Pete Ashdown

Yet another attempt from the “small-government”, “free-market” Utah legislature to regulate the Internet with SB-236. Ignoring the advice of their own legal council over the ambition of Unspam’s CEO, Mathew Prince, whose past half-baked “Child Email Registry” has also cost Utahns’ tax dollars to defend, the “E-Trademark Registry” passed unanimously.

This attempt to ban competitive forms of keyword advertising is already receiving a goring on the Internet from a variety of sources. How does one gain access to the legislature to write questionable, expensive law to support your business plan and then get repeated access to the pulpit to preach about it? When was Mathew Prince elected to the Utah Senate?

I hope to ask him when we’re both on KCPW’s Midday Metro, Monday at 10:30 AM.

Followup:

Here is the audio of the show.

Derek Bambauer at Harvard Law School has written one of the best examinations of CP80 I have seen yet. His summary that the market should decide is what I’ve been saying since HB260.

But hey! What does Harvard Law School know about the law?

First, a small test. What follows are two lines of data. What you need to do is identify which one comes from a source which some may consider pornographic:

Line A:
“104271 100407 122322 003452 000424 066531 154760 170043”

Line B:
“035067 033061 054440 020145 064163 066141 020154 067153”

What’s that? You can’t tell the difference? You’re not alone because your computer can’t either. In fact, computers could care less as to whether you are downloading pornography, the latest hit single, atomic bomb plans, or a lawsuit against IBM. To a computer its all just numbers. Yet there are some Utahns who still fail to grasp the implications of the Internet and technology.

Pandering for eliminating pornography is something that most politicians proudly jump on. So current efforts by some in Utah are bound to be lauded and accepted by any politician that wants to be portrayed as standing up for all that is right and good. However, the CP80 proposal ignores the reality of past attempts to censor the Internet. Chinese efforts to build a “great firewall of China” have not stopped political dissent from flowing over the Internet. RIAA/MPAA efforts to quash file-sharing sites have only caused them to obfuscate further and multiply in a hydra-like fashion. CP80 ignores current technology such as proxies, anonymous networks like Tor, and encryption. It furthers economic isolationism by proposing that that Internet bodies currently responsible for apolitical actions like non-binding technical standards and registries become cultural enforcement agencies that determine what content is right and wrong to be flowing across a TCP/IP service port. Most of all CP80 has no accounting for the cost this futile effort will require. The Chinese have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on their Internet censorship and it still isn’t worth a dime.

Many people have asked me what my opinion on CP80 is and I have resisted up until this point. I would have preferred to quietly watch its inevitable death like so many ignorant “dot com” ideas before it, but I am irritated by the light it is painting Utah in. Ironically, the same people responsible for the “SCO vs. IBM” debacle are trumpeting CP80 and it is being regarded by the tech community with the same kind of anger and disdain. Read these comments on Slashdot and wonder what kind of impression is left on talented tech workers that may have considered a move here. Consider what longterm effects these imbecilic actions inside Utah have on our technology economy when we become well known for being lawsuit-happy spendthrifts who grandstand fundamentally flawed proposals. The emperor not only has no clothes, the naked pictures of him will continue to spread on the Internet regardless of any legislative action.

Someone stated in a discussion over Governor Huntsman’s disappointing embrace of the CP80 scheme that we may not be able to stop Internet porn, but that doesn’t mean we should do nothing. If your Internet Service Provider is doing nothing to help you filter out objectionable content to your home, then get a new ISP. XMission has been providing an optional filter for the past decade that brings complaints of only blocking too much content instead of not-enough. If you don’t trust any ISP, don’t write your legislator, get rid of your Internet connection.

To the hardworking folks at CP80, comparing the Internet to a toaster is like comparing the construction of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to screwing in a light-bulb. Find a new business that you understand and quit wasting my tax dollars.

What is the solution to the test? The first is an adorable puppy. The second is from the New Testament, Mathew 7:16, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Whether you consider either objectionable is up to you.

Today’s Salt Lake Tribune carries an opinion piece by Steve Urquhart audaciously titled “The People Have Spoken.” Representative Urquhart somehow believes that consent was found via Politicopia’s discussion of HB148. Yet I feel my sole concern of vouchers was not only ignored by Representative Urquhart, it was outright mocked by a proponent. Representative Urquhart weighed in early on the discussion and promptly stopped with a link to the bill’s draft at revision 29. For some reason my concern of tax dollars going to extremists was not only scoffed at, but edited to remove references to America’s and Utah’s history of extremism. An additional discussion about the abortion bill had my “Pro” and “Con” sides of the issue removed completely.

