Meanwhile, Somewhere in DC…
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Written By Reprise Media | June 9, 2006 | Share This
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We’ve got ‘net news this morning from those fat cats down in Washington. Let’s get inside the beltway and see what they’re up to:
Who knew ‘neutrality’ would involve so much fighting? The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a new telecommunications bill yesterday designed to make it easier for phone companies to offer video services in competition with cable TV. However, an amendment to the bill that “would have barred discrimination by broadband network providers on the basis of content or services” was shot down by a comfortable margin, according to paidContent.
It seems like net neutrality just can’t catch a break on Capitol Hill, despite aggressive lobbying by ‘net firms like Yahoo! and Google. While it’s intent is to keep telecom companies from splitting the ‘net into a multi-tiered system of varying speeds and capacity based on what content providers and consumers are willing (or able) to pay, it often gets vilified as a meddling intrusion into the private sector. Said one unmoved lawmaker, “You can call an amendment net neutrality…But it’s still government regulation.”
And now: the creepy crawlies By now most people are aware of the blow-up surrounding the revelation of the NSA’s warrantless wiretaps on Americans’ phone lines. Well, the New Scientist reports today that because of the “limited scope” of info available from the telephone, the NSA might turn to social networking sites to fill in the gaps:
“[The NSA] could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming “semantic web” championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.”
New Scientist adds that there’s been no announcement by the NSA that they’re planning to do this, but the agency did seem interested in the “semantic web” technology that would make it much easier to data-mine online social networks. So if you’d rather Uncle Sam didn’t know that you’re MySpace pals with “Chewbacca,” maybe it’s time to de-friend the Wookiee (just to be safe).
Topics: Legal Issues |