The Department of Homeland Security issued regulations to implement the REAL ID Act today. Well, it issued regulations to delay implementation, anyway. The regs really don’t explain anything in this fundamentally flawed national ID law. They just kick the can down the road.
I’ll compile here some links to Cato@Liberty blog posts about what I’ve been up to. Apologies to C@L readers forced to slog through my meanderings twice.
First of all, it’s interesting to watch the slow-motion collapse of so many government ID programs because they are so poorly designed and poorly thought through.
That isn’t stopping politicians from trying to shore them up. Representative Barbara Cubin (R-WY), for example, has been misdirecting her state’s legislators about what the law says.
I originally thought that Senator Collins (R-ME) was confused about REAL ID. Her state was the first to pass legislation rejecting REAL ID, so you would think she would not try to help force states to implement a national ID. But it now is quite clear that Senator Collins (R-DHS) supports REAL ID.
The people who know what they’re talking about are folks like George Smith up in Maine and – my very favorite – Bill Bishop, the Director of the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security. Summarizing REAL ID’s utility as a national security tool, Bishop said: “I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, I don’t believe in Santa Claus, and I don’t believe in the Lone Ranger. Which means I don’t believe in silver bullets.”
Look for the forthcoming podcast on REAL ID (and other cool stuff), right here on TLF.
Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune has long been one of my favorite newspaper columnists. He’s penned another excellent piece for today’s Trib pointing out how illogical it is that the government continues to regulate broadcast speech as if nothing has changed over the past 30 years.
He points out that the FCC’s recent fines for “indecent” content on broadcasting are increasingly silly in a world where kids can get the same programming online simultaneously. He also points out the absurdity of this week’s record $24 million fine against Univision for violating the hopelessly out-of-date Children’s Television Act. He argues:
Continue reading →
Wharton professor Kevin Werbach has posted an interesting new paper on net neutrality that’s not really about net neutrality. His thesis is that while he agrees with the proponents of regulation that broadband network operators will disadvantage content and application providers and thus stifle innovation, he doesn’t think anti-discrimination rules are the way to go. In fact, he does a great job of explaining why they’re not a good idea and how discrimination of all kinds–from content delivery networks (CDNs) like Akamai, to propriety video services like ESPN 360–serve the interests of both consumers and network operators. He also highlights how difficult it would be under neutrality rules to distinguish anti-competitive discrimination from benign discrimination like spam blocking or legitimate traffic management.
Instead he argues that the real issue missed by the neutrality debate is interconnection. “The defining characteristic of the Internet is not the absence of discrimination, but a relentless commitment to interconnection,” he writes. Networks withholding interconnection is the real threat to innovation. In particular, he is concerned about access tiering, “[broadband networks] charging content and application providers additional fees for preferential access to their broadband access customers.”
Continue reading →
EFF linked to this summary of Microsoft v. AT&T which, unfortunately, completely misunderstands the thrust of the case:
AT&T’s position is that its speech recognition software is protected by US patent, on the grounds that it constitutes a “component of a patented invention.” Microsoft was apparently granted license to utilize that software in the US, but AT&T contends that the duplication of that software outside of US boundaries, with the intent to sell the duplicates overseas, is a violation of that license. That view was upheld by the Federal Court of Appeals, and Microsoft is appealing that decision…
Olson built a case against AT&T’s position: For foreign replication to work, a golden disk is shipped abroad to the replication service, containing the master of the Vista operating system that includes AT&T’s drivers. It’s not software at that point, Olson says, because no one can execute it. When it’s installed onto a hard drive, then it becomes software, and it’s the end customer who does that.
If you accept that argument, Olson’s case goes on, then Microsoft did not copy AT&T’s software. And since the physical components – the hard drive, processor, and optical drive – necessary for the copying process to happen may or may not have been supplied by manufacturers in the US, then US courts may not have jurisdiction anyway.
Continue reading →
Last Friday’s Cato Podcast was about the free Kareem movement, a campaign to secure the release of a young Egyptian blogger who was jailed for four years for the crime of criticizing Islam, his school, and the Egyptian authorities:
The Free Kareem Coalition is an interfaith alliance of young bloggers and college students committed to the principles of freedom of thought and freedom of speech.
This campaign is our way of fighting to further the cause of brave people who continue to practice their right to freedom of expression even when such rights are not recognized. The creators and main supporters of the Free Kareem Coalition are Muslim, and we are doing this despite what Kareem said about our religion. Free speech doesn’t mean “speech that you approve of.” It includes criticism.
You may be disgusted at what he said, even angered. That’s okay, so are we! But we will defend with all our might his right to express such opinions, because it is his basic, inalienable human right.
Kareem is a writer who always found the courage within him to keep speaking his mind freely in the name of not only freedom of speech, but the freedom to think in an otherwise sheltered society. Because of that, he has been sentenced to four years in prison. We stand by and fully support Kareem through these difficult times and will continue working on this campaign until he is freed.
A worthy cause. Click over to find out what you can do to help.
