David McElroy

If a private company had the right to legally force you to turn over personal information about yourself and then it sold that information to other companies, any state attorney general would be camped out in front of that company’s door holding a news conference about the legal action he’s taking against the company. But if it’s the state itself doing that, well, it’s OK. The rules are different for Big Brother than they are for us.

In Florida — as in every state — you’re required to hand over various information about yourself if you’d like to drive or own a car (or do just about anything). Now it turns out that the state is selling the information that it forces people to hand over. According to a Miami TV station’s report, the state is selling people’s names, addresses, dates of birth and lists of the vehicles they drive.

The state is selling this information to companies such as Lexus Nexus and Shadow Soft, which resell that information to other companies. But the state says it requires those companies to sign documents saying that they won’t harass people. That’s comforting, isn’t it?

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For years, pretty much everything about the U.S. Postal Service has been a political nightmare. Decisions at the failing service are made because different political players demand things, not because they’re in line with market reality.

Earlier this week, the postmaster general — which is a fancy state title for CEO — said that continuing losses are going to doom Saturday delivery and cut service to three days per week.

I don’t have an opinion about whether there’s a market for mail that’s delivered six days a week. I doubt anyone else has a realistic assessment, either, because the market for mail services has never been submitted to private competition in this country to see what people want and are willing to pay for.

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I’m still thinking today about that public hearing I went to Wednesday where federal environmental officials were supposedly listening to the public’s concerns about pollution. I know it’s impolite to point out something this obvious, but they weren’t there to listen to citizens. They were there to perform for TV cameras.

I heard the emotional appeal about children several times during the meeting. (Remember that I’ve produced plenty of manipulative political material over the years, so I’m very sensitive to the pious invocation of kids’ needs.) Ignacia Moreno, the assistant attorney general who was headlining Wednesday’s show, spoke of having to be away from her children traveling around the country. A man in the audience talked about his two daughters’ health problems. There were others, too.

Here’s the question, though. Why did they bother to put on this public show? Was anything said that anybody didn’t already know? I knew walking in what the various players on the federal side were going to say. The state and federal officials knew, too. The truth is that we weren’t there for the content of what was being said. It was all about putting on a show for the television cameras.

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