Hash Tag Tragedy of the Commons – #Netneutrality

I hadn’t heard the delicate Grateful Dead song, Althea, for some time.  Maybe not in ten years.  And then last night, on Pandora, it streamed into my ears.  A nice gift before falling asleep.

Not uncharacteristically, however, I made one last stop on my way to bed, diverting the eine kleine nachtmusik music to…Twitter.

What was I thinking?

If you’re familiar with Twitter, the “pull” technology is all about the “hash tag” – i.e., a “#” placed before some de facto group-organizing term, which allows users to easily search for related “Tweets.”

The hash tag now represents a virtual forum, a commons of sorts.  But, like all commons, externalized “waste” can plague it.

One hash tag has truly gotten under my skin lately.  #Netneutrality.  It has approached a “tragedy of the commons” level, littered with “post-corporate” sloganeering, mostly aiming to Lilliput ISPs into 19^th-Century innovation and service provision.

I don’t want to get all Tweet Police on ya’, but quite frankly, I do not care if Gigi Sohn is breezily “on her way to the #FCC net neutrality workshop in Seattle.”  Nor do I give a hoot about telling “Washington we have legislation that protects our Internet.”  Clearly for me, the devil will be wearing a fur jacket before I partake in reaching “2 million for Net Neutrality! Save the Internet: http://bit.ly/4qMVWI #netneutrality (via @freepress).”

TweetDeck #Netneutrality and you can’t avoid tons of this digitally similar detritus.  While these 140-character outbursts on their own could hold valid expressions of concern, they’re plainly coordinated, putting the lie to any grassroots appeal they could have.

“@freepress.”  That says it all.  Fauxroots.  Astroturf.  Brute majority force, programmed by Soros-sympathetic consultants.

I guess I shouldn’t get my undies in such a wad over this.  Net Neutrality, pushed by the FCC / Free Press, happens now.  That is, the flavor that keeps government out of the picture.  It drives the vibrant and competitive marketplace for broadband services, helping more and more Americans each month get connected to the Internet.

Lilliputian regulations?  They’re mostly absent in this American success story.

Yet, you wouldn’t know that if all you looked at was Twitter.

Sure. #Netneutrality owes me nothing.  But, like most commons that one chooses to traverse – real or virtual – loud, orchestrated and thuggish voices spoil the experience.  We don’t need an FCC to make it better (they have a poor track record of their own to keep), but a little restraint can go a long way.

I’m not saying that grassroots battles waged via this fragile new medium have to approach the transcendence of hearing a great song you haven’t heard from in a long while.  Still, they should offer value beyond the repetitive, digitized bullet points of Astroturfers.

More to the point, if #Netneutrality is about engendering a conversation – I can grok that.  But if it’s about smashmouth, majority politics, I think I’d rather choose Pandora instead.

At least there I can gently fall asleep with Althea, instead of Gigi, on my mind.

NY Times LTE – FCC, Let’s Avoid Internet Regulation

I was fortunate enough to get a letter-to-the-editor published in the NY Times this weekend, responding to the paper’s call for broad Net Neutrality rules which would regulate broadband services.

____________

Regulate the Internet?

To the Editor:

In “The F.C.C. and the Internet” (editorial, April 19), you ignore two important facts to arrive at your sweeping conclusion that the Federal Communications Commission must regulate the Internet to ensure its health and growth.

Over the last five years alone, American companies — incentivized by the absence of Internet regulation — have invested more than half a trillion dollars to build broadband infrastructure. Consequently, this has exploded broadband choice and access, boosting jobs, productivity and commerce, as well as other important societal-civic benefits, for more than 90 percent of America. This growth will continue, fostered by vibrant competition among cable, wireless, wire line and other evolving means.

It is understandable that you ignore the second fact: it reveals an inconvenient truth. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which put Internet services outside of 75-year-old telephone regulations, was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by a Democratic president, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan manner. The Bush-era regulatory changes, which ensure that Internet services get treated in accord with the law, only followed through on the pro-deregulatory, pro-marketplace intent of the law.

America’s Internet thrives. It does so because of less regulation, not more. The F.C.C.’s plan to regulate the Internet will hurt average Americans by limiting choice and thwarting expansion of new services and options.

Mike Wendy
Washington, April 19, 2010

The writer is vice president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank that takes support from the information technology, telecom, wireless, media, cable and content industries.

