Tech at Night: Stand up to the gangs and pass CISPA. Obama nominates a new FCC chairman.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 2nd at 02:30 AM  | 

We’re still at war online, guys. The Chinese are scouting us and even criminal enterprise is under constant attack. And make no mistake DDoS attacks affect not just the target, but the networks surrounding the target, too, so even a criminal racket like Silk Road should have attacks on it stopped, for the health of American networks. And again, the anarchists SWATted a member of Congress, Mike Rogers, to fight for weaker security online.

Yet, The President and Democrats continue to obstruct CISPA, instead of getting the job done. This guy made illegal executive orders on the topic, but as soon as we take good, light-regulatory legislative action, he suddenly wants to slam on the brakes. Shameful.

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Tech at Night: In the post-landline era, there is no phone monopoly. Out of touch privacy regulation coming.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 20th at 02:30 AM  | 

It’s amazing to me that at this point we’re still pretending there’s a phone monopoly. Competition exists. Yes, it’s obvious that nobody has a monopoly on phone service anymore. The assumption that there’s a monopoly is detached from the reality of the modern market. People routinely go without landlines these days, and there’s even competition for those!

FCC is at least pretending to investigate the need to deregulate and prepare for the IP Revolution in phone service. We’ll see if they rig it to get what they want out of it, though. No, I’m not very optimistic about second term Obama regulators.

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Dismantling the Union Monopoly: Wis. teachers union to lay off 40% of staff

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  August 15th at 05:30 PM  | 

For years, the Wisconsin Education Association Council maintained a virtual monopoly on Wisconsin’s education system, raking in $25 million in union dues from teachers in 2009. Moreover, it also controls an insurance trust called the WEA Trust, which gave the union the ability to “sell” (though negotiations) school districts health insurance for teachers–often at a premium price. Of course, most Americans never heard about this | Read More »