As is usual, tonight I’ll give priority to the things we had posted at RedState, and mention those first. Especially My own post on the latest on the California Amazon Tax referendum, and more specifically on the plans of Democrats to nullify the constitutional referendum process, in service of their unconstitutional Internet sales tax. We need to pressure Republicans to vote the right away, at least.

We also have a post by streiff on regulation, and how we need to do something about it. He asks a great question, on the relative levels of oversight the Congress gives to the military and to the post-New Deal alphabet soup: “So why should the commissioning of a lieutenant or the promotion of a mid-grade officer merit positive action on the part of Congress but an EPA regulatory regime that seems focused on making the use of coal illegal allowed with no action?”

More on why PROTECT IP is a bad bill and must be defeated. Patrick Ruffini and David Segal make the case, including one key facet of the process the bill creates: “The entities accused of infringement wouldn’t even get their day in court until after they’ve been shut down – they could appeal to the courts for relief only after the fact.” Tell me this isn’t giving government too much power too easily abused. Just tell me.

David Gerwitz has another great point about PROTECT IP: If US-based DNS services become compromised with censorship, then people will just stop using US-based DNS. Much as people outside of China don’t use Chinese censored DNS, and people in China do their best to proxy around it, people outside of the US will stop using any US-based service, and people in the US will.. yup, proxy around it if they have to. It won’t secure anything, and it’ll just expand government power. Defeat PROTECT IP.

Big telecommunications firms do more for Americans in a crisis than the radical left ever will.

Left-on-left battle as radicals call for FCC action against BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system that services San Francisco and Oakland. I’m rooting for injuries.

I’m not sure what to think of Google’s latest problems, though. Google is in trouble with the FTC for running lots of advertising for bad drug companies. Now it’s being alleged that Larry Page knew about the problems all along, but chose to do nothing about it, it seems. Pass the popcorn.

I just hope all the bellyaching about Google+’s names policy, the one Facebook may copy, doesn’t lead to regulation or legislation. Guess what? If you don’t want to use it, don’t use it! I pulled just about all my data off of Facebook and I never signed up for Google+. In fact, I don’t keep one Google account. If I have need for a specific service, I create a new account to use it. No data aggregation. I control what I share. We don’t need regulation for that, so let’s fight the urge to regulate.

AT&T seems confident its deal with T-Mobile won’t be blocked, as AT&T has rolled out a 4G LTE test in Chicago. Exciting. That takes us one step closer to having four national 4G networks. I love competition.

In the big budget deal this year was a provision known as the Amazon Tax or the Internet Sales Tax. Officially it’s an expansion of the Use Tax. Whatever you call it, it’s an unconstitutional* cash grab, attempting to force out-of-state Amazon to pay California sales tax.

The tax has already killed businesses in California that depended on revenue from Amazon and other affiliate program hosts, who were forced to shut out California residents in response to the tax. Even though the tax itself is set to take effect January 1, out of state retailers needed to take action to protect themselves in advance. So as a result, state revenues have been reduced, not raised, by this bill. The already lagging state economy has been worsened.

So a referendum will be put on the ballot by the people, to be voted on by the people, to stop this harmful, illegal tax. It could pass, too. Early polling hasn’t been bad. So the Democrats are going to try passing a new bill, starting in the Senate, to change the tax to make it take effect immediately.

The trick is that by passing the tax as urgent, it will nullify the referendum under the state Constitution. And worse, to get support for this, Democrats have effectively bought off eBay to turn on Amazon, by making tweak to the bill to exempt eBay from having to collect tax. Convenient, huh?

So, California, it’s time to take action and defeat this attempt to nullify the referendum.

Five Republicans are being targeted in the hopes of getting them to support this subversion of process in California, and ultimately to support an illegal tax hike. But they all could do to hear from us.

So call your state Senator today and urge them to reject any attempt to subvert the referendum process, and to vote no on any bill to strengthen the Amazon Tax or any Internet sales tax.

My Senator, Bill Emmerson, said in April that the people should decide on the budget. It’s time for him now to back up those words, and vote no.

