Great New Product, You Can't Have It

How about rocks, rocks in the wrong hands kill and harm.

Where do you draw the line?

It is not the tool but the action of the tool user.

Brad

Quote:

How about rocks, rocks in the wrong hands kill and harm.

Where do you draw the line?

It is not the tool but the action of the tool user.

I agree that it can be a gray area, but there should be no problem drawing a line between rocks and nuclear weapons. It would be pretty difficult and time consuming to create the devastation at Hiroshima with rocks.

I question their motives. And the same energy to make those to bombs would have placed enough rocks in Japan to cover the country.

Brad

In the US, eavesdropping equipment and night vision goggles are readily available. use is regulated, but not sale. I don't know about invisibility cloaks. Are the Romulans selling them now?

Lets amputate everyones arms and legs at the torso. Hands and feet can be quite lethal weapons if applied properly.

Bill

Hello Sciesis2,

Ok I'll bite, whats with all the patriot act type legislation?

You forgot teeth!

About a year ago NYC tried to require permits for purchasing geiger counters.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-01-08/news/nypd-seeks-an-air-monitor-crackdown-for-new-yorkers/

Good question. The only way I can think of keeping certain items out of the hands of those who would use them in an improper fashion, would be to require licensing of the user. Outright prohibition doesn't work. Licensing would create an enormous problem. Probably best to create new laws which would address the improper use of an item. A complaintent would have to file a complaint and have an arrest order issued and drag it through the judicial system. This would bring the courts to a halt by the sheer number of complaints. A stature of limintations would probably expire before a case ever got to trial.

I had an invisibility cloak but I seem to have lain it down somewhere and now I can't find it!

This is a big can of worms as we had been asked to ship overseas and the Government of Canada needed to be called as we were unsure if we needed a permit or any type of Export documentation well what a mess !

4 Weeks into the process i was told that we would have to wait for at least 12 weeks to get a permit as well there may need to be a visit from the government to inspect the unit and what it can do !

I had to get our local feds involved but then was given a green light to export with no permits.

is there a big gray area ? oh ya !

Richard

A classic example of bureaucracy at its best.

I love that in the end you were permitted to proceed without a permit.. which in itself was permission and a form of a permit, even if unofficial (although it came from officials).

The scary thing about this kind of thing is that years later, the gov't can come back and claim you were operating without the required permits...

Moral of the story.... document, document, document.

Requiring permits only makes it difficult for the honest end user - those with criminal intent can always find a way to get round the rules. Think of bugging equipment: With suitable knowledge and access to (say) Digi-key I could easily put together a radio/television/radar or any kind of surveillance device. Night vision goggles are relatively simple devices (channel multipliers are available on the internet, as are suitable lenses), and no doubt, sometime in the future, I could put together an invisibility cloak - when the necessary materials become commonplace. (remember that the klystron was once a super-top-secret device - and is now in virtually every household in the form of the microwave oven).

When a new device comes along - unless it has been made under phenomenal security (eg A-bomb/Manhatten Project) - then the basic technology will be available in the form of published papers or real devices will be available that can be rapidly back-engineered.

Pandora's Box is open - you can't stop those who want to do harm by legislation.