OK, this whole blogging thing is offically out of control. Tonight, I somehow stumbled upon Pat Sajak’s blog. Yes, that Pat Sajak. Mr. Wheel of Fortune himself.
You think that’s scary? Guess what, Barbra Streisand has one too! Check it out.
Ironically, I stumbled upon these sites while researching claims of media bias on both the Left and Right. Sajak (a diehard conservative) claims the media is full of liberals; Barbra (obviously a Lefty) says that’s nonsense. Maybe we can get these two superstars together for a big debate at PFF’s annual Apsen summit. I think Barbara already lives out there anyway in a big house in the hills. We’ll fly Pat out to meet her and let the sparks fly!
By the way, if you find the Sajak & Streisand blogs a bit dry, head over to William Shatner’s blog. Bill’s a hoot.
According to this Reuters / Hollywood Reporter story, during an address Monday before the National Cable & Telecommunications Association annual conference in San Francisco, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) told cable industry officials that criminal prosecution would be a more efficient way to enforce the indecency regulations. “I’d prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process,” Sensenbrenner told the crowd.
Sensenbrenner apparently said he believes the FCC’s current regulatory process casts too wide a net and that criminal enforcement provides a more efficient solution. “People who are in flagrant disregard should face a criminal process rather than a regulator process,” he said. “That is the way to go. Aim the cannon specifically at the people committing the offenses, rather than the blunderbuss approach that gets the good actors.” He continued, “The people who are trying to do the right thing end up being penalized the same way as the people who are doing the wrong thing.”
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[[cross-posted from PFF Blog]]
Legislators and congressional staff were doing lot of huffing and puffing about the cable industry “cleaning up its act” at the NCTA trade show out in San Fran this week. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was once again leading the crusade for expanding content controls to subscription-based media like cable and satellite TV. Some, like Stevens, favor direct censorship of cable and satellite along the lines of what we already apply to broadcasters. Others favor mandating (or at least strongly encouraging) more parental screening / filtering technologies.
On this latter point, the comment coming out of the event that I found most interesting was from Colin Crowell, an aide to Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). Crowell argued that “If the industry promoted these parental controls in the same way it promoted a new show, you’d have a consumer acceptance of those technological tools.” In other words, if you mandate it (more parental empowerment tools), they will come (and use them to filter / screen content). Well, maybe. Or maybe not.
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They are at it again. Last year, I posted a comment on the French government’s attempt to create a worldwide competitor to CNN–which would be in French only, but not available in France). With that success under its cultural belt, the French are now exploring a new challenge: creating a French competitor to Google.
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The U.S. State Department is proposing to use RFID in passports. Bad idea.
Much has been made of the privacy and security risk, by such sites as RFIDKills.com. Yes, “RFID Kills” is waaaay over-the-top, and will certainly sully the technology overall, but it’s with a purpose.
My comments to the State Department deal just as much with the practical question. What good does RFID do in a passport?:
If chips save significant time over optical character readers, the choice of a contactless RFID chip over a contact chip is not explained. This particularly needs justification in light of the security and privacy concerns that come with RFID chips that would store personal information unencrypted.
The configuration of the RFID chip and reader at border crossings would apparently require the chip to be brought within four inches of the reader, meaning that RFID holds a four- inch advantage over a contact chip. If the Department believes that not having to move passports four inches to make contact with a reader will alleviate congestion at international borders, it should say so. If it does not believe this, it should select a non-RFID chip at most, and perhaps withdraw the proposal entirely, sticking with optical character recognition.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.