K Street Misinformation Pours into Gutter – FCC Must Know Limits of Its Magic

A lot of misinformation has recently emerged about the FCC’s so-called ability to dodge the uncomfortable implications of Comcast v. FCC, and effortlessly reclassify information services into common carrier services.  As if this can be done, willy-nilly, with some regulatory incantation that only the Chairman of the present Commission can whip up.

Not surprisingly, many media outlets – old and new – seem all too willing to support Internet policy changes without critical analysis other than: “Did Bush regulators ‘screw up the Internet’ by keeping it free of regulation?  Then going in the opposite direction is alright” (check out this doozey by the NY Times to get an idea).

Nowhere is this more apparent than on Twitter or in the blogosphere.  Just look on your TweetDeck at #FCC, #NetPolicy, #Broadband or #NetNeutrality and you’ll see tons of “grassroots” voices trafficking in Free Press- or Public Knowledge-like diatribes, screaming, “Help #Congress & #FCC keep our Internet free!!!”

Their answer – seemingly like the Commission’s (???, we don’t know for sure yet) – is to impose onerous Net Neutrality / non-discrimination rules on networks so “all Internet content can remain free.”

Former Obama official, Susan Crawford, says it’s easy-peasy.  In her view, the FCC can -

…[P]ursue both network neutrality and widespread access to broadband by formally relabeling Internet access services as ‘telecommunications services,’ rather than ‘information services,’ as they are called now. All the commission needs to do is prove it has a good reason. (emphasis added)

Well, Susan, it’s a bit more complicated than that.   As PFF’s Barbara Esbin points out with great clarity:

To impose Title II regulations on the Internet, the FCC would need to establish a rational evidentiary and sound legal basis to bring Internet service providers under its Title II authority through an act of regulatory “reclassification.”

To accomplish this procedurally, the FCC will have to:

1. Adopt either a Notice of Inquiry or Notice of Proposed Rule Making proposing that the FCC reverse four of its own prior orders directly on point, one of which has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in NCTA v. Brand X, so that it could declare Internet services to be “telecommunications services.”
2. Receive public comment on its proposal creating a record that on balance supports its proposed reclassification.
3. Adopt either a Declaratory Ruling or a Report and Order providing a reasoned factual and legal basis for changing the classification and regulatory treatment for Internet services.

To survive a challenge in court, the FCC will have to:

1. Demonstrate why reclassification of Internet access service from an “information service” to a “telecommunications service” is not arbitrary and capricious.
2. Demonstrate that it has Congressional authority to regulate the provision of Internet access service as a common carrier offering;
3. Demonstrate that its action does not infringe the constitutional rights of Internet service providers.

Reclassifying broadband Internet access service, in whole or in part, as a telecommunications service will not be easy and the FCC would face many hurdles in gaining judicial acceptance of such a move.

Larry Downes, in an excellent CNet article, has a similar, yet more pointed take.  He notes:

Law professors, pundits, stock analysts, and journalists are all grossly oversimplifying the gory details of administrative law by implying or, in some cases, saying outright that the FCC can switch to the old rules as soon as it decides to do so. Some should know better…

That’s wishful thinking. Well beyond the dubious goal of getting Net neutrality rules on the books, there are very good reasons that making the change would prove a tough slog. In order to treat broadband Internet access as a Title II service, the FCC would need to navigate a minefield of legal obstacles established to avoid just this kind of regulatory landgrab.

For starters, nothing in the Communications Act gives the FCC authority to decide on its own what is and what is not a telecommunications service. Congress already made that decision. That broadband Internet is an unregulated “information service” is already long-settled law, law made concrete by the FCC itself.

I guess this is lost on (or, purposely hidden by?) people like Crawford, or the trilling “grassroots voices” on Twitter and the blogosphere, or the Free Press and Public Knowledge.  Why let the facts intrude into reality?

One thing that I find particularly amusing are paranoid Blog rants like this one from Nicholas Economides.  Let me quickly sum these / it up: Evil cable companies have hijacked the entire Internet, damning monopoly-hooked users to h-e-double-toothpicks.  A purgatory of monopoly fees will ensue.  The cure, well, it’s easy – simply impose non-discrimination rules on network providers and all will be well.

Where have I seen this before?

K Street is a funny place.  Misinformation pours from it to the gutters.  Facts, however, are a stubborn lot; they don’t get flushed down the drain as easily.  Simply saying something is easy-peasy, loudly, and digitized to oblivion may certainly stir the virtual troops, but, thankfully, policymakers know otherwise.

Even those that think they can practice magic.

