Tech at Night

Even the Glenns Greenwald now admits that NSA work leads to dead terrorists. We come to the true agenda of Edward Snowden and his accomplices: hindering America and aiding our enemies.

It’s a real shame that the NSA was apparently pretty insecure. Fortunately it sounds like he would fail today.

Bitcoiners have even been scamming their allies, Mt. Gox.

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Tech at Night

How do we know that the NSA stuff is being driven by anti-Americanism? So much outrage about NSA and American allies, but so little about Russia, China, and American rivals. Heck, I’m not even seeing a peep about a Chicom firm Lenovo buying Google Motorola.

Now here’s a major reform idea I could get behind: merging FCC and FTC. By removing one entity, we reduce the added burden on business when two different regulators come after them for the same stuff. Getting rid of DoJ’s antitrust division would help, too. Because now even SEC is grabbing new tech powers.

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Tech at Night

It’s neat how the New York Times is dredging up an old NSA website as news. I guess it beats writing about Obamacare breakins or Benghazi.

And it’s interesting how Democrats don’t seem to want to dig into the Healthcare.gov or Benghazi failures but seem ready to blame Target for crimes against them.

So the Obama administration wants us to believe that taking gun databases from the states is legal, Healthcare.gov is legal, but NSA is illegal. Sure, buddy.

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Tech at Night

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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Tech at Night

If the whole card skimming scam keeps up, ATMs are going to be a real problem. At least, the unattended kind. In fact we’re probably already at the point where it’s getting to risky to be using ATMs at less intelligently monitored locations, like gas stations or hotels.

Remember Net Neutrality? Mike Wendy rightly says it’s “Undermining Free Speech, Private Property, Free Markets and the Will of the People:. Let’s hope the FCC loses in court, again over this.

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Tech at Night

While I don’t share the zeal some have for ECPA reform, to change the requirements to search emails on third party servers, I think the whole project is at worst harmless so long as FISA is preserved.

As much as a broad free trade area would be great, I begin to wonder whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been hijacked by special interests, and so must fail. I mean, this “threat to Internet freedom” stuff is likely overblown, but the treaty is likely being used to try to ram stuff through that could never pass as ordinary legislation.

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Tech at Night

It’s been a week, hasn’t it? It turns out the night I last did Tech, I pushed it way too hard, and my illness stuck with me another week. But we’re better now.

For what it’s worth, Steny Hoyer doesn’t see the Trans-Pacific Partnership passing anytime soon. I’m all for free trade, but TPP seems to be going far beyond trade, and becoming a grab bag of special interest provisions, and so I’m fine with giving it a lot of scrutiny.

As I’ve said before, the key to fixing patents is to remove the incentive the USPTO has to give out too many. So I’m glad the House rejected Democrat plans to reinforce USPTO getting funding that way. We must not let the office keep the feeas it collects anymore.

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Tech at Night

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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Tech at Night

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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Tech at Night

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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Nima Jooyandeh facts.