On July 27th, The Progress & Freedom Foundation hosted a Capitol Hill panel discussion entitled “Online Child Safety, Privacy, and Free Speech: An Overview of Challenges in Congress & the States.” The event featured remarks from:
- Parry Aftab, Executive Director, WiredSafety.org
- Todd Haiken, Senior Manager of Policy, Common Sense Media
- Jim Halpert, Partner, DLA Piper
- Berin Szoka, Senior Fellow, The Progress & Freedom Foundation
We’ve just released the transcript of the event, which I have also pasted down below the fold in a Scribd document reader. Also, the audio for this event can be heard by clicking below:
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Here is the full event description: Continue reading →
In episode #44 of “Tech Policy Weekly,” Berin Szoka and Adam Thierer engage in a debate with Internet security expert Chris Soghoian, who is a student fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He is also a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University’s School of Informatics.
Chris is an up-and-coming star in the field of cyberlaw and technology policy as he has quickly made a name for himself in debates over privacy policy, data security, and government surveillance. He straddles the line between academic and activist, and the role he often plays in many tech policy debates is somewhat akin to what Ralph Nader has done in many other fields through the years. Except, in this case, instead of “Unsafe at Any Speed” it’s more like “Unsafe at Any Setting,” since Chris is often raising a stink about what he regards as unjust or unreasonable privacy or security settings that various online websites or service providers use.
On the show, Chris talks about two of his recent crusades to get certain online providers to change their default settings to improve user security or privacy: (1) His effort this week to get major email providers—and Google in particular—to change their default security settings on their email offerings; and (2) his earlier crusade to create permanent opt-out cookies to stop behavioral advertising by advertising networks.
There are several ways to listen to today’s TLF Podcast. You can press play on the player below to listen right now, or download the MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the podcast by clicking on the button for your preferred service. (And do us a favor, Digg this podcast!)
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Conversations about how the Internet can be used to increase the openness and accountability of government usually focuses on the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal government. But on this week’s episode of Technology Policy Weekly, I hosted a discussion of the equally vital issue of public access to court records, joined by:
We discussed a wide range of issues, including:
- Why lay people should care—this is ultimately about reducing the legal profession’s monopoly over access to the courts!
- The philosophical reasons why better access to court records is important – little things like democracy, fairness, consistency, equality, the rule of law, etc.
- The copyrightability of legal records
- The history of the problem & what can be done about it
There are several ways to listen to the TLF Podcast. You can press play on the player below to listen right now, or download the MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the podcast by clicking on the button for your preferred service. And do us a favor, Digg this podcast!
TPW 43: Internet Access to Court Records [31:55m]:
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On this episode “Tech Policy Weekly,” Technology Liberation Front contributors Ryan Radia and Berin Szoka join me for a discussion of the flare-up over Facebook’s recent changes to the data retention provisions of its Terms of Use agreement and whether there are any serious privacy issues in play here—or if this is all much ado about nothing. [Ryan blogged about it here, and I did here.]
Earlier this month, Facebook announced changes to the way it handled or retained user data on its site after a user quits Facebook, raising questions about who actually owns that data and whether any privacy issues were raised by the company’s new policy. Following some intense scrutiny in the blogosphere, Facebook decided this week to revert to their old terms of service until they figured out a new approach to data management and ownership.
You can begin listening by downloading the MP3 file here or by just clicking the play button below. Or subscribe to our Podcast ( iTunes, other).
On this episode of “Tech Policy Weekly,” we’re launching a new format called “Tech Book Corner” that will feature occasional conversations with the authors of important new books about technology policy and the other issues that we debate frequently at the Tech Liberation Front blog.
On this debut episode of Book Corner, we are joined by John Palfrey, a professor of law at Harvard University and the co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. Along with his Berkman Center colleague Urs Gasser, Prof. Palfrey has recently co-authored Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, which was published last summer by Basic Books and which you can find out more information about at www.borndigitalbook.com. [Incidentally, I reviewed Born Digital here last October and I also named it one of the most important technology policy books of 2008.]
