I’m seeing some real panicked shouting online about CISPA, a new bill that some are calling “the new SOPA.” It’s absurd. The bill may not be perfect. It could have flaws. But the argument being hammered against CISPA again and again is that it may be used against copyright infringers who abuse networks. So? The only reason to oppose that is if you wish to destroy copyright property rights entirely, as the radicals do.

I warned about this way back during the SOPA debate. I predicted that the left side of the anti-SOPA coalition would try to hijack the movement into a general one against copyright, as the anarchists over there tend to do, and the shrieking over CISPA is proving me right. CISPA is not a bundle of mandates. It is an avenue to information sharing. Note that everything in CISPA is “totally voluntary,” per The Hill.

If someone and disprove that, and point to one or more mandates in CISPA, I’d like to know. Until then, the burden of proof is on the radicals to prove they’re not really out to protect Anontards and copyright infringers.

For now, it’s looking like CISPA is a solid response to The plans by the President and Democrats to expand government online, by regulating the Internet. Double regulating in fact, as every ‘critical’ industry is already regulated. So this whole “critical infrastructure” thing is more pretext than anything

Speaking of copyright, Adam Theirer suggests a parallel between copyright over-regulation and privacy over-regulation. I can see what he’s getting at, but there is one key difference between the two: copyright is a Constitutionally-enshrined principle. The nebulous concept of privacy, which in practice often amounts to buyer’s remorse of people who give away their information in exchange for free services, but then regret it, is not.

That said, when Obama talks about a huge new Privacy regulatory scheme, I worry. FCC is already grabbing power online through Net Neutrality. The administration and Lieberman-Collins are trying to bring DHS online. Now Obama wants FTC online, too?

Remember that “retransmission consent” scuffle between Jim DeMint and the ACU? DeMint is supporting a bill that would deregulate the process by which cable companies negotiate to retransmit over the air broadcasts. Here’s a defense of ACU’s position. I would suggest that we remember the fundamental reason for retransmission consent rules: a desire to have government protect over the air broadcasters from being stepped around by cable companies. All local broadcasters have to do in order to keep their feeds from being swiped entirely, is to include copyrighted content that would be illegal to be rebroadcast.

So that’s not the fear. The fear is that cable companies will negotiate directly copyright holders to rebroadcast the specific works, without keeping the Local News at 11, shutting out the local broadcaster entirely. The fear is an open market and free wheeling competition. So I support the DeMint plan. Defang the FCC.

So let’s have some more FCC: Bloomberg apparently wants Cable Neturality against Comcast, demanding government regulation of channel lineups. Give me a break. I don’t want Nanny FCC dictating channel numbers.

FCC seems to be doing the job of GSA by trying to facilitate potential government contractors. Now why would they do that? Oh right, the Obama GSA is corrupt.

Attention Brian Bilbray, Joe Pitts, and Lindsey Graham: You are allying with John Kerry. Pull up now before it’s too late. Defense came out against the LightSquared plan. FCC ruled against it. The combination of the two seems pretty conclusive, particularly when FCC is obstructing Chuck Grassley on the matter of favoritism in favor of LightSquared.

Trademark Wars: Rosetta Stone goes after Google. I don’t know, if your name is Rosetta Stone, that’s a pretty generic name for translations. There may or not be a legitimate case for calling AdWords shenanigans trademark dilution, but a generic name like Rosetta Stone, based on an actual historical object, seems like a bad case for me.

Jim DeMint sounds skeptical on the matter of a sales tax interstate compact. DeMint suggests that the compact is a way for high tax states to avoid having to compete for jobs, and that the net effect is a tax hike. I think that’s a reasonable position, but I disagree. I think if we reform sales tax in this way, and add careful safeguards to avoid a true national sales tax, this could broaden tax bases and allow states to have simpler tax regimes. Tax simplification has benefits as well, as Ronald Reagan saw in 1986.

It’s on: The Holder DoJ is suing Apple for working with book publishers to try to rig the online book market against Amazon and book purchasers, as buyer and seller tried to rig the market for the agency pricing model to prop prices up higher.

