very bad law. Are they saying that you have to be licensed to protect yourself?

What about anxiety and damage done by undetected true threats?

This looks like a way to try and make more money. What qualifies a license-holder for these "detectors"?

How many people in NYC are buying chemical, biological, or nuclear detectors right now and roaming the streets picking up people's microwaves or the fact that they just cleaned their bath tub?

I can understand keeping mania under control but I'm not sure there is a large group of people doing this right now.

WOW- can you say "police state"?

I hope others realize all these redundant agencies and afterthought reactions are just adding insult to injury. Whats next? licensing kids for model rockets? WOW!

It would seem that the New York Times, which claimed to print all the news that's fit to print, also prints all the hare-brained ideas their idiotic editors haven't thought about very clearly.

Keep in mind this is New York City. Nobody obeys the law there very often or very closely except for the "Don't block the box" law at intersections. If they really enforced the laws, at least half the hack drivers would be in Rikers (Oh, officer, are you sure your radar gun works ok at near-relativistic speeds? In reverse? In safety islands?")

This is further evidence of idiotic legislators. What is the point of passing a law that in unenforcible? Well, it can be used to nail your enemies -- Did you know my opponent was convicted of possession of an unlicensed chemical detector? Any law which is widely flaunted by the populace cannot reflect the majority's view of what the law should be, so it's anti-democratic.

Consider the costs, to the public and to the police, of registering measuring insturments, and consider that such would have zero or close to zero effect on public safety.

Did you know that almost every armed robber wears shoes during the commission of the crime? We need to register all shoes, in the interest of reducing armed robberies and to make it easier to catch the perp.

Dragonsfarm, don't apologize for your rant, you are 100% right. People are so disillusioned that they don't even realize what they are giving up each and every day. We live in a US that is so different today that people think the Constitution has extreme and radical ideas. There is too much dependancy and fear.

Ben Franklin was right, and so was Jefferson when he said "When the people fear their govt, there is tyranny. When the govt fears the people, there is freedom."

"Sorry your house blew up. I tried to find that gas leak, but without my nifty gas detector just couldn't do it. I had to leave early anyway, it's an Orange Alert out there you know."

I thought our government wanted all the false alarms they could get. Isn't that what this is all about? Then a couple of real "events" to keep it all going?

Don't we feel so very much more "secure" now without any freedoms left?

Social Engineering is not a science, it's a religion.

Grrrr

This is a typical nanny-state socialist non-solution to a non-problem - require a license to do what ought to be anyone's right. Licensing will not prevent a single false alarm. The writer apparently has never heard of the Bill of Rights beyond the first two clauses of the First Amendment. Maybe we should require licenses for writing alarming editorials...

A better solution is to let anyone have whatever alarm he wants, but if there is more than one false alarm requiring an on-site response by public safety departments within any three-year period, the owner must pay the cost of the response. This works very well in my city; few people neglect to repair over-sensitive security systems for long!

A Homeland Security spokesman went to congress and asked for more money, for fireworks.

"Fireworks? Shouldn't we be spending the money for something more useful, like pre-school for children?"

"Yes, more fireworks, to scare away the wild elephants. Wild elephants could enter our cities and trample the children. Nothing is too good for our children."

"But there aren't any wild elephants in all of North America!"

"That shows how effective we have been, so far, but of course we need more money to continue to assure our children's safety."

In India there are more than 10,000 x-ray machines and many of them housed in building not meant for dangerous x-ray then can cross the walls and expose people on the other side of the walls.

There is a serious law against unsafe use of ionizing radiation sources but not enough man power to monitor and support the entire nation. Only few people at BARC www.barc.ernet.in or AERB can take decision in this matter and these agencies in last 50 years have not even collected addresses of these agencies having x-ray machines. Limited numbers about 10 people yearly were trained by DRP using WHO fund. I wonder, how India stands in making the country people safe from many common hazards out there.

People discussing here are engineers. Those in public are not educated to technical level suffer maximum.

One security fellow was resting over a drum having radioactive material with level marks etc. Another removed radioactive source from container and was interested in container rather than what was inside so he thru the source in Garden and took away the container. Another man took away the source and thru in sea beach water and high source which may be even 10 Ci source. There were cases of radioactive Gold jewelry.

I think, people take others for ride because they think they are smart or perhaps think that they may get away from problem created by them. Government agencies work on suggestions from some people among them who know the problem and want to prevent disaster or bad events.

People in San Francisco are living in earth quake zone but disaster if happens there can not be prevented by law and people will oppose to move out. Hence, Government also does something which is convenient to it. Government laws are not as strict as laws of Physics.

As a diabetic, I carry a detector of biological agents, a blood sugar measurement device. If I fly into a NY airport, do I have to register with the police, or will there be a grace period of X hours before they arrest me for non-compliance? If it's a weekend, and the guy who resisters such sensors isn't at work, will they conbfiscate the meter until it is registered? And will they return it before I'm in a diabetic coma, or should I just check into a hospital? Could I temporarily rent a registered meter?