Articles by James Gattuso 
James Gattuso is a Senior Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy in the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Gattuso also leads the Enterprise and Free Markets Initiative at Heritage, with responsiblity for a range of regulatory and market issues. Prior to joining Heritage, he served as Vice President for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and also as Vice President for Policy Development with Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). From 1990 to 1993, he was Deputy Chief of the Office of Plans and Policy at the Federal Communications Commission. From May 1991 to June 1992, he was detailed from the FCC to the office of Vice President Dan Quayle, where he served as Associate Director of the President's Council on Competitiveness. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife Dana, 8 year-old son, Peter (whom he relies upon to operate his VCR), and his four year-old daughter Lindsey (who does the DVD player.) He has no known hobbies, but is not nearly as boring as he seems.
Well, just when you think nothing good can come from the other side of the Atlantic, there’s news like this. It looks like Mario Monti, the EU’s outgoing competition commissioner is set to give a “si” to Oracle’s takeover of PeopleSoft. The legal arguments against the merger were always screwy, on either side of the Atlantic. But given the EU’s history of blocking mergers that could hurt European firms (Germany’s SAP is a big competitor to both Oracle and PeopleSoft), many of us were bracing for the worst. The decision, however, may tell us little about the future direction of EU policy, however, as Monti is leaving Brussels next month, to make way for a new commissioner.
No one really likes spyware. My own view is that it would be perfectly legitimate for government to ban it. The problem though, is that any legislation would likely inadvertantly hit legitimate activities and–most importantly–private-sector anti-spyware programs will in any case solve the problem far better than government. (Compare my relatively mushy position to that of fellow TLFer Jim Harper, who is trying to keep me in line on the subject.) That all said, I was a bit taken aback by Sen. George Allen’s statement (as quoted in Congress Daily) after the Senate Commerce Committee adopted spyware legislation yesterday. Congress, he declared “must come down with hobnail boots on the people who create this [spyware]”. Umm, I’m all for stopping spyware, but “hobnail boots” seems a bit too much, no? Let’s protect property rights here (and that includes cyber-property), but let’s be careful about issuing those hobnailers to regulators.
Just when you thought you had enough to fret about, here’s comes yet another Internet worry: Spam Over Internet Telephony, appealingly acronymed “SPIT.” As reported in MIT’s Technology Review, SPIT is the potential use of VOiP telephone services to send spam via voice mail, rather than via e-mail. Just imagine having hundreds of Viagra ads and confidential requests from Nigerian ex-strongman in your voice mail each morning. As TR says “it’s a nightmare that few of us want to imagine.”
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No doubt following the advice of TLF, the House commerce ommittee chair Joe Barton has rejected the idea of holding hearings on the Rathergate controversy. “A news organization’s responsibility is to facts and truth, but the oversight of network news generally is a matter best sorted out by the viewing public and the news media,” he said. “I do not personally believe these documents are legitimate, and it seems clear that the press and the two presidential campaigns are properly dealing with that issue.”
Welcome news for anyone worried about government interference in the media. Of course, had Dan Rather bared his chest on 60 Minutes, that would have been a different story.
Is the wireless revolution making political polls less accurate? Jimmy Breslin argued yesterday in Newsweek that it is– pointing out that most poll are done by telephone, and none include cell phone users. “Beautiful”, he says. “There are 169 million phones that they didn’t even try. This makes the poll nothing more than a fake and a fraud, a shill and a sham.” And most of those missed are younger voters who are more likely to have cut the cord, and who are more likely to be Kerry voters. An interesting thought.
Has anyone else noticed that while CBS TV is taking a hard line on the document controversy–being strident and defiant–the stories on CBSNews.com seem much more even handed? Perhaps not all, but most of the on-line stories report on the controversy in an (almost) balanced way–perhaps not openly critical of Dan Rather, but at least giving both sides in a relatively objective manner. The stories read–as one of my colleagues put it, like an out-of-body experience–discussing CBS News in the third person, as if the common name were only coincidental.
I’m not sure what this means, if anything. It could be one more bit of evidence that even news outlets under the same ownership roof are not necessarily monolithic. Or, perhaps it means that Dan Rather is such a creature of “old media” that he hasn’t noticed what the “new media” folks down the hall are saying.
In the past few days, it has become increasingly obvious that CBS used (badly) forged documents in a 60 Minutes hit piece on George Bush. Each day, its defenses seem to become weaker, and the attacks stronger. As John Stossel said in an interview last night, CBS has circled its wagons, only to find them on fire.
Now comes word that Congress may join the fray: Rep. Chris Cox has asked the House Telecom Subcommittee to launch an investigation into CBS’ reporting on this matter. As wrong as CBS was to run its story, it would be even more wrong for Congress to get involved. Simply put: the government should not be policing the media. No matter how sloppy, biased or irresponsible, Congress simply should not be telling the media what it can or can’t do. Or even “investigating” what it has done. That is the road to censorship.
Dan Rather and CBS will doubtless suffer tremendously for their outrageous conduct–because of investigations by other private media outlets (including blogs), with likely sanctions being loss of reputation and credibility. A congressional investigation is neither necessary nor welcome.
Increasingly, its looking like documents reported by Dan Rather and CBS’s 60 Minutes last week regarding President Bush’s National Guard Service are fakes. It’s been a lesson in typography for most of us, but more and more experts seem to be publicly questioning the documents.
This is one case where my messy desk has proven helpful. I found–by total coincidence–a 1983 paper published here at Heritage, in courier font. That led me to recall the philosophy of the Heritage director of research at the time, who refused to use Times Roman because it looked too polished, rather than like a quick-turnaround briefing paper. Who after all coul print something in Times Roman quickly? Maybe the National Guard could in 1972, but I doubt it.
The real interesting thing about all this is CBS’s denial. Dan Rather in particular has come out swinging–saying to CNN: “I know that this story is true.” When asked about a retraction, the answer was: “Not even discussed, nor should it be.”
Pretty strong stuff.
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Oracle! Chalk one up for Oracle in its battle against its former allies at the Antitrust Division. Yesterday, a federal court threw out DOJ’s (somewhat screwy) challenge to Oracle’s takeover bid for PeopleSoft. Using some market share ledgermain, DOJ maintained that the merged firm would dominate some specific, narrow, carefully defined, somewhat imaginary sub-sub-markets of the business software market. Never mind that it’s quite a crowded field, with major competitors such as SAP, countless minor players, a looming giant (Microsoft of course), and changing technology that would undermine any dominance anyway. Despite the win, the issue isn’t settled yet, as DOJ may still appeal, and an investigation is still ongoing in Europe (remember SAP?). Of course, if Oracle needs any advice on how to proceed, there probably are a few folks at Microsoft who can share their experiences.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.