PC Repair In Texas Now Requires a PI License

JohnnyNapalm writes "In some shocking news out of Texas, PC repair will now require a PI License. Surely this stands to have a substantial impact on small repair shops around the state if upheld. Never fear, however, as the first counter-suit has already been filed."

Comments

Slaughterhouse Cases

[snowgirl]

Unfortunately, the Slaughterhouse Cases already determined that a state-run cartel can push out individuals not meeting specific criteria.

Such a right to "sustain ones life through labor" simply does not exist at the Federal level... Now, they are pushing this under the Texas constitution, and I don't know for sure what the Texas constitution says about it, however likely, just like Louisiana, they probably don't guarentee a person's right to work in a particular field.

We require licenses of many different professions, doctors, medical professionals, accountants even. Sorry, but unfortunately, saying "I have plenty of happy customers that are willing to have me repair their computers" doesn't justify this anymore than a doctor practicing medicine without a license can say "but they're totally accepting of my care, even though I'm unlicensed."

I hate to say this, but these people probably don't have a single leg to stand on legally, because this has all been through the courts before... of course, I could be wrong, and things could change. But I don't expect it to.

If Texas ruled you had the right to do any work between two knowing and consenting adults, then that would lead to situations potentially opening the way to prostitution (which I don't think should be illegal) or circumvention of licensing standards for other professions. Why do I need government permission to be a cop? I can pull over anyone I want, and by telling me that I can't, the government is making me unable to sustain my life through the labor of my choosing.

I think the biggest issue here, is that police and other criminology people are concerned that if a computer tech stumbles across illegal information on a computer, that since they are not a licensed private investigator, the evidence cannot in any way be used. Even if say, it's for a child-pornography case. "Your evidence was siezed improperly, sorry, but it's excluded, next time do things the right way!"

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are a lot of crooks in this country, and was the reason these kind of laws were put into place in the first place. We all expect doctors to have a certain level of training, and just because someone says they have the equivalent, doesn't mean they do.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[Jartan]

We require licenses of many different professions, doctors, medical professionals, accountants even.

Uhh yea but those licenses actually pertain to the profession in question.

I don't know why the summary says "small repair shops". In reality such a requirement will throw a total wrench into any big chain that does computer maitenance. Theres no way the kids who work in Best Buy have PI licenses.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[ardle]

It's cheap to force them to get PI licences: how about a license to practise computer repair, or something? At least they'd be trained in that (maybe).
Repair staff are effectively being hired to spy on people: they should be paid, rather than the other way around.
The people gathering the evidence are also capable of planting evidence - and there are a lot of computer repair businesses.
What happens if someone doesn't report something they find (and doesn't blackmail their customer, either?)

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[loraksus]

We require licenses of many different professions, doctors, medical professionals, accountants even.

I'm sorry, but that's a crap argument. In all of those cases, the licensing requirements are related to the actual job. In this case? Completely unrelated.

And Louisiana law is fairly different from Texas law. Louisiana is sort of the red haired bastard stepchild when it comes to the law because of the heavy French influence.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[e4g4]

No argument there. I certainly expect my doctor to have medical training, my lawyer to have law training - but do I expect my local PC tech guy to have investigative training? Do you really want to hand your computer to someone who is trained at gleaning information? When I fix a computer - I make a studious effort to ignore the personal contents of a machine...this is just ridiculous.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[Spacepup]

Doctors require a license as a way for laymen to distinguish between a quack who might kill you and someone learned who might kill you. Structural engineers need a license so you can have a reasonable expectation that what they design wont fall down on people. It isn't unusual to have to have a license to work in a particular field. What is unusual is to be required to have a license for a field relatively unrelated. It's rediculous to require structural engineers to get a medical license just because they build hospitals.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[AllIGotWasThisNick]

And if the patients know this, what exactly is wrong with it?

To play liberal's advocate for a moment, the US health care system as it stands today requires licensing to get malpractice insurance. This is a pretty reasonable expectation should say, your leg be accidentally amputated during an annual checkup. This same policy applies to your insurance payables for eg. massage therapy. Registered therapist's services are invariably insured, whereas non-licensed massage services (teehee) are almost never covered.

The subtle reason for any of this concern is the principle of "informed consent". Without a medical degree, how can you effectively evaluate (in advance, no less) the skills of someone whose actions potentially put your life in definite, immediate risk? The liberal mindset is that you are not allowed to choose, even if you actually are informed, since other uninformed people will frequently make "the wrong choice".

