If only . . .
I welcome the critical email I recently received about my April Fool’s Day post. The discussion has some interesting provocations, but more importantly it illustrates some security/privacy thinking that more people need to get their heads around.
Here’s my critic:
As a Systems Analyst, I applaud your efforts influencing public policy on such important issues as information privacy and security. However, I strongly disagree with your tactics, and methodology. Propigating fear through disseminating false information is a terrorist style tactic and in the long run I think it does more harm then good.
Continue reading →
Since 2000, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has surveyed the marketing and advertising practices of major media sectors (movies, music and video games) in a report entitled Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children. (The reports can be found here). According to the agency, the purpose of these reports is to examine “the structure and operation of each industry’s self-regulatory program, parental familiarity and use of those systems, and whether the industries had marketed violent entertainment products in a manner inconsistent with their own parental advisories.” The fifth report in this ongoing series was released today.
Generally speaking, the latest report finds that things continue to improve in all three sectors with the greatest improvements coming in the video game sector. But the FTC argues that these industries still need to do more to improve their ratings systems and the enforcement of those systems.
Many of the FTC’s recommendations are unobjectionable in that they are basically suggesting these industries do a better job promoting and enforcing their own voluntary ratings and labeling systems. It’s tough to be against that, of course, but there are some interesting questions about what it means in practice.
Continue reading →
Over at Ars, I cover the European Commission’s new report advocating the creation of a new set of patent courts to unify Europe’s patent system:
The report argues that European competitiveness is hampered by its limited use of patents compared with Japan and the United States. It notes that Americans and Japanese both file more patents per capita than due Europeans, and speculate that Europe’s unwieldy patent system is holding back innovation.
However, the report pays little attention to the possibility that too much patenting could be an even bigger impediment to economic growth. The report devotes only one short paragraph to patent thickets, patent trolls, and other problems created by low-quality patents. It doesn’t offer any concrete recommendations for ensuring that the European patent system avoids the problems now being encountered in the United States.
Nor does the report address the risk that creating a separate patent court will lead to a judicial system that is too sympathetic to expanding the scope of patents. Some observers argue that’s precisely what happened in the United States. They note that since Congress created the Federal Circuit in 1982 to hear patent appeals, the scope of patents has been greatly expanded. Software and business method patents have been legalized, and the bar for obviousness has been dramatically lowered. Some speculate that the large number of former patent lawyers among the judges of the Federal Circuit are one reason for this shift—lawyers who have devoted their lives to patent law will naturally be sympathetic to arguments for expanding the scope of the patent system.
Ryan Paul at Ars has a write-up on the continuing revolt against the REAL ID Act among the states:
The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted last week to block implementation of the federal government’s controversial Real ID act. Since New Hampshire Governor John Lynch does not intend to veto the Real ID rejection bill, it will pass if approved by the state senate. Characterized by New Hampshire Representative Sherman Packard as “the worst piece of blackmail to come out of the federal government,” the Real ID Act creates a set of uniform standards for state-issued ID cards, and mandates the construction of a centralized national database to store information on American citizens…
Idaho and Maine have already passed bills rejecting implementation of the Real ID act, and similar proposed bills are being evaluated in South Carolina and Arkansas as well as New Hampshire. ACLU state legislative department director Charlie Mitchell says that this is just the beginning of a “tidal wave of rebellion against Real ID.” If enough state governments refuse to comply with the requirements of the Real ID act, it is likely that congress will have to reevaluate the entire plan. “Across the nation, local lawmakers from both parties are rejecting the federal government’s demand to undermine their constituents privacy and civil liberties with a massive unfunded mandate,” says Mitchell. “Congress must revisit the Real ID Act and fix this real mess.”
Indeed. Our own Jim Harper has been on the front lines in this fight, testifying before state legislatures and urging them to reject REAL ID. Perhaps his hard work is paying off.
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2007 – The wireless industry association CTIA has retained an economic consulting firm run by the former boss of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to poke holes in proposals modifying a forthcoming auction of radio frequencies.
Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises is run by Harold Furchtgott-Roth, a Republican FCC Commissioner from 1997-2001. Martin worked as a telecommunications attorney for Furchtgott-Roth from 1997 to 1999.
Some technology companies and non-profit advocacy groups have been coalescing around a proposal released in February by a new venture called Frontline Wireless. It would create a new wireless zone for public safety communications.
But CTIA and its major members – particularly Verizon and AT&T – have come out strongly against the Frontline proposal. On April 5, CTIA CEO Steve Largent, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, said in a letter to Martin that there were “issues involving the legality of the proposal.”
The wireless companies are also upset that seriously entertaining the Frontline proposal, which appears to be gaining momentum at the FCC, would delay the agency’s planned auction of spectrum frequencies in January 2008. “It is unclear how a resolution of the issues raised by the Frontline proposal could occur in time for an auction,” said Largent.
