Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
San Francisco, often the breeding ground for “interesting” public policy proposals, decided recently to back off its mandate the would have required retailers of cell phones to label them with radiation levels and pass out material explaining the level of SAR in each device (SAR= Specific Absorption Rate). This has not been done anywhere else [...]
A UK government report issued this week warns that climate change, in addition to threatening many different parts of everyday life, also threatens the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry. The report, available online, warns that regulatory measures have to be taken to lessen the threat of rising temperatures and stormy weather, which would have [...]
So a few weeks ago I hit up Adam Thierer, who has done and is continuing to do great work on all things regulation, on some materials for a project I was working on regarding the precautionary principle in the digital space. Turns out Adam was in the middle of his own Digital Precautionary Principle [...]
A new report out this week in State Tax Notes shows the discriminatory way in which Federal, state and local governments treat their citizens who subscribe to wireless services — and according to CTIA that’s about 93% of Americans. Federal, state and local taxes and fees for wireless services topped an average of 16.3% in [...]
Citing nefarious, and completely imaginative, examples of “Big Mobile” and “Big Cable” shutting down access to the Internet, the FCC voted today to move towards greater regulatory oversight of Broadband Internet through Net Neutrality principles. (indeed, even the HuffPo is saying in the most hyperbolic way that this is “The Most Important Free Speech Issue [...]
An interesting and thought-provoking piece by Malcolm Gladwell over at The New Yorker this month takes a look at the intersection between true civic activism (the kind that could get you killed) and “social networking” activism (the kind that only takes a retweet or hitting the “like” button on Facebook). Gladwell’s piece starts off retelling [...]
A fun little tidbit from Huffington Post today. Cook County Commissioner Robert Steele penned an op-ed revealing that Free Press, strong advocates for Net Neutrality regulation, is pushing its agenda on minority communities in order to gin up support for further regulation of the Internet. I’m sure there is no connection with today’s FCC decision [...]
A “funny until you realize it’s real” story out of San Francisco today (courtesy of the NY Times) where the city will soon require cell phone retailers to display the amount of radiation in each phone that is for sale on their shelves. Even though this concern has been debunked time and again – the [...]
The city of Bellingham, Washington lies close to the Canadian border. It is a sleep town of 70,000 or so with a decent sized University, a pleasant waterfront and charming downtown. (Full disclosure, the author attended said University a decade ago) The town’s motto is, “the city of subdued excitement,” something that probably better fits [...]
I recently wrote an op-ed for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Inside ALEC publication. It’s decidedly non-technical, as most correspondance with a majority in the legislative branch must be. In my dealings with those in state government positions, it seems that only in the last few months have many of them become aware of the [...]
May 22, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
