John Kass’ Feb. 11 column regarding Chicago’s defective parking meters and how to zero-out the time remaining on them shows a poor use of 1st Amendment freedoms. I applaud Mr. Kass for publicizing the fact that the meters are defective. Without such publicity they probably won’t be fixed. But Mr. Kass went too far in explaining step-by-step how they can be reset to zero time remaining with a television remote control.
What Mr. Kass has done is a minor version of explaining precisely how one can make a homemade bomb. It is enough that the press publicizes the fact that it can be done, but explaining exactly how to make a bomb merely guarantees that more bombs will be made and more people hurt.
Thanks to Mr. Kass, tens of thousands of people now know another way to wreak havoc on their fellow citizens (certainly many more than knew how to do so before Mr. Kass told them).
So the next time our meters are zapped, taking away all time remaining, should we send the resulting parking ticket to Mr. Kass to resolve?