I would chalk some of this up to SocialText’s inability to do moderated reversions, and Ted Gardiner’s baffling level of cutting and pasting, but regardless of where my words went, I have to ask why was I not heard? Representative Urquhart touts this Wiki as an open avenue to legislators. If that is true, why are the legislators barely participating? Urquhart has been trumpeting his innovation far and wide, yet he lightly participates on issues of his own crafting. Instead, he deems the public discussion fulfilled because a dozen people can voice their 2 cents in a Wiki, then moves on to the next issue. So far, the opponents of the Abortion Bill far outweigh the proponents, and all of them are talking about the fiscal issues of Utah challenging the Supreme Court. Will Urquhart and our legislators listen to that in the same manner they listened to my concern about tuition vouchers? So far, it doesn’t look good. If that is enhanced democracy, I beg to differ. I feel like I’ve been shuffled to an online “free speech zone” away from the actual debate.

When I started my Senate campaign Wiki last year, I was clear that it was an additional tool in the belt, not a substitute for all the tools. It also stands the danger, like email, to be largely ignored by our representatives who are actually making the policy. Even worse, it carries the pretense that we are being heard.

I personally would like to see legislation drafted allowing the State to expand the legislative website to allow commentary and, yes, a full Wiki as well. As I demonstrated this last year, any nutcake can setup a Wiki, what makes it powerful is when the legislators actually participate and use it. Governmental Wikis should be institutionalized and not under the control of a single company or individual. There is no excuse in this century for governments and legislators not participating in the online debate.

Why did the senate have to go and enact ethics reform? You win a sixth term at the party and they take all the fun out of it. Utah’s Senator Hatch joined Tom Coburn to form a coalition of the unwilling against the following ethics reforms that passed 96-2:

• Bar lawmakers from accepting gifts and travel and lodging paid for by lobbyists.
• Extend from one to two years the time a former member must wait before he can engage in lobbying activities.
• Deny pensions to lawmakers convicted of serious crimes.
• Require more reporting by lobbyists on their activities.
• Require public disclosure of those home-state projects.
• Require senators hitching rides on private jets to pay full charter rates rather than the current practice of paying the far-cheaper equivalent of a first-class ticket.
• Require reporting by lobbyists who obtain small donations from clients and then “bundle” them into larger contributions to politicians.
• Prevent spouses of sitting members from lobbying the Senate.

Keep fighting the good fight Senator Hatch! Utah is proud of you!

Apparently the people telling us that everything is OK with a “test” blowing up 700 tones of ammonium nitrate can’t schedule a meeting venue properly. It has been moved at the last minute. On the bright side, Governor Huntsman is aware of the farce that DTRA is putting on and has scheduled another meeting with real public input. In any case, please try to show up for both.

Forwarded information:

The Jan. 10 public meeting on Divine Strake will be moved to the Grand America Hotel at 555 So. Main at 6:30 p.m. The National Nuclear Security Administration and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency said late today that the location wasn’t available. Curious they didn’t know this earlier.

St. George, Jan. 18 from 5-8 p.m. in the Dunford Auditorium of the Browning Building at Dixie State College Salt Lake City, Jan. 24 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Room 135 of the Utah Capitol West Building, main floor.

Now that those pesky elections are out of the way, Divine Strake is ramping up again for execution as early as this spring on the Nevada Test Range. My objection to Divine Strake sources not as much from the potential of more lethal toxins being kicked into the atmosphere, but the fact that we’re developing new nuclear weapons at all. The Defense Department doesn’t seem to realize that bunker busters have little effect on insurgents using cellphones and fertilizer to make roadside bombs. The nature of war has changed, but we’re still dumping borrowed cash into schoolboy efforts to see how big of a boom we can make in the desert.

The “Great Stopper” has not weighed in on the new timetable for Divine Strake. Make sure you let him know how you feel about the military messing around in the desert while there are still troops lacking armor in the field.

The Orwellian “Defense Threat Reduction Agency” is holding a series of public meetings on Divine Strake:

• Jan. 9 6:30-9:00 p.m., Defense Threat Reduction Agency and National Nuclear Security Administration, public meeting on the proposed “Divine Strake” nuclear simulation to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Cashman Convention Center, 850 N. Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, NV
• Jan. 10 6:30-9:00 p.m., Defense Threat Reduction Agency and National Nuclear Security Administration, public meeting on the proposed “Divine Strake” nuclear simulation to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Energy Solutions Arena, 310 W. South Temple St., Salt Lake City, UT
• Jan. 11 6:30-9:00 p.m., Defense Threat Reduction Agency and National Nuclear Security Administration, public meeting on the proposed “Divine Strake” nuclear simulation to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Dixie Center, 1835 Convention Center Dr., St. George, UT