As for my personal opinion, I think that the vast majority of medical conditions can be dealt with by someone with significantly less training/licensing (eg. nurses, online/telephone professionals, etc) than is currently demanded; heart surgeries are much less common than colds, as dreamy as McDreamy is.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[CastrTroy]

As for my personal opinion, I think that the vast majority of medical conditions can be dealt with by someone with significantly less training/licensing (eg. nurses, online/telephone professionals, etc) than is currently demanded;

In Ontario this is actually the the stance taken. They have set up a telehealth phoneline staffed by nurses and other qualified people so that people don't go down to the emergency room, or run to the doctor every time you have a rash or a cough. We've used their services quite a few times, and the answers they give are quite good. It's really nice to have a nice way to get quick qualified answers to health questions.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are a lot of crooks in this country, and was the reason these kind of laws were put into place in the first place. We all expect doctors to have a certain level of training, and just because someone says they have the equivalent, doesn't mean they do.

Of course, but that doesn't mean we should be arresting everyone on Slashdot for speculating about legal issues without being members of the bar. As long as you're not misrepresenting your credentials, what's the problem? And as far as this case goes, nobody who goes to Best Buy with computer problems is even asking for an investigator -- they just want somebody to install antivirus and make AOL work again. So what misrepresentation is occurring that requires a licensing agency?

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[snowgirl]

There are no evidence collection rules about trash. The owner of that item has already released ownership and rights to keep it from search and seizure.

Here is a hint for you. If you throw something illegal away, you're an idiot, because cops don't need anyone's permission to collect that evidence anymore.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[conlaw]

Despite the alarmist tone of TFA, the law is obviously not intended to apply to computer repair. It is meant to apply to those whose work involves the review and analysis of material stored on a computer. In other words, Media Sentry will need a PI license to check Texans' hard drives, but the Geek Squad can just keep on as they have been. Sorry, my Texas friends, but you can't avoid working on your mom's Windows Vista machine by telling her you don't have PI license.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[jlarocco]

Repairing a computer is much more likely to produce evidence against someone.

What? That's most ridiculous thing I've heard all day.

Not that I'm particularly worried about this law. The black market for computer repair people without PI licenses will be HUGE. Computer savvy neighbor kids who know how to reinstall Windows and upgrade RAM are going to love this law.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[AusIV]

I have some friends who work for a digital forensics company (which does require a PI license). They seem to get by having supervisors with PI licenses, and the lower level employees don't have them, but still do some forensic work.

I'm guessing the Geek Squad will just need to have a PI on duty any time the kids are tinkering on other people's computers.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[dgatwood]

If this story is true, then whatever harebrained idiot thought this one up should have to do penance in the form of having to take the place of one of those undocumented maids for the next twenty years. That said, I don't see anything in that law that suggests that computer repair people have to be licensed PIs. The only people that are covered there are people who are doing forensic analysis on data not available to the general public. If you hire someone to do computer forensics (e.g. investigating the contents of a hard drive), that's a completely different service from merely replacing a defective power supply or even reinstalling Windows. Stretching that law to cover basic computer repairs is a fairly blatant perversion of the law as written and almost certainly won't hold up in court unless I'm either grossly misreading it or the story linked from this one is linking to the wrong law.

In any case, assuming the story is legit, let's take this same logic one step further. A maid finds child porn while cleaning some guy's den. We should, therefore, obviously require that every illegal, undocumented maid working in the state of Texas have a PI license. Similarly, every maintenance crew working for a company, every IT employee, every office assistant who might potentially use his/her boss's computer, every school computer lab administrator, every plumber (child porn could be hidden under the sink, you know), every electrician (going to rewire somebody's entertainment center), and every employee at every hard drive refurbishing center.

In short, this same logic would apply equally to large swaths of our population for precisely the same reason, and I predict this law will be struck down swiftly for precisely that reason. It unfairly singles out one small group for regulation out of a much larger group of people for whom the same conditions apply.

Further, as someone said a couple of posts up, the difference between laws requiring a PI license for this and laws requiring a PI license for someone doing an investigation, a medical license for a doctor, etc. is that in all of the cases where such laws have been considered constitutional in the past, the reason for the license was for the protection of the person hiring out for the work to ensure that the person doesn't get shafted, while in this case, the laws are predominantly for the protection of the state and are in direct contradiction to the needs, desires, and best interests of the person hiring out for the work.

