I’m currently plugging away at a big working paper with the running title, “Argumentum in Cyber-Terrorem: A Framework for Evaluating Fear Appeals in Internet Policy Debates.” It’s an attempt to bring together a number of issues I’ve discussed here in my past work on “techno-panics” and devise a framework to evaluate and address such panics using tools from various disciplines. I begin with some basic principles of critical argumentation and outline various types of “fear appeals” that usually represent logical fallacies, including: argumentum in terrorem, argumentum ad metum, and argumentum ad baculum. But I’ll post more about that portion of the paper some other day. For now, I wanted to post a section of that paper entitled “The Problem with the Precautionary Principle.” I’m posting what I’ve got done so far in the hopes of getting feedback and suggestions for how to improve it and build it out a bit. Here’s how it begins…
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The Problem with the Precautionary Principle
“Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?” That is the traditional response of those perpetuating techno-panics when their fear appeal arguments are challenged. This response is commonly known as “the precautionary principle.” Although this principle is most often discussed in the field of environment law, it is increasingly on display in Internet policy debates.
The “precautionary principle” basically holds that since every technology and technological advance poses some theoretical danger or risk, public policy should be crafted in such a way that no possible harm will come from a particular innovation before further progress is permitted. In other words, law should mandate “just play it safe” as the default policy toward technological progress. Continue reading →
Kudos to Mashable for collecting these “10 Hilarious Vintage Cellphone Commercials” from the past two decades. Strangely, I don’t remember ever seeing any of these when they originally aired [although some are foreign], but it might have been because I flipped the channel when they came on. Most of really horrendous. My favorite is the Radio Shack ad shown below, not just because of the phone, but because of the Bill Gates-looking kid at the end. And speaking of Radio Shack, check out the ad down below, which I originally posted here a few years ago, for a 1989 Tandy machine, then billed as its “Most Powerful Computer Ever.” Accordingly, you would have had to practically mortgage your house to own it with a price tag of $8500! Whether its phones or computers — which are increasingly one in the same, of course — it’s amazing how much progress we’ve seen in such a short period of time.
PaidContent.org has posted a chart showing “Who’s Getting Buzz Settlement Money.” This refers to the $9.5 million payout following the Federal Trade Commission settlement with Google a class action suit over its “Buzz” social networking service. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission entered into a consent decree with Google over its botched rollout of Buzz saying the search giant violated its own privacy policy. Google will also pay out to various advocacy groups according to the distribution seen in the chart as part of a separate class action. Payouts to advocates like this are not uncommon, although they are more often the result of a class action settlement than a regulatory agency consent decree. [Update/Correction 5:13 pm: I should have made it clear that this payout was the result of a class action lawsuit against Google and not the direct result of the FTC settlement. Apologies for that mistake, but still interested in the questions raised below.]
But that got me wondering whether this might make for good fodder for a case study by a public choice economist or political scientist. There are some really interesting questions raised by settlements like this that would be worth studying.
President Obama finally and quietly accepted his “transparency” award from the open government community this week — in a closed, undisclosed meeting at the White House on Monday.
The secret presentation happened almost two weeks after the White House inexplicably postponed the ceremony, which was expected to be open to the press pool.
The same post also contains a great quote from Steve Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, who said that the award was “aspirational,” much like Mr. Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.
When am I going to receive a Pulitzer to encourage me to write better blog posts?
Early in President Obama’s term it became clear that efforts to close the revolving door between industry and government weren’t serious or the very least weren’t working. For a quick refresher on this, check out this ABC news story from August of 2009, which shows how Mr. Obama exempted several officials from rules he claimed would “close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely” and use their power and position “to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people whom they serve.”
Last week, Washington, DC federal judge Beryl Howell ruled on three mass file-sharing lawsuits. Judges inTexas, West Virginia, and Illinois had all ruled recently that such lawsuits were defective in various ways, but Howell gave her cases the green light; attorneys could use the federal courts to sue thousands of people at once and then issue mass subpoenas to Internet providers. Yes, issues of “joinder” and “jurisdiction” would no doubt arise later, but the initial mass unmasking of alleged file-swappers was legitimate.
Howell isn’t the only judge to believe this, but her important ruling is especially interesting because of Howell’s previous work: lobbying for the recording industry during the time period when the RIAA was engaged in its own campaign of mass lawsuits against individuals.
The bolding above is my own and is meant to underscore an overarching problem in government today of which Judge Howell is just one example. In a government that is expected to regulate nearly every commercial activity imaginable, it should be no surprise that a prime recruiting ground for experts on those subjects are the very industries being regulated.
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.