. . . RON PAUL, RON PAUL, RON PAUL.
Articles by Jim Harper 
Jim is the Director of Information Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, the Editor of Web-based privacy think-tank Privacilla.org, and the Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. Prior to becoming a policy analyst, Jim served as counsel to committees in both the House and Senate.
Follow @Jim_Harper
Ryan Paul at Ars wrote up Lauren Weinstein’s network measurement proposal Sunday, as I did briefly last Friday.
In his summary of the “sides” in this debate, Paul casts supporters of net neutrality regulation as concerned with “widespread quality of service (QoS) discrimination that would stifle freedom of expression on the Internet and allow the broadband duopoly to set up exploitative digital toll booths to cash in on content delivery,” linking to another Arsticle – really an advocacy piece – extolling net neutrality regulation.
On the other side? – Paul writes, “Supporters of a tiered Internet argue that” –
Wait. ‘Supporters of a tiered Internet’?
In an excellent post, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has picked up and expanded on my post here about the ITAA’s advocacy in favor of REAL ID. His title “Conflicts of Interest: . . .” draws out nicely the schism that ITAA’s advocacy for REAL ID creates for its membership. They work to serve us when they sell products directly, but work to hurt us when they sell surveillance infrastructure to the government.
Helpfully, he also provides links to information at WashingtonWatch.com about the House and Senate bills to repeal REAL ID.
Laruen Weinstein has posted a proposal for the deployment of a distributed global Internet traffic measurement system. Aimed at moving past the current impasse over whether their should be government regulation aimed at network neutrality, the system would measure “operational bandwidth, throughput, and other parameters of public Internet traffic” so that norms could be established and deviations from those norms could be discovered, measured, investigated, and debated.
I find it a sensible idea, and am willing to forgive his proposal’s bias toward legislation. The establishment of norms and a system for swift public exposure of deviations will be enough to harness ISPs to the interests of the Internet-using public, without the sclerotic influence of regulation.
I was frank about Google miscontruing privacy the other day. I’ll be frank about DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff likewise missing the mark in his recent Leadership Journal post, “Privacy and Security.”
Like Google’s Peter Fleischer, Chertoff calls privacy a “right” – in this case, a “fundamental right.” (Two data points is a trend!: People call privacy a “right” just before they drop it in the blender.)
Unlike Fleischer, Chertoff edges up to Orwellian: “Our efforts to secure our homeland need not harm our privacy. Rather, in many cases they can actually strengthen it.”
I’m dubious. How so?
Indirectly, anyway. They are members of the Information Technology Association of America, which continues to plead lamely for federal funding of the REAL ID Act, the United States’ moribund national ID law.
I’d been considering writing about an opinion poll purporting to favor REAL ID that ITAA has been touting this week, but mostly thought it should remain obscure. The headline of a Washington Technology article by Alice Lipowicz was too good to pass up, though:
ITAA to Congress: Cut a Check for REAL ID Now
I’ve long thought highly of the ITAA – they’ve taken many sensible pro-innovation and anti-regulatory positions over the years – but it’s embrassing to watch their slavish begging for federal dollars – all to build infrastructure that attacks the nation’s values.
A trade association representing the interests of its members in Washington is one thing. A gaggle of lobbyists that fishes around the Beltway for federal money – that’s quite another. I don’t think the people and companies in the tech industry are well represented by an organization that tries to promote a national ID, given the surveillance and tracking that attends it.
Take a look at their membership list for companies you’re familiar with. Indirectly, they’re supporting the REAL ID Act too. You could let them know what you think of that directly by contacting them or indirectly by withdrawing your patronage.
Here’s conservative Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on the REAL ID Act:
. . . REAL ID, that’s a huge mistake. It’s putting a burden on a state that should not be the state’s function, which is to provide the frontline of national security defense at the hands of a DMV worker at a state office. That’s absurd. And then not funding it. That’s a real problem. If you’re going to have federal program then the feds ought to pay for it.
Everyone should have a windmill to tilt at, right? Mine is collection of SSNs by accounting departments that don’t need them, such as when they reimburse me for travel expenses.
Here’s my latest effort to work that issue, in an email sent to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants:
Following on my post yesterday, Tim Lee has written a story at Ars Technica. Anne Broache of CNET also investigated the REAL ID advocacy training DMV bureaucrats are getting.
Update: Ryan Singel on Wired’s Threat Level blog also picked up the story.
So, here’s a question: Are state DMV bureaucrats using or planning to use DHS grant funds to lobby for REAL ID? Whether or not that’s a legal violation, it is certainly an ethical one.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.