Continue reading →
The proposed XM-Sirius merger continues to generate intense debate here in Washington. Broadcasters are aggressively pushing regulators to spike the deal, calling the proposed merger a “monopoly.” As I pointed out in my earlier essay on this, I just can’t buy that argument. I just don’t understand how anyone can honestly believe that satellite radio, terrestrial radio and digital music are not in fierce competition for our ears.
I recently stumbled upon two good essays that make the same point. One is by my former PFF colleague Randy May, who is now the president of the Free State Foundation. In his article, “Thinking ‘Siriusly’ About Satellite Radio Competition,” Randy argues that “the notion that satellite radio constitutes a discrete market for purposes of assessing the merger’s competitive impact seems problematical–and to defy common sense.”
Tim Farrar of TMK Associates agrees. In a new paper entitled “The Competitive Landscape for Satellite Radio,” Farrar argues that “the potential alternatives to satellite radio are, in essence, those technologies which provide (either live or recorded) in-vehicle audio content (i.e. talk, music, sports and information services such as news, traffic and weather).” He continues:
Continue reading →
My friend Steve DelBianco of ACT and NetChoice recently reminded me that the effort by state officials to impose a burdensome crazy-quilt of sales taxes on the Internet continues. Proponents call this effort the “Streamlined Sales Tax Project” (SSTP) by what it really is–as Veronique de Rugy and I argued in this 2003 Cato Institute report–is a giant sales tax cartel. The states basically want Congress or the courts to give them authority to impose parochial tax collection burdens on what it clearly national–sometimes global–commercial activity. And they want to administer it all together as one big cartel. (And you thought the Articles of Confederation were dead!)
Luckily, Congress and the courts haven’t caved to these demands and given state governments the right to ride roughshod over the Constitution and the Commerce Clause. But, in reality, the only thing that’s held back state and local efforts to impose such sales tax collection burdens on Internet vendors so far is an old 1992 Supreme Court decision, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota and a handful of other legal precedents. Those cases made it clear that it would be unfair to impose tax collection burdens on out-of-state vendors. Instead, state and local governments could only require tax collection if the entity they sought to tax had a “nexus,” or tangible physical presence, in their jurisdictions.
Seems fair enough, right? Basically the court was just restating the old “No taxation without representation” motto upon which our country was founded. Well, apparently a lot of state and local officials aren’t comfortable with that notion because they have spent years trying to evade that sensible constitutional admonition. And in recent years they have been trying to get Congress to agree to toss Quill and those other decisions (and the Commerce Clause) out the window so that they can adopt the SSTP and start taxing every Internet transaction is sight.
Continue reading →
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking and writing about the contentious issues surrounding social networking sites, age verification mandates and online child safety in general. I recently released a major PFF working paper on these issues (“Social Networking and Age Verification: Many Hard Questions, No Easy Solutions“).
One of the people who has had a great deal of influence on my thinking about these matters is information security expert Jeff Schmidt, the CEO of Authis, a Reston-based authentication / identification firm. Jeff has 15 years of experience in this field and has worked for Microsoft, Ohio State University, and several other small technology companies. He is also a founder and the elected Director of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, which is the private sector component of the FBI’s InfraGard Program. (InfraGard is an FBI/private sector alliance dedicated to improving information sharing between private industry and the government on matters of national security). Jeff helped the FBI create the InfraGard Program in 1998.
So Jeff knows his stuff, and that’s what makes what he has to say about these issues–especially age verification–particularly important. Luckily, some of the essays he has penned on this subject and shared with me in the past are now online for all to see here. I thought I’d provide some highlights of the key conclusions from his papers, which are listed below:
Continue reading →
I’m excited to report that, as you can see here, I’ve been named an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. I’m not moving back to DC, but once my replacement here at the Show-Me Institute starts on May 1, I’m going to be spending about half my time at home doing tech policy research for Cato. The remainder of my time will be spent on a variety of freelance work. Initially I’ll be doing some freelance work for Show-Me to ensure a smooth transition, but longer-term, I’m hoping to be able to focus full-time on tech policy work.
That means I should be moderately more prolific here at TLF. Also, keep an eye out for my contributions to Cato @ Liberty and the sadly-neglected-of-late TechKnowledge, two great publications you ought to be reading whether I’m contributing to them or not.
While I’m perusing Henley’s blog, I see his co-blogger Thoreau touched on one of my pet issues:
Yesterday I flew from Maryland to Milwaukee, where my wife and I are visiting family for the week. I was surprised to discover that I now have to pass through two machines (the air blower as well as the metal detector), not just one, and that my belt buckle now sets off metal detectors. I don’t have one of those giant ornamental belt buckles beloved of Texans, just a normal belt buckle. Yet now I have to take my belt off, along with my shoes. It wasn’t always this way, so I assume they’ve upped the sensitivity of the metal detectors.
Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.