In view of recent events concerning Edward Snowden and some of my more recent thinking about chemicals policy in the United States, I've been trying to understand how we've reached such an uncomfortable situation in protecting Americans' Constitutional rights to privacy. While I don't know much about privacy law, the Patriot Act, or the Constitution, I do think some ideas in chemicals regulation can help explain what's going on with the privacy debate.
I have been reading and chewing on some passages in Brickman, Jasanoff, and Ilgen's Controlling Chemicals: The Politics of Regulation in Europe and the United States, and the differences between European approaches and American approaches to chemical regulation are so striking I couldn't help but speculate whether those factors contribute to the privacy challenges we are now facing.
Since the book was written in 1985, take these thoughts with a grain of salt. However, the observation Brickman et al. made which had me thinking goes something like this: because of America's laissez faire approach to business, unparalleled levels of access to legal and administrative proceedings, and commitment to protection of individuals' rights, American chemicals policy has complexity and cost unparalleled by that in other industrialized democracies. (I try to keep these posts short, so I can't break that down further.)
The key concept in that thought making Snowden, Manning, and other issues of transparency so ironic is the commitment we make to transparency and protection of individual interests. Perhaps we are so upset and appalled by the violations of our Constitution (or at least admitted lying to Congress by NSA staff) is that we are so used to openness and privileged access afforded few of the world's other citizens to their governments. Just a thought.
So, environmental policy wonks, don't get so frustrated in the face of gridlock. Apparently, that's one of the many costs of "freedom". 😉