> What we need is effective regulation, not bureaucratic us-versus-them regulation.
That's easy to say and everyone would agree we need "effective" regulation, but I think the profit-driven corporations that continue to pollute and use a portion of their profits to pay lobbyists and influence public discourse in order to discourage regulation will always take a "us-versus-them" approach.
It needs to be more expensive to hire lawyers (and lobbyists) than to hire engineers to solve the problem. Some companies will fail to adapt and continue to fight legally in lieu of adding filters and complying, and those companies should get shut down.
Corporate lawyers need to be held accountable too. If an executive knows the company's product is dangerous but keeps that secret because he's representing the board/shareholders, nobody thinks he shouldn't be punished for keeping this secret. But if the corporate lawyer knows the product is dangerous and keeps this secret because he's representing the company, this is somehow okay? If lawyers could be held liable for what they knew and concealed, they'd either turn tail and run or would demand far more money to compensate for the risk. Either way, companies would be dissuaded from relying on lawyers instead of fixing their products.
Attorney-client privilege should be severely curtailed if not abolished outright when the client is a corporation.
That's easy to say and everyone would agree we need "effective" regulation, but I think the profit-driven corporations that continue to pollute and use a portion of their profits to pay lobbyists and influence public discourse in order to discourage regulation will always take a "us-versus-them" approach.