TPW 19: Internet Gambling, Frontline Wireless, and E-voting Trade Secrets
Tech Policy Weekly from the Technology Liberation Front is a weekly podcast about technology policy from TLF’s learned band of contributors. The shows’s panelists this week are Jerry Brito of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Tim Lee of the Cato Institute, Hance Haney of the Discovery Institute, Radley Balko of Reason magazine, and Ryan Paul of Ars Technica. Topics include,
- Congress considers repealing the Internet gambling ban,
- Frontline proposes open access rules for the 700 MHz band, and
- a judge rules that trade secrets prevent source code disclosure.
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I listen to podcasts in my car through the car radio. Most podcasts are marginal sound quality but I can live with the result. TLF is not even close to that standard. The most recent, TWP 19, was so bad I just gave up and went to the next program. Whoever was the first person to speak after the host's introduction needs to take a course in public speaking. Learn to speak at a somewhat constant volume. Don't drop to a whisper and then back to normal and back to a whisper.
Also, use a mixer board and set the levels for each speaker. Each person was at a different vastly different volume. The only person that's consistently understandable is the host.
I'm not expecting professional broadcast quality here, just something where I can set the volume control and then leave it alone for the rest of the program.
I'm trying to not sound like a jerk, and probably not succeeding. I am very interested in your take on technology issues and the idea of a podcast is a great addition to the blog. I just want to listen without wanting to scream "SPEAK UP" at the radio every 20 seconds.
Dale B
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Thanks for your feedback. It's valuable to hear from listeners about what they like and don't like about the podcast.
I do all the editing myself using Apple's GarageBand software. I'm definitely not an audio professional, so I'm sure I'm not doing everything right.
Unfortunately, we do the podcast via Skype, and the tool we use to record the call doesn't allow us to set different sound volumes for each speaker. I try to adjust the sound level in GarageBand during post-production, but apparently I didn't do it aggressively enough.
I hope you'll keep listening, and please don't hesitate to comment again if you have further suggestions about how we might improve.
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Let's not forget that spectrum licenses are limited, government-backed monopolies. They are very anti-competitive, and by law even NONinterfering uses cannot use the spectrum controlled by the license holder.
A wholesale requirement on what is an artificial and largely unnecessary government grant of exclusivity does not offend my libertarian instincts. I have always found the analogy of spectrum to real property to be inexact, given the flexibility of spectrum, and think that a true free market would be unlicensed.
Wholesale requirements are a way to get the positive, pro-competitive effects of an unlicensed system while still hanging on to the licensing framework. I would either forbid the wholesaler from engaging in retail itself or require that it be conducted through a structurally separate affiliate (messy).
If you for whatever reason (addicted to the revenue, perhaps) *must* hold a government auction for a monopoly license, then isn't it better to require the monopoly holder to then put the spectrum on the market, rather than holding onto it itself? This allows small outfits to make use of the spectrum, when they would never be able to win a license. Our current scheme is too skewed to the organizations that can raise huge amounts of capital, up front.
Incumbents would like to buy up the spectrum and use it to improve their own existing networks. True, competitive wireless broadband of a kind that is a replacement for and not a supplement to existing services are unlikely to be deployed by incumbents.
Wholesale/open access requirements are the best way to approach what a true free market in spectrum would look like. Frontline is the closest we're going to get to true wholesale.
Apart from those arguments, I think they make a compelling public safety case, although I understand that community's desire to not get stuck with an undesirable partner.
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Let's not forget that spectrum licenses are limited, government-backed monopolies. They are very anti-competitive, and by law even NONinterfering uses cannot use the spectrum controlled by the license holder.
A wholesale requirement on what is an artificial and largely unnecessary government grant of exclusivity does not offend my libertarian instincts. I have always found the analogy of spectrum to real property to be inexact, given the flexibility of spectrum, and think that a true free market would be unlicensed.
Wholesale requirements are a way to get the positive, pro-competitive effects of an unlicensed system while still hanging on to the licensing framework. I would either forbid the wholesaler from engaging in retail itself or require that it be conducted through a structurally separate affiliate (messy).
If you for whatever reason (addicted to the revenue, perhaps) *must* hold a government auction for a monopoly license, then isn't it better to require the monopoly holder to then put the spectrum on the market, rather than holding onto it itself? This allows small outfits to make use of the spectrum, when they would never be able to win a license. Our current scheme is too skewed to the organizations that can raise huge amounts of capital, up front.
Incumbents would like to buy up the spectrum and use it to improve their own existing networks. True, competitive wireless broadband of a kind that is a replacement for and not a supplement to existing services are unlikely to be deployed by incumbents.
Wholesale/open access requirements are the best way to approach what a true free market in spectrum would look like. Frontline is the closest we're going to get to true wholesale.
Apart from those arguments, I think they make a compelling public safety case, although I understand that community's desire to not get stuck with an undesirable partner.
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Also: Your discussion of discovery was a bit off. (1) Coca Cola actually *was* once required to divulge a formula in discovery. It refused to comply. Famous case in lots of CivPro casebooks. (2) The usual result of not divulging information requested in discovery is that all inferences are drawn against you that could be reasonably drawn from the evidence. In this case, the inference would have to be that the code was flawed and threw off the election results. Or, they could simply do what happens routinely in such matters and work with the judge and opposing counsel to keep the discovered material private and so on. Their choice.
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