As for planting evidence, there's really no more protection against that just because somebody has a PI license. There are plenty of crooked licensed private investigators, lawyers, doctors, etc. At best, there is the additional disincentive of losing your license if caught, but it's not like a computer repair tech can't get a job doing computer repair in a corporate IT department, which presumably would not entail such licensing requirements, or else there are likely to be a lot of high-tech companies (e.g. Apple, Dell, etc.) telling Texas to go f*ck themselves and moving their operations to another state.

More importantly, computer companies that contract out mail-in repairs are likely to eschew Texas from now on. Why? Too much extra expense. Instead of hiring a minimum-wage person and training them in a week, they'll have to hire someone with an expensive license and/or spend months training them at tremendous expense. I know a couple of businesses that are likely to dry up overnight.

Sounds like yet another stupid law written by stupid people for stupid reasons that won't actually fix what it was intended to fix. Since that describes about 98% of all laws passed in my lifetime, could somebody explain why this is news? :-)

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, it's ridiculous when viewed from the perspective of the computer-using public. But if you look at this the way an overarching government would, then the idea of having trained snitches in every computer store is very appealing. I mean, look at post-WWII East Germany ... they eventually had half the population spying on the other half.

If there was ever a time for a Texan to learn how to fix his or her own computer system ... this is it.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[_KiTA_]

Is this a joke? Would you have untrained "doctors" able to prescribe narcotics? Over use antibiotics? Perform surgery?

I would hardly put Joe-College Student reinstalling Windows on par with a trained professional who went to school for 12 years to be able to do, you know, brain surgery or something?

Do we really, really want to live in a society that swapping a CD-ROM drive requires several years of professional training?

Apple and Geek Squad executives, put your freakin' hands down.

Besides that, collecting evidence about crime is very, very definitely not my problem. Child Porn on some pervert's machine? Call the cops, get them to get an engineer out and -- more importantly -- a warrant for the drive. Despite 8 years of lawless Neo-Con rule, you still need a warrant for this kinda stuff. In theory.

Fortunately this will be shot down in court.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess my Dr. should have a PI license so that if I use drugs he can tell the police then. Or my mechanic should have PI so if he finds child porn in my trunk I can be reported. Lets just make a PI license a requirement for entering the country... that'll work!

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[afidel]

Actually many states have instituted nurse practitioners, kind of a doctor light for just such reasons. They have to be part of a doctors practice but they can see patients and write scripts (I believe cosigned by the doctor). It's actually often a more lucrative position then a GP because they don't have to carry nearly the insurance load and they share billing resources with the established practice.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[DaveWick79]

The law very specifically states that it applies to companies doing work as a private security consultant. As a PC service shop, I certainly don't position or consider myself to be in the place of a private security consultant. Even if my customer asks me to do simple data recovery tasks, this does not fall under the umbrella of security consulting, or review and analysis of data. I may recommend security solutions or implement those solutions, but I am not providing the solutions, those are provided by 3rd party software companies. I may recommend security guidelines but I am not ultimately responsible for the carrying out of those guidelines.
From what I read in the law, it is meant to prevent a company from telling customers they are providing a security solution when in fact they know nothing about security. If I was in the business of doing sitewide security analysis and consulting, maybe I could see the need for some regulation, as the state doesn't want customers getting ripped off by people promising security solutions and not really making anything secure.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[A nonymous Coward]

He said it's cheap to force them to get PI Licenses, not that it's cheap to get PI licenses.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[letxa2000]

"Liberals" seem to fight a hell of a lot more often and with more passion to protect the right to choice in virtually every situation, while the "conservatives" want more laws restricting what people can do.

Actually both liberals and conservatives want to protect choice--just on different issues. Conservatives want to protect your choice to spend your money but want to apply their concepts of morality on society. Liberals, meanwhile, don't really care what you do morally speaking as long as you do what they tell you to do with your money.

Which is better? In my opinion a moral society in which people can do what they want with their money is desirable to a morally corrupt society where everything goes as long as you're paying extortion money to the liberal government. But that's just my opinion.

The only ones that really have a passion for freedom of choice across the board are libertarians. They have some good ideological points, though I think their platform is lacking from a practical standpoint.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[tsm_sf]

Or (as I've seen it put somewhere before) Conservatives want government out of the boardroom, Liberals want government out of the bedroom.

It's interesting that you picked the Conservative PoV as the most moral.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[nospam007]

>...but do I expect my local PC tech guy to have investigative training? ...

