Fishing lesson

Today’s juicy piece from Nosy Tarsee is about an agency that bought the gadget first and asked questions later.

Let’s call it “Agency F,” and its boss “Mr. Fish.” Listen well, because the Supreme Court just gave Agency F a very public grade.

First, the agency wanted to track every commercial fishing boat, day and night, but it bought its tracking devices in April or May 2019, and only then held its “public consultations” from November 2019 to January 2020.

That means the people were asked about devices already paid for. The Court called those consultations pro forma, which means “for show.”

Second, the agency skipped its homework. Its own rules say a new rule must rest on a scientific study, and that the affected people must be told about it. Agency F relied on a 2006 report from abroad, almost 15 years old, and never even showed it to the fishing operators. Zero marks.

It also did not know what its gadget could and could not do. A magistrate asked a few simple questions. Can the device catch cyanide fishing? No. Can it detect overfishing? Definitely not. Can it find boats that have no device? Only “faintly.”

The chief justice then noted that the output was no different from the reports fishing boats already filed by hand, so the Court found that round-the-clock tracking had no real link to the goal.

Worse, the order went beyond what the law allowed. The law asks boats to report their daily catch and where they land it, not their location every minute of the day. An associate justice pointed out that this might push operators to type false locations just to protect their trade secrets. Because the data may also be used as evidence in cases, the Court called the scheme an unreasonable search and seizure.

The order also treated boats unequally. It covered only big commercial vessels, yet the law covers municipal boats, too, and the agency’s own survey said illegal fishing by small boats was just as big a problem. That failed the equal protection test.

Then came the scary story. Agency F warned that Europe would slap a “red card” on fish exports, but the Court found no such threat in the papers. Exports to Europe actually rose 17.5 percent, from about $320 million in 2021 to about $376 million in 2022.

Do not cheer for the fishing firms too fast, though. The Court agreed that their trade secrets were real, but it also said that corporations cannot invoke the right to privacy, which belongs to people. The firms won on other grounds.

Which agency bought the gadgets before it asked the fishermen? And who in that office signed off on the shopping list?