Internet Tax Moratorium, Internet Freedom, Internet Tax Freedom Act

Internet Freedom Lives - WSJ: "... House leaders should aim for an immediate floor vote. The bill, authored by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) and co-sponsored by 138 Republicans and 76 Democrats, would permanently extend the Internet tax moratorium. This successful law, in place since 1998, doesn't ban sales taxes but simply prohibits multiple and discriminatory taxes online. This means that America's more than 9,600 state and local tax collectors can't create Internet-only taxes that don't exist off-line. The law has prevented new taxes on Internet access services and email and thus has allowed Web commerce to serve consumers with innovation. Some in Congress wanted to hold the Tax Freedom Act hostage to a separate bill imposing state sales tax collection burdens on Internet sellers, but economic wisdom seems to have prevailed in the House. The law is due to expire on Nov. 1, and a quick vote in the House will help encourage the Senate to do the same. Lawmakers should serve online consumers before serving themselves during the August recess. More than 200 million Americans use the Internet, and very few want to be hit with new taxes on their monthly Internet access bills. And very few would look kindly on politicians responsible for such a preventable mess...."

more info: Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (H.R. 3086) - GovTrack.us

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Google, Eric Schmidt, Cuba, Internet Freedom

Google's Eric Schmidt Went to Cuba for Internet Freedom Visit - US News: "Google has been a voice for greater Internet openness in nations with strict laws on digital speech, in part hoping for more Internet users to become customers of their online suites of products. Schmidt also visited Myanmar in 2013 to discuss Internet freedom after that nation enacted free speech reforms after decades of military dictatorship... " (read more at link above)

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Governments That Block Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

MAP: Here Are the Countries That Block Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube | Mother Jones: "... the Turkish government blocked the country's access to YouTube, after banning Twitter earlier this month, in an effort to quell anti-government sentiment prior to local elections on March 30. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that social networks are facilitating the spread of wiretapped recordings that have been politically damaging. The YouTube block reportedly came about after a video surfaced of government officials discussing the possibility of going to war with Syria. The government officially banned Twitter after the network refused to take down an account accusing a former minister of corruption. Twitter is challenging the ban and a Turkish court overturned it on Wednesday, but it's not yet clear how an appeal might play out...."(read more at link above)

When it comes to internet freedom, it is either yes or no.

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The Internet's Darkening Digital Future

Authoritarian regimes want to set up separate, ideological and religious versions of the Internet--and they are getting help from the UN and its ITU--

Crovitz: A Darkening Digital Future - WSJ.com: "The bad news: Many authoritarian regimes dedicate significant resources to limiting what their people can do online. The authors predict a "Balkanization of the Internet" as more countries and groups hive off their own corners, narrowing what has been a globally connected network. The authors warn of separate ideological and religious versions of the Internet. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen could create a "Sunni Web," especially now that the Internet domain system allows characters from non-Roman alphabets, including Arabic. Iran says it plans to build its own "halal Internet," then disconnect from the rest of the world." (read more at the link above)

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Obama Administration's "Finest Hour"

Whatever your political persuasion may be, the following will go down in history as the Obama Presidency's "finest hour"--

Velcro Feline: The UN’s ITU attempt to takeover the Internet at WCIT 2012: "The United States took the floor. Ambassador Kramer announced that the US would not be signing the new treaty. He was followed by the United Kingdom. Sweden said that it would need to consult with its capital (code in UN-speak for “not signing”). Canada, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Kenya, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and the Czech Republic all made similar statements before the Chairman cut the meeting short. At a later meeting that night, additional countries expressed their reservations. The EU issued a directive that the new human rights language was unacceptable, and therefore no EU country would be allowed to sign. An intensive overnight lobbying effort was launched. Once senior-level ministers got an earful from private sector representatives back in their own countries, they sent instructions to their delegations in Dubai not to sign the new treaty. All told, 89 countries signed while 55 did not." (more at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/behind-closed-doors-at-the-uns-attempted-takeover-of-the-internet/2/ )

Long live internet freedom!

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Cuba, free speech, and internet freedom

One thing the U.S. government is doing right--

Cuba denounces US diplomats - KansasCity.com: "U.S. officials have long maintained that they are doing nothing illegal in Cuba and that supporting free speech, cultural activities and Internet access is a common practice at missions around the world. "We are absolutely guilty of those charges. The U.S. Interests Section in Havana does regularly offer free courses in using the Internet to Cubans who want to sign up. We also have computers available for Cubans to use," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington. "Obviously this wouldn't be necessary if the Cuban government didn't restrict access to the Internet and prevent its own citizens from getting technology training.""