Salt – the New GHG

Salt – It’s Bad for You, FDA Says

Regulate salt – the new GHG, AIG, GM, SEC, CRA, AT&T, ARRA, BPA, DNC…for your body.  This should not surprise anyone.  The science is settled.  Welcome to the Nanny State.  If you make it through this story without scratching your head, I’ll send you a salt shaker, filled to the brim.

What would Ghandi say?

For me, I say to the barkeep, “I’ll have a margarita, with salt.”  You should, too.  We’re gonna’ need it to get through this administration.

Secure Dependence – A Song

Secure Dependence

I wrote this quiet song well before ClimateGate, when it looked like Hillary was going to be the D’s man for the ’08 election (sometime in ’07, during the few primaries in which she “looked good”). OK – I was off in regard to Hillary, but the ideas hold true (sadly).

The less we ask for permission from government, the better off our lives.  George Will inspired this piece.

Longing for Tax Day Simplicity

With another income tax day behind us, this year’s penance may be the last “simple,” “unfettered” return we file in a while.

The CBO projects that with current policies in place, addled by a wave of retiring Americans, our tax burden as a nation (in terms of revenues received through income, payroll and excise taxes) will rise 1.5%, to nearly 20% in 2020.  That growth aside, revenues will still fall nearly 5% less than Uncle Sam will be spending at that time.

Thus, according to a growing coterie of pundits and officials, more taxes are on the way (spending cuts would be nice, but I digress).

Newsweek’s Robert Samuelson points out:

Just about everyone will be tempted to deplore federal budget deficits—and do nothing about them. But this escape route may close; many economists warn that endlessly large deficits risk big jumps in interest rates. Someday, higher taxes may be unavoidable.

Where’s the money going to come from?

Some of the previous administration’s tax breaks for the “rich” will expire; dividend and capital gains taxes will also lift; and, of course, there are numerous taxes in the recently-passed healthcare care bill.  Some experts, such as ex-Fed chief, Paul Volcker, have even suggested imposing a value-added-tax on purchases.

The Fed’s not alone in its search.  The states have their fair share of problems, too, and they’ll be after every red cent they can uncover.

In the next fiscal year alone, states face nearly $180 billion in budget deficits, with many in dire straits (as noted here in this American Thinker piece).  They have many of the same pressures that Washington does in meeting the needs of an aging populace, as well as an increasingly service-oriented / needy citizenry (age aside).

But those state guys are pretty clever.

You may think using the Internet allows you to purchase items tax-free, avoiding the tax collector.  Think again.  More than likely, your state has a “use tax,” which legally requires you (not the remote retailer) to pay the state levy for your Internet purchases.

A small but growing number of states are working to impose so-called Amazon.com taxes, forcing remote retailers with state “affiliates” to collect applicable sales taxes.  For the time being, this remains the exception.  Perhaps more disturbing, however, are some new laws and proposals which seek to make Internet salesmen tax tattlers.

As Declan McCullagh of CNet News writes, Colorado recently adopted a tax reporting scheme that requires remote retailers to share customer data – i.e., divulge total purchases of customers – with the state.   More detailed lists would be mailed to customers, informing them of their use tax obligations.

Hey, if you owe the tax, you should pay it.  But, does government really need to know where I bought my stuff?  What about all the weird stuff I purchase from weird places?  And, do I have to endlessly loiter around our mailbox to intercept the more detailed accountings so my wife doesn’t find out what I’ve purchased when she gets the mail?

Very upsetting (the compelled disclosure, not the weird stuff).

Sadly, I do not see this collision of interests / rights decreasing any time soon.  IT is ubiquitous, helping us “narc” on ourselves.  HIT, smart grids, HOT lanes, Internet purchases, RFID, smart homes – all these and other IT used by us to make our lives better – the data derived from its use, like cash flow, won’t sit still.  It will circulate.  It has to.

As it pertains to business, I harbor fewer concerns.  If businesses abuse this rich dataflow, they’ll be punished in the marketplace (call me naïve).  But government’s another thing.  The more government compels and directs this traffic to itself – for tax compliance, or whatever the public interest spin of the day might be – the greater chance we might see our liberties eroded, either through unintended consequences, or nefariously.

As one story source in McCullagh’s pieces states:

The tax bureaucrats themselves may not take an interest in the data but the elected officials who oversee them might.

Bad business mostly affects the pocketbook.  Bad government can result in loss of liberties.  Stated differently, if my money’s gone, hopefully I can earn some more.  If my liberties are gone, they’re likely gone forever.

