Citronix Tech Services and the Institute for Justice sue Texas
David Norelid | July 1, 2008I was in Austin last week with Mike Rife of AustinPCTech and Thane Hayhurst of iTalent Consulting Group and we filed a lawsuit, with the help of the Institute for Justice (IJ), against the State of Texas for a law they recently passed requiring computer repair technicians to hold private investigator’s licenses for a lot of the computer work we do. I wrote about the law a month ago and will spare you the details here.
In short, the state of Texas passed a law that would computer repair technicians to have a private investigator’s license to perform many kinds of computer work. The license requires a criminal justice degree or a 3 year apprenticeship, and failure to comply carries a penalty of up to one year in prison and $14,000 in fines for both the repair tech and the customer. Requiring computer repair technicians to hold these licenses would put many smaller repair shops out of business.
With the help of IJ, Rife, Hayhurst, a PC repair customer, and I are suing the state of Texas to have the law repealed or have its scope restricted.
Here are some links to news and articles about this case on TV and around the web:
- The Institute for Justice’s original press release
- News 8 Austin with Video
- PostProcess, an E-Discovery and ESI issues blog
- CW33 Dallas News at Nine
- KVUE Austin with Video - get a load of yours truly standing in the back. Bigger video here.
If you find any other coverage of this on the web, please post it in the comments. I’d love to see it. As always, I’ll be updating this blog with news as it happens, so check back regularly, or subscribe to the RSS feed!
“Magnum PI? More like Magnum PC, get my lawyer on the phone!”
I propose a law for the Texas legislature to consider
Guy Tanzer | July 2, 2008 | 4:57 pmI propose a law for the Texas legislature to consider where anyone who wants to be a private investigator in Texas must have a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from an accredited university. It seems only fair. And after all, one can’t have under-qualified PIs trying to do computer investigative work, now, can we?
[...] Citronix is filing the lawsuit Leave
Private Investigator License needed to repair computers in Texas | BSteng---- Tech and Computers Discussed Daily | July 2, 2008 | 6:19 pm[...] Citronix is filing the lawsuit Leave a Comment [...]
I don't know but this seems to violate the Texas
Tom | July 2, 2008 | 8:09 pmI don’t know but this seems to violate the Texas Right To Work laws.
This is absurd.
With 3 stores and 19 years in business, this would
John | July 6, 2008 | 5:10 pmWith 3 stores and 19 years in business, this would cause a lot of our customers to be down for a vey long time and would put a lot of people out of work!! Are we trying to increase our unemployment rate in Texas?!?!? This is very, very wrong!! And I agree with a previous response that a PI, in order to work on a computer either needs to get a degree in computer science or work for a computer repair shop for 3 years.