There may be facts that haven’t come out, and the law against this may or may not be good, but as it stands, they sound pretty guilty to me. It doesn’t help that the key information about this seems to have come out in a post-mortem Steve Jobs biography.

Monday night, as promised, we still have some catch up work to do. So let’s start with those Amazon Taxes, those Internet sales taxes of dubious Constitutionality. Colorado’s got tossed in federal court and Illinois’s didn’t raise any money. Obeying the Constitution counts, folks. Pass a true interstate compact through the Congress first.

Also as promised, there’s the matter of the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act. This is the one where ACU has come out against Jim DeMint, and that caught my attention. I have to side with the bill DeMint is sponsoring. I think ACU simply misunderstood what’s at stake here and had good intentions, but the excessive complexity of the regulations defeated them here.

The bill does not let cable providers become free riders, retransmitting others’ streams for free. It just stops the law from trying to dictate the parameters of the negotiations on retransmissions. I see no harm in that, and potentially much good.

Here we go again. Apparently we’re supposed to be unhappy with the CISPA information sharing bill by Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger because it potentially could be used against copyright infringement. And SOPA is invoked against that. SOPA wasn’t defeated because everyone hates copyright. It was a power grab. Take your anti-copyright anarchy battles home, Reddit kiddies. You and your Anontard buddies.

More cybersecurity still: We cannot and must not have DHS start regulating the Internet. Government can’t even secure itself yet and so has no standing to dictate to others. Information sharing in the private sector, without government gatekeepers, is far more useful for protecting our country’s Internet resources. Further, with the irrationality and secrecy of TSA and its regulations, how can we trust them at all?

Going back to SOPA, Comcast was apparently for it, which doesn’t surprise me. Comcast is an ISP particular vulnerable to Bittorrent users flooding the network with high volume copyright infringement dragging down service for everyone.

Is a problem with tech patents, including software patents, that the system isn’t scaling well? Size, not just speed?

Apparently all the fuss over FCC reform, using white spaces as an excuse to oppose all FCC reform out of the Congress, was resolved with white space use marching on. This could be interesting. We’ll have to watch and see how it works, or whether we just get a tragedy of the commons.

An interesting development in the Do Not Track saga: Radicals and businesses are interpreting them differently, but frankly, the interpretation of the radicals is stupid. There already is a way to not be tracked at all, and not just exclude third parties: Disable cookies, dummies. The radical agenda apparently to be promoted by the FTC is out of touch with the actual technologies involved.

Apparently the FTC folks don’t understand that if you don’t want tracked by, say, Amazon’s recommendations, then you simply shouldn’t log into Amazon all the time.

LightSquared may be on the verge of bankruptcy, but Chuck Grassley is still fighting tenaciously for FCC transparency with respect to LightSquared, and is going to maintain his holds on the new FCC appointees. Go Chuck Go!

Here’s a potentially huge deal in the tech/copyright nexus that I hadn’t heard about at all Google is under concerted attack by a number of copyright holders in a move that potentially risks undermining the whole DMCA safe harbor system. Google has taken many steps to curb copyright infringement on YouTube, but they’re being dogpiled upon anyway by firms going after those deep pockets. If being a rich and popular website that gets taken advantage of by copyright infringers is enough to knock down the Safe Harbor, then it seems to me that the entire Safe Harbor system of the DMCA is at risk. That’s not good, as that was a careful balancing of interests in that bill. We cannot let the scales get tilted one way.

If the Youtube case goes too far, new legislation may be needed, and that’s going to be a big old mess. Especially when the MPAA and RIAA interests will inevitably be comingled with legitimate international concerns of Chinese and other foreign firms ignoring US copyrights

So we already had the coming FCC battle over Verizon’s attempts to acquire the spectrum it needs, the Senate fight over ‘cybersecurity,’ and a possible Congressional fight over Internet sales taxation. But now there’s a new issue to keep track of: the FTC is taking it upon itself to regulate the Internet on the grounds of protecting privacy. Jim Harper seems thinks it’s nothing new, but under the Obama administration, I’m more concerned. Still Adam Thierer also says it could have been worse, though, but also mentions those dirty words ‘personal responsibility.’ Can’t have that.

