The other day my iPhone belched and I lost the contents of a little program I used to keep track of all my online passwords. Most of the information I lost was scattered in other places, but, as is usually true when these things happen, I found out the hard way exactly how scattered it was.
So I stepped back a generation and bought an organizer for computer passwords. The old pen and paper variety. And promised myself I would never rely on a computer to track such critical information again (yeah, sure). The organizer I got was a bit overpriced but more or less what I wanted. Instead of spaces that said name, address, and phone it has spaces marked website, username, and password.
Nothing fancy, but at least a spiral notebook has the common sense not to try to sync with an empty file on the internet, erasing itself in the process.
At any rate, I was busy filling the pages up with all the passwords I could remember when I turned to the inside front page, where I found this remarkable paragraph:
WARNING AND DISCLAIMER
Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and accurate as possible, but no warranty or fitness is implied. The information provided is on an "as is" basis. The author and the publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages arising from the information contain, or subsequently stored, in this book.
I am, very nearly, speechless. A disclaimer and warning in an organizer? Surely this is someone's idea of a joke. Certainly no lawyer spent an afternoon -- or, God forbid, several days -- writing up this garbage and then submitted a bill for it?
If the lowly spiral organizer now requires a legal disclaimer, the American experiment is dead.