” I installed a network to allow my guests wideband internet access. Under the new anti-terrorist law, I was surprised to learn, I needed a license (for 60 days) which required….”
The eerie message for me is of a civilized government of a western country–and the country of Vivaldi, Fermi, Leonardo, etc. etc.–collecting the data under (G). Italian hotels still collect passports at registration, bad enough, but logging internet connections?
Beppo Severgnini shares correspondence from a hotel owner in Florence.
Ho installato una rete perché i clienti possano collegarsi a banda larga. Non avevo fatto i conti con la nuova legge anti-terrorismo. Per ottenere la licenza (60 giorni) ho dovuto consegnare al commissariato: A) Domanda di rilascio. B) Dichiarazione di responsabilità. C) Dichiarazione sostitutiva di atto notorio con i dati miei e dei famigliari, comprese figlie di 6 e 4 anni (future terroriste?). D) Fotocopia del documento di identità. E) Certificato della camera di commercio. F) Atto costitutivo della società di gestione. G) Registro da vidimare e compilare ogni volta che un cliente si collega. Il tutto (meno F e G) in duplice copia, con due marche da bollo. In totale 40 pagine, per non parlare dei viaggi al commissariato.
[My translation]: I installed a network to allow my guests wideband internet access. Under the new anti-terrorist law, I was surprised to learn, I needed a license (for 60 days) which required submission to the commissariat (police station) of: (A) Release request (B) Declaration of responsibility (C) Notarized declaration of data on me and my family, including daughters of 6 and 4 years (future terrorists?). (D) Copy of my identity card [like a passport]. (E) Certificate from the chamber of commerce. (F) Incorporation papers for my hotel. (G) An authenticated registry of every time a guest connects to the internet. (A-E) in duplicate, with two stamps [Many Italian official documents require stamps purchased at the tobacconist to be official]. In total, 40 pages, not to mention the trips to the station house.
Severgnini is pretty funny about this as a symptom of bureaucracy run amok, read it if you can. The eerie message for me is of a civilized government of a western country–and the country of Vivaldi, Fermi, Leonardo, etc. etc.–collecting the data under (G). Italian hotels still collect passports at registration, bad enough, but logging internet connections?
Author: Michael O'Hare
Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, Michael O'Hare was raised in New York City and trained at Harvard as an architect and structural engineer. Diverted from an honest career designing buildings by the offer of a job in which he could think about anything he wanted to and spend his time with very smart and curious young people, he fell among economists and such like, and continues to benefit from their generosity with on-the-job social science training.
He has followed the process and principles of design into "nonphysical environments" such as production processes in organizations, regulation, and information management and published a variety of research in environmental policy, government policy towards the arts, and management, with special interests in energy, facility siting, information and perceptions in public choice and work environments, and policy design. His current research is focused on transportation biofuels and their effects on global land use, food security, and international trade; regulatory policy in the face of scientific uncertainty; and, after a three-decade hiatus, on NIMBY conflicts afflicting high speed rail right-of-way and nuclear waste disposal sites. He is also a regular writer on pedagogy, especially teaching in professional education, and co-edited the "Curriculum and Case Notes" section of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.
Between faculty appointments at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, he was director of policy analysis at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. He has had visiting appointments at Università Bocconi in Milan and the National University of Singapore and teaches regularly in the Goldman School's executive (mid-career) programs.
At GSPP, O'Hare has taught a studio course in Program and Policy Design, Arts and Cultural Policy, Public Management, the pedagogy course for graduate student instructors, Quantitative Methods, Environmental Policy, and the introduction to public policy for its undergraduate minor, which he supervises. Generally, he considers himself the school's resident expert in any subject in which there is no such thing as real expertise (a recent project concerned the governance and design of California county fairs), but is secure in the distinction of being the only faculty member with a metal lathe in his basement and a 4×5 Ebony view camera. At the moment, he would rather be making something with his hands than writing this blurb.
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