In our discussion, Prof. Palfrey explains who exactly counts as a “digital native” and tells us why he decided to write a book about them. He discusses why he believes that there has been some overreaction by older generations to fears about this Digital Generation and he argues that we need “to separate what we need to worry about from what’s not so scary” and “what we ought to resist from what we ought to embrace.” He then outlines how we should think about these issues and concerns going forward, and he stresses the importance of “balancing caution with encouragement” as we do so. Finally, he then applies that framework to three specific issues: privacy, child safety, and copyright.
It’s an interesting conversation and you can begin listening to it immediately by downloading the MP3 file here or by just clicking the play button below!
TPW #41: Book Corner featuring John Palfrey [28:23m]:
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Just wanted draw everyone’s attention to a couple of great podcasts about online safety issues that include comments from members of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF). As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the ISTTF project and final report represent a major milestone in the discussion about online safety in America, and I was honored to serve as a member of this task force.
This in-depth “Radio Berkman” podcast featuring ISTTF director John Palfrey and co-director Dena Sacco is a really excellent (but lengthy!) overview of the ISTTF’s word. Here’s a shorter podcast that Prof. Palfrey did with Larry Magid of CNet. And I also recommend this excellent NPR “On the Media” podcast featuring my friend Stephen Balkam of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI).
For those interested, down below you will find a running list I have been keeping of coverage of the ISTTF. (I will try to keep updating this list here).
Continue reading →
On this week’s show, we discuss government transparency—a topic a number of us here at the TLF have written about lately. Among other things, we discuss:
- Why transparency is important
- What data the government should provide and how
- Good and bad examples of transparency
- President Obama’s promise to have the most accountable administration in history
- Obama’s plans to appoint a Chief Technology Officer
My guests for this show are:
You can subscribe to our podcast here or through iTunes here. Or, you can play or download this podcast using the online player below.
TPW 40: Obama, e-Government & Transparency [31:50m]:
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In several of our previous podcasts (see episodes 34, 35,and 37), we’ve discussed what we’ve called the “Comcast Kerfuffle,” which was the controversy surrounding the steps Comcast took to manage BitTorrent traffic on its networks. Critics called it a violation of Net neutrality principles while Comcast and others called it sensible network management.
This week we saw a new kerfuffle of sorts develop over the revelation in a Monday front-page Wall Street Journal story that Google had approached major cable and phone companies and supposedly proposed to create a fast lane for its own content. What exactly is it that Google is proposing, and does it mean – as the Wall Street Journal and some others have suggested – that Google is somehow going back on their support for Net neutrality principles and regulation? More importantly, what does it all mean for the future of the Internet, network management, and consumers. That’s what we discussed on the TLF’s latest “Tech Policy Weekly” podcast.
Today’s 30-minute discussion featured two of our regular contributors at the TLF, who both wrote about this issue multiple times this week. Cord Blomquist of the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote about the issue here and here, and Bret Swanson of the Progress & Freedom Foundation wrote about it here and here. To help us wade through some of the more technical networking issues in play, we were also joined on the podcast by Richard Bennett, a computer scientist and network engineer guru who blogs at Broadband Politics as well as Circle ID and he also pens occasional columns for The Register. Also appearing on the show was Adam Marcus, Research Fellow & Senior Technologist at PFF, who wrote a “nuts and bolts” essay full of excellent technical background on edge caching and net neutrality.
You can download the MP3 file here, or use the online player below to start listening to the show right now.
Standard Podcast [35:25m]:
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Last night, I appeared on the Jim Bohannon radio show for 30 minutes and discussed the past, present, and future of the Fairness Doctrine and broadcast industry regulation in general. More specifically, we got into efforts to drive Fairness Doctrine-like regulations back on the books via backdoor efforts like “localism” mandates, community oversight boards, and other public interest requirements. These are issues that Brian Anderson and I discuss in our new book, A Manifesto for Media Freedom, which I blogged about here when it was released in October.
If you’re interested, you can listen to the entire show by clicking here.
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