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Chicago-based Heartland Institute has published a booklet by myself and George Gilder entitled Ten Principles of Telecom Reform. In the booklet we explain why it would be a good idea for legislators to: Repeal discriminatory taxes and fees on telecom services Oppose “network neutrality” regulations Reduce intrastate access charges on telephone calls End requirements that telcos file tariffs Give providers greater freedom to set prices Exempt competitive services from utility commission jurisdiction End or reform carrier-of-last-resort and build-out obligations Minimize government’s role in broadband deployment Give a single agency responsibility for consumer protection

The idea of abolishing the Federal Communications Commission used to be a right-wing fantasy. But now Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig is on board. With so much in its reach, the FCC has become the target of enormous campaigns for influence. Its commissioners are meant to be “expert” and “independent,” but they’ve never really been expert, and are now openly embracing the political role they play. Commissioners issue press releases touting their own personal policies. And lobbyists spend years getting close to members of this junior varsity Congress. Think about the storm around former FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s decision to relax media ownership rules, giving a green light to the concentration of newspapers and television stations into fewer and fewer Read More ›

The answer, George Gilder tells me, may be hedge funds. The disappearance of Lehman Brothers and the transformation of Morgan and Goldman Sachs into heavily regulated commercial banks presents an opportunity for entrepreneurial risk taking by someone else. Such as hedge funds. New technologies make it possible for them to stay in touch with clients and handle trades quickly. The turmoil in the markets world-wide disagregates the economy and makes new entitites possible. Dispossessed “animal spirits” will surely find a new home. It is worth pausing here to recall that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac helped over several decades to get home ownership up to 70 percent in this country. Very good, up to a point. They were distinguished by Read More ›

Sen. Barack Obama argues that Sen. John McCain “hurt everyday workers with his longtime support for deregulation,” according to Politico. Thomas Frank adds, There is simply no way to blame [the failure of several large financial institutions], as Republicans used to do, on labor unions or over-regulation. No, this is the conservatives’ beloved financial system doing what comes naturally. Freed from the intrusive meddling of government, just as generations of supply-siders and entrepreneurial exuberants demanded it be, the American financial establishment has proceeded to cheat and deceive and beggar itself — and us — to the edge of Armageddon. It is as though Wall Street was run by a troupe of historical re-enactors determined to stage all the classic panics Read More ›

A new survey shows that data retention laws influence the actual behavior of citizens in Germany.
The problem with surveillance is not primarily that some bored police officer might learn about some embarrassing private detail (although this is a problem as well). The fundamental problem with surveillance is that it changes people. People under surveillance behave differently than people who are not monitored – differently than free people.
Unfortunately, this fundamental problem has just been proven in Germany. Since the beginning of this year, communication providers are required to record who communicated with whom and when (but not the content of the communication). This data is stored for six months and available to law enforcement in cases related to certain forms of crime.
A recent survey (German) by the well-known German Forsa institute now showed the social effects of this data retention law: Communication habits are indeed changing.

• 73% know about the data retention
• 11% said that they had already abstained from using phone, cell phone or e-mail in certain occasions.
• 6% believe to receive less communication since the beginning of the data retention.
• 52% said they probably would not use telecommunication for contacts like drug counselors, psychotherapists or marriage counselors because of data retention.

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John McCain, in my opinion, is a free market conservative. Not a pro-business conservative. There’s big difference. A pro-business conservative supports anything business wants to do. A free market conservative favors a free marketplace where consumers rule and where businesses can succeed or fail without government interference. We need the latter. Who will John McCain pick as his vice-presidential running mate? My guess is Joseph Lieberman. I don’t know if Lieberman would choose to run on a Republican ticket but I think he would be a perfect choice for VP and could be a perfect VP.

If what this article says is true it could impact pretty much every aspect of computing. Some scientists claim to have made a material that behaves like a superconductor at room temperature. Typically you need to cool a material with something like liquid nitrogen to make it behave like a superconductor.

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This week in the Tech Policy Weekly podcast, Cord Blomquist, Jerry Brito, Adam Thierer and I discuss the net neutrality filings at the FCC and new legislation introduced in Congress this week, the Microsoft-Yahoo merger proposal and some recent efforts to tax and regulate video games at the federal and state level.

This article in the Hollywood Reporter credits Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Bret Swanson for coining the term ‘Exaflood’ which describes the immense (and growing) volume of data streaming over the Internet.

School’s Out, by Lewis J. Perelman, an early Senior Fellow of Discovery Institute, makes the case that education as we know it will end by….well, by about now, the early 21st century. Obviously, it didn’t happen. The book was published in 1992 and is another example of the comment of Disraeli that it is important not only to be right, but to be right at the right time. Perleman’s book probably faded from prophetic influence because its predictions were too sweeping and too advanced. The education establishment was and is too entrenched to yield easily and the public’s habits of genuflecting to prestigious degrees are too ingrained. VIsionaries often have a difficulty with timing. George Gilder’s 1985 prediction (in Life Read More ›