FCC v. Fox Television Stations Transcript is Now Live

by on November 4, 2008 · 2 comments

WASHINGTON, November 4 – When I heard yesterday that the Supreme Court had declined C-SPAN’s request for immediate release of the audio tapes from today’s oral argument in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, I thought I would have to wait for months.

I will have to wait months for the audio-tape, of course, but the other part of the story is the Supreme Court now releases the transcript of oral arguments on the same day. It has already done so on the SCOTUS site. And (surprise-of-surprises), the transcript identifies the individual justices who are asking questions!

This is probably old hat to those who follow the high court on a day-in-and-day-out basis. It’s been a few years (I think Brand X was the last case) since I’ve heard one live. But this is a true revolution in transparency, and very helpful for those who want to follow what goes on at the Supreme Court.

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Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World

by on November 4, 2008 · 3 comments

The Cato Institute is holding a book forum Thursday on David Friedman’s book Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World.

David Friedman, author of such books as The Machinery of Freedom and Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, now looks at a variety of technological revolutions that might happen over the next few decades, their implications, and how to deal with them. Topics range from encryption and surveillance through biotechnology and nanotechnology to life extension, mind drugs, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. One theme of the book is that the future is radically uncertain. Technological changes already begun could lead to more or less privacy than we have ever known, freedom or slavery, effective immortality or the elimination of our species, and radical changes in life, marriage, law, medicine, work, and play. “If it can be done, it will be done,” David Friedman has said. “So the interesting thing to me is not what should you stop but how do you adapt.” We do not know which future will arrive, but it is unlikely to be much like the past. It is worth starting to think about it now.

Friedman is a great thinker. It will be a stellar event. Register here now.

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CONTROVERSIES ROCK ALF 7 – ORGANIZERS PLEDGE TO CARRY ON

by on November 4, 2008 · 7 comments

WASHINGTON – November 4 /TLF News Service/ — The recently announced Alcohol Liberation Front event, Thursday, November 6 from 5:30pm on at Gazuza (1629 Connecticut Ave NW), has already roiled the social media world, but organizers pledge to carry on despite the ALF 7 controversies.

“I ain’t a quitter. People ask me to quit. ‘Stop Tweeting – it’s hurting my eyes,’ they say,” said someone other than Brooke Oberwetter, ALF 7 organizer. “But I ain’t a quitter. I’m keepin’ on keepin’ on. ‘Keepin’ on keepin’ on’? Did I just invent that! Better Tweet it!”

Trading on shares of privately-held Facebook remained suspended on the major markets today after it was revealed that the platform doesn’t permit the names of events to be changed. A typo rendering ALF 7 as ALF 6 on the Facebook event page threatens to bring down the social networking giant.

“Facebook won’t let me change the event name,” roared an enraged Berin Szoka on the Facebook page announcing the event. “I pledge to do everything in my power to destroy Facebook,” he didn’t say.

Meanwhile, one pageview of the Facebook event page displayed an ad that caught TLFer Jim Harper as an outrageous effront to the law of trademark. The image at right, displayed exclusively here on TLF and anywhere someone deems it appropriate, shows a screenshot of an ad that may violate Apple’s rights in the iPod trademark.

“It’s not outrageous. Don’t say that. I just think that calling a shaver the ‘iPod of shaving’ has the potential to cause consumer confusion as to the source of the shaver by suggesting that it’s an Apple product. There are so many mistaken allegations about trademark law – this could be a real trademark violation, and it’s worth pointing out.”

Asked if he would be an expert witness in any case brought by Apple, Harper replied, “You’re not funny, you know. You’re writing this yourself, by yourself, and not interviewing anybody. Oh yeah. You’re being ‘meta’ or something. Whatever. How stupid.”

“Sourpuss” Harper will be one of the attendees at the Alcohol Liberation Front event, Thursday, November 6 from 5:30pm on at Gazuza (1629 Connecticut Ave NW).

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Alcohol Liberation Front Thursday, Nov. 6 with Jonathan Zittrain

by on November 4, 2008 · 8 comments

As Adam noted last week, he’ll be debating Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It, at the New America Foundation this Thursday afternoon at 3:30.  Since it seems like a number of TLF readers and contributors will be attending, we’ve decided to piggyback off the event and continue the discussion afterwards with Alcohol Liberation Front 6.  After the NAF panel is over, we’ll be headed to Gazuza (1629 Connecticut Ave, NW), probably arriving shortly after 5:30 or so.  JZ, Adam, and some of the TLF gang will be joining us, and we hope you will too.

WHAT: Alcohol Liberation Front 7
WHEN: Thursday, November 6 from 5:30pm on
WHERE: Gazuza (1629 Connecticut Ave NW)
WHO: Adam Thierer, Jonathan Zittrain, TLFers, and you!  See who else is coming at our Facebook event page.

(Special thanks to one-time TLF contributor and libertarian folk hero Brooke Oberwetter for organizing this event.)