* “The Congress shall have Power… To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;” Last I checked, the California Assembly and Senate are not the Congress.

In the big budget deal this year was a provision known as the Amazon Tax or the Internet Sales Tax. Officially it’s an expansion of the Use Tax. Whatever you call it, it’s an unconstitutional* cash grab, attempting to force out-of-state Amazon to pay California sales tax.

The tax has already killed businesses in California that depended on revenue from Amazon and other affiliate program hosts, who were forced to shut out California residents in response to the tax. Even though the tax itself is set to take effect January 1, out of state retailers needed to take action to protect themselves in advance. So as a result, state revenues have been reduced, not raised, by this bill. The already lagging state economy has been worsened.

So a referendum will be put on the ballot by the people, to be voted on by the people, to stop this harmful, illegal tax. It could pass, too. Early polling hasn’t been bad. So the Democrats are going to try passing a new bill, starting in the Senate, to change the tax to make it take effect immediately.

The trick is that by passing the tax as urgent, it will nullify the referendum under the state Constitution. And worse, to get support for this, Democrats have effectively bought off eBay to turn on Amazon, by making tweak to the bill to exempt eBay from having to collect tax. Convenient, huh?

So, California, it’s time to take action and defeat this attempt to nullify the referendum.

Five Republicans are being targeted in the hopes of getting them to support this subversion of process in California, and ultimately to support an illegal tax hike. But they all could do to hear from us.

So call your state Senator today and urge them to reject any attempt to subvert the referendum process, and to vote no on any bill to strengthen the Amazon Tax or any Internet sales tax.

My Senator, Bill Emmerson, said in April that the people should decide on the budget. It’s time for him now to back up those words, and vote no.

* “The Congress shall have Power… To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;” Last I checked, the California Assembly and Senate are not the Congress.

Hey look, it’s Tech at Night before midnight Pacific time. Guess who’s got two thumbs and is finishing the week early? This guy.

The FCC is creating yet more new regulations. The Obama Administration just can’t get enough of these things. I didn’t know if anyone would have noticed it happen, but The Hill caught it as well.

Meanwhile the FCC slowly moves to increase national 4G competition in America by moving inch by inch toward approving the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, over the continued whining of Al Franken. Franken says he is “very suspicious of consolidation of power.” Yet, he won’t lift a finger against large unions, and he voted for Obamacare. Hmm.

I’d been under the impression that Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act was a done deal once it passed the House, despite the objections of Tech at Night and Dana Rohrabacher. RedState diarist Ron Robinson says it’s not over though, and has a call to action posted.

More on patents: Daniel Foty has an extended analysis of Google, Motorola, and patents. He suggests, and I agree, that in the short run, buyers of phones won’t notice. But the deal is part of an ongoing escalation of patent litigation in America.

We’ll close with some more on the California referendum to repeal the unconstitutional, punitive Internet Sales Tax aimed at Amazon. It’s been looking good for the referendum, so the Democrats are panicked. They’re now looking to prevent the referendum from happening by re-passing the tax as “urgent.”

Slimy enough, no? Well the new bill also exempts eBay from the tax, making it even more specifically targeted at Amazon. So eBay is now on board to punish the competition.

This whole Amazon Tax is one of the more corrupt situations I’ve seen in my lifetime of watching California politics. They’re not even hiding it. For shame.

Hey look, it’s Tech at Night before midnight Pacific time. Guess who’s got two thumbs and is finishing the week early? This guy.

The FCC is creating yet more new regulations. The Obama Administration just can’t get enough of these things. I didn’t know if anyone would have noticed it happen, but The Hill caught it as well.

Meanwhile the FCC slowly moves to increase national 4G competition in America by moving inch by inch toward approving the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, over the continued whining of Al Franken. Franken says he is “very suspicious of consolidation of power.” Yet, he won’t lift a finger against large unions, and he voted for Obamacare. Hmm.

I’d been under the impression that Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act was a done deal once it passed the House, despite the objections of Tech at Night and Dana Rohrabacher. RedState diarist Ron Robinson says it’s not over though, and has a call to action posted.

