FCC auction of spectrum

The FCC has now completed the auction of the part of the broadcast spectrum that will be vacated when the broadcast television stations stop broadcasting analog signals next February. This is the 700 mhz slice of the spectrum and it has potential to be useful for many services such as wireless broadband internet. One of the biggest questions about this auction, related to the concerns in Anarchist in the Library, is what forms of control will be imposed over this important slice of spectrum? Who will control it (well, we know the answer to that now) and to what end? How will access to the new networks be granted? Will it be on a neutral, open basis or will it be tightly controlled and hierarchical? If you are interested in following up on this, here are some places to start.

In 2005 Matthew Yglesias criticized US policy on broadband as a failure compared to the policies in other countries. Much of the pessimistic projection of the future in his article has now come to pass.

Gizmodo, an entertaining technology site, has an overview of the 700 mhz auction, who the players were and what they hope to get out of the billions they have agreed to pay for control over slices of the airwaves.

It turns out that Verizon and AT&T won most of the auction, with Dish Network and a few others also taking a few pieces. However, things proceeded in a way that rules requiring that part of the spectrum be treated as an open platform kicked in.

Nevertheless, the auction was seen as a victory for Google, since the bidding was high enough to trigger the "open-platform" rules it requested for the nationwide airwaves eventually won by Verizon.

Google called it a victory for American consumers. "Consumers soon should begin enjoying new, Internet-like freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones and other wireless devices," said a statement from Google lawyers Richard Whitt and Joseph Faber.

Time will tell what this "open-platform" will actually look like in practice, whether it will allow for innovation at the ends of the network that isn't controlled by Verizon, or whether the 700 mhz block of spectrum which had been "the public airwaves" regulated by government licensing procedures in the public interest (an admittedly flawed regulatory regime to be sure) have simply been privatized to be regulated by Verizon licensing procedures.

BSG Top Ten list

OK - not at all related to class, but now that I have some of you hooked on this show, here are a couple of Battlestar Galactica items:

BSG Top Ten List on Letterman




BSG Season 4 preview trailer (spoiler alert, obviously)

Municipal WiFi

We were just talking about this subject, the Times has a piece up today about the efforts of various cities to set up low cost WiFi networks. The focus of the piece is on for-profit arrangements with Earthlink and other providers, although near the end of the article they briefly touch on alternative models such as municipally provided non-profit service (as they have in some European cities and some smaller towns in the US). Why have the large city WiFi models failed? Are public-private for profit partnerships the problem? Have cities set the wrong goals for these policies? Will the US find itself at a disadvantage in a global economy if it doesn't do a better job of providing broadband internet access to a larger share of the population?

Too many watchlists

We are all familiar with the no-fly lists and the ways in which they can complicate air travel for people with similar names to those on the lists. It turns out, there are more of these lists than most of us have been aware, although the existence of these lists is not itself secret (in fact, here is the list of about 6000 names). (Washington Post)

More American consumers have gotten caught up in a special brand of watchlist purgatory because their names are similar to ones on OFAC's list of "specially designated nationals," according to e-mails and other documents released under court order yesterday. By law, businesses are barred from conducting transactions with anyone on the list. Yesterday's court-ordered release of documents to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, offers a window into the kinds of disruptions suffered by those ensnared in the process, as well as the difficulty of clearing their names.

More businesses are seeking, as part of a credit check, to know whether a person is also on the OFAC list. Failure to do so can bring a stiff penalty. Often a person whose name is similar to a name on the watchlist will be flagged by credit bureaus, which produce the reports businesses use to decide who is eligible for a car or home loan or to rent an apartment.

The Lawyers Committee sued the Treasury Department last year under the Freedom of Information Act for records of complaints relating to OFAC's list. Last year, the group documented the cases of at least a dozen people denied services, including being blocked from buying exercise equipment. Yesterday's partial release of records raised at least 30 new cases in which people sought OFAC help.

