Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
In the lead essay for the “Cato Unbound” symposium this month, I analyze recent political movements that have been aided by Internet-based communication by positing a set of questions, Activists played important roles in bringing down dictators in the Arab world, stopping the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in Congress and electing Barack Obama—just to [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
In their paper, “Loving the Cyber Bomb? The Dangers of Threat Inflation in Cybersecurity Policy,” my Mercatus Center colleagues Jerry Brito and Tate Watkins warned of the dangers of “threat inflation” in cybersecurity policy debates. In early 2011, Mercatus also published a paper by Sean Lawson, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at [...]
Six months may not seem a great deal of time in the general business world, but in the Internet space it’s a lifetime as new websites, tools and features are introduced every day that change where and how users get and share information. The rise of Facebook is a great example: the social networking platform [...]
Rebecca MacKinnon, a former CNN correspondent and now Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, discusses her new book, “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom.” MacKinnon begins by discussing “Net Freedom,” which she describes as a structure that respects rights, freedoms, and accountability. She discusses how some governments, like China, use coercion to make private companies act a as subcontractors for censorship and manipulation. She goes on to discuss a project she launched called Global Network Initiative, where she urges companies like Google and Facebook to be more socially responsible. MacKinnon believes technology needs to be compatible with political freedoms, and she issues a call to action for Internet users to demand policies that are compatible with Internet freedoms.
Today, the FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry, responding to an emergency petition filed last August regarding temporary shutdown of mobile services by officers of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) district. The petition asked the FCC to issue a declaratory ruling that the shutdown violated the Communications Act. The following statement can [...]
Congress freed up much-needed electromagnetic spectrum for mobile communications services Friday (H.R. 3630), but it set the stage for years of wasteful lobbying and litigating over whether regulators should be allowed to pick winners and losers among mobile service providers. The wireless industry has thrived in the near absence of any regulation since 1993. But [...]
Folks, I wanted to bring your attention to this conference on Feb. 24 from the Information Economy Project at George Mason University. The pitch: The assembly line of our knowledge-based economy begins with technology discovery and ends with the moving target of a consumer market. Connectivity is funded and rewarded through exchanges of time, money, [...]
May 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.
