Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Glen Robinson, my favorite professor back at Virginia Law, will be giving a lecture about “Regulating Communications: Stories from the First Hundred Years” at George Mason Law School this Thursday (2/18) at 4 pm. You simply couldn’t find a better person to give that talk. Robinson isn’t quite old enough to first-hand stories all the way back [...]
Since some of my cobloggers have taken to using the phrase “Privacy Paternalists” to describe some advocates of privacy regulation, I want to suggest a distinction growing out of the discussion on Berin’s Google Buzz post below. I think that it’s clear there is such a thing as a “privacy paternalist”—and there are not a [...]
Last week I received Public Knowledge’s press release and letter urging support of a “Bold National Broadband Plan.” I admire PK a great deal on several issues, but remain struck by the arbitrariness of demanding “national plans” for this-or-that technology. It occurred to me that if anybody were to actually ask me (so, don’t), I [...]
I’m a big fan of CNET’s “Buzz Out Loud” podcast and often enjoy co-host Molly Wood’s occasional “Molly Rant” but I’m disappointed to see her jumping on the Google-bashing bandwagon with her latest rant: “Google Buzz: Privacy nightmare.” Instead of appreciating the “privacy by design” features of Buzz, she seems to be rushing to privacy [...]
The Reason Foundation releases my policy brief today looking at the effect network neutrality regulation will have on wireless applications and services. Much has been written about the deleterious effect that regulating network management would have on broadband investment and innovation, and when applied to wireless, which is what FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposes to [...]
If you have a mobile phone, that’s the upshot of an argument being put forward by the government in a case being argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals tomorrow. The case is called In the Matter of the Application of the United States of America For An Order Directing A Provider of Electronic [...]
At least that’s how my former colleague Tom Miller, now at the American Enterprise Institute, used to put it. Still another government/business funded report, this one called “Nanotechnology: a UK Industry View” reaches yet again the same conclusions about nanotechnology as the ones that pop out occasionally like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Nanotechnology White [...]
It’s been a busy week in the Googlesphere. Google made headlines earlier this week when it aired a televised ad for the first time in the company’s history, and again yesterday when it unveiled Buzz, its new social networking platform. Today, Google announced bold plans to build an experimental fiber-to-the-home broadband network that’s slated to [...]
By Berin Szoka & Adam Thierer We learned from The Wall Street Journal yesterday that “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski gets a little peeved when people suggests that he wants to regulate the Internet.” He told a group of Journal reporters and editors today that: “I don’t see any circumstances where we’d take steps [...]
January 27, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
WashingtonWatch.com: Over 100,000 Comments on One Bill
by Jim Harper on February 11, 2010 · 4 comments
It’s not the highest-toned debate the world of public policy has ever seen, but the WashingtonWatch.com discussion on Public Law 111-92, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009, has now reached over 100,000 comments. I’ve discussed the astounding level of commentary—and all the efforts to keep it civil—in a post on the WashingtonWatch.com blog.