U.S. taxpayer money well spent!

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Cat Signal Issued by Internet Defense League

Via Velcro Feline: "A Cat Signal has been issued by the Internet Defense League:

"We're writing to tell you about a serious threat to Internet freedom, and invite you to take part in an action this Monday, December 3rd. In short, an obscure international meeting next week could give a top-down, non-transparent UN body (one with representation from many dictatorships) the power to regulate the Internet. It's called the ITU. The ITU would literally give dictators like Syria’s Assad (who was trending yesterday for--it seems--cutting Syria off from the Internet) a role in crucial decisions about the Internet’s future. You can learn more here: http://internetcoup.org/ (scroll down for a video . . . ) . . . "

Keep the Internet free & open. Make your voice heard.

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Obama's speech on Election Night: One Sentence of Hope for Tech

A simple sentence--but perhaps provides hope for technology, innovation, and internet freedom unfettered by government instrusion, obstruction, and limitation--

Obama's speech on Election Night: The full text - San Jose Mercury News: "A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow."

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Meet the Internet Association

Internet Freedom gets a boost--

Meet the Internet Association: "Details are sparse and hard to come by, but the news is out that an organization called the Internet Association (IA) is being built. According to Reuters, companies backing it include Amazon, Google, eBay, Facebook, and “other big Internet [firms].” That’s a running roster of Internet heavyweights, making the Internet Association, once it launches, the effective face of digital companies. The IA will therefore be the voice of technology firms on issues concerning the Internet. This will provide a more unified front, response, and commentary on regulatory issues that impact technology, among other things. The IA has promised more details concerning itself when it formally launches, in September. According to its website, it is “dedicated to advancing public policy solutions to strengthen and protect an open, innovative and free Internet.”"

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Declaration of Internet Freedom

Declaration of Internet Freedom: "DECLARATION We stand for a free and open Internet. We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles: Expression: Don't censor the Internet. Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks. Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate. Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don’t block new technologies, and don’t punish innovators for their users' actions. Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone’s ability to control how their data and devices are used."

Go here to sign the Declaration.

Happy 4th!

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Law and Order - 15 years for using Skype!

Law and Order Ethiopian Style--

Going to Ethiopia? If you use Skype, you could be there 15 years - latimes.com: "If you're heading to Ethiopia sometime soon, I'd like to offer you one small but crucial bit of advice: Don't get on Skype. The Ethiopian government last month passed a law making it a crime for people to utilize audio or video communication using Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) services, which include Google Voice, Skype and essentially any other video chat service available. So what's the punishment? Well, the maximum penalty for breaking the law is 15 years in prison. That's right -- a decade and a half. . .
Ethiopia has a track record for censoring the communication activities of its journalists and citizens. . . . The country says the law is needed for national security and also to protect its monopoly of telephone communications, according to Reporters Without Borders. . . . Ethiopia telecom, the state's telecommunications provider that has the monopoly and charges very high prices -- and doesn't want to have its service undermined," former BBC Ethiopia correspondent Elizabeth Blunt told the BBC.

Yeah, I get it--sounds like what's been coming out of Washington, D.C.--NDAA or SOPA or CISPA anyone?

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Internet as Police State

Think groups who oppose SOPA, CISPA, et al are overreacting? Better think again--

World’s Oldest BitTorrent Site Shuts Down | TorrentFreak: "After a lengthy legal process the authorities eventually dropped the charges against the admins in 2011. The court concluded that the evidence was solely provided by FACT and thus unreliable. While this was a huge relief and a welcome victory for the admins, the legal process effectively killed the once-so-vibrant FileSoup community."

Techdirt.: "Back in 2009, we wrote about how anti-piracy organization FACT worked closely with UK law enforcement to have the guy who operated Filesoup arrested. At the time, we noted that it wasn't at all clear what he was doing that was illegal, as the site was merely a forum. Though some people did, in fact, use that forum for the sake of infringement, that shouldn't implicate the forum host. And, in fact, after about a year and a half, the courts dropped the case, realizing that the arguments the industry kept feeding law enforcement didn't add up to anything illegal."

Tell The White House To Stop Illegally Seizing & Shutting Down Websites | Techdirt: "Last week, a White House petition was set up, calling for the White House to put an end to Operation In Our Sites. To date, the administration has done everything possible to hide from the fact that it's censoring websites, while playing up claims that it's "stopping piracy." This needs to stop. Signing the petition is one step in making that happen, along with actually holding the White House responsible for the fact that it is censoring and shutting down websites, even while it's telling the rest of the world that they need to stop censoring the web. Please pass the story around to others, so that they recognize what's already being done by the US government to censor websites under the guise of copyright law."