More on patents: Daniel Foty has an extended analysis of Google, Motorola, and patents. He suggests, and I agree, that in the short run, buyers of phones won’t notice. But the deal is part of an ongoing escalation of patent litigation in America.

We’ll close with some more on the California referendum to repeal the unconstitutional, punitive Internet Sales Tax aimed at Amazon. It’s been looking good for the referendum, so the Democrats are panicked. They’re now looking to prevent the referendum from happening by re-passing the tax as “urgent.”

Slimy enough, no? Well the new bill also exempts eBay from the tax, making it even more specifically targeted at Amazon. So eBay is now on board to punish the competition.

This whole Amazon Tax is one of the more corrupt situations I’ve seen in my lifetime of watching California politics. They’re not even hiding it. For shame.

No really, Governor Haslam, you do not want to bring California taxation to Tennessee. Have you seen our unemployment? That’s why we just might defeat it at referendum.

PETA people are hijacking phones, sending malicious messages without consent, and running up text message bills. People need to be careful about what they install, but this sort of thing needs to send people to jail, as well. We don’t need more laws and regulations, we need more enforcement against the bad guys.

How badly do we not need more laws and regulations? Even the Progressive Policy Institute’s Michael Mandel thinks so, calling on the President to lead in the direction of less regulation and pro-growth change.

I’ve come out strongly against the proposed PROTECT IP law, that would create a national Internet censorship blacklist, like they have in unfree countries. Tech Liberation Front has gone further in studying the bill and finding just what’s wrong with it, proposing a list of fixes:

1. Drop provisions that tamper with the DNS system in an effort to block U.S. access to banned sites.
2. Drop provisions that tamper with search engines, indices, and any other linkage to banned sites.
3. Remove a private right of action that would allow copyright and trademark holders to obtain court orders banning ad networks and financial transaction processors from doing business with banned sites.
4. Scale back current enforcement abuses by the Department of Homeland Security under the existing PRO-IP Act of 2008.
5. Focus the vague and overinclusive definition of the kind of websites that can be banned, limiting it to truly criminal enterprises.

Copyright and Trademark are, in theory, good things to have, but mass censorship of the Internet in the support of a good thing is not in itself good.

Though sometimes trademark expansions annoy me. See the US Olympic Committee picking on the “Redneck Olympics”. Of course, I don’t like the IOC and its affiliated bodies anyway, so maybe I’m biased.

Google has drawn some criticism for its restrictive Google+ policies, where they try to lock you down onto one and only one account, preventing you from juggling multiple identities for different communities, and blocking the use of aliases to that effect. Facebook may adopt the same policy. Me? I’ll never join Google+ and I might just delete my Facebook account one of these days. These firms are greedy for personal information, and control of it.

The chickens continue to come home to roost at Google, as the FTC might try to implement Phone Neutrality for Android in response to Google’s plans to acquire Motorola’s phone business. When will Google learn that they blew it on Net Neutrality?

It turns out Germany overstepped its bounds legally in the EU, and most injunctions against Samsung importing the Galaxy Tab have been lifted, due to German courts having no legal right to impose them. Samsung’s not out of hot water for copying Apple designs, though.

Big surprise: the President foolishly handed over total control of the Internet to international bodies, and now we run the risk of totalitarian nations trying to wreck it through the UN. Sigh.

Another shocker: The Obama FCC found a great, market-based way to get us more wireless spectrum, incentive auctions, so that we can have nigh universal access to multiple carriers of wireless, high speed Internet, and John Dingell is having a temper tantrum. Only a totalitarian socialist would be “disturbed” by free market allocation of resources. Freedom threatens dictators, not small-d democrats.

Oh, and be prepared for more surprise: Obama’s cybersecurity plans won’t actually improve security. They’re just power grabs. You could knock me over with a feather.

Democrats are just serving up failure after failure after failure on tech policy. A combination of incompetence and ideological socialism will do that, I guess.

Let’s just hope they stumble into the right idea and stay out of the way enough that AT&T can do its 4G rollout using T-Mobile spectrum.

No really, Governor Haslam, you do not want to bring California taxation to Tennessee. Have you seen our unemployment? That’s why we just might defeat it at referendum.