The latter will make one long for the simple and unfettered pleasure of a 1040 form.

A Friend Calls from Dubai

I spoke to a friend who called me from Dubai today.  He teaches there at a university.  He called on a popular VoIP service from his computer to my cellphone at a penny a minute.  Pretty incredible.

After talking for several minutes, we remarked on just how remarkable it was to share such a conversation without any technical difficulties, between two points, half-an-earth away.

Amazing technology that most of us take for granted.

It has always blown me away – call me silly.

The company I used to work for had offices in Brussels and Hong Kong.  On Monday mornings we’d have a staff call, tethering together all of us, across all the world’s time zones, to have a “simple” conversation about the week’s upcoming activities.

Every once in a while, during both boring and heated stretches of these meetings, I’d sometimes marvel to myself, “How f-ing cool is this?  I mean, what would Alexander Graham Bell think about his invention?”

Though knowledge has flattened in the past 25 years, rendering the once-amazing now catholic and ubiquitous, the underlying infrastructure that enables us to communicate through the Internet, through telecom networks, through electrical impulses, zeroes and ones – man, how could one not marvel at it?

It’s magic.  A gift.  Let’s not forget that.

Green Miami, More

Another green shot from Carla’s mother’s Miami backyard.  This leaf is backlit, at 5pm in the beautiful Spring afternoon.

Backlit leaf enjoys the sun

Get Out of That VAT, Froggy

Like frogs in a slowly boiling pot, new taxes will arrive soon to help pay for our engorged deficit. Perhaps not before the ’10 elections, but soon enough.

And before we realize it.

On the plate for the Administration and the majority – how to “fix” this fix we’re in?

Well, expiration of the Bush tax cuts (to soak just the rich, of course). Or, clamping down on corporate loopholes (good – to soak “evil” corporations). Or, broadening the tax base (so the other half of America that doesn’t pay Federal taxes…I can’t even say it…)

Hey, now that’s an interesting one – broadening the base.

Paul Volcker recently noted that broadening the base, as through a VAT, ain’t such bad idea. We see this meme playing out in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Says the Journal in For Top Earners, Tax Bite Is Likely to Be Worst:

The “notion that somehow [reducing our deficit] is going to be accomplished merely by taxing 1% of the population or 2% of the population or 5% of the population is…a fantasy,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.), said at the recent hearing.

Like a number of Democrats, Mr. Blumenauer said he’s “intrigued” with the consumption-tax idea. Tax experts say consumption taxes are regressive, because lower-income people tend to spend more of their income. But a consumption tax could be designed with offsetting breaks for lower-income Americans, to shield them from its impacts.

Yes, the VAT looks plastic, bendable. And, notes the Journal, in Small Bras and the Value-added-tax, the malleability of UK’s VAT is, well, exemplary, if not easily understood:

The tax sounds simple, but don’t be fooled. Because both upper- and lower-income families pay the tax at an equal rate, the VAT is considered regressive; that is, it hits the poor harder than the better-off. So it is the practice in countries such as Britain to exempt food, which lower-income families spend a greater proportion of their income on. The technical term is “zero rating,” meaning that exempt items are taxed at a “zero rate.”

… This process of writing regulations for the VAT man when he cometh is more than merely amusing. For one thing, it confers enormous power on faceless bureaucrats.

Does the VAT hold some of the answer to our budgetary morass (outside of massively cutting non-discretionary appropriations, which can’t happen)? Maybe yes – but sadly.

Concludes the article:

For a long time conservatives favored some sort of VAT, on the theory that it is better to tax consumption than jobs. But that support was based on the theory that taxes on incomes would be reduced to offset the increase from VAT.

That is not to be, given the preferences of the Obama team and the state of the nation’s finances. But what is to be is the reason liberals love VAT: It is easy to raise the rate, a bit at a time, unnoticed by the voters—just as a frog put into a pot of boiling water will immediately try to jump out, but placed in cold water that is only gradually heated it may not notice until it’s too late.

The Mad-VATTERS are on to something, or so they want us to believe. The other half of America that doesn’t pay any Federal taxes – they’re likely to begin with a VAT.

At least, that’s what the press release says.

I do not wish this on anyone.  Shouldn’t all frogs want to spread their legs outside of that boiling pot?  Is this failed answer all that we have left on our plates?

Green Miami

Took this shot of a fern in Carla’s Mother’s backyard yesterday, while on break in Miami – looks like a picture from Google Earth.

Green Miami!

An Arabian peninsula?