Tech at Sunday Morning: We now know why the MetroPCS / T-Mobile deal went through. What to do about Google Glass.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 19th at 05:30 AM  | 

Had some work to do Friday night, so this this became Tech at Sunday Morning!

I still don’t see it passing the House after Mike Enzi’s winners and losers talk poisoned the well, but conservative governors want MFA passed for good reason. Ask Scott Walker.

Remember when the T-Mobile/MetroPCS deal flew through the Obama administration without a hitch? I think we now know why: it meant the end of the MetroPCS challenge to Net Neutrality. How convenient.

Stealth recording technology. What could go wrong? Of course, if you don’t like Google Glass, the real thing to do is to let property owners ban it on their own property. Problem solved.

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Tech at Night: Bitcoin’s central bankers. Kim Dotcom censors Mega.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 16th at 02:30 AM  | 

Some fascinating Bitcoin developments: As I predicted, Mt. Gox just got trouble with its US dollar processor, Dwolla. Meanwhile it comes out that a cabal of developers has de facto control over the Bitcoin network and is devaluing very small wallets. The net effect of this is to reduce the money supply, deflating Bitcoin to benefit those with large holdings.

So even as Bitcoin is revealed to have its own central bankers, the new Megaupload is getting censored per New Zealand law, as Kim Dotcom weighs (heavily) in against Obama to attempt to distract from this censorship.

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Tech at Night: We need a pro-innovation FCC. We need fewer pro-regulation Republican Senators, too.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 14th at 12:00 AM  | 

Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we’re back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let’s see what we have here.

Here’s a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!

And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.

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Tech at Night: I don’t see how MFA passes the House with this rhetoric. Cybersecurity waffling by Team Obama.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 7th at 12:00 AM  | 

Even as I’ve said the bill is a good idea, Senate conservatives overwhelmingly voted against the Internet Sales Tax. The whole Tea Party era gang is there in the NAY column. It’s easy to see why too: guys like Mike Enzi are coming out and saying their purpose for the bill is to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. I can’t see this passing the House with the cloud of toxic rhetoric around it.

As Team Obama wavers between a bureaucrat and an actual expert for its DHS Cybersecurity head, insecure accounts are getting hammered by foreign attackers. Use good passwords. Never give the actual answers to ‘security questions.’ Keep software updated. And don’t approve random “Who unfollowed me/How much time am I wasting/Which President am I” Twitter apps!

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Tech at Night: Fox confirms my theory about Aereo. CISPA advances.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 11th at 12:00 AM  | 

CISPA continues to remain the big story right now. It’s moving on, though some are concerned that it was effectively renegotiated in back room meetings. It needs scrutiny before passage, I’m thinking. It’s probably a decent but watered-down bill at this point, but let’s look before supporting at this point. We need a good cybersecurity bill, not just any old thing.

Which is exactly what Jay Rockefeller is up to: flailing about, expanding government willy-nilly, in the name of cybersecurity. The SEC? Doing Cybersecurity? Insane.

I like the idea of the Internet Freedom bill, though. The global trend is away from freedom online, and it’s up to us to try to do something about it. The idea that the bill would hurt Net Neutrality is just a bonus.

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Tech at Night: The Internet Sales Tax roll call. Obamaphone survives. Do people care about Privacy?

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 26th at 03:30 AM  | 

Jeff Flake. Jeff Sessions. Ron Johnson. Tim Scott.

Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio. Mike Lee. Rand Paul.

I’m generally pleased with all eight of these guys being in the Senate. They were on opposite sides of the sales tax compact amendment vote, though. If you look at the way Governors split on the issues, you’ll see similar responses. Effective conservative Governors have fallen on both sides, including neighbors Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal.

I’m fine with the compact. It’s Constitutional and merely lets states preserve existing revenue streams, without having to defy basic economic reality by unilaterally cooperating in the rewrite-the-sales-tax Prisoner’s Dilemma. That is, any one first state that shifts from buyer-owes to seller-owes in sales tax, creating the marketplace of sales taxes that compact opponents favor, automatically creates a disincentive for businesses to set up shop there.

So, we pass the compact as the best practical solution.

Recently at RedState: Ajit Pai on Robert McDowell is worth a read. Then there’s Seton Motley on Marco Rubio challenging Internet regulation.

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Tech at Night: As usual, Republicans are right and Democrats have an alternate agenda in the Senate

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 9th at 02:30 AM  | 

A lot of conservatives seem to be getting behind a Hatch-Rubio bill to increase immigration for skilled individuals. No wonder Harry Reid wants to block it for partisan reasons. Have to put politics over anything else. Can’t let Republicans do a good thing.

Though I think the Senate priorities are pretty messed up. Jay Rockefeller is talking about workforce standards in the context of cybersecurity legislation. Talk about using any excuse to grow government. At least guys like John Thune recognize the need for the government and private business to work together against foreign Internet threats.

I mean, we can’t rely solely on NSA doing its best to do the right thing on its own.

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Tech at Night: How to fight Chinese Cybersecurity threats? Democrats promoting the Regulatory-Industrial Complex

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 26th at 12:00 AM  | 

The evidence mounts that we need to respond to Chinese attacks on American industry. But what do we do about it when we have few tools short of military attack? Hit them back in kind, I would think.

Of course, Seton Motley says Barack Obama is attacking our Internet access with his illegal, overreaching regulations. Remember: the courts have already pointed out his NLRB efforts have been flat out illegal, and the FCC’s Net Neutrality efforts have also been overturned once before.

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Tech at Night: The bullies at Free Press can’t even keep their stories straight.

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.

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Whose side is Google on? We’re going to find out this year.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  February 7th at 03:00 PM  | 

A few years ago, Google was deeply in bed with the left wing activists like Moveon.org and Free Press pushing for Internet regulation. When Obama was elected, Google got even more deeply embedded with both the left and the government. At this point, Republicans began paying more attention to Google and Google realized it had a political problem.

So, after years of lining up with the left to demand more government regulation of the internet, Google changed course. (“Google cozies up to the GOP”) Google promoted their Republican lobbyists, hired Republican consultants, sucked up to conservative organizations and even hired a squishy Republican, Susan Molinari (R-MSNBC) to run their DC office.

But if they were playing footsie with Republicans, Google was still sleeping with the Democrats.

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Tech at Night: Net Neutrality: The Return of the Revenge.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 23rd at 10:15 PM  | 

Quickly tonight, as I’m beat. Here’s more on the Netflix/Net Neutrality controversy, and how they’re making war on ISPs while regulations prevent ISPs from fighting back. A key point Fred Campbell makes: Net Neutrality does not protect and cannot even be invoked by consumers.

Just another reason we need to oppose Democrat plans to legislate Net Neutrality should the courts overturn it.

Yeah, their definitions of free and open are warped.

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Tech at Night: Netflix proves me right on Net Neutrality. DoJ on Swartz.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 19th at 02:30 AM  | 

Remember when they told you Net Neutrality was needed? Remember when we said it was really about favoring online firms over telecoms? Told you so, told you so, told you so. Netflix now blocking select ISPs, trying to use market power in order to bully their way to sweetheart bandwidth deals, knowing ISPs can’t fight back under Net Neut regs, aka the Open Internet order.

PS Told you so.

It remains ridiculous that the Aaron Swarz suicide continues be politicized to the point that we’re putting innocent prosecutors under pressure, pressure that defies cross-examination due to the death of the key witness.

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Tech at Night: Sales tax deal is dead. Silly video privacy law gone. Obama makes life harder.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 3rd at 02:30 AM  | 

Hey La-Mulanites! I’m Neil, and let’s play Tech at Night.

Anyway. Yeah, I took a break, as you may have noticed. It turns out between Christmas, New Year’s and the Fiscal Cliff, not much happened for me to cover, anyway! So let’s get started.

Two legislative notes: the outmoded video privacy law passed, while the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act is dead in the water. I always said its best chance was President Romney and a Republican Senate, but now that’s not happening. Poor Amazon, bargaining with states on the assumption this would happen.

And in case you forgot, a Cybersecurity executive order would be a bad thing, per Marsha Blackburn and Steve Scalise.

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Tech at Night: Obama’s tax avoiding corporate buddies. Global Internet regulations are just following the Obama model.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 11th at 12:47 AM  | 

They told me that if I voted for Mitt Romney, that corporations with ties to the President would offshore billions of dollars to avoid paying taxes! Did Obama and Schmidt even feel guilty as Obama said one thing, while working with Google who was doing the opposite?

Because remember: as I’ve been saying all along, The global Internet regulations the ITU is threatening is in the spirit of the Obama- and Schmidt-backed Internet regulations we’ve seen the last four years!

And let’s be clear: the Obama administration isn’t done regulating now that the second term is coming.

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Tech at Night: Obama failing to stop a bad ITU process; Free riding to be encouraged on data roaming

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 6th at 02:30 AM  | 

Nobody wants the ITU treaty to go anywhere. Not Net Neut backers. Not House Republicans and House Democrats. But the Obama administration is failing to do anything about it. Remember when we were told electing Obama was the key to great international respect? Not so much…

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