FCC announced on Wednesday that it will spend $115 million in Internet broadband expansion in the next three years to around a half million in rural areas that currently lack it. This is part of the $4.5 billion from the Connect America Fund (CAF) approved by the commision late last year.
Kim Dotcom from New Zealand released a public offensive against the 2012 Obama campaign, with a song and video called “Mr President”. Here are few lines from the lyrics, condensed and without the chorus:
The war for the Internet has begun.
Hollywood is in control of politics.
The Government is killing innovation.
Don’t let them get away with that.We must oppose, don’t vote for those,
who want to take us back in time.We must expose, the people who chose,
to turn innovation into crime.Hollywood marionettes,
taking over our Internet,
don’t let them get away with that,
don’t let them get away with that.
Today, Kim Zetteron of Wired reports that NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander appeared for the first time at DEF CON in Las Vegas. Among other statements said, “In this room … is the talent our nation needs to secure cyberspace. You folks understand cybersecurity. You know that we can protect the networks and have civil liberties and privacy, and you can help us get there.”
Cybersecurity has one week left in the Senate before the August recess, and will either move to the floor or not at all. This bill might not be it, I think what is needed is a bill that makes it illegal for any government office, public official, public institution, or anyone working for the government, to use software that can not be audited, and to make it a requirement to be able to verify that programs, via reading the source code, are not malicious.
Senator Wyden from Oregan sent a letter to the State Department asking for clarifacation on S. 3414, the Cyber Security Act of 2012, and is concerned that it may allow the Executive Branch to establish international disaplines on cybersecurity without the approval of Congress, similar to how the Pro IP Act of 2008 allowed to make agreements with foreign goverments concerning copyright and other similar laws.
Senator Franken from Minnesota, and chair of the “Privacy, Technology, and the Law” subcommittee, is reported to file an ammendment to strike the controvercial Section 701 of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S. 3414), that permits companies greater leeway for monitoring their networks.
Earlier this year, March 30th, he was quoted in an article titled, “Al Franken Warns Facebook, Google Users: ‘You Are Their Product’”, on the Huffington Post, here are some of the quotes:
“The more dominant these companies become over the sectors in which they operate, the less incentive they have to respect your privacy. [W]hen companies become so dominant that they can violate their users’ privacy without worrying about market pressure, all that’s left is the incentive to get more and more information about you. That’s a big problem if you care about privacy, and it’s a problem that the antitrust community should be talking about.”
“Anyone who interacts with these corporations is out on a limb when it comes to legal protections for this very personal information: your words, your likeness, your whereabouts. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to corporations. The Freedom of Information Act doesn’t apply to Silicon Valley. And you can’t impeach Google if it breaks its ‘Don’t be evil’ campaign pledge.’”
For Poobah.com in Los Angeles, California on July 27th, 2012, this is Braydon Fuller logging off.
Source
July 27th, 2012 / The Tom Coston Show with Red Rosie / ©2012 Poobah Records, available under the terms of an Attribution license.