With that business out of the way, back to Tech at Night. I for one am glad that Jon Kyl and Sheldon Whitehouse are having trouble coming up with a compromise. The Lieberman-Collins bill favored by Harry Reid and Barack Obama is terrible and just an awful, huge power grab. We’re better off waiting to see if we get a Republican Senate next time to pass something along the lines of CISPA or SECURE IT, than passing bad bill in compromise.
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It’s clear that the Obama administration wants the Safe Web Act renewed, what with the big showy announcement over at ICE (though if ICE is going after “Copy Cats,” how long until Samsung gets nailed?).
I’d want to look carefully though. We don’t have to just renew it. We can examine it and change it in any ways that make sense given the Obama administration’s pervasive abuse of regulatory powers.
Given these and other fights for greater power, it’s kinda funny that the very same Obama FCC is criticizing the efforts by Russia to censor the Internet along the same lines as the administration’s PROTECT IP proposal.
That’s right, never forget: SOPA was just the House version of a Dem Senate/Obama administration idea.
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US attempts to extradite Kim Dotcom have been delayed until 2013. It is unconfirmed whether the delay is related to the need to send a reinforced tanker to New Zealand in order to have a vehicle strong enough carry his weight back to the United States. In the meantime, the hubris (and food) filled man is trying to dictate terms to the US. That won’t go over well with prosecutors, I don’t think.
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Darrell Issa’s House Energy and Commerce is going to have a special hearing with all five members of the FCC, including newly confirmed members Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai. The FCC is expected to be questioned about issues ranging from wired phone competition to spectrum. I hope Mitt Romney’s people are listening, because the hearing should also highlight regulatory reforms needed across the executive branch after the Barack Obama expansions.
Expansions which include yes, picking winners and losers in the marketplace.
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Things that are compatible with Google’s values: Prostitutes. Websites for copyright infringement. Illegal drugs. Pornography. Mortgage scams. Spying on people’s wireless networks. Things that are incompatible with Google’s values: legal exercise of Second Amendment rights.
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Hey, digital libertarians? Hope you’re ready to move on from Barack Obama, His administration thinks the First Amendment is an obstacle to greater government on the Internet, and not something that must be respected or protected by the courts when it gets in the way. This of course turns the First Amendment on its head.
I guess in the Democrat parallel world Tim Wu and Barack Obama inhabit, the amendment says “Congress shall make no law… unless we really, really want to regulate, then it’s fine.”
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When I read the President’s Executive Order Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment, I’m reminded of the scene in Spaceballs when Dark Helmet tells the crew of Spaceball One “What are you preparing? You’re always preparing. Just go!”
For the Obama administration to spend a year preparing whether or not to address a list of reforms, instead of just doing them, suggests to me the administration simply isn’t serious about getting government out of the way.
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Why the Marketplace Fairness Act is looking inevitable: We’re up to about a third of all GOP governors backing it, and there’s a reasonable probability of a former GOP governor becoming President with an all Republican Congress.
Broadening the tax base without actually raising taxes. It’s the Holy Grail for a conservative governor. I expect it’ll get done in 2013.
Riddle me this: If the US government perpetrated Stuxnet and its successor, why do the attacks justify US government action domestically?
If we don’t fix the spectrum crunch, we won’t like the consequences. And that’s why we need government out of the way of the secondary spectrum market, starting with Verizon/Comcast.
Guess what: Internet bill of rights only if it’s like the original and is only a list of restrictions on the Congress.
You want more proof that every single private industry privacy debate in DC is completely wrong headed? MSIE 10’s do not track default is unpopular. People don’t care. They value cheap/free stuff and convenience over privacy protection.
Other countries are looking to tax American businesses online. Does Barack Obama have the guts to fight for us? Or will he bow once again?
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Previously in the Tech at Night series we saw CLIP, the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. A group talking tech with a slogan like “Liberty drives Innovation” is one that interests me.
So now we have a brief email interview with Fred Campbell, Director of CLIP.
Tech at Night: What are your biggest policy concerns today?
Fred Campbell: The two biggest concerns are calls for international regulation of the Internet and the ongoing spectrum crisis.
China and Russia are trying to seize control of the Internet from the United States through the United Nations. The International Telecommunication Union, a specialized agency of the UN that governs international telephone services, is meeting this December to consider expanding its authority to include the Internet. Some nations have already proposed limiting Internet privacy rights, imposing international network standards, and taxing international Internet usage. Ceding control of these issues to authoritarian governments would destroy the free market foundations that made the Internet a success and weaken liberty throughout the world. If these nations have their way, it would limit future innovation, slow economic growth, and chill political expression.
The other big issue concerns the mobile Internet. CTIA reports that, as of December 2011, there were over 331 million wireless connections in the US, and, according to the FCC, more smartphones were sold in 2011 than PCs. The result is a massive increase in the use of mobile data services by businesses and consumers, which is turning the Internet into the mobile Internet. Mobile Internet growth is driving innovation across all communications sectors from app developers and mobile content providers to mobile service providers. The same growth that is helping drive our economy is also creating a need for more mobile spectrum. Mobile devices use this spectrum, also known as radio waves, to connect to the Internet. When consumers use their mobile devices more, the increased usage also uses more spectrum, and we are starting to run out. According to Cisco, mobile data traffic grew 133 percent in 2011, and is expected to grow another 18-fold by 2016. We need more spectrum to meet the increase in demand, but the government controls our nation’s spectrum resources, and it’s moving too slowly on this issue. The lack of spectrum is already beginning to have an adverse impact on consumers, and it’s going to get much worse if we don’t act now. We have to start moving a lot faster on spectrum issues.
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