According to respected Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg, Guatemala’s government is infested with corruption. His message is carried very powerfully to fellow Guatemalans and the world in a video he taped before his murder last week.
YouTube has a role as a powerful engine of dissent and government transparency. It’s a commercial, profit-making business, and it is laying bricks on the path to human rights and the rule of law worldwide.
The Cato Institute’s Juan Carlos Hidalgo writes briefly about developments since then on the Cato@Liberty blog.
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:
The TLF’s own Tim Lee, who’s written about the problems with PACER , the arcane and expensive system by which court documents are currently made publicly available—with a separate system for each of the 100+ Federal courts!
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!
Adam Thierer noted in mid-December that the FCC was considering allowing the experimental use of cellphone jammers in prison. The FCC just issued (PDF) a Special Temporary Authorization to allow the DC Department of Corrections to test a cell phone jamming technology.
This technology sounds like an excellent solution to a serious problem: The illicit use of cell phones inside correctional facilities by prisoners across the country. In particular, the technology appears to be “directional,” meaning that unlike traditional jammers, which simply block signals within a certain radius around the jammer, this technology appears to be capable of blocking signals inside the confines of a particular room or building. In fact, I’m sure millions of Americans would love to see such technologies implemented in cinemas, theatres, and other performing arts venues across the country. I, for one, am tired of having the exquisite acoustic delicacies of Bach interrupted by annoying ring tones, such as the (painfully) immortal “Who Let the Dogs Out?”
So Much for The Rule of Law
But there’s one important problem: The FCC isn’t waiving a rule here against cell phone jammer. unless I’m missing some subtle statutory quirk, they’re essentially “waiving” a statute—specifically 47 U.S.C. 333:
No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government.
You don’t need to be an administrative lawyer to know that agencies can’t just ignore acts of Congress—no matter how good the policy reason for the waiver is. That’s a big part of what the “rule of law” means. Period. Do not pass ‘Go’. Do not collect $3,101.09 (today’s equivalent of $200 in 1935, when Monopoly debuted).
Fortunately, as noted in the WSJ article Adam cited, at least one legislator realizes this and thinks it’s worth fixing: U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas) told the Journal that his office is “drafting the necessary legislation to remove this outdated FCC roadblock.” The FCC, of course, sped right past that particular roadblock. But then, what should we expect from an agency that has, under its outgoing (and none-too-soon!) chairman Kevin Martin, simply disregarded statutory limits on its authority when it found Comcast in violation of the agency’s non-binding net neutrality principles this summer? (My PFF colleague Barbara Esbin as eloquently condemned this violation of the rule of law in, “The Law is Whatever the Nobles Do: Undue Process at the FCC” (PDF).)
Now, when Congress considers this question, let us hope that they draw the right lesson from this episode: Whatever the wisdom of outright bans on particular technologies, writing such bans into statutes is a really bad idea. At least if such decisions were left up to regulatory agencies, they would have the flexibility to decide when to depart from a general ban. Thus, the best approach would be to repeal the ban altogether. Continue reading →
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
