By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 31st at 03:58 AM  | 

Justice is impeding the Sprint/Softbank merger. Gee, whoever could have predicted that if Sprint funded the left-wing effort to embolden Obama antitrust action, then Sprint itself could suffer bad consequences? I wonder. It wasn’t me, was it? I didn’t point out that Sprint Nextel itself had a history of mergers, such as the Sprint-Nextel merger, did I? Hmm.

Hey Chuck Grassley: The first amendment is not a suggestion any more than the second amendment is. There is no Video Game exception that I saw. You’d have to be as special as the Vice President to think think citing the words of a crazed murderer as an authority helps you make a point, anyway.

Besides, it is not your job to dictate ‘artistic value’ to others, nor does your own job have ‘artistic value.’ So if you would silence others who do not have ‘artistic value,’ then that do we conclude about your right to speech? Everybody knows you never go full Biden, Senator.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 15th at 01:30 AM  | 

An activist is dead, by his own choice. He also chose to commit crimes to push his agenda. Nobody denies he did it. They only deny that he should have been prosecuted.

I can understand the man’s family and friends feeling grief, and lashing out. But for anyone else to attempt to use this event to push an agenda, discredits his agenda. If you need to use the suicide of a criminal in order to advance your policy goals like a vulture, your policy goals probably don’t have much going for them.

And that’s all I have to say about that for now.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 10th at 01:00 AM  | 

And this is how that tech coalition begins to die: Ron Wyden working with Al Franken on large expansions of government online, a startling reversal from the anti-PROTECT IP Senator from Oregon.

Google caves to the Chinese Communists even as Google’s Eric Schmidt hands a propaganda victory to North Korean Communists. A pattern?

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 5th at 05:00 AM  | 

Message to The New Republic: The left-right antiSOPA coalition isn’t getting back together because the right half still opposes Internet regulation, while y’all keep pushing stuff like privacy regulation and Net Neutrality.

Also, in case you missed it, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai returned to RedState, this time to talk about government’s oversized spectrum holdings.

Here’s a brief conversation with Marsha Blackburn about tech policy.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 21st at 05:00 AM  | 

I said earlier this week that I wouldn’t comment on the RSC’s pulling of the copyright paper until I studied it. Well, I studied it, and they were wrong to pull it. Of course, for saying that, I’m being called some radical opposing the free market.

Meanwhile I’m getting called an ignorant tool of the big media companies because I oppose further market meddling in the form of IRFA.

It’s rare that a bill rises in awareness quickly but then dies hard. But by the time I’d even heard about the new Patrick Leahy power grab, this time spying on emails allegedly, he’s already given up on it. Score one for small government, at least.

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

Good news, everyone! Kay Bailey Hutchison and Senate Republicans were able to help defeat the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act once again.

Bad news, everyone! We lost the Presidential election, so President Obama is almost sure to try to defy the Congress, which won’t even pass the idea through one house, let alone both to make it a law. He’s going to try to implement this through executive order!

Meanwhile it falls to the Congress to investigate actual foreign threats in the digital theater.

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

Hello all. I was without power for 25 hours after Sandy, and so I’m a bit behind. So tonight’s edition of Tech at Night is going to be put together a bit quickly. Sorry about that. By the way, while obviously a hurricane can take out wireless towers, wireless was vital for keeping me in touch with the world when I was without power at home. It was great. I’m not sure exactly what good FCC monitoring could do though, except to use a crisis to expand the role of the state.

Watch as the administration plays games: on one hand it tries to use Iranian attacks on banks as an excuse to legislate cybersecurity mandates, instead of attacking Iran back, while on the other hand it opposes cybersecurity mandates at the ITU! How about we oppose all cybersecurity mandates, guys?

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 6th at 03:30 AM  | 

Even the Obama regulators occasionally do things right. It was right for FCC to let the regulation die that forced cable companies to license original content to competitors. Though as The Hill points out, it may have done so out of a fear that the courts would force the issue anyway, not out of any desire to deregulate. Naturally House and Senate Democrats can’t abide the least bit of deregulation.

But don’t worry, they’re still making mistakes, too. They can’t free up spectrum until 2015, moving at a snail’s pace in a fast moving industry. And FTC’s antitrust attacks on Google are ludicrous. The standard for antitrust is high: if I recall correctly you have to show market power, being wielded, in a way that harms customers. I’m not sure that, relative to Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, that such points can be made at all.

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

Governors Robert Bentley, Mitch Daniels, Dennis Daugaard, Bill Haslam, Paul LePage, Rick Snyder, and Tom Corbett are part of push for the Marketplace Fairness act. I’ve come across a July letter to John Boehner, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi. I find it odd they’d do so now, unless they think they have no chance under a potential Republican Congress. Could that be the case? I wonder.

And yes, those are all Republican governors, some of whom were part of the 2010 landslide. It’s only Republicans I’m seeing back MFA, not Democrats. Democrats are fine with just passing new taxes or raising old ones. They aren’t as hard up to maximize collections of old taxes as Republicans are.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 23rd at 03:57 AM  | 

Texas takes on Google as the state comes after the corporation on antitrust grounds. I’m not sure this is a good idea, any more than it was a good idea for the Clinton administration to go after Microsoft, but it’s probably even dumber for Google to obstruct the investigation.

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)  |  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)  |  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 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)  |  September 24th at 03:30 AM  | 

November 20. That’s the day the Obama administration has chosen to regulate the Internet after what even The Hill calls “a partisan vote” at the FCC to pass the Net Neutrality regulations. I’m hoping Verizon and/or MetroPCS will sue and win a stay before that date, though I don’t know how likely that is for a court to act that strongly. I’ve said much about | Read More »