It's so that they can carry a gun before telling you: "I reformatted your harddrive, you have a backup, don't you?"

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[arminw]

..... Look at the requirements to be a barber or beautician....

It seems that equating those who work on computers with those who work on people is gross foolishness. It is especially foolish to require a PI license for someone who repairs a computer. By the rationale that supposedly went into this law, anybody who has access to data should need such a license. After all, they may come across some data that the cops might need that must be preserved properly and pristine, in order to be stand up in a court of law.

It might be instructive to learn who the monied interests are that lobbied for this law. There is very little law made anywhere these days, that does NOT have some money reason behind it. Laws generally get suggested by those who stand to gain financially by the existence of said laws. If such people or companies have the money to put behind the appropriate politicians, they won't hesitate to do so. As the saying goes, "Follow the money".

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[CodeBuster]

Actually, with new desktops costing only a few hundred dollars now most people will probably just junk the broken machine and get a new one. Let's be realistic here, with computers fast becoming a commodity cheaper than a decent television many people will just chuck it when it breaks instead of having it repaired or else they will pay their neighbor's teenager under the table to fix it on the sly. This law is completely silly in that way. Would it be illegal to help out a friend by recovering his crashed hard disk with Knoppix if you don't have a PI license? What a bunch of crap, I expected better of Texas.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[ozmanjusri]

If there was ever a time for a Texan to learn how to fix his or her own computer system ... this is it.

Actually, it would have been a good idea to get started in 2002.

Your government hasn't given up on the idea that any worker with access to your privacy should inform them of your activities.

Join the Citizen Corps. Protect your country from terrorism now!

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[mrchaotica]

But my health insurer is able to make that judgement and also has a clear incentive to steer me away from doctors who are likely to place me in bodily danger.

You're kidding, right? What your health insurer has is a clear incentive to send you to the cheapest dumbass they can find, and then simply disbelieve you and deny your claim when you complain that he screwed up.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[mrchaotica]

Here on Slashdot, you shouldn't expect anybody to even notice your screen name, let alone infer your gender from it. Remember, this is the Internet: men are men, women are men, and little girls are FBI agents.

Also, in English, "he" is the correct pronoun to use to refer to a singular person of unknown gender.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[rohan972]

Ever hear the expression "Never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes"?

Yes, that way if he gets angry with you he's a mile away, and barefoot.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[h3llfish]

From your answer, I would guess that you have never done this type of IT work before. For most small businesses, it's not nearly as simple as just chucking the old one and getting a new one. First and foremost, there's the small matter of migrating the data.

For instance, one firm that employs me has been using Quicken 2001 for their accounting needs. That product is no longer sold. Getting their crucial accounting data from that old program to some new software is far beyond the average user... FAR beyond. Just choosing a new program to migrate to is more than most small business owners want to deal with.

So, they're faced with the choice of either hiring me (or someone like me) to help them with that, or else attempting to do it themselves with the aid of tech support, which will be frustrating and time consuming at best. This law really hoses people like that. They'll be paying twice as much for that type of service, all so that some private dick can be clicking the keys.

I do think you're correct about a black market for computer repair being created. That's what happens every time the government tries to limit commerce. I'm not always against government regulation. I'm not one of those free market extremists who think that the government should be abolished. But, this is certainly too much.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[syousef]

No argument there. I certainly expect my doctor to have medical training

Actually, and I'm being quite serious, I've found that assumption to be dangerous. Personal experience with myself and immediate family.

- Neurologist prescribing a medication for seizures, then continually increasing the dosage when one of the contraindications for giving it is seizures. Patient went from an occasional seizure to seizing on average every 2 days. When he was shown this information he replied, "oh okay, maybe it's contributing, let's cut it out" without bothering to read that immediately cutting out this med has been known to make normal patients suicidal. Thank fuck for Google. Anyone who says you shouldn't self-diagnose can go fuck themselves.

- 2 lung specialist doctors insisting that wheezing flemy pregnant woman with bronchitis has just picked up "bad breathing techniques". The shallow breathing couldn't possibly be caused by the pregnancy. The woman couldn't possibly be emotional because she's had to sleep sitting up for weeks lest she cough and splutter. While you're at it have a dig at the patient's weight despite her recent injury (hit by a car, bulging disc and nerve damage) and pregnancy. Yeah really wonder why she might get emotional.