Democrats are eager to empower the Obama administration, of course. That’s why we need a Republican Senate to go with a Republican House.

They’re not calling it Net Neutrality now that it’s all about restricting choice and empowering government to regulate the Internet, but the George Soros-funded Public Knowledge is called for Net Neut action against Comcast. On the Open Internet, your choices of Internet service are closed to what government decides you are allowed to have.

More FCC: the push continues for the FCC to continue to be a spectrum roadblock against Verizon, contrary to every goal of universal access it claims to have. That’s because universal access is supposed to be code for subsidies, not actual pro-growth, pro-investment policies that allow market signals to guide spectrum to the more efficient uses.

Naturally the White House opposes FCC reform which would return power back to legislators, not regulators. Can’t have that. Too much respect for the Constitution, which is over 100 years old.

I’ve actually been reading up on export controls lately, so when I see this seemingly-harmless plan to control export of censorship technology to unfree countries, I question whether it’s a good idea. We already have many cabinet-level departments doing export controls, plus a new directorate Obama created in 2010 which complicated the situation further. We might need simplification before we add more complication.

Apple and its publisher allies are probably about to get smacked hard as the agency pricing scandal comes out, where Amazon was pressured into taking the deal Apple wrote.

Support for the broad-based GOP alternative cybersecurity bill, SECURE IP, grows with NAM praising the proposal. SECURE IT’s light touch, and information sharing approach is much better than the massive power grab of the Lieberman-Collins bill.

So we already had the coming FCC battle over Verizon’s attempts to acquire the spectrum it needs, the Senate fight over ‘cybersecurity,’ and a possible Congressional fight over Internet sales taxation. But now there’s a new issue to keep track of: the FTC is taking it upon itself to regulate the Internet on the grounds of protecting privacy. Jim Harper seems thinks it’s nothing new, but under the Obama administration, I’m more concerned. Still Adam Thierer also says it could have been worse, though, but also mentions those dirty words ‘personal responsibility.’ Can’t have that.

Democrats are eager to empower the Obama administration, of course. That’s why we need a Republican Senate to go with a Republican House.

They’re not calling it Net Neutrality now that it’s all about restricting choice and empowering government to regulate the Internet, but the George Soros-funded Public Knowledge is called for Net Neut action against Comcast. On the Open Internet, your choices of Internet service are closed to what government decides you are allowed to have.

More FCC: the push continues for the FCC to continue to be a spectrum roadblock against Verizon, contrary to every goal of universal access it claims to have. That’s because universal access is supposed to be code for subsidies, not actual pro-growth, pro-investment policies that allow market signals to guide spectrum to the more efficient uses.

Naturally the White House opposes FCC reform which would return power back to legislators, not regulators. Can’t have that. Too much respect for the Constitution, which is over 100 years old.

I’ve actually been reading up on export controls lately, so when I see this seemingly-harmless plan to control export of censorship technology to unfree countries, I question whether it’s a good idea. We already have many cabinet-level departments doing export controls, plus a new directorate Obama created in 2010 which complicated the situation further. We might need simplification before we add more complication.

Apple and its publisher allies are probably about to get smacked hard as the agency pricing scandal comes out, where Amazon was pressured into taking the deal Apple wrote.

Support for the broad-based GOP alternative cybersecurity bill, SECURE IP, grows with NAM praising the proposal. SECURE IT’s light touch, and information sharing approach is much better than the massive power grab of the Lieberman-Collins bill.

The House is doing anything but shirking its responsibility to apply oversight to the Obama administration. The FCC in particular is getting the attention it needs. “Regulatory hubris” in picking winners and losers is part of the problem, says Commissioner Robert McDowell. He should know, as he’s on the inside.

Darrell Issa and Chuck Grassley disagree on the FCC’s transparency though. Issa gives them a good grade, oddly enough, even as they continue to stonewall Grassley.

And so it’s good that Jo Ann Emerson questions the FCC’s hypocritical and questionable demand for senseless record keeping in others.

