LA Times article highlights how uninformed Congress is when addressing key technology issues this year. The following is a candidate for the “Understatement” of the Year award:
“To our industry and our customers, very important issues are being decided today in Congress,” said Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy. “Much of the concern is decisions might be made without a complete understanding of the facts.”
Filed under Policy, Uncategorized
Computerworld has done analysis on future of jobs in IT. Here is a telling comment:
In 2010, there will be a whole lot more information floating around. Customers and regulators will expect IT to know what is known, protect what is private and generate bordering-on-clairvoyant levels of service. The whole issue of IT and the law is going to be very big in the future.
If you want to protect your job — you better pay attention to the sausage, I mean politicians – national and state, otherwise you will have the likes of Sen. Ted (my internet needs drano) Stephens saying AT&T owns, invented and is the Internet.
Filed under legislation, LMI, Policy, Uncategorized
We (the royal universal population of netizens) use the web to share photos, videos, audio (music and speech), data, thoughts and many, many private data points.
Why can’t our government (and it is ours — in fact, we are the government – last I checked) do the same?
Filed under Government Information, Uncategorized
Jason DeParle of the NYT writes about a movement promoting greater access to US spending data.
“Sunshine’s the best thing we’ve got to control waste, fraud and abuse,” he said. “It’s also the best thing we’ve got to control stupidity. It’ll be a force for the government we need.” Senator Tom Coburn, OK
Coburn is right. Of course, people will need to pay attention. And, not only must the data be accessible, it must be comprehensible. But, the cyber community can do the translating — if the data is allowed to breathe.
Filed under Government, Government Information, Uncategorized
Robert Scoble, noted Microsoft blogger, is leaving for a new job. While at Microsoft, he pushed the traditional envelope by publicly discussing and sometimes dismissing company strategies and actions using his blog.
When asked how he was able to "get away" with public criticizing his company, Scoble replied:
Chairman Bill Gates "loves arguing out ideas."
"He knows that an idea can change the world. How are you going to get the best ideas from 60,000 people? Let an idea get out in the public square, and let people talk about it," Scoble said in a telephone interview Sunday from San Francisco, where he and PodTech executives were planning to attend a video blogging conference.
So, why don't we encourage public employees to do the same? Afterall, Madison noted :
"Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power and to withhold from them information, without which power is abused. A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both."
—James Madison
So, tell me. Why not? Do the latest rulings on whistleblower protections, and the limits thereof throw cold water on Madison's statement? Why is it harder to get information today, with all of the technology enabling distribution of same available to anyone who can walk into a public library? If self-reliance is truly the bedrock of a conservative Republic, then is not the fundamental purpose of that Republic to be focused on providing the public the very informationt they need to govern themselves?
Filed under Government Information, Policy, Uncategorized
Dana Blankenhorn spots an essay (Sidewalks: Paying by the stroll) by Bob Frankston satirizing efforts by the Bell Companies to charge you for access (by quality of service) to the Internet. This piece is worth a read.
As a continuation of a theme started by the first post of today — why would you consent to allowing someone else charge you access for infrastructure you paid to have built?
Filed under Neutral Net, Uncategorized
News story on Warner Brothers decision to use BitTorrent to distribute movies causes me to recall a discussion among CIO's in state government when a policy was proposed to block all peer-to-peer applications as such calls "served no legitimate purposes." I was given a very skeptical look when I protested on behalf of education…
Now, imagine the work that will have to be done to "unblock" these legitimate services.
Filed under Policy, Uncategorized
That's what Bernanke says – (original source is today's WSJ — subscription required)
"Good data support community growth and development by helping to identify previously unrecognized market opportunities," Mr. Bernanke said. "Free markets can be a powerful source of economic development, but markets work less effectively when information about potential opportunities is absent or costly for private actors to obtain."
The WSJ is kind enough to provide the link to Mr. Bernanke's remarks found at the Federal Reserve site.
Filed under Economies, Government, Government Information, Uncategorized
The Justice Department is spending millions on a lawsuit in Pennsylvania defending the Children's Online Protection Act. And, companies that provide Internet access and other web services are spending aggregated millions complying with Justice Department subpoenas for information regarding porn sites on the web. Which causes one of those companies to respond:
"That money could be spent so much more wisely on giving software away to parents that are having these problems," Dan Jude, president of Security Software Systems, said of the litigation costs.
An unitended consequence of legislation to "protect" us from us.
Filed under legislation, Policy, Uncategorized
After two subcommittee meetings today (8:30 am and 1:15 pm ) – a drastically changed 425 will undoubtedly make it to a House vote.
More late
Filed under Neutral Net, Uncategorized
Jim's Blog 