From: utzoo!watmath!pcmcgeer
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: Computers \\& Society - (nf)
Article-I.D.: watmath.3553
Posted: Tue Sep 28 02:39:01 1982
Received: Tue Sep 28 02:38:55 1982
References: whuxlb.592

	Hmm.  I'm not sure you even NEED a new court system, though I'll admit
that the current court system hasn't done a whole bunch to convince us of it's
worth.
	All legal questions have some technical aspects to them.   I suspect
that the major question in the pollution argument is less technical than
political and social:  the problem in metering the damage done to the environ-
ment due to someone's activities is fundamentally the problem of defining
every individual's property rights to common property - in this case, the air.
Put more bluntly, I should be able to take a civil action in court against
a polluter for fouling my property - that property being the air I breathe.
Philosophically, there is no difference between polluting the air and smashing
my car.  In either case, you have damaged something that belongs to me - and
under the law, I get compensation.
	There are two difficulties:  first, placing a dollar value on my
property, and, second, ensuring that I have a convenient way to collect for
damage.  The former is undefined;  the second does not exist.
					Rick.