Articles by Adam Thierer 
Senior Fellow in Technology & Innovation at the R Street Institute in Washington, DC. Formerly a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, President of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
I was about start a long rant about the absurd new anti-Internet gambling bill that Congress just passed but then I read Mike’s post over at TechDirt and realized there’s not much more I can add beyond what he’s already said there.
I have to admit though that the “shoot the middleman” approach the government used here could be quite effective at shutting down online gambling in the U.S. in the short term. No major financial intermediary will want to risk violating the new law’s prohibition against the use of credit cards or other financial instruments as a clearance mechanism.
What will be interesting now, however, is the extent to which alternative online financial mechanisms develop to fill the void. After all, I hope that members of Congress aren’t so naive as to believe that this bill will actually eradicate all online gambling. If there’s one thing we know from history it’s that humans have an insatiable appetite for wagering (an appetite that government is all too willing to take advantage of through state lotteries and heavily-taxed casinos). But whenever unsanctioned gambling is in question, government officials turn the debate into a morality play and claim that their regulatory efforts are meant to protect us (or our children, of course) from the supposed evils of using one’s money to enjoy one’s self.
So, what will happen now that all the “mainstream” financial intermediaries are being run out of town? It remains to be seen. But I’m willing to bet (pun intended) that some crafty, innovative people out there in the online world will find ways to get around this ban. Sadly, however, a lot of people will probably have to go completely “underground” to do it. And we shouldn’t be surprised if a shady element enters the scene to try to get a cut of this business. (New Jersey mafia members, call your office!)
Update: After writing this last night I picked up Washington Post this morning and found this interesting article by Mary Jordan about how cell phones are making money transfers instantaneous and dirt cheap for people across the globe. Could this be an evasion technique for determined Net gamblers? Perhaps, but I suppose the feds will then just threaten all domestic cellular companies with serious liability if they assist in completing those financial transactions.
Quick update… Last week I discussed our government’s ongoing lost laptop follies after the House Committee on Government Reform reported that more than 1,100 laptop computers had vanished from the Department of Commerce since 2001, including nearly 250 from the Census Bureau containing such personal information as names, incomes and Social Security numbers. And the Committee is still collecting information about lost computers and compromised personal information from other federal agencies including: the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and Transportation and the Federal Trade Commission.
This week, in response to these findings, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the Chairman of the committee, has introduced H.R. 6163, the “Federal Agency Data Breach Protection Act.” The bill would establish “policies, procedures, and standards for agencies to follow in the event of a breach of data security involving the disclosure of sensitive personal information and for which harm to an individual could reasonably be expected to result.” In other words, federal agencies would have to do a better job informing the public when personal data had been lost or compromised. Of course, it might be easier if they just stopped losing so many laptops!
Incidentally, why are government agencies allowing so much sensitive personal information to be kept on laptops, anyway? It doesn’t seem to make much sense to me in light of how easy it is for laptops to be taken out of a government building. Why not follow these two simple rules instead: (1) Keep the really sensitive stuff on desktop computers that are bolted to desks and make sure they don’t have any external inputs for personal storage devices. (2) If a government employee still finds a way to take that information home and then loses it, fire them immediately (and perhaps consider other penalties). After all, we’re talking about personal information about American citizens here. This stuff should not be taken lightly.
Scholars at RAND Europe recently released a comprehensive analysis of the European Union’s controversial Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS), more commonly known as the “Television without Frontiers Directive.” This effort, which is being coordinated by EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, aims to bring some rationality to inconsistent EU media regulations. The problem is, in an effort to make the rules more rational, Reding has essentially proposed a significant expansion of government regulation for new media outlets and operators, including the Internet. (See these three papers by my PFF colleague Patrick Ross for a detailed explanation of the dangers of Reding’s efforts to expand content regulation).
Thus far, most of the criticism of the AVMS has been based on social / content-related concerns. Rightly so. There is little doubt that the directive will threaten freedom of speech and expression on the Internet and over other new media outlets / services. But the new RAND study takes a different approach to the issue by focusing on the potential economic impact of the AVMS directive on European companies and the EU’s competitive standing in the new media world more generally. [An executive summary of the report and the full report can be found on the Ofcom website here].
RAND’s conclusions are not encouraging… unless you happen to be an American or Asian company rooting for your European competitors to be handicapped by excessive government regulation!
Continue reading →
Honestly, I don’t get it. How in the world does government lose so many laptop computers? I don’t know if you heard this yesterday but Sonoma County, CA authorities reported that they had lost one-time JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr’s laptop, which supposedly contains evidence of child pornography that could have been used to help prosecute him. In other words, we basically bought this freak a free plane ride back from Thailand and then gave him a big “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Brilliant. How in the world do you lose the laptop of the guy who has been all over the news for the past month?
But wait, there’s more missing laptop news. In response to an inquiry from the House Committee on Government Reform, 17 federal agencies where asked to report any loss of computers holding sensitive personal information. The results, revealed yesterday, are staggering. According to Alan Sipress of The Washington Post: “More than 1,100 laptop computers have vanished from the Department of Commerce since 2001, including nearly 250 from the Census Bureau containing such personal information as names, incomes and Social Security numbers…” The Census Bureau’s lost laptops alone could have compromised the personal information of about 6,200 households. Apparently, according to MSNBC, “Fifteen handheld devices used to record survey data for testing processes in preparation for the 2010 Census also were lost, the [Census] department said.” (And you thought that the Census was accurate!) Other government departments reporting lost computers with personal information include the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and Transportation and the Federal Trade Commission.
