Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
In previous posts about the battle for control of the Cato Institute, I’ve noted (Part I) that the “Koch side” is a variety of different actors with different motivations who collectively seem not to apprehend the Cato Institute’s value. Next (Part II), I looked at why the Koch side is fairly the object of the [...]
Meet the Data Transparency Coalition. The Washington Post‘s Capitol Business blog reports this morning: A small but growing collection of companies has formed a coalition that will push the federal government to establish a standard system by which agencies categorize their data. … “Our members understand that if the government identified its data elements in [...]
The Cato Institute’s jobs page has a new posting. If you have the right mix of data/technical skillz, public policy knowledge, love of freedom, and vim, this could be your chance to advance the ball on government transparency! [Added: For more background on Cato's transparency work, see this and this.] Data Curator, Center on Information [...]
Last week, I posted about the conflict between the Koch brothers and the Cato Institute, threatening to make that post first in a series. Never let it be said that I don’t follow through on my threats, sometimes. Recapping: I believe the Koch brothers want what’s best for liberty, but the actions of the “Koch [...]
It’s well known now that a long-simmering contest for control of the Cato Institute has bubbled over. On the last day of February, Charles and David Koch filed a lawsuit against the widow of former Cato chairman Bill Niskanen, Cato president Ed Crane, and Cato itself seeking to have Niskanen’s shares returned to Cato or [...]
The Federal Trade Commission issued a report today calling on companies “to adopt best privacy practices.” In related news, most people support airline safety… The report also “recommends that Congress consider enacting general privacy legislation, data security and breach notification legislation, and data broker legislation.” This is regulatory cheerleading of the same kind our government’s [...]
I was astounded to see the misstatements and misapplication of math in a recent Atlantic blog post called “How Much Is Your Data Worth? Mmm, Somewhere Between Half a Cent and $1,200.” For his back-of-envelope calculations about the value of personal data, Alexis Madrigal writes, “User profiles — slices of our digital selves — are [...]
Paying close attention to language can reveal what’s going on in the world around you. Note the simple but important differences between the phrases “open government” and “open government data.” In the former, the adjective “open” modifies the noun “government.” Hearing the phrase, one would rightly expect a government that’s more open. In the latter, [...]
Given the importance of privacy self-help—that is, setting your browser to control what it reveals about you when you surf the Web—I was concerned to hear that Google, among others, had circumvented third-party cookie blocking that is a default setting of Apple’s Safari browser. Jonathan Mayer of Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society published a [...]
My seen-it-all cool was shaken yesterday when I examined how a Senate cybersecurity bill would scythe down legal protections for privacy. Anyone participating in government “cybersecurity exchanges” would have nearly total immunity from liability under any law. No Privacy Act, no ECPA, no E-Government Act, no contract law, no privacy torts. The scuttlebutt is that [...]
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.