- Head orthopod at a large suburban hospital insisting a shoulder isn't dislocated despite an obvious bulge because he's failed to take an axial view (required to show posterior dislocations, and the patient had a long history of them).

- Hearing specialist refusing to believe there is a hearing problem and instead blaming it on being in the patient's head because he couldn't get a consistent reading asking her to listen to tones. Turns out when he did a hearing test that did not require the patient to tell him when tones sounded there was a significant hearing loss. But hey it's easier to suggest your patient sees a psychiatrist.

- Dentist doing such a poor job on a root canal that another detentist was horrified. The tooth was lost (after a couple of thousand spent on the procedures).

- Patient's first visit with a doctor. First high blood pressure reading found. Patient is overweight and has an ankle injury. Suggestion isn't blood pressure meds and exploring moderate weight loss options. No within 5 minutes of seeing this patient the doctor wants to do stomach banding.

That's just in the last 5 years. Guess what country I live in? No it's not 3rd world. It's Australia. Private health cover too in several instances above. If you complain you risk getting no care when you need it. Best bet is to not get sick. Failing that check everything you're told and make sure you're earning big money because you may end up with a few $300+ bills for a 15 minute chat and a misdiagnosis or an insult.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[ozmanjusri]

This is the internet. You can visit .au domains without a visa.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[rugatero]

There's no way to prove that you didn't put it there yourself to frame him, and your word -- with you not being a P.I. or law enforcement officer -- isn't strong enough to override that doubt, so the evidence is inadmissible.

Actually, being a PI would theoretically give you the required expertise to plant the incriminating evidence without it being traceable to your actions, thus giving the guy's claim of a setup increased plausibility.

Re:Slaughterhouse Cases

[indifferent children]

Having to have a CJ degree will greatly increase the cost

Actually, this is great for geeks. When my neighbor asks me to swap-out the hard-drive in his PC, I can say, "Sorry, that's illegal. But I will stand over your shoulder and walk you through it." That way, some people will learn (with help) how to do these things for themselves, and others will stop asking. The second type of person will contribute to great dumpster-diving days ahead. That is a win-win.

I read it as

[Daimanta]

"PC Repair in Texas now requires a pi license"

Want to fix PCs? Recite the first 100 decimal places of pi.

I don't think the report is accurate

[vanyel]

IANAL, but I don't think PC Mag or "CW33" read the law. Per Section 4a1 and 4b, it only applies if you're specifically snooping in the data on the computer. It says nothing about normal repair. Not that someone disgruntled couldn't try to make a case out of it...

Re:I don't think the report is accurate

[corsec67]

I know this is /. and reading the article is bad form, but from the article:

If a computer repair technician without a government-issued private investigator's license takes any actions that the government deems to be an "investigation," they may be subject to criminal penalties of up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine, as well as civil penalties of up to $10,000. The definition of "investigation" is very broad and encompasses many common computer repair tasks.

Imagine that doing a "find . -name file.jpg" or similar might be considered an "investigation".

Re:I don't think the report is accurate

[kjh1]

IANAL, but I don't think PC Mag or "CW33" read the law. Per Section 4a1 and 4b, it only applies if you're specifically snooping in the data on the computer. It says nothing about normal repair. Not that someone disgruntled couldn't try to make a case out of it...

Agree w/ vanyel. If you read the original quoted article, you'll see that the original author only wondered out aloud if this would apply to PC repair folks. From the post:

"It seems obvious that in order to provide a full range of litigation support services, including forensic examination, then you will have to become licensed. But will all vendors, even those who do not perform such examinations, need a license as well?"

Re:I don't think the report is accurate

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

Per Section 4a1 and 4b, it only applies if you're specifically snooping in the data on the computer. It says nothing about normal repair. Not that someone disgruntled couldn't try to make a case out of it...

Yes ... "(b) For purposes of Subsection (a)(1), obtaining or furnishing information includes information obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.

Looks like it's aimed at "computer security" consultants, not repair firms.

Re:I don't think the report is accurate

[Obfuscant]

Imagine that doing a "find . -name file.jpg" or similar might be considered an "investigation".

Read the entire law. .

Sec. 1702.104 defines an "investigations company". A person acts as an investigations company if he engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employement to obtain or furnish information related to crimes or activity of a person, or location of stolen property, or cause for a fire, libel, etc.

A computer repair business in not in the business of doing any of that. They aren't in the business of obtaining information regarding crimes, they are in the computer repair business. The information they gather is "what doesn't work".

