Our legal and regulatory systems ensures that no airline will break ranks and test pilots. The first airline that does will most certainly be crushed in "Whack-A-Mole" fashion. If the airline industry standard were to blindfold pilots during takeoff and landing, then the first airline to unblind their pilots would be vilified in the press and destroyed by regulatory agencies and the courts.

I was involved at the beginning of HIPAA implementation in medical IT services. At the time fines for losing a single backup tape could vary from $1 million to $250 million dollars. The most responsible medical providers scrambled to implement encryption from end to end including backups tapes and drives. They put special filters on their computer screens to prevent viewing from the side. They required users to have a fingerprint USB key to use the computer. They put in the best firewalls available from military suppliers. They had their systems tested weekly by professional hackers.

The bulk of the medical providers though did none of this. They made friends with their state Attorney General and implemented every feel-good policy suggested. These providers updated their websites and documents with strong sounding statements about their commitment to privacy. And they fired nurses who looked at the health records of relatives and friends.

And when the regulators needed to send a message that they were serious about HIPAA privacy who did they pursue? Why the providers who worked to better secure their IT systems and processes. Their real-world changes made them stand out in a crowd of pretenders. Government hates stand-outs and so quickly punished these more responsible leaders.

We live in a world of all or nothing. If every nurse walked out when required to get a vaccine, then change in policy is possible. But when only the most conscientious 10% do, well they are vilified and smeared and sent packing.