PETA people are hijacking phones, sending malicious messages without consent, and running up text message bills. People need to be careful about what they install, but this sort of thing needs to send people to jail, as well. We don’t need more laws and regulations, we need more enforcement against the bad guys.

How badly do we not need more laws and regulations? Even the Progressive Policy Institute’s Michael Mandel thinks so, calling on the President to lead in the direction of less regulation and pro-growth change.

I’ve come out strongly against the proposed PROTECT IP law, that would create a national Internet censorship blacklist, like they have in unfree countries. Tech Liberation Front has gone further in studying the bill and finding just what’s wrong with it, proposing a list of fixes:

1. Drop provisions that tamper with the DNS system in an effort to block U.S. access to banned sites.
2. Drop provisions that tamper with search engines, indices, and any other linkage to banned sites.
3. Remove a private right of action that would allow copyright and trademark holders to obtain court orders banning ad networks and financial transaction processors from doing business with banned sites.
4. Scale back current enforcement abuses by the Department of Homeland Security under the existing PRO-IP Act of 2008.
5. Focus the vague and overinclusive definition of the kind of websites that can be banned, limiting it to truly criminal enterprises.

Copyright and Trademark are, in theory, good things to have, but mass censorship of the Internet in the support of a good thing is not in itself good.

Though sometimes trademark expansions annoy me. See the US Olympic Committee picking on the “Redneck Olympics”. Of course, I don’t like the IOC and its affiliated bodies anyway, so maybe I’m biased.

Google has drawn some criticism for its restrictive Google+ policies, where they try to lock you down onto one and only one account, preventing you from juggling multiple identities for different communities, and blocking the use of aliases to that effect. Facebook may adopt the same policy. Me? I’ll never join Google+ and I might just delete my Facebook account one of these days. These firms are greedy for personal information, and control of it.

The chickens continue to come home to roost at Google, as the FTC might try to implement Phone Neutrality for Android in response to Google’s plans to acquire Motorola’s phone business. When will Google learn that they blew it on Net Neutrality?

It turns out Germany overstepped its bounds legally in the EU, and most injunctions against Samsung importing the Galaxy Tab have been lifted, due to German courts having no legal right to impose them. Samsung’s not out of hot water for copying Apple designs, though.

Big surprise: the President foolishly handed over total control of the Internet to international bodies, and now we run the risk of totalitarian nations trying to wreck it through the UN. Sigh.

Another shocker: The Obama FCC found a great, market-based way to get us more wireless spectrum, incentive auctions, so that we can have nigh universal access to multiple carriers of wireless, high speed Internet, and John Dingell is having a temper tantrum. Only a totalitarian socialist would be “disturbed” by free market allocation of resources. Freedom threatens dictators, not small-d democrats.

Oh, and be prepared for more surprise: Obama’s cybersecurity plans won’t actually improve security. They’re just power grabs. You could knock me over with a feather.

Democrats are just serving up failure after failure after failure on tech policy. A combination of incompetence and ideological socialism will do that, I guess.

Let’s just hope they stumble into the right idea and stay out of the way enough that AT&T can do its 4G rollout using T-Mobile spectrum.

Hello again to those I saw in Charleston over the weekend, and hope to see you next time to those who weren’t able to make it!

While I return to California and get settled in again, it seems that some are leaving the state for good, and the hostile business climate is why. This includes the punitive Amazon Tax which has made it impossible for Amazon and others to host affiliate programs in California, destroying small businesses, slashing profits, and killing jobs. And this is a story we’re seeing again and again, up and down the state. New and higher taxes, even of the unconstitutional variety, kills jobs.

So my message to Tennessee’s Governor Haslam is don’t do it. Don’t be like us. Create a job-friendly environment, or you will only compound whatever revenue problems you have.

Once again, San Francisco bay area proves itself out of step even with far-left Democrats. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system shut down some wireless phone transmitters to disrupt some protests, and even the Obama FCC has a problem with that.

Speaking of the President and his FCC, just where is Barack Obama on FCC matters? Does this President intend to lead, or follow?