It is 1702.104(b) that seems to be troublesome because it talks about "computer-based data not available to the public."

The fact that 1702.104(b) defines what obtaining information means is irrelevant, since (a)(1) doesn't apply to a computer repair business to start with. Defining what obtaining data means doesn't change the limitations on who 1702.104(a)(1) applies to. It expands the activities of the people who are covered by (a)(1) to include computer searches.

If you start a business tailored specifically to PI's and forensic analysis, say fixing broken computers with the explicit intent of getting the data off of them to determine crimes, cause of fires, etc, then yes, you need a PI license. If you are just replacing a defective CPU or disk, no. You are not in the business of obtaining information listed in (a)(1).

In short, it all revolves around the phrase "in the business of".

This law is a good thing. It may be possible to sue a "computer repair company" that does, as a matter of regular business, "investigate" the content of your computer when you take it in for repair. They've made themselves "in the business of" by looking for information related to crimes. But Joe Technician who sticks to finding the bad bits and replacing them has nothing to worry about. And if you are stupid enough to make kiddie porn the splash logo on your boot screen, or background image after an auto-login, Joe is still able to call the cops, since his job isn't obtaining the information, YOU gave it to him by your actions.

No

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Please follow the links and see that the summary is wrong. The new law requires a PI license if you act as a private security consultant company (which can be an individual).

The relevant qualification for the Slashdot crowd are that you must

engage ... in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, evidence for use before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee;

and do so by

furnishing information ... obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.

IOW, you can't take into divorce court the notion that your spouse was having a cyber-affair based on having your computer looked at by the kid down the block. This doesn't appear to have much effect on most repair shops.

The text is here. Read it. The word "computer" appears in the text just once, so grep for the relevant part.

Re:No

[languagehacker]

This news story essentially came out like the telephone game. The linked story came from a Daily Texan article (the UT student newspaper) which came from an anecdote by a PC repairman. There were too many intermediaries. The Daily Texan article is available here: http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2008/06/27/TopStories/Computer.Repair.Technicians.May.Be.Acting.Illegally-3386027.shtml And essentially, what it's suggesting here is that you only need a PI license if you're snooping through a user's data for whom you're not repairing the computer. There will be plenty of repair shops taking care of single-owner Dells and Gateways who won't even need to remember the word "forensics" even exists until CSI comes on.

Re:But it's okay to shoot robbers in the back ther

[cduffy]

Yeah, but it's okay to shoot unarmed people you believe to be robbing your neighbor's house in the back with a shot gun there...so I guess it all evens out!

When you see a couple of strangers breaking the window on a neighbor's house and climbing in, that's a pretty well-founded belief.

Running when someone points a gun at you and tells you to freeze is also pretty damned stupid. If you believe the police officer who was an eyewitness, the folks in question ran at such a trajectory as to be closer to the neighbor with the gun when they were shot than they were when he told them to freeze -- which is exceptionally stupid, as it gives said party with the gun grounds to be legitimately afraid for their life, and thus the ability to shoot. If you're going to run away from the person with the gun who told you to freeze -- which is a bad idea to start with -- you want to run unambiguously away, not towards and then turn.

I don't fault the grand jury for deciding not to prosecute; I would have gone the same way.

BAD headline/article

[Anonymous Coward]

All this means is in order for Geek Squad (or anyone) to perform forensic data recovery for example, on behalf of your local PD, or even a PI, the Geek Squad technician would also need a PI license.

No. Shit. It would be an obvious loophole otherwise.

Every computer repair person in the damned state doesn't qualify under (a)(1), sorry pcmag/slashdot. It doesn't take a lawyer to understand this, but you DO have to have more than a 5th grade reading level to backtrack from (b) to (a)(1) I guess. Besides, your shit is "public" as soon as you hand your PC to the repair person. This is not some sinister, evil law, douche bags.

Sec. 1702.104. INVESTIGATIONS COMPANY.
(a) A person acts as an investigations company for the purposes of this chapter if the person:
        (1) engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information related to:
                (A) crime or wrongs done or threatened against a state or the United States;
                (B) the identity, habits, business, occupation,knowledge, efficiency, loyalty, movement, location, affiliations, associations, transactions, acts, reputation, or character of a person;
                (C) the location, disposition, or recovery of lost or stolen property; or
                (D) the cause or responsibility for a fire, libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property;
        (2) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, evidence for use before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee;
        (3) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, the electronic tracking of the location of an individual or motor vehicle other than for criminal justice purposes by or on behalf of a governmental entity; or
        (4) engages in the business of protecting, or accepts employment to protect, an individual from bodily harm through the use of a personal protection officer.