If you have ever tried to clear a mistake from your credit report, or been the victim of identity theft, you know what a hassle it can be to deal with the credit bureaus. Now mix in the feds and fear of terrorism and you have a recipe for a kafka-esque soup of obstacles and frustrations.

I know that the law wasn't literally aimed at preventing terrorists from buying exercise equipment but, you know, unless terrorist suspects start entering arm wrestling competitions, is there any good reason that we should apply the watch list to treadmill and bowflex machines? Isn't this a problem of a law being so overbroad in application that it is likely to fail to do what it is intended to do (either by being so extensive as to be unworkable, or engendering so much hostility from innocent people minding their own business that the laws get overturned)?

Updated: The New York Times points out that a lot of people have been concerned about the list, probably because while the list is not that long (6000 names) many of the names are common Arab and Latino names that are shared by many people who are not listed.

A Federal District Court judge in San Francisco last month ordered the Treasury Department to release all the complaints after a Freedom of Information Act request, Mr. Hwang said. He said his organization believed that what they received was only a small fraction of the complaints filed. Among other indications, he said, was that Henry Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, said in Congressional testimony last year that his department fielded up to 90,000 telephone complaints about the list over one year.

Sony advocates anarchy.... in 1975

No really. Check out the marketing for the first Betamax, it is all about decentralizing, taking control at the end point of the network, using technology and content in anarchic ways, and not having to watch commercials (thus stealing such artistic gems as Airwolf and the Facts of Life).

Gun rights case

For those of you who are interested, the oral arguments in DC v Heller, the Second Amendment case over DC's nearly complete ban on personal, functioning guns, has now been posted at Oyez. Don't expect a decision in the case before the last week of the term in June.

Copyright violation

Is this video a copyright violation? Should the existence of this clip be forbidden?

What's so funny about... wiretapping

There was a good, brief summary of past abuses of wiretapping power in yesterday's LA Times. For a detailed, documented account see David Cole and James X. Dempsey's Terrorism and the Constitution.

From Julian Sanchez in the LA Times op-ed section:

But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps poses to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can -- and repeatedly have -- abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters.

The original FISA law was passed in 1978 after a thorough congressional investigation headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) revealed that for decades, intelligence analysts -- and the presidents they served -- had spied on the letters and phone conversations of union chiefs, civil rights leaders, journalists, antiwar activists, lobbyists, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices -- even Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Church Committee reports painstakingly documented how the information obtained was often "collected and disseminated in order to serve the purely political interests of an intelligence agency or the administration, and to influence social policy and political action."

Science education and religion

Would a bill like the "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act" be constitutional? Which cases are most relevant to this law? Which principles? Are the potential consequences of such a law for students in Oklahoma relevant to the constitutional question?

The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student's religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student's incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.

The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student's belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct.

Net neutrality

I promised a post to explain why net neutrality is an issue. You can watch Tuesday's (March 11, 2008) Congressional hearing on this subject here (about 2 hours) On the other hand, I don't know if I can do better than John Hodgman on this score, so here he is.



This is a live issue, there are hearings in Congress and we will likely see legislative activity in the near future. The financial stakes for the big companies who use the internet are high, and the stakes for citizens as consumers and as participants in the political community (two different things) are even greater.

For more information, see Save the Internet (advocacy organization supported by a politically diverse coalition in favor of net neutrality).

Washington Monthly on Torture

The Washington Monthly has just published a special issue on torture. While TWM is a liberal opinion journal, the writers are political figures and academics from across the political spectrum, all of whom oppose the use of torture.

In a related note, the House failed to override Bush's veto of the intelligence authorization bill which included a ban on torture, requiring all interrogations to meet the Army's published standards on interrogations.

Loyalty oaths and religion

Headline from the San Francisco Chronicle "Quaker Teacher Fired for Changing Loyalty Oath."

Updated 3/10/08: And now she has been rehired with a clarification that the oath does not require part time math teachers to use violence in defense of the US and California constitutions.