By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 5th at 12:00 AM  | 

It’s Independence Day, which was very nice for me since I kept on resting and feel just about healthy now. No Tech on Monday thanks to my cold that wiped me out since Sunday. Unfortunately Google decided today was the day to celebrate a song that, while American, was specifically designed to carry political meaning as well as to reply to the Christian and patriotic | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 28th at 12:30 AM  | 

John McCain. Lisa Murkowski. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Saxby Chambliss. Richard Burr. Dan Coats. No, I’m not listing the centrist wing of the Senate Republicans. I’m listing some of the co-sponsors of SECURE IT, the bill that Senate Republicans have been forced to bring forth because the extremist Cybersecurity bill by Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins just couldn’t be bargained with. That’s right, John McCain of | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 9th at 03:00 AM  | 

You want more proof that every single private industry privacy debate in DC is completely wrong headed? MSIE 10′s do not track default is unpopular. People don’t care. They value cheap/free stuff and convenience over privacy protection. Other countries are looking to tax American businesses online. Does Barack Obama have the guts to fight for us? Or will he bow once again?

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 7th at 02:30 AM  | 

Commerce. “The business of America is business.” Innovation online is growing business, and the most important takeaway you could ever get from Tech at Night is that we need to stay out of its way. BfA seems to agree. And some honest government action on spectrum could be a great start, but we probably won’t start down that road until after January 20, 2013 at | 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 28th at 10:45 AM  | 

Memorial Day weekend brought little news, so Tech at Night will be quick tonight. Enjoy. It’s an argument we’ve all made, but it apparently still needs to be made: Market pressure is better than government at protecting people’s ability to get what they want. We can see this from the actual behavior of actual companies, and that’s just one reason that Net Neutrality and countless | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 24th at 03:00 AM  | 

Quick hits night. Enjoy! Google beats Oracle on the matter of patent infringement in the big Java/Android case. So the only question left is how the copyright matters will be resolved. New York legislators want to censor the Internet? Come on guys, come on.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 22nd at 02:00 AM  | 

So, Cybersecurity. I’ve spent so much time talking about why the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity bill in the Senate is terrible, and anti-PROTECT IP champion Ron Wyden has taken up the opposition as well, but there is need for some enhanced ability of government to coordinate against and to attack Internet security threats. Here’s a Reddit post that should scare people about the kinds of ongoing criminal | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 17th at 12:30 AM  | 

Earlier we covered Microsoft’s new Pirate Pay, which I said sounded like a DoS attack against copyright infringers. Others agree and say it may be illegal, which is true. Sure enough, Pirate Bay is under DDoS attack. Has Pirate Pay gone rogue? Cybersecurity and copyright, all in one issue.

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)  |  May 10th at 12:30 AM  | 

The masks are slipping on Cybersecurity. The CISPA debate has died to a dull roar now that the House is done with it, while the Senate may or may not pass it, and the President has promised a veto. And yet, still not outrage against Lieberman-Collins, despite Jay Rockefeller (who introduced a version of the bill the previous two Congresses) admitting he’s anti-business and anti-profit, | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 30th at 11:00 PM  | 

Having abandoned the seemingly-endless series of patent lawsuits in the new America Invents Act era, Tech at Night will be quick tonight. Google allegedly knew about the Wi-Spy Street View snooping for two years before ending it. Oops. No wonder FCC claims Google obstructed government investigations into the program. Gotta love the Media Marxists: FCC ventures into campaign finance chilling effects regulation, and they claim | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 18th at 11:30 PM  | 

Yup, CISPA is still the top story. It will improve our security, which matters in an age of Chinese and Anarchist Internet attacks. And unlike Lieberman-Collins, Which is the bill being pushed in the Senate, no government power grab is involved. So the House is right to challenge the President’s push for Lieberman-Collins. Lungren’s PRECISE Act is another bill that would create no new regulations. | 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 27th at 01:00 AM  | 

So we already had the coming FCC battle over Verizon’s attempts to acquire the spectrum it needs, the Senate fight over ‘cybersecurity,’ and a possible Congressional fight over Internet sales taxation. But now there’s a new issue to keep track of: the FTC is taking it upon itself to regulate the Internet on the grounds of protecting privacy. Jim Harper seems thinks it’s nothing new, | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 16th at 03:00 AM  | 

I meant to talk about the cybersecurity bill on Monday as it’s a big story. But, it’s gotten even bigger since. You see, a broad spectrum of Republicans is coming out against it. Names like Kay Bailey Hutchison, John McCain, Mike Enzi, Saxby Chambliss, Jeff Sessions, and even Lisa Murkowski are against the crazy Rush Harry Reid and the Democrats are putting on the bill | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 14th at 03:00 AM  | 

Yup, I’m back. And I have roughly a week’s worth of stuff to cover, so let’s go. Top story seems to be that The Obama/Holder Justice Department has no problem with Google’s vertical integration takeover of Motorola Mobility. Interesting. I also await word on whether Google will drop all aggressive patent lawsuits, as they claim to use patents only defensively. Some people never learn. Google | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 18th at 04:47 AM  | 

We celebrated Monday when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor effectively signaled the death of SOPA, the Stopping Online Piracy Act. Cantor said the Internet censorship bill would not see a vote until there was consensus on the matter. As long as Darrell Issa, Justin Amash, and Jason Chaffetz are on the case there will be no consensus on sweeping Internet censorship, so Cantor’s position basically | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 8th at 02:30 AM  | 

The FCC’s excuse for delaying the AT&T/Qualcomm spectrum deal was to work on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. The latter has been withdrawn, so what’s the excuse now? AT&T and Sprint both get bad reviews. Sprint’s Nextel deal went through. AT&T’s T-Mobile deal is getting blocked. Hmm. Looks shady, which is why I support Chuck Grassley’s push for FCC transparency involving LightSquared, even though so far their | Read More »