24 April 2013 - regulatory capture 5

Democracy can help. The people want law and order, so interests of law enforcement—already part of government—capture legislatures that were meant to hold them in. That’s how Europe got a patchwork of privacy laws to forbid storing sensitive data and surveillance laws to require storing sensitive data. And in the U.S., Congress makes everything illegal so you can’t get through the day without breaking some law, and gives prosecutors discretion and immunity so they can deal with any troublesome Aaron Swartz. The people wanted it.