Category: Politics

Does Free Press Coordinate Strategy with Google?

The ethics complaints against former Google lobbyist Andrew McLaughlin aren’t going away.

Over a two-week period in February 2010, McLaughlin exchanged numerous emails with Free Press director Ben Scott, another prominent advocate for Net neutrality who has coordinated policy strategy with Google and attended joint meetings with Google at the FCC and White House on numerous occasions. They agreed to meet outside the White House at a nearby coffee shop to discuss Internet policy.

It’s interesting to see this level of coordination, given all of Free Press’ claims of independence. But it’s not unusual for members of a coalition to talk to each other; they’re often directed to do so by the government. In a former life, I was often in that position, so this still has a “gambling in Casablanca” feel.

Net Neutrality Regulations Coming

In FCC Chairman Genachowski’s long-anticipated statement on net neutrality rulemaking today, the Chairman made the claim that the Internet architecture is both unbiased and future-proof. However, as ITIF notes in a forthcoming report, “Designed for Change: End-to-End Arguments, Internet Innovation, and the Net Neutrality Debate”, the Internet’s architecture doesn’t make it future-proof, the process of experimentation and continual improvement does; rule making can seriously jeopardize Internet flexibility unless it’s undertaken with great care. In addition, it’s important to note that the Internet has always preferred some applications over others; it favors content over communication, for example. Network management is necessary as a means to overcome the Internet’s structural bias, so strict rules limiting network management to the mitigation of spam, malware, and attacks are not good enough. Carriers must be empowered to enable communications applications to compete equitably with content applications; only the carriers can provide fair access to diverse applications and users.

The approach to Internet regulation that focuses exclusively on the rights of consumers and the responsibilities of carriers belies the fact that the Internet invests substantial network control at the intelligent edge; the Internet gives each of us the power to be a producer as well as a consumer, and with that power comes responsibility. We can innovate without permission, but we all have to behave responsibly. It goes without saying that open access networks are desirable, so the real test of the FCC’s rulemaking will come from its assessment of both user behavior and operator management practices. We have every confidence that the Commission will undertake a serious, rigorous and fact-based rule making. The Internet enables innovation to the extent that carriers provide robust and reliable transport services to applications; if this capability is preserved and enhanced by a sensible network management framework, innovation will win.

California Governor’s Race

We’re a year away from the primaries in the California governor’s race, and already candidates are dropping out:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced on national television today that he would not be running for California governor in 2010 after flirting with a bid for higher office for months.

While Antonio cited time with the family and the pressures that LA is facing, he didn’t have a serious chance to win anyhow, given his lackluster style, his personal problems, and his overall inability to stand up to former Gov. Moonbeam in a debate. So farewall, Antonio, we’ll miss you.

I’d like to see the race come down to Brown vs. Tom Campbell. I’m a long-time fan of both of them, and would like to see a substantive campaign between two genuine wonks just once in my life.

It’s going to be a hard road for Campbell because he’s up against two rich dabblers, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, who can finance their campaigns with pocket change. If they’re patriots, they’ll follow Antonio’s lead and drop out for the sake of the state.

Iranian Protests

Andrew Sullivan is the one-man, citizen journalism aggregator of the protests in Iran today. His collection of Tweets and YouTube videos convey the impression of a large-scale uprising that the government is trying to control with riot police, chemical weapons, and propaganda. It certainly appears that the uprising is gathering steam and that the government is out-matched. Given that the Supreme Leader relies on his moral authority to govern, and that authority is now shot full of holes, it seems unlikely that he can hang on to power.

Twitter and YouTube are certainly playing a role in getting the news out of the blackout the Iranian government has sought to impose.

What’s happening in Iran?

BusinessWeek isn’t buying the story that Twitter is the essential organizing tool for the protests in Iran over suspicious election results:

“I think the idea of a Twitter revolution is very suspect,” says Gaurav Mishra, co-founder of 20:20 WebTech, a company that analyzes the effects of social media. “The amount of people who use these tools in Iran is very small and could not support protests that size.”

Their assessment is that people are organizing the old-fashioned way, by word-of-mouth and SMS. Ancient technology, that SMS. But it is a great story, either way.

Finally, nominees for the FCC

Amy Schatz of the WSJ reports that a deal has been struck to move the new nominees into the FCC:

Work has slowed to a crawl at the Federal Communications Commission, since President Barack Obama’s pick to be chairman, Julius Genachowski, is still awaiting Senate confirmation.

But the logjam could be broken soon: Republicans appear to have settled on two people to fill the GOP seats on the five-member board, paving the way for a confirmation hearing in June. Senate Republicans have agreed on former Commerce Department official Meredith Attwell Baker and current FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, officials close to the process say.

This is good news. McDowell has been the best of the FCC commissioners since his appointment, and allowing him a second term is a very bright move. Uncertainty over McDowell’s future was the cause of the slowdown in confirmation hearings, since these things go forward with the whole slate of nominees. So the new FCC is going to look this this:

Chairman Genachowski, new blood
Dem Copps, old hand
Dem Mignon Clyburn, new blood
Rep McDowell
Rep Meredith Baker, new blood

It’s interesting that Baker and Clyburn are both nepotism candidates, as Clyburn is the daughter of powerful Congressman James Clyburn and Baker is the daughter-in-law of the Bush family’s consigliere, James Baker. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the best Chairman of recent times was Colin Powell’s son, and neither of the daughters is particularly unqualified. But if you want to get a laugh out of Blair Levin, the former “sixth commissioner” who wasn’t nominated, tell him you understand that he’s not qualified to serve on the FCC because his daddy’s not in politics. You won’t get a laugh exactly, more like a moan.