Of course, all this comes on top of the lost laptop scandal over at the Department of Veterans Affairs this summer. One lost laptop contained unencrypted information on about 26.5 million people and another had information on about 38,000 hospital patients. And in August, the Department of Transportation revealed that a laptop containing roughly 133,000 drivers’ and pilots’ records (including Social Security numbers) had been stolen.
I honestly don’t understand how are government agencies and officials losing all these laptops but next time they tell us that we can trust them with personal information and other sensitive things I hope we all remember these incidents. This is outrageous.
In parts 8 and 12 of this series, I’ve discussed Time Warner’s ongoing problems in what was suppose to be mass media paradise. The mega-merger that critics decried as “Big Brother,” “the end of the independent press,” and a harbinger of a “new totalitarianism” has turned out to be anything but. $100 billion in lost market cap by 2003 alone, AOL bleeding subscribers, and talk of spinning off the cable division have all led Time Warner President Jeff Bewkes to declare the death of “synergy.” More poignantly, he went so far as to call synergy “bullshit”!
And now the oldest members of this marriage – – Time and Warner – – may actually be considering a divorce too. Just last week Time announced that it was putting 18 of its 50 magazines up for sale. And, according to David Carr of the New York Times, the fire sale may not be over:
“[C]urrent realities and pressure from shareholders suggest that Time Inc. will either become a smaller, more profitable division of a public company or it will be in play. A very large boat will have to be turned around very quickly with little additional investment. There will be no big magazine start-ups, no significant acquisitions, only the grinding, dangerous task of taking some of the most storied brands in publishing and making them relevant at a time of rapidly changing consumer and advertising dynamics.”
It’s just another sign of how dynamic the media marketplace really is. See my last book for more details.
For those of you following the potentially historic legal battle currently unfolding in the courts dealing with broadcast indecency regulation, you might be interested in the comments I filed at the FCC today.
Just by way of brief background, on September 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a brief stay of the Commission’s latest round of indecency fines and remanded them back to the agency. (The case is
Fox Television Stations v. FCC, 2nd Cir., No. 06-1760). The FCC had requested the stay to allow the broadcast networks (and others) more time to provide input on the agency’s fines. (In essence, the FCC wanted to make sure that the networks couldn’t claim that they didn’t have plenty of time to provide input to the agency.)
Continue reading →
I’ve recently discovered the “Geek and Poke” site, a truly unique blog that uses cartoons to talk about technology issues and Internet policy developments. Here’s two that I really enjoyed:
… and this one about the popular online multi-player video game Second Life…
So here’s an interesting legal question that involves the First Amendment, copyright law, technology policy, and property / contractual rights: Who has the right to film videos at a professional football game? I’m not talking about the live video feed of entire games; that’s clearly copyright-protected. Instead, I’m just talking about select video clips of portions of games for journalistic purposes.
Here’s why I ask. Ten days ago, David Rehr, the head of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) sent a letter to the National Football League’s (NFL) new commissioner Roger Goodell inquiring about a recent NFL policy change regarding local television station coverage of games. Last year, for reasons I have not been able to determine, NFL team owners decided to reverse a long-standing policy that allowed local broadcasters to film video clips from the sidelines during football games. Apparently, local TV broadcasters will now have to get that footage from the TV network that broadcasts the game or from NFL Films, which is owned and operated by the National Football League.
I’m going to attempt to fairly weigh the arguments on both sides of this dispute even though I have a particular (and admittedly peculiar) bias in this matter that I will admit to at the end of the essay. (See * below).
Continue reading →
On Wednesday, I was in New York City attending another installment of the Internet Content Rating Association’s (ICRA) outstanding ongoing series of summits on child protection & freedom of expression in a our new information age. As with previous ICRA events in Washington, Sunnyvale, CA, and Brussels, the focus of the New York roundtable discussion was: What steps can we take to shield children from potentially objectionable Internet or media content without repressing freedom of speech / expression? In particular, the role of private, self-regulation (labeling, rating, filtering, educating, etc) was discussed and debated in detail.
In addition to being the focus of much of my ongoing research at PFF, you might also recall that I wrote about a major summit on similar issues that took part in this June in Washington, D.C., which featured Senator Hillary Clinton among other distinguished speakers. And the Congressional Internet Caucus has an upcoming series of Capitol Hill panel discussions on these issues and just released a compilation of short white papers summarizing what various groups are doing about online child safety issues. So this continues to be a hot topic.
Continue reading →
My friends over at the Center for Democracy and Technology have just launched an important new website entitled NetDemocracyGuide.org. The site aims to provide the creators of blogs and other Internet sites and services information about what their rights are in light of stepped-up Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations in the wake of new campaign finance laws (McCain-Feingold). [See this, this, and this for some background.]
CDT’s new site assures us that:
“The new campaign finance rules for the Internet leave the vast majority of uncompensated citizen-initiated election activities on the Internet free from any regulation. With few exceptions, you may develop websites, blog, e-mail campaign material, raise money, and collaborate with your friends on election related activities online without worrying about running afoul of the rules. Campaign finance obligations kick in only in very limited circumstances – primarily where payments are made to place advertisements and other communications on third party blogs and websites.”
That’s great but I remain concerned and think that the empire still plans to strike back. Moreover, the very fact that a site like this has to exist at all is a little bit scary. The cyber-citizenry should not have to live in fear of over-zealous FEC regulators or members of Congress who will increasingly be scrutinizing online speech for supposedly “illegal” forms of political advocacy. Remain vigilant and monitor the new CDT site for updates regarding your blogging rights!
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.