When Jim DeMint and Steve Scalise first started talking about reforming the regulated relationship between broadcasters and cable companies, oh the fits that were thrown. Even a certain conservative group jumped out in front complaining. But look: these regulations are worth big bucks to the side they favor, and the negotiation deadlocks they produce don’t help the public, they only force everyone to deal with blackouts.
The comprehensive reform package commonly referred to as Retransmission Consent reform should pass. I wonder if FCC thinks it will, as it has begun by tweaking Must Carry rules itself, possibly as pre-emption?
Dish Network working on better-than-current-4G LTE-Advanced tech for a terrestrial wireless network. Quick, dogpile it like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and LightSquared!
Because you know what’s so backward, it’s Orwellian? Claiming that a failure to bring government against Verizon and Comcast, increasing regulation of spectrum and Internet access, is the way to undermine the Telecommunications Act, the bipartisan bill meant to deregulate.
I’m honestly disappointed with Darrell Issa’s Digital Bill of Rights. I’d hoped it’d actually resemble the real Bill of Rights, and be a list of limitations on government, nothing more. Anything else risks being perverted into an excuse for more regulation, more subsidies, and everything else we hate.
Having already applied the unfair double team to AT&T, now DoJ is joining FCC in hassling cable companies. Mike Wendy calls it the new arbitrary and capricious FCC and he’s right. This is double, or even triple regulation when FTC comes into play. That’s the Obama tech policy. All those digital libertarians who backed him were morons, I’m sorry.
Some say we should have only the DoJ on the matter, though, not FCC or FTC.
Oh look, Spokeo learns that existing privacy laws, well, exist. Shh. FTC, you weren’t supposed to let the cat out of the bag.
Harry Reid has put on his Field Marshal cap, stuck his hand in his jacket like Napoleon, and insists on action on Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act, the one that they took the Internet Kill Switch out of in the hopes we’d stop paying attention to a bill that grants the President total powers over private Internet properties. Kill the bill. It may be up to Speaker Boehner if Reid gets his passed.
Headline of the week so far: “Dark side of ‘Anonymous’ comes out in new interview”. Next up at BGR? Probably “Dark side of ‘Mafia’ comes out in new book.