I’ve been talking about FCC overreach in this space for a long time, but now the Obama FCC is trying so hard to go so far, everyone’s noticing now. Yes, the FCC’s plan to attack free speech got so much unkind attention that it’s been pulled, for now. Don’t count on it being gone forever, though.
Because they still haven’t given up on Net Neutrality. Commissioner Michael O’Rielly points out that Chairman Tom Wheeler’s plans are wrong and an overreach, however just as importantly, Commissioner Ajit Pai calls it “Groundhog Day” because this will make at least the third attempt to grab this power.
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Bitcoin is not really as widely used as its shills want you to think.
Ajit Pai is the man and understand what it means for the courts to be used to quash innovation. As the courts refused to crush the VCR, I want them to leave Aereo alone.
By the way, Healthcare.gov is still at risk. Good thing it’s a miserable failure, though that doesn’t help the poor souls already signed up and at risk in the vulnerable systems.
Democrats want to pass a new law mandating a private-public partnership to track where you and your phone are at all times, in the name of 911 calls. But remind me again how all the Snowden stuff is about privacy and not anti-Americanism and a rollback to 9/10/2001 thinking again. Sure, guys. Sure.
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Here we go again. The last couple of times, they wanted to use “statistical sampling” to replace the Constitutionally-mandated direct enumeration in the Census. Now they want to use online polls to do the Census.
Let’s be clear: The Obama FCC is terrible, and generally threatens innovation, but I absolutely oppose efforts to do a comprehensive Communications Act bill. It’s nothing against Fred Upton and Greg Walden on this, as they’ve generally been pretty good on these matters. But any huge bill like this is going to get set up by every lobbyist in DC, and it will invariably grow a grab bag of special interest giveaways. A comprehensive Communications Act would become a ‘we have to pass it to find out what’s in it’ moment. Don’t do it. Pass one reform at a time. Find incremental reforms.
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Think the FAA is so great for making a slight loosening of its ridiculous regulations on phones on planes? Think again: The Euros are making us look bad by getting way ahead of us, and allowing full use of LTE at any time.
Anonymous is trying to go to war with America. Cells must start coming out denouncing this behavior I believe, or be considered anti-American and a threat to liberty until proven otherwise. Can we please go back to barring anarchists from the country, and expelling those we find?
Then again, the dope fiends among them are giving us plenty of reason to arrest them as it is through gangs like Silk Road, so… maybe that’s redundant.
I know it’s likely that the courts will toss out Net Neutrality again, but it still makes me smile to read predictions like that.
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I do apologize if I don’t go as in-depth tonight as I should. I think I’m coming down with something.
There goes Pandora. They appear to be giving up on getting their law passed that would give them a sweetheart regulatory deal, stomping on any need they’d have to negotiate in the marketplace. They don’t want competition or a marketplace. They want a command economy for music expanded beyond the insane system we already have in place for terrestrial radio. It’s good we’ve defeated their legal aims.
Speaking of picking winners and losers in regulation, here’s why they’re trying to kill Aereo. Broadcasters and cable companies are feeling threatened by the loss of revenues that are threatened by the push to go back to free terrestrial broadcasts, and we can’t let them get away with using government to prop themselves up.
MSNBC commentators don’t understand the law, surprise surprise.
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Rooting for injuries watch: Anonymous Australia takes on Anonymous Indonesia. And then Singapore is after their own Anonymous cell. The blackshirts will be rooted out wherever they are, around the world*.
Cognitive dissonance watch: Google paints themselves as the Hobbits against Sauron that the NSA is supposed to be, even as they try to simultaneously goad people onto Google+ via Youtube comments, and then broadcast Google+ information to Android users, opting you in by default. I’m sorry, but these hobbits aren’t being taken to Isengard. They’re ruling Isengard.
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The push continues for US firms to be able to release stats about what the US Government asks of them. I support this. I’m in favor of the NSA doing its job but oversight is important, too.
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Sorry I missed Monday. That night it just slipped my mind and I went to bed!
The purpose of patents is to encourage useful works. That’s not just my idea. It’s in the Constitution. That’s why anti-patent troll legislation makes sense. Apparently more and more people are agreeing, because patent trolls are starting to lobby against it. Though I still say the best way to fight patent trolls is to stop issuing so many bad patents to begin with, by taking away that source of funding from USPTO that gives them an incentive to give too many patents. Give them a fixed budget.
Look, I’m fine with the kind of non-specific transparency of FISA warrants Google is loking for but ACLU trying to help terrorists isn’t interesting to me at all.
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Update on ECPA reform: Last time I commented that it was problematic to give such strong protections to terrorist emails on American corporate-run servers. Well, it turns out ECPA reform backers are listening, and have pointed out to me that FISA will work just fine in those cases. Fair point. I still don’t think the law makes sense, but at least it’s not too terribly harmful.
This tutorial to “NSA-proof your email” is all wrong. All wrong. You NSA-proof your email by using end-to-end encryption, not by using transport level encryption. Hosing your own email is a great idea, mind you (it makes the ECPA-related issues moot), but NSA can still spy on you all they want if you follow that webpage’s instructions.
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Wow. Even as it comes out that Apple is going to pay more than Pandora for its coming radio service (which is probably going to be a windfall for small publishers), here’s a great set of answers from Marsha Blackburn on IRFA for conservative activists.
Good news: it only took $5,000 to get a Wikileaks person to… leak information. Ha. More of this, please.
Remember when I shook my head at all those digital libertarians stupid enough to vote for Obama? Well, heh. Now we find the Obama IRS is targeting open source software groups for tax repression. Heh. Told you so.
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