Though it’d be nice if somebody asked “Senator” Wendy’s questions about Free Press, in relation to the FCC.

Lamar Smith, House Judiciary Chairman and sponsor of SOPA, has a primary challenger: Richard Morgan. Morgan’s issues page is still in progress, but so far he sounds like a good candidate to consider supporting.

The rhetoric is getting insane in the cybersecurity bill debate. No, really. Hint: passing a bill that increases information sharing and (in the case of Lieberman/Collins) creates an effective Internet Kill Switch by giving the President dictatorial powers over the Internet, neither of those things will actually protect us from attack in the short run. To pretend there’s a crisis is dangerously dishonest.

Wireless data competition marches on, despite the fringe’s claims, with the begin of NetZero’s service. They claim it’s 4G, but I don’t know if it’s LTE, WiMax, or a pseudo-4G like HSPA+.

PATENT WARS: Motorola fends off Apple at the ITC, while Samsung and RIM are now being sued over emoticons, of all things.

The House is doing anything but shirking its responsibility to apply oversight to the Obama administration. The FCC in particular is getting the attention it needs. “Regulatory hubris” in picking winners and losers is part of the problem, says Commissioner Robert McDowell. He should know, as he’s on the inside.

Darrell Issa and Chuck Grassley disagree on the FCC’s transparency though. Issa gives them a good grade, oddly enough, even as they continue to stonewall Grassley.

And so it’s good that Jo Ann Emerson questions the FCC’s hypocritical and questionable demand for senseless record keeping in others.

Though it’d be nice if somebody asked “Senator” Wendy’s questions about Free Press, in relation to the FCC.

Lamar Smith, House Judiciary Chairman and sponsor of SOPA, has a primary challenger: Richard Morgan. Morgan’s issues page is still in progress, but so far he sounds like a good candidate to consider supporting.

The rhetoric is getting insane in the cybersecurity bill debate. No, really. Hint: passing a bill that increases information sharing and (in the case of Lieberman/Collins) creates an effective Internet Kill Switch by giving the President dictatorial powers over the Internet, neither of those things will actually protect us from attack in the short run. To pretend there’s a crisis is dangerously dishonest.

Wireless data competition marches on, despite the fringe’s claims, with the begin of NetZero’s service. They claim it’s 4G, but I don’t know if it’s LTE, WiMax, or a pseudo-4G like HSPA+.

PATENT WARS: Motorola fends off Apple at the ITC, while Samsung and RIM are now being sued over emoticons, of all things.

Remember the SECURE IT bill, backed in the House by Marsha Blackburn and Mary Bono Mack, and in the Senate by John McCain and the gang? One of the key reasons I like the idea is that it enhances our options for prosecuting online crime. And contrary to ACLU hysteria, it’s not the Republican bill that is a threat to our liberties. Sharing reasonable, relevant information is not a problem. Guess what: information is the life blood of Internet defense. The Lieberman-Collins threat of an effective government take over of the Internet: that’s the problem.

Also a problem though are the attackers themselves: whether far away or based in an allied nation, information sharing is vital to defense. And when they’re domestic, criminal prosecution hurts them.

We must never forget, when plotting regulation though, that irrelevance is always just around the corner in fast-moving industries. If we shackle Google too much, we’ll kill those jobs.

Aereo, the firm that’s innovating in the offering of online access to your very own antenna for your very own stream of broadcast television, is under attack by broadcasters. They were prepared it seems, because they’re fighting back. Good for them. What’s the difference between hooking my antenna up to my own screen over the Internet or an ordinary cable? Nothing.

PATENT WARS: a new battle. Yahoo goes after Facebook. That could be interesting! No idea if it has any merit, though.

Remember the SECURE IT bill, backed in the House by Marsha Blackburn and Mary Bono Mack, and in the Senate by John McCain and the gang? One of the key reasons I like the idea is that it enhances our options for prosecuting online crime. And contrary to ACLU hysteria, it’s not the Republican bill that is a threat to our liberties. Sharing reasonable, relevant information is not a problem. Guess what: information is the life blood of Internet defense. The Lieberman-Collins threat of an effective government take over of the Internet: that’s the problem.