File under “When you lose the unions….”: Minnesota’s AFL-CIO has called out Al Franken for being too big government on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. Al Franken: too extreme, even for Minnesota unions.

Genuine Astroturf is being driven by the radical left, and Sprint, to the FCC comments process. What they accuse our side of doing is nothing they don’t actually do. Projection, projection, projection.

How do groups like Anonymous do so much, with so little sense? People are lazy and/or ignorant and deploy insecure systems. Even the government. Why, I deployed a network a couple of weeks ago, and if I’d used the hardware supplied by the ISP, I’d have been giving my client encryption that was broken completely, years ago, making the network insecure against any determined listener.

And no, you can’t legislate or regulate this stuff. Legislation and regulation are too slow; consider that the government-sponsored DES encryption algorithm had grown insecure by brute force years before it was actually replaced by the new AES standard.

The debate between LightSquared and GPS manufacturers rages on. Heightened competition in the high-end, national, 4G wireless Internet market hangs in the balance.

App developers: Don’t target children under 13 with your email gathering, or the government will come after you. COPPA, unlike some for the children bills like CDA, does not enforce censorship and I expect to withstand any court scrutiny.

I caught some flak when I pointed out that Google is hypocritical about patents. Google acquires them freely, but like the Peace Loving Soviet Union said about its imperialist expansionism, Google claims its actions are different and don’t count. So some may be surprised that as Google announces plans to buy Motorola’s mobile phone business, it turns out that the big story is that Google wants Motorola’s patents related to those phones. And that’s not me saying that: It’s Google co-founder Larry Page, who has now replaced Eric Schmidt as CEO.

Anyone care to bet me, and lay me odds, on the proposition that Google will announce Royalty Free licensing on all its patents, to the public at large, with no discrimination of any kind, forever? I’m skeptical, but maybe a Google true believer has some money to burn make by betting me on this. Keep in mind that Android is supposed to be an open source platform, but Google is complaining its source code is confidential.

So let us all pause to chuckle a moment at the sad, unfair, big government intrusion by the FTC into Google’s business as Search Neutrality marches on. This investigation by the Obama administration will also check to see if Android is as open as they say it is. So it’s Search Neutrality and Android Neutrality. And yes, fellow conservatives, we must oppose this power grab. It may be funny now when it’s directed at Google, but it won’t be funny when it targets someone else next.

Hello again to those I saw in Charleston over the weekend, and hope to see you next time to those who weren’t able to make it!

While I return to California and get settled in again, it seems that some are leaving the state for good, and the hostile business climate is why. This includes the punitive Amazon Tax which has made it impossible for Amazon and others to host affiliate programs in California, destroying small businesses, slashing profits, and killing jobs. And this is a story we’re seeing again and again, up and down the state. New and higher taxes, even of the unconstitutional variety, kills jobs.

So my message to Tennessee’s Governor Haslam is don’t do it. Don’t be like us. Create a job-friendly environment, or you will only compound whatever revenue problems you have.

Once again, San Francisco bay area proves itself out of step even with far-left Democrats. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system shut down some wireless phone transmitters to disrupt some protests, and even the Obama FCC has a problem with that.

Speaking of the President and his FCC, just where is Barack Obama on FCC matters? Does this President intend to lead, or follow?

File under “When you lose the unions….”: Minnesota’s AFL-CIO has called out Al Franken for being too big government on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. Al Franken: too extreme, even for Minnesota unions.

Genuine Astroturf is being driven by the radical left, and Sprint, to the FCC comments process. What they accuse our side of doing is nothing they don’t actually do. Projection, projection, projection.

How do groups like Anonymous do so much, with so little sense? People are lazy and/or ignorant and deploy insecure systems. Even the government. Why, I deployed a network a couple of weeks ago, and if I’d used the hardware supplied by the ISP, I’d have been giving my client encryption that was broken completely, years ago, making the network insecure against any determined listener.

And no, you can’t legislate or regulate this stuff. Legislation and regulation are too slow; consider that the government-sponsored DES encryption algorithm had grown insecure by brute force years before it was actually replaced by the new AES standard.