Well, it’s been more than 48 hours since my last post blasting the Wu-Skype “wireless Net neutrality” proposal, so I’ve been itching to write another essay about my favorite subject du jour! Luckily, when I arrived home today, I found my monthly copy of PC World magazine in the mail–yes, I am a geek–and randomly opened to an article by Cyrus Farivar entitled “Six Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do” He begins the essay by noting that:
Right before your eyes, your cell phone has morphed into a portable computer. Whether you’re searching Google via text messages, using Short Message Service (SMS) to make international calls, or e-mailing a voice message, these tips will help jump-start your cell phone’s inner PC–and make your life easier to boot.
… and then Farivar goes on to highlight many “useful tips and tricks that you can teach even an old cell phone to do.” As I read through the article, all I kept thinking to myself is: “But according to Tim Wu and Skype, this stuff isn’t supposed to be possible!”
Via Richard Bennett, Wonkette reports the following depressing statistics about the newspaper industry:
Net income plunged 6.7%.
Classified advertising dropped 22%.
Overall ad revenue is down 8%.
Circulation is down 2.9% — except for Sunday, which is down 3.2%.
Operating income in the publishing division fell by 24%.
Craigslist’s CEO says this is because U.S. newspapers just plain suck.
There are a number of ways you might interpret these figures. Richard thinks, bizarrely, that the problem is “parasitic web sites”
like Craig’s List [Update: Richard says that he was talking about news aggregators, although he didn’t mention those in his original comment]. Craig’s List’s CEO, on the other hand, thinks it’s the newspapers’ fault:
Continue reading →
Should the FCC enforce net neutrality rules? No, says Google’s top policy executive. According to Andrew McLaughlin, the firm’s global public policy head: “Cutting the FCC out of the picture would be a smart move.”
The comments were made yesterday at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose. As reported in Tech Daily and Communications Daily, McLaughlin argued that neutrality should be thought of as “an attorney general or FTC problem.”
This is a surprising statement from Google, which has lead the fight for neutrality regulation for over a year. Most proposals for neutrality regulation have put the FCC in charge–including the S. 215, by Sen. Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan.
Its also a sensible idea–one that many of us have long advocated. (See, for instance, this statement by the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s DACA working group.) At its heart, the net neutrality debate is over competition: how much is there, is it enough, and what to do if it is not. Such issues are the bread and butter of the FTC–which has close to a hundred years experience dealing with them.
Continue reading →
I’ve got a lengthy analysis of Rick Boucher’s latest copyright reform legislation. Despite being titled the “FAIR USE Act,” and despite the fact that Boucher’s press release focuses on the harms of the DMCA, the bill itself would do little or nothing to remedy the problems created by the DMCA:
If Boucher’s legislation passed, a film studies professor would be permitted to use software such as Handbrake to circumvent the copy protection on DVDs and create an audiovisual presentation featuring scenes from various movies. However, developing or distributing Handbrake in the United States would still be a crime.
Obviously, as a practical matter, that college professor
already has the ability to use Handbrake without any real fear of prosecution. The MPAA knows that prosecuting a college professor for showing videos in his class would be a PR disaster. The problem is that, unlike previous versions of the legislation, Boucher’s new bill offers no legal protections for the developers of software like Handbrake. As a result, the tools required to exercise fair use are difficult to find, not as user-friendly as they could be, and not supported by major software companies like Apple and Microsoft. Perhaps worst of all, the law makes it impossible for legitimate software firms (in the United States, at least) to develop new software to make innovative uses of content obtained from DVDs, iTunes, or other DRM-encumbered formats. In the 1990s, software companies developed MP3 software that revolutionized music over the objections of the recording industry. An entrepreneur wanting to do the same thing for DVDs would run afoul of the law–and Boucher’s legislation would do nothing to change that.
Needless to say, this is disheartening to those of us who see DMCA reform as a high priority. Granted, Boucher’s bill didn’t go anywhere in previous sessions of Congress, and would likely have been a long shot again this session. But it was still nice to at least have somebody in Congress carrying the torch. Now, it doesn’t look like anyone will introduce meaningful DMCA reform in this session of Congress.
What’s going on here? Read the rest of the article for my take on Boucher’s apparent change of priorities.
On the podcast last week I mentioned that if Kevin Martin’s FCC approves the XM-Sirius merger, one of the conditions it could impose is that the new entity accept indecency regulation that satellite radio is not currently subject to. Adam called this “regulatory blackmail,” and now I’m seeing a pattern.
The WSJ reports that Spanish-language broadcaster Univision agreed to pay $24 million fine for violating the Children’s Television Act, which requires broadcasters to show three hours of educational programming a week. “In exchange, the FCC will approve Univision’s sale to a consortium of private-equity groups for $12.3 billion.” The fine is by far the largest the FCC has ever assessed. Not only does Univision have no choice but to accept the fine if it wants its sale to go through, but it seems like the commissioners don’t have a choice either.
The $24-million fine was negotiated by Mr. Martin’s staff, not the five-member FCC board. Several senior FCC officials, including at least one FCC commissioner, said they learned of the fine by reading the New York Times on Saturday. Despite some discomfort about the unusually high amount of the fine, the full FCC board is likely to vote for it. It would be politically difficult for FCC members to vote against enforcing children’s programming standards and the company has apparently agreed to pay the fine to clear the way for its sale.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.