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.
In a breezy post on the Department of Homeland Security’s new blog, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff writes about the federal government’s lawsuit to overturn an Illinois workplace privacy law. The “Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act” will restrict the ability of Illinois employers to enroll in the federal government’s “E-Verify” system, which runs all new employees through a federal background check to determine if they’re entitled to work under federal law. Illinois has got it right. There shouldn’t be a federal background check before you can work.
Chertoff takes on some objections to “E-Verify” one by one. Let’s take his responses one by one.
Continue reading →
Throw out everything you learned in civics class. The legislators who represent you in Congress and your statehouse are just figureheads. The real work of governing is done behind the scenes, by the bureaucracy. This is why the REAL ID Act – all but dead – is still a threat to your privacy.
This week, state bureaucrats are gathering at a vendor-sponsored conference on REAL ID at the Renaissance Washington Hotel here in D.C. Session titles include Clarifying The Different Funding Options – Where Exactly Is The Money Going To Come From? and Developing A Practical Roadmap For Real ID Implementation. With public opinion set against REAL ID, here’s a session that’s particularly interesting:
Bringing Your Public Onboard For Smoother Legislature Changes
. . . [E]very State DMV needs to find a way to educate their public so that they can ensure the legislature changes necessary to become Real ID compliant. So how exactly can you do this? This session will examine how you can change your public’s perception as quickly and as cost effectively as possible.
- Listen to your people: Examining the direct impact on your public so that you understand the perception you are trying to change
- Know which marketing methods will be most effective at reaching your public
- Examine how much of your budget a public relations exercise is worth: Measuring cost against outcome
Yes, DMV bureaucrats are learning how to promote REAL ID through PR campaigns and “legislature changes.”
State legislators who care about privacy should bar their employees from attending events like this – before the bureaucrats oust them from office.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee meets Wednesday at the Hilton Arlington (Ballston), 950 North Stafford Street in Arlington, Virginia.
Focus: Fusion Centers.
Should be HOT! Or not . . . Agenda here.
Lauren Weinstein wrote a post on his blog this weekend entitled Detecting and Proving Network Neutrality Violations. The basic thesis: “Without an appropriately broad infrastructure to collect and process metrics associated with network neutrality, it is difficult to understand how anyone can reasonably assert that we would know if and when violations were taking place . . . .”
Undoubtedly. And such an infrastructure should be built in tandem with give-and-take about what consumers most want and need in terms of broadband Internet access services. That is, we need to know what “violates” net neutrality – or, if some non-neutral broadband network serves consumers better – what violates the rules for that network.
Weinstein challenges: “Not even the anti-neutrality folks should be able to logically argue against what might be termed a ‘trust, but verify’ approach.” (I’ll take “anti-neutrality folks” as a careless formulation meaning “opponents of net neutrality regulation” – and accept the challenge.)
I think Weinstein is correct in this. The community of Internet users should run a network of monitors to determine when ISPs are deviating from their Terms of Service and customer expectations, including expectations with regard to neutrality (or non-neutrality), along with all the other dimensions of Internet access service that matter.
Given that the Internet is a communications medium, that community is well-equipped to name, shame, and punish violators of consumer interests and demands. Government regulations that freeze network design in law would focus all the discussion on legal and regulatory mandates, not the best network design, or the true interests of Internet users.
Google’s Peter Fleischer commences their call for global privacy standards saying, “As I’ve noted before, everyone has a right to privacy online.” Wrong.
Privacy is a good, not a right. Government standards to protect privacy (if even possible) would be a set of entitlements, not a vindication of rights.
More on what privacy is here.
Verizon has sued to prevent the FCC from imposing the conditions Google sought in the 700 MHz auction. I don’t have an opinion on the merits, but I find Google’s complaining about it disingenuous.
Google sought competitive advantage through the regulatory process. One of its soon-to-be competitors is using the legal process to counter that.
Telecommunications providers have sought to work the regulatory and legal processes to their advantage forever. Google knows that, knew that going in, and adopted that mode of behavior in the 700 MHz auction. I can’t see where it has standing to complain of others engaging in that very same behavior.
Wrapping “consumer choice” around its effort to wring artificially high profit from the network it would operate doesn’t wash.
Here’s a good Arsticle on the FBI’s use of “improper” letters – er, illegal demands – to get information from telecommunications providers. They’ve got a cub reporter over there at Ars Technica who seems destined to really make some waves.
Winner line: “. . . White House Homeland Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend responded to questions about the latest revelations by pointing to the creation of a ‘compliance unit’ in the FBI. We thought the Constitution already provided for a ‘compliance unit’: the judicial branch.”
Via the Google Public Policy Blog, the Computer and Communications Industry Association has a study out finding that the “fair use economy” accounted for $4.6 trillion in revenues in 2006 (roughly one-sixth of total U.S. gross domestic product), it employed more than 17 million people, earning $1.2 trillion (one in eight U.S. workers).
This study should get the same scrutiny as studies put forward on the other side of the copyright equation, no? Go to work, study-parsers!
Update: Mike “Radar” Masnick published his take on this study 30 minutes before I invited him too! His conclusion – Mutual Assured Bogosity: “The next time anyone cites the bogus piracy numbers, they should at least be forced to acknowledge these numbers on the value of fair use as well as a counterweight. They may be bogus, but they’re equally bogus to the piracy numbers.”
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