Texas Requires Computer Repair Shops and Techs to obtain PI License

The Institute for Justice has filed a lawsuit on behalf of computer repair shops who are being told they must have a Private Investigator License to preform certain types of computer repair.  Others are covering this story as well.

•     Lawsuit says every repair technician in Texas must have private investigator's license

•     Licenses are obtained with criminal justice degree or 3 year apprenticeship

•     Violators can face up to a 4K fine and 1 year in jail

Slashdot has some good discussion on the issue, and cite the actual content of the Texas Law.  I'm sure we will here more of this in the future.

-Chris

*UPDATE* 10 JUL 2008

Slashdot has a new post with updates on this issue. 

But rooting around in the guts of a computer to discover the cause of a malware infection is different from rooting around in the guts of a computer to discover infidelity.  However, instead of making the criteria of “investigation” the purpose and use to which the information could be put, the law makes the criteria the way that the information is stored – “computer-based data not available to the public.”  The end result is that the net was cast too widely.

-Chris