The debate between LightSquared and GPS manufacturers rages on. Heightened competition in the high-end, national, 4G wireless Internet market hangs in the balance.

App developers: Don’t target children under 13 with your email gathering, or the government will come after you. COPPA, unlike some for the children bills like CDA, does not enforce censorship and I expect to withstand any court scrutiny.

I caught some flak when I pointed out that Google is hypocritical about patents. Google acquires them freely, but like the Peace Loving Soviet Union said about its imperialist expansionism, Google claims its actions are different and don’t count. So some may be surprised that as Google announces plans to buy Motorola’s mobile phone business, it turns out that the big story is that Google wants Motorola’s patents related to those phones. And that’s not me saying that: It’s Google co-founder Larry Page, who has now replaced Eric Schmidt as CEO.

Anyone care to bet me, and lay me odds, on the proposition that Google will announce Royalty Free licensing on all its patents, to the public at large, with no discrimination of any kind, forever? I’m skeptical, but maybe a Google true believer has some money to burn make by betting me on this. Keep in mind that Android is supposed to be an open source platform, but Google is complaining its source code is confidential.

So let us all pause to chuckle a moment at the sad, unfair, big government intrusion by the FTC into Google’s business as Search Neutrality marches on. This investigation by the Obama administration will also check to see if Android is as open as they say it is. So it’s Search Neutrality and Android Neutrality. And yes, fellow conservatives, we must oppose this power grab. It may be funny now when it’s directed at Google, but it won’t be funny when it targets someone else next.

I’ve been warning for ages that Universal Service Fund reform was coming, and that it would end up as an Internet tax. Well here we go: Plans are afoot. Oddly enough though, people seem fine with the America’s Broadband Connectivity Plan, which so far seems to be a plan to redirect funding toward greater Internet access. Free State Foundation is fine with the plans so far. IIA supports it. Greg Walden and Lee Terry are saying positive things.

I still worry that a new tax will spring up here somewhere, but if it doesn’t, then maybe we’ll dodge a bullet.

Speaking of bullets though, Dick Durbin’s trying to fire another one at our already shaky economy. Amazon supports it, but only because they want the states off their back. I oppose it. No new taxes. And sorry Charlie (Dickie?), but sales taxes on interstate commerce are most definitely a new tax.

Of course, Amazon’s fight in California still isn’t over. And small businesses are paying the price. So said Patrick May in the Mercury News yesterday:

But for the thousands of affiliates in the state now set adrift by Amazon and Overstock, another major out-of-state player, the law is an unfair and misguided attempt to raise revenues on the backs of struggling mom-and-pop businesses.

Rather than bring in tax dollars, they say, it will instead drive away scores of entrepreneurs California needs to innovate its way out of its economic malaise.

The Amazon Tax in California is worsening our economy. The referendum to repeal it must pass.

Some FCC? I mentioned this week that Senate Republicans were questioning Net Neutrality, and now House Republicans are back at it again, too. This illegal regulation must die.

Another questionable bill is this so-called anti-child pornography bill which mandates ISPs to keep detailed records of your Internet use. The possibilities of abuse for this are tremendous, all for one narrow niche of law enforcement. For once, I hope the Senate kills this bill.

Yet another reason to support the AT&T/T-Mobile deal being spared big government intervention: AT&T just had to sucker punch some unlimited contract holders because of spectrum limitations. Because of government stalling and meddling.

Meanwhile, Sprint continues to do the same as AT&T by using other people’s spectrum,apparently planning a move from Clearwire to LightSquared, because guess what? The spectrum shortage is real.

Remember when Eric Schmidt suggested it was wrong to enforce patents instead of innovating? What a hypocrite, as Google is now buying patents to play the game as well.

iPubSoft’s DRM removal software for electronic books just might test the limits of the DMCA’s exception for interoperability.

Closing note: I am all for Ron Johnson’s proposed regulatory freeze. With all the regulatory overreach going on, from FCC, to EPA, to FTC, and beyond, it’s time we put a stop to the runaway system of unelected, unaccountable power grabs.