(b) For purposes of Subsection (a)(1), obtaining or furnishing information includes information obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.

And please stop posting news of new laws that are obviously not reviewed by real lawyers or people who can fucking read at least. PLEASE.

Try reading the law

[analog_line]

These articles are a ridiculous over-reaction to the actual law, which I just spent a few minutes actually reading. Nothing in that law has anything to do with computer repair. It DOES have something to do with companies that offer computer forensic services for legal actions, and some repair shops do that, but you shouldn't be going to Corner Computer Repair, or Joe Computer Guy if you have a requirement for forensic work in a legal sense. If you actually think your computer was hacked, you need to get people with the kind of legal training that can get things done the way the legal system requires them to be done.

The law is in legalese, and therefore hard to read, but the only thing this applies to are people doing this for investigations of a legal nature. There is a long list of exemptions, including one for people who install and repair security devices.

For a bunch of people that claim to be rational and above superstition, you people are totally credulous when wild statements like this are made. The law is there, it's linked to, read it for yourself.

Re:Try reading the law

[analog_line]

No, it'd be illegal for you to investigate what went wrong, what entity is at fault for that going wrong, and sell me that information. It wouldn't stop you from examining the computer (even the OS) and seeing what is not functioning right, and repairing it. If I hand you my computer and tell you to "fix it" what you're selling me is the repair service, not the information. If I brought you a computer and said, " if you tell me what's wrong with this, and who did it, I'll give you 100 bucks" that would be illegal. Same if I brought you a computer and asked you to find out what my girlfriend or even my child has done on it. On top of it, it would be illegal for me to even ask you to do that if I knew you weren't licensed to. Even deep data recovery using "forensic" tools would not be illegal, unless you're selling the list of sectors that "lost" data is on. If you're actually recovering the data, you're in the clear. Copied and pasted the relevant bit from the law, note the large importance "information related to" has in all this.

                (1) engages in the business of obtaining or
            furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information
            related to:
                                                  (A) crime or wrongs done or threatened against a
            state or the United States;
                                                  (B) the identity, habits, business, occupation,
            knowledge, efficiency, loyalty, movement, location, affiliations,
            associations, transactions, acts, reputation, or character of a
            person;
                                                  (C) the location, disposition, or recovery of
            lost or stolen property; or
                                                  (D) the cause or responsibility for a fire,
            libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property;

This does have big implications for security researchers in Texas, but for small time repair shops, aside from being legally bound to say "I can't do that" when someone asks them whether their kid broke their computer, or wants you to check whether their girlfriend is cheating on them, is pretty much nil.

User License

[banished]

And I always thought users should be licensed. Silly me.

Read the Law

[AK Marc]

I read the law. Well, skimmed it. Either the legislators were really smart or really stupid. "Security industry" is listed there. If computer security is part of the security industry, then a lot of people in TX need PI licenses. I know McAffe had an office there (in North Dallas, and they use the word "security" all the time. Anyone installing an anti-spyware program or virus scanner could fall under this as well. But it hasn't been enforced. What has been told to the computer repair shops is that if they "perform and investigation" they need PI licenses. That hasn't been defined by anyone. Perhaps that means that if you look for spyware, you are performing and investigation. It certainly should include if a husband drops off a computer and tells them to find out what his wife had been doing. Probably covers looking at email headers to determine where a specific email came from. The law is long, hard to read (it isn't a law, but an amendment to one, broken up in chunks and missing all peices not amended, making it pretty much unreadable, and I didn't bother to look for an updated version of the law in its entirety). But also not mentioned, if you help your neighbor set up his X-10 system, both of you committed a crime.

From what I can tell, the lawsuit is preemptive. No one has been charged. It was intended to be enforced against repair shops that do actual investigations that a PI would be doing if it wasn't on a computer (tracking usage, seeing what people were up to). However, the law was vague enough in some aspects that it could cover much more than was apparently intended, and the lawsuit is to determine what is and is not allowed under the law, and overturn any parts that are onerous enough to violate the state or US constitutions. The law did not say "all repair shops must have PI licenses." The people enforcing the law didn't say that either. However, if they are in the "security industry" or if they perform an "investigation" (and I couldn't find specific definitions of those) then they would need to be licensed.

