As I began work on tonight’s late Tech at Night, reports came out of an explosion at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, Japan. As Japan continues to deal with an unimaginably strong earthquake and then a devastating tsunami caused by that quake, I hope nobody takes those special circumstances and tries to argue against clean, effective power generation technology in the general case. Let them bury the dead first, clean up, and examine the causes of the problems before we then pause and make intelligent decisions.
Though as much as the earthquake causes me to woolgather about my own earthquake history, life does continue to go on here in America. And in fact, Republicans are getting so aggressive on tech policy issues. Mike Lee in particular has gotten much attention for calling for antitrust hearings against Google in the course of greater Senate committee efforts toward possible Search Neutrality laws. In fact I suspect he’d get even more if not for the Sendai earthquake.
I’m sure it’s infuriating the daylights out of the radicals that one of America’s most prominent TEA Party Senators is in favor of strong government action here, and I don’t know if I agree with it myself, but if Microsoft was vulnerable to years of government harassment despite the fact that anyone, at any time, could easily acquire high-quality competing products, so will Google be despite the existence of major search competitors.
Though if Senator Lee is making this move because of the juicy political effects, more than an actual desire to be a trustbuster, then his move gets two thumbs up from this observer. Ditto Joe Barton’s rumblings of going after Google for the children and their privacy.
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I know nobody wants to talk about Net Neutrality right now when unions are the issue giving everyone warm feelings right now, but there were important hearings held Wednesday. Greg Walden’s House subcommittee held hearings on HJ Res 37, which disapproves of Net Neutrality to invoke the Congressional Review act and overrule the FCC’s power grab.
On top of that, the FCC responded to the demands from Fred Upton, Lee Terry, and Walden to give an economic justification for Net Neutrality. The response was unsatisfactory, and the Republicans concluded, in a statement that in fact called Net Neutrality a “power-grab”: “The truth is imposing these rules will cause more harm than good by stifling innovation, investments and jobs.” They’re right, too, notwithstanding Nancy Pelosi’s ignorant bleating.
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Much to cover, and less time to cover it in! So many important things I don’t even know what to hit first. So, I’ll be biased and hit what I found out about from RedState. Google and the NLRB teamed up to promote unionization, with Google providing free ad space.
That’s a problem for three reasons. First, the NLRB is supposed to be the impartial arbiter of disputes between unions and employers. For the NLRB to promote unionization is to tip its hand as being a tool of one side: the unions. Second, Google isn’t even unionized. Third, and the undoing of the scheme: The NLRB, like the rest of the government, is prohibited by law from accepting free goods or services. If it weren’t for that, they’d all have continued to get away with it as they have since 2008. What a technicality.
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Good evening, I wrote in my best Alfred Hitchcock impression. Top story as we go into the weekend: our friendly neighborhood House Republicans are pressing on with their oversight of the FCC and Net Neutrality in particular. The resolution disapproving of Net Neutrality is postponed, but instead we’re getting pressure on the FCC to justify its actions economically. Good on Greg Walden, Fred Upton, and Lee Terry!
Meanwhile, up in Vermont, we’ve got a case study going on demonstrating why we don’t want industrial policy in the volatile, constantly innovating telecommunications world. Government grants to favored firms tend to favor those firms and their investors, not the people intended to get the help. Vermont is trying to pump government money into Universal Access, and failing. Let’s not repeat that nationally, please.
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Welcome to the remarkably early Tech at Night tonight. When I have my initial preparation done by 6pm, I’m not going to stay up until midnight to do the actual writing. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.
We start with some mild bad news: the resolution disapproving of Net Neutrality has been delayed. Fred Upton is getting recognition for his active work challenging the Obama administration on its overreaches, and Greg Walden’s subcommittee seems to be following suit nicely, but we will have to wait on this one particular vote.
The Democrats are definitely worried, though. Apparently it’s a bad thing that the FCC’s ability to act ahead of the Congress. Haven’t these Democrats ever heard of actually passing legislation to deal with new challenges?
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Hello! There’s no one clear theme of things to discuss tonight. It’s a diverse list of topics, so let’s just muddle on through and see what’s going on.
We’ve got some good news from what the Republicans in Washington are going. On the Senate side, the side we haven’t heard nearly as much about thanks to the Obama-Reid majority there, conservative Republicans are taking key roles. Senators Toomey, Rubio, and Ayotte will join the Senate subcommittee responsible for FCC oversight. Get to it, gentlemen and lady.
Meanwhile, in the House, Speaker Boehner has come out strong against Net Neutrality, calling it a threat, and warning about follow-on regulation like the Fairness Doctrine. Committee members are active too, judging by H. J. Res. 37 by Greg Walden, Fred Upton, and the gang. This simple, readable, eight-line resolution disapproves the Net Neutrality power grab.
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And now I really push the definition of Tech at Night, starting to write this at 2am. I’d originally planned to skip tonight’s edition, and instead just sleep. But I woke up, and sleep isn’t returning anytime soon, so let’s make the rounds of tech and policy.
Some Democrats still haven’t learned the lesson of the PCCC. The far left alternative to the DCCC published a Net Neutrality pledge for Democrats to sign. Every Democrat who signed it lost in November. Yet some Democrats continue to press that extremist agenda. It shows just how of touch Harry Reid’s Senate really is.
Possibly more importantly, the drive for the Internet Tax (which again, they call Universal Service Fund reform) continues from the left. The New York Times came out for it, and a group called Consumer Federation of America is even targeting Netflix specifically for an Internet tax. Watch out.
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On Monday I did the first half of my catchup work. Now we’ll do the second half. And one of the big issues coming up is copyright. Over the last thirty years, copyright in America has been radically reformed. While traditionally it worked as patents still do work, as a temporary grant of monopoly enforceable in civil courts, we’ve gradually moved them into the realm of criminal law enforced indefinitely. And I believe we’re gone too far in that direction.
So when I hear about the COICA, a new copyright and counterfeiting law promoted by the Obama administration, I’m concerned. At a fundamental level, the COICA would give too much power to government to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist. No, copyright is not at serious risk in America today. It is simply certain business models that are failing, and it is not the place of government to try to prop them up.
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I’m back. CPAC week came and went. Then another week came and went after the horrible cold I got at CPAC. But now I’m healthy again and it’s time to start catching up. Though there’s no way I’m going to post on every tidbit I’ve run across in the last two weeks, I can try to hit the highlights.
And let’s start with the fact that the Internet Kill Switch is back under a new name. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman have reintroduced the bill under a new name. They think if they put freedom in the name that we’ll ignore the problems inherent in giving the President emergency powers to wage economic war on America. The Internet Kill Switch is a broken idea. We don’t let the President close supermarkets nationwide if one butcher in one city has an e. coli outbreak. We can’t apply the same overreaction online.
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Remember when the Communication Workers of America backed Net Neutrality in the mildest way possible, despite the fact that it risked killing CWA jobs? Well here’s their payoff: CWA is all-in for the Internet Tax.
Of course, the left isn’t calling it the Internet Tax. Instead it’s “Universal Service Fund reform,” by which they mean finding a way to get more money into the so-called Universal Service Fund for rural phone access, then spend that money on state-run Internet access. How will they get that money? With “contributions” of course, by which FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski actually means USF taxes.
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