By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 10th at 10:00 PM  | 

So the FTC is on a tear. Google is officially smacked for $22.5 million for hacking though Safari’s privacy protections to sell Safari users’ information to advertisers. Then Facebook got whacked for lying about what privacy protections it was giving users. Some are saying this is bad, as it’s expanding FTC power, but this is really a bad time to make that point. Google brought | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 26th at 02:15 AM  | 

Right now the top issues are both getting lots of attention in the Senate. One is the cybersecurity bill. It’s been difficult for me to find out much about what’s going on with it, and it turns out there’s a reason. Sources familiar with the situation indicate to me that Harry Reid has been negotiating with Republicans in bad faith. Even Republicans who love to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 5th at 01:00 AM  | 

Privacy? You want privacy in the digital age? Start by repealing campaign finance laws before you wag your socialist finger at the private sector. Al Qaeda also denied 9/11 involvement at first, but we knew the truth. Also, how can Anonymous deny involvement in an attack when they claim to be unorganized? It’s these slipups that let us know the truth about them: they’re an | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 12th at 01:30 PM  | 

Technical note: This was written Friday night, but due to technical difficulties at RedState, was only posted Saturday afternoon I know many RedState readers are big fans of Jim DeMint, so in my coverage of the Retransmission Consent debate, I’ve focused on him. However he’s not the whole story. This Congress, due to the TEA party-driven Republican majority, it’s been the House where our major | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 23rd at 11:45 PM  | 

What’s the ideal situation for the cable television marketplace? A free market. Cable providers should be able to negotiate, or not, with broadcasters and copyright holders to purchase streams to resell to their customers. Jim DeMint is trying to bring us closer to that by ending special leverage in the marketplace given to broadcasters. You see, the rules in place now are not designed to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 17th at 12:00 AM  | 

How harmless is CISPA? Despite irrational attacks by association, because we’re apparently supposed to think Republican bills bad, even though the Democrats in the Senate had kept PROTECT IP alive months before Lamar Smith brought SOPA to committee, CISPA has already has been modified to remove mention of copyright infringement. And yet the rage continues. I figured it out, though. The reason CISPA, a previously | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 29th at 02:30 AM  | 

FCC reform advances in the House. Greg Walden’s FCC Process Reform Act is a needed bill, so I’m glad that it went from committee to the floor, and took minimal modification in passing. I like that it got an extra poke at FCC being more closed on FOIA requests than even CIA. Locking in the reforms is important, and CTIA is right in saying we | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 24th at 03:30 AM  | 

Ah, the FCC. If The FCC wanted to do incentive auctions to free up spectrum for wireless Internet, they could just do it. They wouldn’t need to set up a task force to talk about the National Broad band Plan to consider it, while instead getting involved in unrelated things like making its own security rules. We need FCC reform. Just say yes to Coase. | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 13th at 03:00 AM  | 

Remember the SECURE IT bill, backed in the House by Marsha Blackburn and Mary Bono Mack, and in the Senate by John McCain and the gang? One of the key reasons I like the idea is that it enhances our options for prosecuting online crime. And contrary to ACLU hysteria, it’s not the Republican bill that is a threat to our liberties. Sharing reasonable, relevant | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 7th at 02:00 AM  | 

Yes, we beat SOPA, but the problem of foreign infringers is still around. And we’re not just talking about online copyright infringement, either. Copies of clothing, purses, gadgets, you name it: foreign free riders are a problem. It’s an important tradeoff to find, so an open process for the Darrell Issa OPEN Act is a good one. A slow, consensus-based approach is also smart, so | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 10th at 01:30 AM  | 

Lamar Smith, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is using his committee to further his bill, SOPA. SOPA is very bad. It threatens due process and prior restraint of speech as it censors the Internet, and risks putting Internet-based business out of business. Darrell Issa is leading House efforts to oppose SOPA. He’s on the Judiciary Committee, but he’s not in charge. However he does | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 1st at 02:00 AM  | 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had Government Neutrality? Imagine if the government didn’t take sides: not favoring one industry over another as with SOPA, or favoring one firm over another as with AT&T. Because AT&T really is getting an unfair deal. The FCC could have just let the firm drop its application like it intended to do but no, it also gratuitously put out | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 17th at 02:00 AM  | 

Welcome to Tech at Night, the series the radical left says is shaping the debate. I sure hope I am. After losing on Net Neutrality and on the America Invents Act, I’d like to get a win. The next chance for a win is in the House, which is debating SOPA, the bill that would create a national censorship blacklist online. Helping to lead the | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 20th at 01:30 AM  | 

I’d like to start off tonight’s edition by saying that I enjoy some of the pushback I’ve been getting in this Tech at Night series. It’s fun when someone comes here, telling me I’m all wet, then ending up admitting they’re enamored of the whole Obama regulatory apparatus. It feels good to have my pro-liberty, pro-growth, small-government positions validated like that. So to the multifaceted | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 30th at 01:00 AM  | 

As is usual, tonight I’ll give priority to the things we had posted at RedState, and mention those first. Especially My own post on the latest on the California Amazon Tax referendum, and more specifically on the plans of Democrats to nullify the constitutional referendum process, in service of their unconstitutional Internet sales tax. We need to pressure Republicans to vote the right away, at | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 22nd at 10:00 PM  | 

What would be a Monday without Democrats wanting to expand government by passing new laws and regulations? Some people aren’t careful with their things and/or their data, so Chuckie Schumer thinks there oughta be a law. I like CTIA’s response to that: CTIA understands that when consumers have their mobile devices lost or stolen, it is an unfortunate situation as they often contain a lot | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 18th at 03:00 AM  | 

No really, Governor Haslam, you do not want to bring California taxation to Tennessee. Have you seen our unemployment? That’s why we just might defeat it at referendum. PETA people are hijacking phones, sending malicious messages without consent, and running up text message bills. People need to be careful about what they install, but this sort of thing needs to send people to jail, as | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 11th at 03:00 AM  | 

Hello everyone! I hope people have plants to get out to Charleston this weekend for the third annual Gathering. I will be there, which is why there will be no Tech at Night on Friday. Having also missed Monday due to Gathering preparations, I have much to cover tonight. I’ll start with a wrap up of everyone’s favorite online terrorist group, Anonymous. I don’t use | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 6th at 03:00 AM  | 

The free market of Internet access, driven by constantly improving technology and heightening competition, is a driver of job creation and economic growth. Even Julius Genachowski, Obama’s FCC Chairman, has to admit that. This is just one reason we fight FCC power grabs. So when the government starts talking about new regulations in emerging fields such as “cloud computing”, just say no. And when Steve | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 7th at 03:30 AM  | 

I remember when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act passed. It created a boatload of new rules and restrictions on Americans, in the name of tightening copyright online. One of the key provisions of the DMCA is the “safe harbor” rule, which effectively turns ISPs into agents of copyright, by making them honor so-called DMCA takedown notices in exchange for not being held responsible for what’s | Read More »