By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 16th at 12:15 AM  | 

Ah, Free Press. One of my early favorite tech topics at RedState. One of the more visible George Soros-funded fronts, along with Public Knowledge. I have to say my early hits have been somewhat successful too, when Free Press completely gave up on Save the Internet as a fake left-right thing, instead fully integrating it with the Free Press extremist brand. Remember when they could fool solid groups like Gun Owners of America with their dishonest rhetoric?

I mean, they do still have language up that says “Organizations as diverse as the Christian Coalition for America, Moveon.org, the ACLU and the American Library Association have joined in support of Net Neutrality.” But, what? MoveOn, ACLU, and ALA are ‘diverse?’ Get real. Christian Coalition is the only right-wing fig leaf they have left, and Christian Coalition isn’t exactly known as a small-government group, nor a tech policy leader. Come on. I won, they lost. Net Neutrality was exposed as a single-party, left-wing effort, like so many others of the extremist Obama regulators. Time to… Move On.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 20th at 12:00 PM  | 

The Republican Study Committee backed off on copyright reform after publishing what was an important paper on the topic. The excuse is that the paper needed further review, but what I fear is that the paper actually went further than rent-seeking allies of squishy centrist Republicans are willing to go. I have no evidence to sustain this. It’s just my gut feeling. The paper went out, industry groups had to have seen it, given all the attention it got. Over the weekend they complained, and down the paper went on Monday.

I have a copy of the paper, and if we go point by point, it’s hard to find a real reason to oppose it though. So if there is another reason, I’d love to hear it.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 14th at 02:30 AM  | 

It’s clear that the Obama administration wants the Safe Web Act renewed, what with the big showy announcement over at ICE (though if ICE is going after “Copy Cats,” how long until Samsung gets nailed?). I’d want to look carefully though. We don’t have to just renew it. We can examine it and change it in any ways that make sense given the Obama administration’s | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 20th at 10:30 AM  | 

According to Darrell Issa, SOPA is officially postponed by House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith. Issa broke the news on Twitter, which only underscores how important it is that we protect the Internet from capricious censorship, as was the risk under a SOPA-like regime. On the Senate side, Harry Reid has canceled the vote on PROTECT IP, killing momentum for the proposal in both houses of | 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)  |  January 5th at 01:00 AM  | 

I’m back. I ended up taking an extended Christmas break because well, I liked having a break, plus there wasn’t a whole lot going on anyway. But, back to work! Lamar Smith and Chris Dodd still want to censor the Internet, by pushing the SOPA bill that we need to defeat. Why is it bad? Victims get no due process, ISPs have the burden of | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 24th at 02:15 AM  | 

Nothing in this post shall be construed to impose a belief that Lamar Smith would round up every American into MPAA-run detention centers if Chris Dodd suggested it would be good for big business. Does that sound like a stupid way to begin a post, and does it suggest that I’m about to say the opposite? Well, that’s how the Manager’s Amendment version of SOPA | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 17th at 02:30 AM  | 

Wednesday night I put off all Tech at Night topics except for SOPA because the critical mark up votes in Committee were coming up. We weren’t supposed to be able to stop SOPA, but we could at least raise awareness, put up a fight, and prepare for the floor votes. And sure enough, the vote to keep the Internet censorship provisions went in favor of | Read More »

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

Ordinarily I use Tech at Night to cover a variety of topics that come my way, and I have them in my queue for tonight. But with over 30 items to consider and integrate, most of them on SOPA, I’m shelving the rest for Friday, and discussing just one topic tonight: We must defeat SOPA in the House. It is entirely unacceptable, and I believe | Read More »

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

It’s Monday, so it’s time for that weekly self promotion of mine. This week at the Daily Caller I discussed NISO, an information sharing proposal by Dan Lungren that would get government in a role of improving our security online without compromising liberty and innovation. And now back to SOPA. Now Eric Schmidt realizes we don’t want government to have a huge role online, complaining | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 15th at 02:30 AM  | 

Censorship’s the big word right now. The FCC’s under pressure to ban pro sports blackouts, and the Supreme Court may end national profanity rules. However I consider those things small. Few people have access to television broadcasts. Most of us aren’t actually censored by these regulations. We all have access to the Internet though; that’s how a nobody like me is able to shape the | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 5th at 03:00 AM  | 

There’s been a push lately to attack punitive, unfair taxes on wireless service, one that Erick Erickson signed onto, and was advertised at RedState. Ironically I only found out about it because I saw the ads while working on the code side of the site, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Anyway, that movement seems to have gotten a win, as the House passed the | Read More »

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

On Monday I did the first half of my catchup work. Now we’ll do the second half. And one of the big issues coming up is copyright. Over the last thirty years, copyright in America has been radically reformed. While traditionally it worked as patents still do work, as a temporary grant of monopoly enforceable in civil courts, we’ve gradually moved them into the realm | Read More »