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 19th at 03:02 AM  | 

The FCC and the radicals are at war with the secondary spectrum market. Gigi Sohn even tried to make the point at the Less Government debate that license holders don’t own spectrum. That’s true. They own the licenses. That’s where property rights come in. So it’s disappointing to see Democrats still piling on against Verizon even as the push begins to go after Dish. As | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 15th at 02:00 AM  | 

In case you missed it, Friday’s Tech at night featured Q&A with Rep. Steve Scalise. Don’t miss is now. Team Soros, assemble! Remember when it was “wrong” for AT&T to get spectrum by buying T-Mobile? Remember when I said it should be allowed because the Obama administration and the radicals were making it too hard to get spectrum any other way? Vindication, baby: The left | 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)  |  May 5th at 02:00 AM  | 

So, LightSquared. It’s a funny turn this whole thing has taken. Way back at the start, when I was excited for LightSquared’s potential as a 4G competitor, I was told that they were the next Solyndra. Then, when the Obama administration and LightSquared both reacted badly to requests for oversight, I was convinced. Now, though, defenders on the right are cropping up again for LightSquared. | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 3rd at 01:30 AM  | 

CISPA’s proponents bent over backward to respond to reasonable complaints, but the extremists are still complaining. Anonymous and Mozilla (much of which is foreign, no?) are whining, but nobody ever points to any specific, offending verbiage of the bill. Am I the only one who reads tech bills before complaining about them? Even Democrats are having to start acknowledging Republican expertise in tech leadership, though. | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 28th at 01:30 AM  | 

So, the Internet died this week or something. CISPA was amended much, as I gather mostly tightening up some alleged privacy concerns. Then it passed the House. I don’t know if it’ll become law, but it’s a good idea. The comparisons with SOPA are deceptive. Speaker Boehner cut to the heart of the matter, pointing out that President Obama’s CISPA veto threat was rooted in | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 26th at 02:20 AM  | 

In an example of lucky timing, the GSA scandal proved why Darrell Issa’s DATA act was needed. Transparency in government allows for oversight. So the bill passed the House by voice vote. I first floated a while back the idea that this sudden, strident CISPA opposition was roote d in a desire to distract the public from the much stronger and more dangerous Lieberman-Collins bill | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 21st at 12:30 AM  | 

CISPA is still a harmless bill devoid of new mandates of power grabs, but I’m actually short of new things to say about it this week. Lieberman-Collins is the real threat. Watch the other hand. Let’s start with some spectrum instead. Verizon is under fire for trying to buy spectrum from Comcast and other cable companies, even as it tries to sell other spectrum. Note | 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)  |  March 30th at 11:45 PM  | 

Am I tired of expressing dissatisfaction with the Obama FCC and other government intrusions? Never! Al Franken is setting up an unfalsifiable rationale for government action against Verizon and Comcast. Gotta love that, eh? I’m sure he, the FCC, or both will try to overturn the courts who say bundling is not anticompetitive. I like bundling. It saves me money when I’m buying both things | 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)  |  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 22nd at 03:30 AM  | 

Previously on Tech at Night I linked to a story that suggested there was a split between Darrell Issa and Chuck Grassley on FCC transparency. It turns out the story I relied on, had it wrong. Oversight wasn’t grading transparency itself; the committee was grading the management of FOIA requests, and FCC did relatively well by having established processes for dealing with FOIA. and tracking | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 15th at 03:30 AM  | 

Apologies, but I’m going to be a bit brief tonight. I have a lot going on this week, and starting Tech at Night at midnight my time just isn’t good. Sorry! Chuck Grassley’s continuing the fight against the runaway FCC, leaving open the option of continuing after initial investigations. Good on him. Don’t foreclose options needlessly. But even as Republicans attempt to keep government from | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 10th at 01:45 AM  | 

I know, I know. The way that broadcasts travel across state lines, it’s important that some sort of national control step in, because the states can’t do it. But the way the Obama FCC operates, sometimes I wonder if it’s worth all the trouble. Instead of working to ensure we have the spectrum we need allocated to the purposes we want, The Obama FCC constantly | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 8th at 01:30 AM  | 

ACTA. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is Darrell Issa’s next project, as he’s not happy about the treaty. So, he’s put the treaty online for all to see. I still don’t know of any specific reason to oppose the treaty. My understanding is that it basically brings the west in on the DMCA. There may be details I’ve missed though. The best argument against the treaty | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 29th at 12:00 AM  | 

Special Tuesday edition! Having been very busy hitting a launch window for a client, I had to skip Friday and Monday. So to make up for it, this week I start on Tuesday. Riddle me this: FCC refuses to be transparent about its dealings with LightSquared (who by the way just changed CEOs, as the firm continues to flail desperately in response to the FCC’s | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 23rd at 03:30 AM  | 

FCC overreach doesn’t seem like it should be a new topic, but it actually is. Consider that the FCC is threatening to get into cybersecurity which is interesting since the Congress is working on it. FCC wants to get into campaign finance regulation. And it’s unclear whether the FCC would enforce White House calls for new privacy regulations. The runaway FCC to me is the | Read More »