Also a problem though are the attackers themselves: whether far away or based in an allied nation, information sharing is vital to defense. And when they’re domestic, criminal prosecution hurts them.

We must never forget, when plotting regulation though, that irrelevance is always just around the corner in fast-moving industries. If we shackle Google too much, we’ll kill those jobs.

Aereo, the firm that’s innovating in the offering of online access to your very own antenna for your very own stream of broadcast television, is under attack by broadcasters. They were prepared it seems, because they’re fighting back. Good for them. What’s the difference between hooking my antenna up to my own screen over the Internet or an ordinary cable? Nothing.

PATENT WARS: a new battle. Yahoo goes after Facebook. That could be interesting! No idea if it has any merit, though.

Harry Reid may be on a mad dash to bring the radical Liebmerman/Collins/Rockefeller cybersecurity bill, but a broad spectrum of Republicans continue to fight. Democrats may have toned down its Internet Kill Switch provisions, but still is a massive power grab online, and the new SECURE IT act is a much better idea.

What I absolutely love about SECURE it is that it hits all the key points: It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers. It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers (Yes, I said that twice on purpose because it’s that important). It creates private sector information sharing incentives without regulating the private sector at large. It turns inward and gets government to audit its own practices.

These are all the right ideas and none of the wrong ideas. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is speaking only the common-sense truth when he says “This bill recognizes that industry is at the center of any solution. It’s a sensible step forward that allows industry to invest in innovation and job creation rather than compliance. Imposing a costly and bureaucratic regulatory regime is the wrong approach to national security. New regulations will slow down innovation and investment while companies wait years for the government to introduce outdated standards. The regulatory process simply cannot keep up with the rapid pace of technology.”

It tells you just how basic and correct this bill is when it has co-sponsorship from such a broad spectrum of the caucus: Ron Johnson as mentioned, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Chuck Grassley, Saxby Chambliss, Lisa Murkowski, Dan Coats, and Richard Burr.

Support Ron Johnson and the team. We want this bill passed. The common-sense alternative to the power grab cybersecurity bill.

Even extreme libertarians are cautious about the bill instead of strongly opposed, which I think we all can see is a big deal for a bill about strengthening national security. So it’s no wonder Harry Reid is promising to give the bill a fair chance. This could be the one that passes, especially if Greg Walden’s new House cybersecurity efforts make it clear that this is the one that can get through both chambers and to the President.

Criminal enforcement does matter. Why else would Anonymous online terrorists attack the Interpol webpage after an Interpol-led effort rolled up a 25-man Anonymous cell? When we arrest them and jail them, it hurts them. We need to do this more, and we need to make sure the penalties sting.

PATENT WARS: Well, again, this time it’s trademark wars. Apple is going after the EPAD in China after having won the iPad battle.

Why would we be in a rush to raise taxes on Facebook, an innovator and driver of job creation in this economy? Don’t believe me that they create jobs? Just look at Zynga and all the other companies around that exist because of Facebook and its popularity?

Should we have a whole FCC blackout regulation in place solely as a gift to major sports leagues that make billions of dollars? Probably not.

Kim Dotcom claims he’s as innocent as Saddam Hussein in defending his since-raided Megaupload operation. Look, the DMCA model of working with copyright holders is a reasonable one. If he wasn’t doing it, then he had it coming.

Thanks to George Soros, Public Knowledge, Gigi Sohn, and the rest of the anti-AT&T/T-Mobile team, AT&T is now having to stab we (as I’m one) unlimited data plan holders with throttling and caps. Lack of spectrum hurts, kids. And yet some of these people are going to complain that AT&T is doing what it has to after being the target of a team effort by Barack Obama and George Soros.

And they’re going to target AT&T’s next plan, too which is very simple one. AT&T would like to give wireless App developers he opportunity to subsidize data use by their apps, calling it the ’800 number model’ applied to mobile data. Some people are scared to death of this, because competition could force some data-heavy services to consider data costs when designing their apps. But it’s a great, innovative, market-based way to help people on metered data plans manage their use. Government shouldn’t interfere.