The first item of business for the nominees, once they’re confirmed, will be the list of 120 questions Copps put to the world. Good luck to the Commission with that.

The Privacy Hearing

Here’s some news on Boucher’s privacy campaign:

It’s not clear how broad a law Boucher has in mind, though it’s likely to be some codification of generally accepted data-privacy practices. Those include telling people when you collect data and why, letting them choose to join in or not, using the data only for the reason you collected it, letting people see and correct the information and destroying it when its not longer needed.

But engineer Richard Bennett argued that DPI and network management techniques were getting a bad name and are simply the logical extension of the tools used in the early days of the internet.

Hoping to convince the subcommittee not to write legislation, AT&T’s chief privacy officer Dorothy Atwood said that the committee’s previous hearings and investigations have led to “robust self-regulation,” code-words for “no laws needed.” There’s some truth in that statement, since last summer, the subcommittee single-handedly ended ISPs dreams of letting outside companies spy on their subscribers in exchange for a little more revenue.

If the privacy is the problem, it needs to be the focus of the bill, not one of many techniques that may be used to compromise it, of course.

What I Did This Morning

While California was sleeping, I enjoyed a bit of broadband politics in the heart of the beast, testifying at the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet on Communications Networks and Consumer Privacy: Recent Developments

The Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing titled, “Communications Networks and Consumer Privacy: Recent Developments” on Thursday, April 23, 2009, in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing focused on technologies that network operators utilize to monitor consumer usage and how those technologies intersect with consumer privacy. The hearing explored three ways to monitor consumer usage on broadband and wireless networks: deep packet inspection (DPI); new uses for digital set-top boxes; and wireless Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking.

Witness List

* Ben Scott, Policy Director, Free Press
* Leslie Harris, President and CEO, Center for Democracy and Technology
* Kyle McSlarrow, President and CEO, National Cable and Telecommunications Association
* Dorothy Attwood, Chief Privacy Officer and Senior Vice President, Public Policy, AT&T Services, Inc.
* Brian R. Knapp, Chief Operating Officer, Loopt, Inc.
* Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, The Electronic Privacy Information Center
* Richard Bennett, Publisher, BroadbandPolitics.com

It went pretty well, all in all; it’s really good to be last on a panel, and the Reps aren’t as snarky as California legislators. I’ll have more on this later.

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Obama’s Missed Opportunity

According to National Journal, Susan Crawford is joining the Obama administration in a significant new role:

Internet law expert Susan Crawford has joined President Barack Obama’s lineup of tech policy experts at the White House, according to several sources. She will likely hold the title of special assistant to the president for science, technology, and innovation policy, they said.

This does not make me happy. Crawford is not a scientist, technologist, or innovator, and the job that’s been created for her needs to be filled by someone who is; and an exceptional one at that, a person with deep knowledge of technology, the technology business, and the dynamics of research and business that promote innovation. A life as a legal academic is not good preparation for this kind of a job. Crawford is a sweet and well-meaning person, who fervently believes that the policy agenda she’s been promoting is good for the average citizen and the general health of the democracy and that sort of thing, but she illustrates the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

As much as she loves the Internet and all that it’s done for modern society, she has precious little knowledge about the practical realities of its operation. Her principal background is service on the ICANN Board, where she listened to debates on the number of TLDs that can dance on the head of pin and similarly weighty matters. IETF engineers generally scoff at ICANN as a bloated, inefficient, and ineffective organization that deals with issues no serious engineer wants anything to do with. Her other qualification is an advisory role at Public Knowledge, a big player on the Google side of the net neutrality and copyright debates.

At my recent net neutrality panel discussion at MAAWG, I warned the audience that Crawford’s selection to co-manage the Obama transition team’s FCC oversight was an indication that extreme views on Internet regulation might become mainstream. It appears that my worst fears have been realized. Crawford has said that Internet traffic must not be shaped, managed, or prioritized by ISPs and core networking providers, which is a mistake of the worst kind. While work is being done all over the world to adapt the Internet to the needs of a more diverse mix of applications than it’s traditionally handled, Crawford harbors the seriously misguided belief that it already handles diverse applications well enough. Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course: P2P has interesting uses, but it degrades the performance of VoIP and video calling unless managed.

This is an engineering problem that can be solved, but which won’t be if the constraints on traffic management are too severe. People who harbor the religious approach to network management that Crawford professes have so far been an interesting sideshow in the network management wars, but if their views come to dominate the regulatory framework, the Internet will be in serious danger.

Creating a position for a special adviser on science, technology and innovation gave President Obama the opportunity to to lay the foundation of a strong policy in a significant area. Filling it with a law professor instead of an actual scientist, technologist, or innovator simply reinforces the creeping suspicion that Obama is less about transformational change than about business as usual. That’s a shame.

Cross-posted at CircleID.

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