Feds Tell Megaupload Users to Forget About Their Data | Threat Level | Wired.com: "Federal authorities say they may shut down cloud-storage services without having to assist innocent customers in retrieving data lost in the process. The government is making that argument in the case of Megaupload, the file-sharing service that was shuttered in January following federal criminal copyright-infringement indictments targeting its operators. The Obama administration is telling an Ohio man seeking the return of his company’s high school sports footage that he should instead be suing Megaupload — even though the government seized Megaupload’s assets in January."

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UN to regulate the Internet? A VERY BAD IDEA

When I first read this I thought it was some kind of joke--

House to examine plan for United Nations to regulate the Internet - The Hill's Hillicon Valley: "House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet. The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet. . . . The Internet is currently governed under a “multi-stakeholder” approach that gives power to a host of nonprofits, rather than governments. Strickling said that system brings more ideas and flexibility to Internet policymaking. “We lose that when we turn this over to a group of just governments,” Strickling said. In an op-ed earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal, McDowell warned that “a top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net.” “Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body,” McDowell wrote. He said some governments feel excluded from Internet policymaking and want more control over the process. “And let's face it, strong-arm regimes are threatened by popular outcries for political freedom that are empowered by unfettered Internet connectivity,” McDowell wrote."

The idea of giving control of the internet to the UN is A VERY BAD IDEA.  It would be the end of internet freedom.  The United Nations is not competent to administer the internet.  The internet should be free. Its management should continue as it has--under a “multi-stakeholder” approach that gives power to a host of nonprofits, rather than governments.

Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin | Technology | The Guardian: "The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary." The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of "restrictive" walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms."

Oh, I am sure every totalitarian government is lobbying for the "UN" to be given control of the internet. Why Congress is even considering this is unclear. If you care about internet freedom, tell your Senators and Congressman to vote "NO!"

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Keep the Internet Free: ACTA treaty ‘dead in the water’

Good news for internet freedom: ACTA treaty ‘dead in the water’ --

ACTA treaty ‘dead in the water’ - Telegraph: "The European Parliament will effectively kill off the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the treaty’s rapporteur tells The Telegraph. David Martin MEP said that the controversial treaty was likely to be rejected by the Parliament in July, and that new measures to deter music, film and software piracy were likely to take two years before they came into force.  Mr Martin stepped in to become the Treaty’s rapporteur in the European parliament after the resignation of Kader Arif, who condemned the process of secret talks. . . ."

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Eric Schmidt's keynote at Mobile World Congress 2012 - Chrome demo, internet freedom, and the future [video]

Eric Schmidt speaks at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 28, 2012

Thanks to the internet, I was able to see Eric Schmidt's keynote at Mobile World Congress 2012 live, but you can watch it above. Keypoints I recall--

Chrome browser on Android (Ice Cream Sandwich)--most secure browser, fastest browser, and free!

40 nations now censor the internet (Google products are banned in 25 countries). The internet is not broken. Don't "Balkanize" the internet. If governments must regulate, they should regulate only "outcomes" not "today's technology" because technology will change tomorrow (don't hold back technology--unintended cost of regulation is loss of innovation). Operators and Regulators need to "collaborate."

Google is dependent on bandwidth infrastructure. Everytime bandwidth improves, everything gets faster. Your "control" is the "off button." Processing speed will continue to increase, as will bandwidth. Storage costs and hardware costs will continue to decline. There are those who build and those who buy.

The "aspiring majority" is the next 5 billion people who get smartphones and internet access. The internet is like water: good = more connected, more online.

After listening to Eric, I was reminded of Jeff Jarvis' post (excerpt below):

Leave our net alone* « BuzzMachine: "The internet’s not broken. So then why are there so many attempts to regulate it? Under the guises of piracy, privacy, pornography, predators, indecency, and security, not to mention censorship, tyranny, and civilization, governments from the U.S. to France to Germany to China to Iran to Canada — as well as the European Union and the United Nations — are trying to exert control over the internet. . . . I argued in Public Parts that we must have a discussion of the principles of an open society and the tools of publicness that enable it. This is why I wrote Public Parts. And that is why I’m posting the last chapter of the book, which argues that governments and companies are not protectors of the net and that we must be. It’s not broken. Don’t fix it. Leave our net alone."--Jeff Jarvis, February 27th, 2012

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