The conventional Beltway wisdom would be that net neutrality legislation should have a real chance now with the election of President-Elect Barack Obama and strengthened Democratic majorities in the Senate and House.
But there are two recent developments which make the case for net neutrality regulation less compelling.
Free Airwaves
The Federal Communications Commission approved the use of unlicensed wireless devices to operate in broadcast television spectrum on a secondary basis at locations where that spectrum is open, i.e., the television “white spaces.” In other words, a vast amount of spectrum will soon be available to provide broadband data and other services, and the spectrum will be free.
George Mason University Professor Thomas W. Hazlett notes that
[S]ome 250 million mobile subscribers in the US paid about $140 billion to make 2 trillion minutes’ worth of phone calls in 2007, accessing just 190MHz of radio spectrum. The digital TV band, in contrast, is allocated some 294MHz—and it’s more productive bandwidth. Tapping into this mother lode would unleash powerful waves of rivalry and innovation.
With the publication of Understanding Privacy (Harvard University Press 2008), George Washington University Law School professor Daniel J. Solove has firmly established himself as one of America’s leading intellectuals in the field of information policy and cyberlaw. Solove had already made himself a force to be reckoned with in this field with the publication of important books like The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet (Yale University Press 2007), The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age (NYU Press 2004) and his treatise on Information Privacy Lawwith Paul M. Schwartz of the Berkeley School of Law (Aspen Publishing, 2d ed. 2006). But with Understanding Privacy, Solove has now elevated himself to that rarefied air of “people worth watching” in the cyberlaw field; an intellectual — like Lawrence Lessig or Jonathan Zittrain — whose every publication becomes something of an event in the field to which all eyes turn upon release.
Like those other intellectuals, however, my respect for their stature should not be confused with agreement with their positions. In fact, my disagreements with Lessig and Zittrain are frequently on display here and, we have been critical of Solove here in the past as well. [Here’s Jim Harper’s review of Solove’s last book, with which I am in wholehearted agreement.] In a similar vein, although I greatly appreciate what Prof. Solove attempts to accomplish in Understanding Privacy — and I am sure it will change the way we conceptualize and debate privacy policy in the future — I found his approach and conclusions highly problematic.
Good editorial in the Boston Globe today about “The Dangers of Internet Censorship” by Harry Lewis, a professor of computer science at Harvard and fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Lewis argues that:
Determining which ideas are “harmful” is not the government’s job. Parents should judge what information their children should see – and should expect that older children will, as they always have, find ways around restrictive rules.
Anonymity is a defense against the tyranny of the majority. There are many, many valid uses of anonymity tools, such as Tor. The belief that anonymous tools exist only for the edges of societies is narrow-minded. The tools exist and are used by all. Much like the Internet, the tools can be used for good or bad. The negative uses of such tools typically generate huge headlines, but not the positive uses. Raising the profile of the positive uses of anonymity tools, such as Tor, is one of our challenges.
The fight for freedom has seen brighter days, I grant. I think it will see still brighter days yet, though, if we can encourage another generation to join the cause. Towards that end, I wrote a song, “Take Up the Flame.”
As the song’s credits indicate, I’ve dedicated the song to my old friend and mentor, Walter E. Grinder—one of the many people who inspired me to take up “the flame.” I originally planned to debut the song at a conference planned by the West Coast chapter of the Students for Liberty, to be held at Stanford University in mid-November. I figured that Walter, who lives nearby, could hear the tune in person. That meeting got cancelled, alas. Not to be deterred, though, I’m now distributing the song virtually.
The song’s credits also indicate that I’ve released it under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License, and made the lyrics and chords freely available for downloading. It would delight me if somewhere, someday, “Take Up the Flame” helped to raise the spirits of young folks rallying for the Good Fight. (Although I don’t imagine anyone will find much reason to license the song commercially, I’ve also stipulated that any such licensee must agree to tithe a portion of the proceeds—10% of income, traditionally—to the Institute for Humane Studies, an organization that has long taught students about liberty.) Sing it loudly and proudly, friends of freedom!
See my take on the election and the prospects for capitalism in today’s Wall Street Journal:
If Barack Obama ran for president by calling for a heavier hand of government, he also won by running one of the most entrepreneurial campaigns in history.
Will he now grasp the lesson his campaign offers as he crafts policies aimed at reigniting the national economy? Amid a recession, two wars, and a global financial crisis, will he come to see that unleashing the entrepreneur is the best way to raise the revenue he needs for his lofty priorities?
As TLF readers may already have noticed, Alex Harris, a law student at Stanford and Adjunct Analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has joined us as a contributor to TLF.
Alex, who was a Google Policy Fellow at CEI this past summer, has done a lot of top-notch blogging over on OpenMarket.org. He also wrote a very interesting essay that appeared in The American Spectator recently which argued against the reimposition the Fairness Doctrine. Alex’s writing focuses on issues ranging from civil liberties to intellectual property reform to competition policy. Alex is also the man behind the hilarious “Liberty Lolcats” series.
I’m sure Alex will be a great addition to TLF—in fact, his first TLF post ever (discussing shrinkwrap contracts) generated heated discussion and was linked to by Reason Hit & Run (more on this issue from Tim Lee here).
SAN JOSE, November 7 – Emboldened by their summertime victory against Comcast, advocates of network neutrality said Thursday that the next front in battle for the principle would be against wireless carriers who make “unreasonable” network management decisions. read more
SAN JOSE, November 6 – It was Kevin Martin’s day to suck up praise from Silicon Valley. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission – for about two more months – came to the Wireless Communications Association’s annual conference here on Thursday to be feted by many Googlers, including company co-founder Larry Page. read more
The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it will hold “a series of public hearings beginning on December 5, 2008, in Washington, D.C., to explore the evolving market for intellectual property (IP).”
It’s timely, then, that we will be having a forum Monday on a provocative book whose thesis is the title: Against Intellectual Monopoly. Co-author Michele Boldrin will present the book, and Rob Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation will critique it.
Highlighting one of the issues at Monday’s forum, the Arts+Labs blog points to Atkinson’s testimony about the value of American intellectual property on the export market. Over 50 percent of U.S. exports depend on some form of IP protection, according to Rob Atkinson.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology. Learn more about TLF →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.