Donald Sensing directs our attention to recent remarks by Senator Orrin Hatch, where he declares his desire to vandalize my computer.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet...

[Former DoJ cybercrimes prosecutor Orin] Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners, partly because of risks of collateral damage when innocent users might be wrongly targeted.

"It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of limiting the damage."

Now, this question really ought not to come up in the first place. It ought to be obvious that vandalizing someone's computer is simply wrong even if there is evidence that they committed a crime. (Hatch, who is a lawyer by trade, shouldn't have to be told the difference between the existence of evidence, and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, to say nothing of due process.)

But even if one is unpersuadable on this point, consider the following:

• The damage done to the copyright owners -- if in fact there is quantifiable damage, a premise I do not grant -- is measured in pennies per download; "destroying" someone's computer inflicts damage in the hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars in damaged equipment, and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost data.

• There is no way of knowing whether the "pirate" is actually using his own computer; he may be borrowing a machine from someone else, such as perhaps his employer. Thus the damage inflicted would not only be disproportionate, it would be inflicted on the wrong party.

• Creating this capability means maintaining a deliberately created, and widely known, security hole in PC operating systems; inescapably, this "backdoor" will be figured out, and exploited, by other parties. The cost of the resulting computer vandalism would be staggering.

This is a bad, bad idea, and Senator Hatch is acting irresponsibly to even raise it as a possibility. This idea needs to be roundly defeated, and a stake driven through its heart.

Hatch's office can be contacted using this webmail form.

UPDATE: Laurence Simon reports that Sen. Hatch may himself be a copyright violator; his website contains some commercial JavaScript code that does not appear to be properly licensed. Such lawlessness! Doesn't he recognize the importance of protecting intellectual property rights? Shame!

The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

--Henry V, Act 2, Scene 2

Isn't public domain content a wonderful thing?