Censorship’s the big word right now. The FCC’s under pressure to ban pro sports blackouts, and the Supreme Court may end national profanity rules. However I consider those things small. Few people have access to television broadcasts. Most of us aren’t actually censored by these regulations.
We all have access to the Internet though; that’s how a nobody like me is able to shape the debate against well-funded leftist groups. So I’ll freely admit it: It’s a self-serving thing for me to oppose Internet censorship. I don’t want the Obama administration to have the power to collaborate with private leftist groups to steal people’s domains, and force all ISPs to cooperate with that effective creation of a national censorship blacklist.
They want to call the little guys “E-PARASITES,” using copyright as cover to censor whatever the heck they want. Because once you let the government start blanking out parts of the Internet, then what’s to stop them from blanking out oversight of that censorship? Nothing. Just ask Australia, which censored the internet “for the children,” but then started banning oversight of the censorship, as well as unrelated content like American anti-abortion websites.
The committee vote on SOPA / E-PARASITES is coming, and I’m hearing that the witness list for the bill is stacked 5-1 in favor of the bill. In the Republican House, we’re rigging the hearings in favor of giving the President more regulatory power over the Internet. It boggles the mind. Please consider contacting the Judiciary Committee and asking them to oppose this censorship power grab.
If the US Government starts monkeying around with DNS, the world will ignore it, the same way we ignore Chinese attempts to censor the Internet. We will lose our position as world leader of the Internet overnight.
Continue reading »
Late start tonight for Tech at Night. Sorry, but I’ve started a plan to get myself out of California, and to be honest I’m more than a bit nervous about the whole thing. Looking for new work in the Obama economy? Yeah.
But at least Marsha Blackburn wants to help the tech job situation by taking on Barack Obama’s twin regulatory nightmares of the FCC and the FTC. The EPA isn’t so hot, either.
Seton Motley is still plugging away against Net Neutrality, too, referencing Phil Kerpen’s new book: Democracy Denied on the Obama regulatory scheme to bypass the Congress when implementing radical ideas.
Continue reading »
Hello again to those I saw in Charleston over the weekend, and hope to see you next time to those who weren’t able to make it!
While I return to California and get settled in again, it seems that some are leaving the state for good, and the hostile business climate is why. This includes the punitive Amazon Tax which has made it impossible for Amazon and others to host affiliate programs in California, destroying small businesses, slashing profits, and killing jobs. And this is a story we’re seeing again and again, up and down the state. New and higher taxes, even of the unconstitutional variety, kills jobs.
So my message to Tennessee’s Governor Haslam is don’t do it. Don’t be like us. Create a job-friendly environment, or you will only compound whatever revenue problems you have.
Continue reading »
Have you ever noticed that the Soros-funded left never refers to Sprint Nextel by the firm’s full name? They only talk about Sprint. You know why? If they say Sprint Nextel, it’ll remind everyone that when #3 Sprint and #4 Nextel merged, wireless competition, prices, and service all improved. If you remember that fact, they think you might make the “wrong” predictions about #2 AT&T and #4 T-Mobile merging, creating a better threat to Verizon, improving competition, service, and prices.
But the whole Sprint/George Soros Unholy Alliance is all about deception. Soros-funded groups like Public Knowledge know nothing else. So says Mike Wendy: “they do great damage to the integrity of the review process, which ultimately harms the American consumer.” And so says Seton Motley: “The “public interest” is best served by what the public is interested in. And the public – the consumers, the people – aren’t at all interested in what Free Press, Public Knowledge and Media Access Project have to offer.”
They’re both right on the money. Their interests are not those of the public. they want to socialize the mass media in America. They call it media reform. Remember “health care reform?” Yeah.
Continue reading »
So, read any good Tech posts lately? OK, I couldn’t think of a better way than that tonight to introduce a pair of RedState posts on the top story of the moment: AT&T’s announced plans to acquire T-Mobile USA from the Germans. It seems that there are two major conservative perspectives on this deal.
One was described by LaborUnionReport on Sunday: if the non-union T-Mobile workforce is forced under the unionized AT&T umbrella, then the CWA and the AFL-CIO literally profit. And sure enough, the AFL-CIO has now come out in favor of the deal, even though much of the radical left is going to oppose it. I’ve mocked the CWA in this space for backing Net Neutrality over the interests of its members, but apparently blocking this merger would be a bridge too far, because blocking the merger would be against the interests of the union bosses.
However I disagree with blocking the merger regardless of the union issue. If we want to fight forced unionization, let’s pass Right to Work laws and reform the NLRB. Let’s not stop a merger that should improve the wireless service options and quality available to Americans, effectively increasing competition by merging two tech laggards together.
Continue reading »
Tonight, we start with a longer note that requires some setup, so bear with me as I break from the usual format for a moment.
–––
The FCC’s attempt to reclassify broadband as if it were a telephone service had already encountered opposition from a strong, bipartisan majority of Congress – not to mention usually Democratic allies like the AFL-CIO, CWA, IBEW, LULAC, MMTC, NAACP, Urban League and Sierra Club.
It is increasingly becoming a question of whether the FCC really wants to pick a Title II fight in the Courts, another with Democratic coalition members and yet another with Congress. That kind of path has the potential to be lose-lose-lose for the FCC and for Democrats.
But another story that emerged last week may be the most interesting fight of all.
Continue reading »
It doesn’t matter that nearly all House Republicans are against it, and a good number of Democrats besides. It doesn’t matter that ATR is against it, CNBC warns it could “kill the Internet,” or that we just don’t need it.
The FCC has gone ahead and put out a Notice of Inquiry to go ahead with Deem and Pass reclassification of ISPs away from being “information services” under the law, which was the plainly obvious intent of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. You see, in Comcast v. FCC, the courts have strictly limited how much regulation the FCC can do of information services. So, the FCC is going to declare that ISPs are now phone companies, and regulate accordingly.
Continue reading »