Some say we need a national sales tax compact to keep states from having to raise other taxes as the sales tax model breaks down. I’m not sure if it’s a bad thing to just have a smaller, simpler tax code, but it’s a fair point to consider. Some states may overreact, using the sales tax situation as cover for raising revenue.

Tech at Night continues to be on a shifted schedule this week thanks to my being detained last Friday and Monday.

Harry Reid may be on a mad dash to bring the radical Liebmerman/Collins/Rockefeller cybersecurity bill, but a broad spectrum of Republicans continue to fight. Democrats may have toned down its Internet Kill Switch provisions, but still is a massive power grab online, and the new SECURE IT act is a much better idea.

What I absolutely love about SECURE it is that it hits all the key points: It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers. It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers (Yes, I said that twice on purpose because it’s that important). It creates private sector information sharing incentives without regulating the private sector at large. It turns inward and gets government to audit its own practices.

These are all the right ideas and none of the wrong ideas. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is speaking only the common-sense truth when he says “This bill recognizes that industry is at the center of any solution. It’s a sensible step forward that allows industry to invest in innovation and job creation rather than compliance. Imposing a costly and bureaucratic regulatory regime is the wrong approach to national security. New regulations will slow down innovation and investment while companies wait years for the government to introduce outdated standards. The regulatory process simply cannot keep up with the rapid pace of technology.”

It tells you just how basic and correct this bill is when it has co-sponsorship from such a broad spectrum of the caucus: Ron Johnson as mentioned, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Chuck Grassley, Saxby Chambliss, Lisa Murkowski, Dan Coats, and Richard Burr.

Support Ron Johnson and the team. We want this bill passed. The common-sense alternative to the power grab cybersecurity bill.

Even extreme libertarians are cautious about the bill instead of strongly opposed, which I think we all can see is a big deal for a bill about strengthening national security. So it’s no wonder Harry Reid is promising to give the bill a fair chance. This could be the one that passes, especially if Greg Walden’s new House cybersecurity efforts make it clear that this is the one that can get through both chambers and to the President.

Criminal enforcement does matter. Why else would Anonymous online terrorists attack the Interpol webpage after an Interpol-led effort rolled up a 25-man Anonymous cell? When we arrest them and jail them, it hurts them. We need to do this more, and we need to make sure the penalties sting.

PATENT WARS: Well, again, this time it’s trademark wars. Apple is going after the EPAD in China after having won the iPad battle.

Why would we be in a rush to raise taxes on Facebook, an innovator and driver of job creation in this economy? Don’t believe me that they create jobs? Just look at Zynga and all the other companies around that exist because of Facebook and its popularity?

Should we have a whole FCC blackout regulation in place solely as a gift to major sports leagues that make billions of dollars? Probably not.

Kim Dotcom claims he’s as innocent as Saddam Hussein in defending his since-raided Megaupload operation. Look, the DMCA model of working with copyright holders is a reasonable one. If he wasn’t doing it, then he had it coming.

Thanks to George Soros, Public Knowledge, Gigi Sohn, and the rest of the anti-AT&T/T-Mobile team, AT&T is now having to stab we (as I’m one) unlimited data plan holders with throttling and caps. Lack of spectrum hurts, kids. And yet some of these people are going to complain that AT&T is doing what it has to after being the target of a team effort by Barack Obama and George Soros.

And they’re going to target AT&T’s next plan, too which is very simple one. AT&T would like to give wireless App developers he opportunity to subsidize data use by their apps, calling it the ’800 number model’ applied to mobile data. Some people are scared to death of this, because competition could force some data-heavy services to consider data costs when designing their apps. But it’s a great, innovative, market-based way to help people on metered data plans manage their use. Government shouldn’t interfere.

Some say we need a national sales tax compact to keep states from having to raise other taxes as the sales tax model breaks down. I’m not sure if it’s a bad thing to just have a smaller, simpler tax code, but it’s a fair point to consider. Some states may overreact, using the sales tax situation as cover for raising revenue.

Tech at Night continues to be on a shifted schedule this week thanks to my being detained last Friday and Monday.