As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to vote on the so-called INDUCE Act, which would hold technology's creators liable for what's done with their creations, there are some who are calling this an attack on our rights, and an attack on technology.

It's worse than that.

It's an attack on America. What chairman Orrin Hatch (left, from Internet Weekly) and his colleagues are plotting is nothing less than a 9-11 attack on the American economy.

It's time for these bozos to know the truth. America ain't the world.

Just because America passes some piece of idiot legislation that doesn't mean everyone else has to go down on their knees and bow down to it.

Far from it.

What this act would really do is push all American technology development offshore. So what if most of what was produced couldn't be sold into the American market? Just kick something crippled over, throw 'em a stupid bone, and go on with your life.

Besides, the bill is rife with hypocrisy. As Marshall Kalashnikov told The New York Times recently, we pirate his dad's rifle all the time. We encourage others to do it. Why are we exempt but they must bow before, say, Madonna? (They're not even Kabbalists, for gosh sakes.)

There is precedent for this kind of idiocy. (Image from Nova Scotia.)

Back in the 1960s Brazil decided it must have a piece of the computer industry. So it forbade imports. The idea was to force companies to build them in Brazil. This had worked in the car business. But in computing it was a miserable failure. Brazil's economy lagged, badly. The damage has yet to be fully undone, the country remains a technological backwater.

Think it can't happen here?

Pass INDUCE and watch it happen. I guarantee it will happen.