A State legislator in Michigan has proposed establishing a voluntary registry for reporters which would be paid for out of the fees charged to the registrants.

   There are mulitple things wrong with the above sentence, none of which are gramatical, spelling or otherwise related to it's structure. Nor are the problems related to accuracy of reporting. Rather, the errors are in the underlying assumptions made by the legislator in proposing such actions.

  Firstly, it takes taxpayers dollars to establish a registry. You cannot go out and take up a collection from future registrees to pay the initial setup cost to establish and maintain such a legal registry. A public official must be appointed as the legal custodian of records and those records must be kept in a manner that is permanent and proper. This means creating backups and keeping the index available for inspection by the public. The computer programmer who creates the database will charge a hefty sum, before even a single record is included in that digital filing system. The legal custodian of records must be paid and a staff hired to process the filings. In other words, the taxpayers pay a hefty price that IS NOT reimbursed through the price of registration.

   Secondly, the records create a asset on the part of the public, but a liability as well. Just as owning a home is great, when someone falls on your driveway and hurts themselves, it becomes a liability. In a similar sense, the moment a report's data is compromised by unauthorized third parties, it can come back to haunt the taxpayers by way of lawsuits and losses.

   Thirdly, it is a fallacy for him to assume as true that the premise that the First Amendment of the Constitution (part and parcel to that crazy “Bill of Rights” thingy) is insufficient for Michigan Citizens to understand the roll of the fifth estate in our society. Such legislation creates an obvious potential for high-priced lawyers to get even more greenbacks in their coffers. Why should a State legislator subvert the federal Constitution? Are there kickbacks involved? With the economic woes of the country, does he really feel that taking money out of the pockets of the media and putting those dollars into the hands of the State is anything but self enrichment? Lets' see how soon the Michigan State senate and assembly vote themselves raises. My money is on sooner rather than later.

   This entire situation points to the fallacy that government mandated standards, certifications, and licensure is always a good thing. Certainly we want our beef inspected to protect us against disease. We have little reason to regulate private industry, whether the independent press or the title abstracting business or the business of private land covenants. This is government interference in the right of private contract and free enterprise. It ALWAYS impacts the taxpayers as government never does anything for “free” or “at cost”. The long-term duty of the state to archive these records, create further storage and backup, maintain them even when the registry closes, is all additional “hidden costs” that I'd not even begun to address here.

   Tell the politicians to stop interfering in private industry and to concentrate on improving the economy by cutting our taxes, auditing for waste, cutting state office cost over-runs, investigating graft and corruption, and eliminating overlapping agency costs; not regulating industry that otherwise self regulates just fine and dandy.