Gotta love how Rand Paul grandstands, accomplishes nothing, but then claims credit for everything.
How you can tell when it’s time for the Congress just to sit down and do nothing. When Democrats and Republicans are making uncharacteristic arguments. Isn’t it strange that Rick Perry, who famously put out a book in praise of federalism, is against federalism on gambling? I’m just going to assume there’s some fluky thing at work here and ignore this aberration from him.
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Hello all. I was without power for 25 hours after Sandy, and so I’m a bit behind. So tonight’s edition of Tech at Night is going to be put together a bit quickly. Sorry about that. By the way, while obviously a hurricane can take out wireless towers, wireless was vital for keeping me in touch with the world when I was without power at home. It was great. I’m not sure exactly what good FCC monitoring could do though, except to use a crisis to expand the role of the state.
Watch as the administration plays games: on one hand it tries to use Iranian attacks on banks as an excuse to legislate cybersecurity mandates, instead of attacking Iran back, while on the other hand it opposes cybersecurity mandates at the ITU! How about we oppose all cybersecurity mandates, guys?
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With that business out of the way, back to Tech at Night. I for one am glad that Jon Kyl and Sheldon Whitehouse are having trouble coming up with a compromise. The Lieberman-Collins bill favored by Harry Reid and Barack Obama is terrible and just an awful, huge power grab. We’re better off waiting to see if we get a Republican Senate next time to pass something along the lines of CISPA or SECURE IT, than passing bad bill in compromise.
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It’s clear that the Obama administration wants the Safe Web Act renewed, what with the big showy announcement over at ICE (though if ICE is going after “Copy Cats,” how long until Samsung gets nailed?).
I’d want to look carefully though. We don’t have to just renew it. We can examine it and change it in any ways that make sense given the Obama administration’s pervasive abuse of regulatory powers.
Given these and other fights for greater power, it’s kinda funny that the very same Obama FCC is criticizing the efforts by Russia to censor the Internet along the same lines as the administration’s PROTECT IP proposal.
That’s right, never forget: SOPA was just the House version of a Dem Senate/Obama administration idea.
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Things that are compatible with Google’s values: Prostitutes. Websites for copyright infringement. Illegal drugs. Pornography. Mortgage scams. Spying on people’s wireless networks. Things that are incompatible with Google’s values: legal exercise of Second Amendment rights.
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Republicans are eager to get to work against the President’s regulatory bypasses of the last two years. Cliff Stearns promises “aggressive and rigorous” oversight of Internet, Energy, and Obamacare, says Hillicon Valley. As the Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, that’s no idle threat.
Meanwhile Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton is looking forward as well as backward, by looking to guide the FCC proactively on the issue of increasing the wireless spectrum available for Internet access. I think it’s usually better when legislators lead rather than letting those unelected, unaccountable regulatory bodies go off on their own, so I’m glad of this.
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