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First Video Broadcast From Mt. Everest Peak Outrages Tourist Ministry of Nepal
hutsell writes "On May 19th, Daniel Hughes spoke to BBC News live from the world's highest peak using his smartphone, making it the first live broadcast from Everest. (The actual video — showing the importance of oxygen along with his panoramic view — on the BBC page, is bookend with talking heads and a front-end advert.) However, since he and his team failed to get a commercial broadcast permit (costing about 2 grand) without the Nepali Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Aviation's knowledge, officials want to impose the penalty of having them banned from obtaining climbing permits for 10 years or from entering the country for 5 years. From the article, a quote from Dipendra Poudel, an official of the Ministry's mountain branch: 'The mountaineering rules say if you want to make a live telecast from the mountain, which is a restricted area, you have to get a permit first and inform us early about what you're going to do.' Those protesting against the decision feel the intent of the law is being misinterpreted; it's failing to keep up with the recent fundamental changes in technology. A permit that was meant to deal with ecological repercussions, doesn't seem to apply in this case. If it doesn't, is it really about disrespect, money, a tourism copyright angle, or all of the above? Then again, should the Nepal government ignore outsiders questioning their motives?"
I'm hardly going to say that I'm impressed by the odds of the cash actually going somewhere worthwhile(Nepal's scores on corruption are... unenviable... at best); but I do remember hearing some wacky theory to the effect that you can 'efficiently allocate' a 'scarce good' using what economists refer to as 'prices'.
It's pretty cutting edge stuff, I know; but it is theoretically possible that using these 'price' things to limit overcrowding of one of the world's more crowd-pleasing mountains may not actually be identical to violent extortion tactics. Crazy!
That wasn't a libertarian rant. Libertarians were not and are not against the existence of laws and regulations. Libertarians != Anarchists
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond