By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 28th at 03:00 AM  | 

So, Google is integrating its websites more. As a result, some privacy settings will apply network-wide, and one site will be able to use data from another site. People are flipping out, naturally. People have been giving Google this data for ages. People have known that Google was watching them, and yet they chose to keep using Google and in fact use one account for | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 25th at 11:30 PM  | 

Some are still worried about the Megaupload takedown (including many the

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 21st at 02:30 AM  | 

It was a long fight. I can’t tell you how many times I kept saying that SOPA and PROTECT IP were in trouble. But they’re getting shelved now. Sure, there’s whining about it. And the President still is too cowardly to lead. Now it’s time to move on to the next step, though, and find a sensible way to attack the foreign infringers, who essentially | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 19th at 12:00 AM  | 

So, Erick Erickson decided to make a big push against SOPA today, again bringing out the primary threat card. I also had a post on SOPA and PROTECT IP today. We were heard. On the House side, Speaker John Boehner echoed Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and said the committee needs to find consensus before the bill can get a vote. And again, conservatives like Darrell | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 16th at 11:45 PM  | 

SOPA is dead in the House, says Majority Leader Eric Cantor, until there is consensus. Since there’s never going to be consensus on Internet censorship, Cantor seems to be saying the issue’s dead in this Congress. The President went mushy on SOPA, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats decided to push forward, but Eric Cantor, Darrell Issa, and House Republicans want to kill the bill. That’s | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 14th at 04:00 AM  | 

Some bills become unstoppable in the Congress. They pile up cosponsors, get leadership support, and cruise on through to easy passage. Not SOPA, or its original Senate version, PROTECT IP. They’re in trouble. While the left is fighting these bills with blackouts and protesting, our message is simpler: If you back SOPA or PROTECT IP, we will primary you. That matters. One guy who has | 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 22nd at 03:30 AM  | 

It seems like forever ago that Marsha Blackburn challenged Free Press to transparency in the group’s funding. Why should it take eight months to respond if Free Press has nothing to hide? Keep the Web OPEN. It’s a simple statement, but it’s one I support. The difference between SOPA and OPEN has been made clear to many thanks to Darrell Issa’s leadership. It’s unclear with | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 20th at 01:30 AM  | 

Top story tonight is of course the major win by the triple alliance of George Soros and his front groups like Public Knowledge, Sprint Nextel, and the Obama administration’s dual agency of the FCC and the DoJ. Yes, AT&T has given up on acquiring T-Mobile. I believe they will now have to pay a sizable fee to T-Mobile as compensation. This is bad news for | 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 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)  |  December 10th at 02:30 AM  | 

There’s a new story developing. I’ve touched on it now and then, but the pieces are coming together. The FCC temporarily blocked the AT&T/Qualcomm deal to let AT&T buy spectrum using the excuse that they wanted to evaluate it together with the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. Well, the latter deal has been withdrawn from the FCC, so now what’s the hold up? It turns out that the | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 8th at 02:30 AM  | 

The FCC’s excuse for delaying the AT&T/Qualcomm spectrum deal was to work on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. The latter has been withdrawn, so what’s the excuse now? AT&T and Sprint both get bad reviews. Sprint’s Nextel deal went through. AT&T’s T-Mobile deal is getting blocked. Hmm. Looks shady, which is why I support Chuck Grassley’s push for FCC transparency involving LightSquared, even though so far their | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  December 6th at 02:00 AM  | 

It’s Monday night, so naturally we start now with my weekly appearance at the Daily Caller. This week I finally got around to reading up on the Carrier IQ scare, and decided it was just a scare. Smoke, but no fire. Keep calm and carry on, people. How about some spectrum? Jerry Brito takes on the thorny issue of civil defense/first responder spectrum and the | Read More »

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

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had Government Neutrality? Imagine if the government didn’t take sides: not favoring one industry over another as with SOPA, or favoring one firm over another as with AT&T. Because AT&T really is getting an unfair deal. The FCC could have just let the firm drop its application like it intended to do but no, it also gratuitously put out | Read More »