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Mail Daemon

by on November 4, 2008 · 14 comments

For Halloween, I went as a mail daemon. I was expecting a lot of blank looks, but it turns out that almost everyone has gotten a bounced message from a mail daemon at some point in his life. A few people even got it unprompted.

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Special Election Day Telecom Blog Post and News Report

by on November 4, 2008 · 9 comments

I’ve just posted two new entries over at BroadbandCensus.com (in addtion to the one about FCC v. Fox Televisions Stations) below. Now, I’ve got to go and vote.

The pieces at BroadbandCensus.com include a blog post about the real issue in white spaces: not broadcasters versus techies, but keeping the current Swiss-cheese arrangement in the airwaves versus clearing the broadcasters out of their radio frequencies entirely.

Also, in a special election day news report, myself and Drew Bennett have written about the delay in the vote over the universal service fund and intercarrier compensation overhauls.

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Indecency Battle at Supreme Court Brings Back Memories

by on November 4, 2008 · 3 comments

Four-and-a-half years ago, I wrote this piece about how a converging media undermines the FCC’s rationalle for indecency enforcement. The piece, “TV Has Grown Up. Shouldn’t FCC Rules?” first appeared in the Washington Post Outlook section on Sunday, May 16, 2004, and it remains more relevant today than ever: the Supreme Court is today considering Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Station, a case about whether the FCC acted properly in sanctioning Fox over the use of the words “fuck” and “shit” on broadcast television.

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Should a National ID be Required for Voting?

by on November 4, 2008 · 10 comments

Over on the Cato@Liberty blog, I’ve highlighted some recent talk of a creating a national ID system for voting. Worrisome thinking from people who should be more circumspect.

“A Breezy Slide From Vote Integrity to National ID” is the post.

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Video Games, Violence, & Social “Science”: Another Day, Another Fight

by on November 3, 2008 · 20 comments

A new study (which is actually based on an old study) by Dr. Craig Anderson of Iowa State University and two other researchers is making news today because it suggests a link between violent video games and real-world aggression. I have written extensively about such studies here in the past, and have included a list of relevant links down below. But let me just use the opportunity to restate the fundamental problem with the way the press reports these things.

  1. First, the press typically accepts the assertion made by authors of studies like these that the social “science” is unanimous in support of such a link between exposure to violent video games and real-world aggression. there is another side the story, but the press usually doesn’t report on it.
  2. Second, reporters almost always fail to ask about how the researchers define “violent” games and the resulting “aggression” found in these studies.
  3. Third, reporters almost never ask about how strong the correlation is or, more importantly, what other variables might have had an influence on the the subjects who were studied. (For example, did they factor in real violence in the home or at school?)
  4. Finally, the reporters almost never query the researchers about the biases they bring to the task of studying this issue (namely, do these researchers have strong feelings about the content in the games they review such that they think they should be regulated in some fashion?).

Luckily, other social researchers are willing to point out these deficiencies. (See, for example, my reviews of the recent books by Drs. Kutner & Olson as well as Dr. Kourosh Dini.)  With reference to the new study reported in the press today, Texas A&M researcher Dr. Christopher Ferguson has challenged the study on many of the grounds I listed above. Specifically, in a letter to the journal (Pediatrics) in which the Anderson study appeared, Dr. Ferguson argues:

Continue reading →

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Government Data Mining: The Need for a Legal Framework

by on November 3, 2008 · 8 comments

Indiana University law professor Fred Cate writes with characteristic thoroughness and organization in his article Government Data Mining: The Need for a Legal Framework, published in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review this summer.

It took me a while to get around to reading it – a little longer to write it up. Don’t make the same mistakes I did! It’s good!

Here’s a snippet from the abstract:

The article describes the extraordinary volume and variety of personal data to which the government has routine access, directly and through industry, and examines the absence of any meaningful limits on that access. So-called privacy statutes are often so outdated and inadequate that they fail to limit the government’s access to our most personal data, or they have been amended in the post-9/11 world to reduce those limits. And the Fourth Amendment, the primary constitutional guarantee of individual privacy, has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to not apply to routine data collection, accessing data from third parties, or sharing data, even if illegally gathered.

Professor Cate spends a good deal of time on the Supreme Court’s pernicious “third party doctrine,” which exempts information shared with a third party (think of ISPs, banks, etc.) from Fourth Amendment protection. This rule was bad when it was written and it grows worse and worse as we move our lives further and further online.

Oh, there are details from the paper I would have treated differently. He mistakenly says the 9/11 terrorists used false ID. (Fraudulently gotten, yes. False identities, no.) And he omits the Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007, passed as §804 of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-53). But these are trivial issues with a paper that is excellent overall.

Poking around among the Internets to confirm this and that detail, I found this post saying that Professor Cate authored much of a recent report called “Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists.” It’s also very good stuff.

Fred Cate, people!

One of the bright lights.

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