Re:This law is to prevent me from perv catching

[Mr2001]

I am a contractor that operates outside the box, almost a vigilante. I cannot name what software I use or I would be easily identified. I do not engage in corp espionage but this law would stop me in my tracks if I were to ever have stepped foot in Texas.

Good! You have no right to snoop around other people's computers, even if you think you're doing it for a noble cause. (Which you aren't, by the way -- if you really wanted to help people, you'd go after the ones creating these images in the first place.)

I hope to turn in many more.

And I hope that when your vigilante game finally lands you in prison, you'll meet up with some of your victims.

Venus on the Half-Shell

[Nefarious Wheel]

...by Kilgore Trout (Phil Farmer actually, not Kurt Vonnegut). The book described a "Prison Planet" that started out as a small prison. As the State continued to pass more and stricter laws, the prison had to keep expanding its walls. At one point the prison walls grew past a great circle and started to contract as the balance of the planet's population shifted toward prisoners. Eventually, there was only one small round brick enclosure remaining, in which resided the one prison guard who comprised the entire planet's population that were not prison inmates.

Or to put it another way, see the metaphor used by Princess Leia to Grand Moff Tarkin.

I think the trend to move responsibility into the hands of licensors has rational limits. I believe it is the purpose of satire to determine what those limits are.

Calm down and read the source material

[they_call_me_quag]

Folks, calm down. The fault here seems to lie with the person who wrote the newspaper article. I read the Texas law in question and I don't see a problem.

Here's the important passage:

----
INVESTIGATIONS COMPANY. (a) A person acts
as an investigations company for the purposes of this chapter if the
person:

(1) engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information
          related to:
      (A) crime or wrongs done or threatened against a state or the United States;
      (B) the identity, habits, business, occupation,knowledge, efficiency, loyalty, movement, location, affiliations, associations, transactions, acts, reputation, or character of a person;
      (C) the location, disposition, or recovery of lost or stolen property; or
      (D) the cause or responsibility for a fire, libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property;

(2) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, evidence for use before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee;

(3) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, the electronic tracking of the location of an
individual or motor vehicle other than for criminal justice purposes by or on behalf of a governmental entity; or

(4) engages in the business of protecting, or accepts employment to protect, an individual from bodily harm through the use of a personal protection officer.

(b) For purposes of Subsection (a)(1), obtaining or furnishing information includes information obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.
----

I don't see how the applies to computer repair shops.

I searched the entire text and found only two instances of the word "repair", both in reference to the repair of "security devices" and the word "computer" is only used once in the entire document (in the last sentence of the passage above.)

The "PC Magazine" story cites as it's source a "Dallas-Ft. Worth CW Affiliate." That affiliate published a story penned by:
"Pelpina Trip, KDAF33 News at Nine Intern"

It looks like you have all been riled up into a foamy froth by AN INTERN AT A LOCAL TV NEWS OUTFIT.

Do you feel foolish yet?

Re:MediaSentry? Slashdot agrees!..

[Sancho]

There's a difference. MediaSentry are doing investigative work. PC Repair techs are doing repair work. It's slashdot, so we need a car analogy--would you demand that a automobile mechanic have a PI license so that they can properly handle any potential evidence found in the car during routine repairs?

RIAA

[deraj123]

So...ignoring the headline and considering the actual law - does this affect the folks doing RIAA's investigations? It sounds (from my uninformed point fo view) like it's written almost specifically for that sort of situation.

Confusing...

[catdevnull]

I read through the primary source document listed and did not see "computer technician" specifically listed in the language. I just cruised over it and searched for "computer" and "technician" but it only referred to persons who install security equipment such as alarms and surveillance devices.

Can somebody with better eyes point out the article or section that supports the blogger's statement?

liberalism

[falconwolf]

The liberal mindset is that you are not allowed to choose

That's not a liberal mindset. The original liberalism, Classical Liberalism which stems from The Age Of Enlightenment and The Age of Reason, was all about liberty and small government. Among the USA's Founding Fathers who were Liberals were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine. The father of Capitalism Adam Smith was a Liberal. As used today "liberal" and "liberalism" has been twisted to mean something a lot different than it did.

Then again other words have had the same thing done to them, like "hack" and "hacker". Whereas a hack used to mean something creative and a hacker was someone who hacked, and writers were hacks too, today they are used for crimes and criminals. As used with computers a hacker follows the Hacker ethic.

Falcon