What happens when a government hollows out?

Answer: Private interests take control of the machinery of state to enhance and protect their profitability.

In some cases, this results in simple looting (like the US mortgage fiasco and EU meltdown). In others, Byzantine laws and rules are enacted that crush innovation and trample personal rights.

Unfortunately, based on this measure, the US and the EU is well on the way to becoming hollow. There's no going back.

Take today's example. At the behest of the Copyright Cartel, the US Justice Department's FBI raided the offices, seized the assets, and criminally indicted/arrested the senior management of the Hong Kong based firm, Megaupload. The crime? Copyright infringement MAY have happened on this extremely popular file sharing site.

What?

And this was on the heals of the attempt to pass the global censorship bills SOPA/PIPA. Here's an amazingly lucid video, by the new media professor Clay Shirky, on what those bills actually do and the contorted thinking behind them.

The first example Clay provides has the feel of the last days of the USSR. A government/private enforcement regime, so intrusive, it stops kids from doodling on birthday cakes. Wow!