Implantable RFID chips have recently caused some privacy extremists to flip their wigs, but it’s not the privacy crisis they say. Find out why in my recent column at TechNewsWorld.
October 2004
The New Deal-esque “chicken-in-every-pot” mentality continues to win converts in municipal government circles. Yesterday, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said the city will now seek to provide free wireless Internet access for the entire public. “No San Franciscan should be without a computer and a broadband connection,” he said. We’ve had numerous rants about this [...]
I’ve ranted here before about the bad things that are in the intelligence reform legislation pending on Capitol Hill. As election day draws nearer without a final vote, it looks less likely that intelligence reform will pass during the pre-election posturing season. One hopes that the lame-duck Congress will be hungry for turkey and return [...]
If you’re wondering where the Presidential candidates stand on tech issues, CompTIA interviewed both campaigns and the record is here. They don’t seem all that different from each other (mainly b/c Kerry is so vague it’s hard to tell what his positions are on some issues). On VoIP, though, Kerry’s response seems more regulatory in [...]
As Adam posted earlier, the FCC decided to not force incumbent companies to share their fiber to the curb networks with competitors. In my oped that appeared in the Washington Times last Sunday, I compare this decision to receiving a green light for speedier traffic. The FCC–the traffic cop of the communications industry–just raised the [...]
Here’s yet another another article documenting the growing substitution of wireless for wireline services in America and across the globe. A new Yankee Group report says that 6 percent of households have now “cut the wire” entirely and gone wireless for all their communications needs. The Yankee report notes that the wireless-oriented households are skewed [...]
The FCC has just fined Nickelodeon and ABC Family for the heinous crime of showing too many commercials during kids’ programming. Apparently FCC regulations say that children’s programming may contain no more than 10 1/2 minutes of advertising per hour on weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays. And apparently Nickelodeon and ABC Family [...]
Just got word that a new website, “Fairnessdoctrine.com” has been launched in support of a bill by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. The site is co-sponsored by Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the Democracy Access Project, David Brock of Media Matters, and Tom Athens of Democracy Radio. I’ll refrain from rehashing the [...]
The Chicago-based Heartland Institute today released a new study on local government ownership of broadband networks, by Joseph Bast, the president of the Institute. Entitled “Municipally Owned Broadband Networks: A Critical Evaluation,” the paper focuses on the situation in three Chicago area suburbs, but is chock-full facts, figures, and logic that can apply to any [...]
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.