One of the arguments in the illegal immigrant issue focuses on the people who hire them: go after thoses that hire illegals, fine them, and enforce legislation against them and there'll be less incentive for illegal immigrants and those that hire them to be, well, illegal in the first place. This is an argument similar to one in the "don't steal music," illegal filesharing, and p2p debate. I see these as parallel arguments in issues that almost mirror each other. Bear with me, if you will, and hold off on the 'denigrating hispanics as if they were low-bitrate encoded mp3s" retorts and subsequent calls for apology.  Additionally, I'm somewhat shotgunning this, so tough it out.

Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of a service was all important in whether a p2p software company could be sued for misuse, regardless, or rather even in respect of, the software company's intent. [MGM v. Grokster] Interestingly and notably, the Court ruled that highly restrictive limits should not be placed on a newly emerging industry based upon rapidly changing technology. We have Digital Rights Management (DRM) that serves to hamper, but not eliminate, copyright infringement. There're many ways to circumvent all kinds of DRM as shown with the recent PyMusique iTunes clone which can strip Apple's DRM.  Focusing on the individuals who download music, the end user, seems not to be fruitful for the RIAA and the MPAA.

Similarly, there're all kinds of ways for illegal immigrants to get around legally obtaining a Social Security Number, paying income taxes, or for an illegal employer, paying unemployment taxes, or paying a living wage. There're registries set up by governments to check SS#'s for self-enforcement and there're ways for illegals to get checking accounts and drivers licenses to falsify or feign legitimacy.  There doesn't appear to be a lot of enforcement which seems to stem from people wanting illegals to "do jobs that even [Americans] won't do" [Vicente Fox] and the idea that immigration helps drive our prosperity [Greenspan].  In essence, we as consumers appear not to want to do anything (but gnash our teeth) to restrict this flow of cheap labor. Are we infringing on our own economic sovereignty?  Trying to round up all the illegals that come over and promptly disappear into our cities doesn't seem to be the answer.

There's some coincidentals with the recent years' Sarbanes-Oxley and corporate ethics prosecutions, too. [Scrushy, Lay, etc.]  With these, they're going after individuals with power.  The thread in these two (three) broad examples appears to be focusing on what's causing the demand for illegal behavior, not the supply, whether it's the technology enablers propagating a demand for illegal files, employers for the demand for cheap labor and us as citizens for cheaper goods, or corporate leaders demanding rakish profits.

If I could place a request for work to be done, go to bed, wake up the next day and have it done for me, I'd do it too.  As Uncle BitTorrent'll do for me, all for the cost of leaving my bandwith on for a certain amount of hours - certainly cheaper than utilizing my credit card at my every whim.  Who knows, said work may've even come from a foreign country, like India, who's awake when I'm not.  Sorta like offshoring.  I guess illegal immigrants are the "Right Shore" for non-digital outsourcing.

I've been on a security tangent lately and one of the documents I decided to read was "Trustworthy Computing," a Microsoft White Paper from 10/2002 [Mundie, deVries, Haynes, Corwine].  Here's a quote on the policy issues surrounding trust of computers:

We are entering an era of tension ... exacerbated by the fact that social norms and their associated legal frameworks change more slowly than technologies.  The computer industry must find the appropriate balance between the need for a regulatory regime and the impulses of an industry that has grown up unreglated and relying upon de facto standards.

Substitute "immigration" or "corporate governance" for "computer" industry and there's a statement that rings true, even with gads of case law on the former.