Never waste a good crisis. Some Eurocrats are looking to use the NSA fearmongering as an excuse to lock down the Internet, and the Obama administration is fighting back because closing off that form of free trade in ideas would hurt everyone, not just themselves. Of course it’s still suspect to believe just anything Edward Snowden has alleged, given reports that he’s a liar.
So even as Microsoft and Google reasonably sue to be able to release non-specific, aggregated data on secret court requests for data, NSA may release its own stats on its programs. This should not be seen as good enough, since FISA covers more than just the NSA.
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Ed Snowden continues to harm America with his treason, embarrassing Barack Obama by getting Europe mad at him. Snowden is also harming cybersecurity efforts which are important since we’re not ready for serious attacks.
Meanwhile Snowden’s co-conspirator after the fact Julian Assange’s Wikileaks is suing Visa in Iceland. I say Visa should make him testify.
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Some issues that face us in the tech world get complicated fast, especially when it comes to changing existing Washington regulations. The Internet Radio Fairness Act is one of those messy issues. Please welcome Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who answered some questions for us on that issue.
How would you describe IRFA, the Internet Radio Fairness Act, to a concerned conservative activist? Conservatives can agree that music distribution companies should be free to choose a business model that makes the most sense for them, and this includes launching legal, digital broadcasting ventures. But the so-called Internet Radio Fairness Act (H.R. 6480) was introduced last Congress to help webcasters like Pandora and radio stations artificially reduce a key input cost – the amount the government says webcasters should pay recording artists for access to their music.Continue reading »
It’s the hot topic, so I’m going to start off with a few points on FISA and PRISM.
Point one: Foreign agents can control US phone numbers, particularly in this age of constant cybersecurity threats.
Point two: Searching a third party service provider isn’t the same as searching your home.
Point three: ECHELON is an old program, one where the UK’s intel team spies on us, and the NSA spites on them. NSA-avoidance advice that tells you to favor non-US firms is laughably stupid.
Point four: Data mining of metadata for mathematical analysis of networks, using known terrorists and allies as anchors, isn’t the same as spying on anyone.
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So the left is mad that the President’s new pick for Commerce isn’t totally in the pocket of the unions, and they’re mad the new pick for FCC, Tom Wheeler, isn’t a radical socialist like Bernie Sanders. I’m not all that optimistic about either pick though. The President is choosing bundlers for personal loyalty, which means radicalism on his terms, but still radicalism.
This is amazing though, and this is something the radicals will never tell you: more Americans lack access to public water than to broadband Internet. Twice as many, in fact. Government is a failure, compared with private competition.
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We’re still at war online, guys. The Chinese are scouting us and even criminal enterprise is under constant attack. And make no mistake DDoS attacks affect not just the target, but the networks surrounding the target, too, so even a criminal racket like Silk Road should have attacks on it stopped, for the health of American networks. And again, the anarchists SWATted a member of Congress, Mike Rogers, to fight for weaker security online.
Yet, The President and Democrats continue to obstruct CISPA, instead of getting the job done. This guy made illegal executive orders on the topic, but as soon as we take good, light-regulatory legislative action, he suddenly wants to slam on the brakes. Shameful.
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CISPA continues to remain the big story right now. It’s moving on, though some are concerned that it was effectively renegotiated in back room meetings. It needs scrutiny before passage, I’m thinking. It’s probably a decent but watered-down bill at this point, but let’s look before supporting at this point. We need a good cybersecurity bill, not just any old thing.
Which is exactly what Jay Rockefeller is up to: flailing about, expanding government willy-nilly, in the name of cybersecurity. The SEC? Doing Cybersecurity? Insane.
I like the idea of the Internet Freedom bill, though. The global trend is away from freedom online, and it’s up to us to try to do something about it. The idea that the bill would hurt Net Neutrality is just a bonus.
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I meant to post over the weekend, but with RedState so active for Easter, I decided just to cancel the Friday Tech.
Hey folks, here’s more evidence: Population density matters for Internet speeds. Wealth also matters. Those who don’t adjust for these factors, and tell you US Internet speeds are slow or bad, are selling something. Usually government.
And yes, it’s still a problem that the Obama administration isn’t doing enough to oppose global Internet regulation through the ITU. Some say the administration was duped, but I think they just don’t oppose global regulation and governance. Obama wants to bow to foreign countries by letting global tyrants hijack the Internet from the free peoples of the world.
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Ah, Free Press. One of my early favorite tech topics at RedState. One of the more visible George Soros-funded fronts, along with Public Knowledge. I have to say my early hits have been somewhat successful too, when Free Press completely gave up on Save the Internet as a fake left-right thing, instead fully integrating it with the Free Press extremist brand. Remember when they could fool solid groups like Gun Owners of America with their dishonest rhetoric?
I mean, they do still have language up that says “Organizations as diverse as the Christian Coalition for America, Moveon.org, the ACLU and the American Library Association have joined in support of Net Neutrality.” But, what? MoveOn, ACLU, and ALA are ‘diverse?’ Get real. Christian Coalition is the only right-wing fig leaf they have left, and Christian Coalition isn’t exactly known as a small-government group, nor a tech policy leader. Come on. I won, they lost. Net Neutrality was exposed as a single-party, left-wing effort, like so many others of the extremist Obama regulators. Time to… Move On.
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