Tech at Night: RIAA, DMCA, Viacom, Google, Gun Owners of America, Free Press
Good evening. A story I expect to hear more about is this a proposed subsidy for radio stations and the RIAA both of some sort of legal requirement for new cellular phones to include an FM radio receiver.
Such a requirement would raise costs on everyone, lower innovation and even basic differentiation options, and be nothing but a detriment to anyone who shops for cellular phones in America. We’d best raise awareness against this before it’s too late.
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Tech at Night: DRM, Google, Wikileaks, Dingell, North Korea, Free Press
A key story from today centers on John Dingell and his criticism of Chairman Julius Genachowski and the Obama FCC. Hillicon Valley reports that Dingell is criticizing the Commission harshly for failing to justify its Title II Reclassification plans to Deem and Pass Net Neutrality regulation of the Internet, and is telling them to stop and let the Congress do its job. Seriously, this is strong language from Democrat to Democrat:
“Unfortunately, the paucity of substantive responses to my [questions] has served only to substantiate my fear that the commission’s proposed path with respect to the regulation of broadband is based on unsound reasoning and an incomplete record, and is thus fraught with legal risk,” Dingell said.
He said the commission should instead look to Congress to grant it more power.
“In this way, the Congress and the commission may ensure the establishment of a steadfast legal foundation for an open Internet,” Dingell wrote.”
The fact is that the Free Press/Google “third way” to Net Neutrality is an illegal power grab online. Support for it is the radical extremist position.
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Fiorina calls out Boxer and Obama on border security
In the past some have questioned Carly Fiorina’s commitment to securing the border from the invasion of illegal aliens, but she’s issued a strong statement challenging Babs Boxer and Barry Obama on their “cynical” disregard for our nation’s security. A key highlight:
“The President talked about accountability in his speech. It is true – more accountability is needed, and that starts with the federal government’s being accountable for fulfilling its most basic responsibility to secure our border. It takes the commitment and the political will to get it done. Instead, with a call for comprehensive immigration reform in exchange for securing the border, the President is using the safety of this nation as a political bartering chip. It is cynical politics at its worst.
I know that certain people in the Republican party oppose all immigration, and that fringe is going to fly into a fit because Fiorina favors having a “functional guest worker program” with or without a path to citizenship in combination with securing the boarder and “enforcement of laws prohibiting the employment of illegal immigrants.” But I believe that green left-isolationist right Numbers USA coalition is a fringe we need to ignore in order to solve what the problems are. Immigration isn’t the problem. Rampant breaking of the law is a problem. The insecurity of our border is a problem.
But to me she’s clearly and strongly calling for things to be done right. Securing the border is an imperative. Enforcement of the previous immigration compromise is an imperative. Only when those happen can we talk about “guest workers.”
Carly Fiorina is right. Barbara Boxer is wrong. Fiorina must win in November.
On the Obama cybersecurity bill
So, the Cybersecurity bill is back, fully formed as the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA). When I first highlighted the bill in August of 2009, I summarized it like so:
S. 773, a bill by West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Democrat, would create new “emergency” powers for the President, a ‘cybersecurity’ Enabling Act of sorts, that would give the President the authority broad powers over any “non-governmental” computer networks, whether public or private, that are declared by the President to be “critical.”
These powers extend beyond declared emergencies, however. Rockefeller’s bill would immediately grant the ability of the government to control hiring and firing of jobs related to these so-called critical networks, because the President could unilaterally declare that jobs related to those networks would be required to be filled by people certified to the task by the government. And much like with the car dealerships, the Obama administration is fully expected to use its power to favor political allies for these jobs by granting or denying certification depending on your level of donations to Obama for America or the Democratic National Committee.
Yeah, so it’s back. Some parts of it may seem harmless, or even beneficial, such as the part highlighted by the good people at Bayshore Networks that seems to amount to an online Real ID act. But such things, if we want them, can and should be achieved without all the baggage associated with them.
Because you see: the emergency powers sought by the Democrats and the White House not only amount to a huge power grab over private computers that is unprecedented online, but the purported goal still won’t be achieved. The bill is as overbearing in its means as it is impractical in its ends.
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Free Press: Too radical even for Obama officials
Some were skeptical when the idea was raised of a split between FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and the Communist organization known as Free Press. We’re so used to the President being the furthest left holder of his office since the Carter years at the earliest, that we forget sometimes there are real unabashed hammer and sickle wavers out there.
Just look at what Robert McChesney wants. He co-founded Free Press and he wants nothing less than the gradual nationalization of the mass media in America. He calls it “media reform” and it’s as statist and wrong for America as “health care reform” turned out to be.
Genachowski sure isn’t going to forget how much the radical neo-Marxists hate his guts, though, not when Free Press buys a large add calling him a “$ellout” in a move reminiscent of MoveOn’s disgusting and libelous attack on General Petraeus.
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Reading the FOIA releases of the Andrew McLaughlin Emails II
Continuing from Part I, we are reading the emails of White House Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin to see if he’s been acting inappropriately as an agent of Google from his job working for the people.
Despite close cooperation with Google “evangelist” Vint Cerf, McLaughlin laughably claims on September 4 that “I keep a very strict line between myself and Google (and Googlers).” Clearly he only does so in public, where people can see.
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Law and Order: Google’s Intent
It’s been a while since we peeked in at Google’s doings. The proud champion of unprecedented FCC power grabs toward Net Neutrality regulation of the Internet (for which opposition is growing in the Senate) is still under fire for two broad breaches of the public’s trust: The Andrew McLaughlin lobbying from the White House, and the massive privacy breaches in the Street View program.
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