If you don’t live under a rock, you probably know about the U.S. transition to Digital TV broadcasts coming in February. If you’ve been following it, you know that the number of people affected, i.e. those who receive only over-the-air television, has constantly been in dispute. The Federal Communications Commission, National Telecommunications and Information Administration,…

I had the misfortune recently of sitting through a discussion of the policies of both Presidential candidates on data protection and cybersecurity. Or so I thought. While the representative from the Obama campaign, a respected law professor and privacy expert who I have seen testify before Congress many times, was direct but cautious in his…

(note: this story originally appeared on my personal site, Capitol Valley. I am republishing it here because I feel it merits as wide a discussion as possible, and this site attracts a different demographic than the other. Please read and comment.) Was that headline provocative enough for you? Are you reading? Good! I’m going to…

Congressional use of online video, (an issue that this site has covered since the beginning) finally got over its last hurdle today as the Committee on House Administration adopted new rules allowing use of outside websites by Members. The Committee approved a proposal based on reccomendations made in July by Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., in…

I like the group at Ars Technica. They do some pretty unique things and have a great mix of content on their site. But when it comes to policy coverage, the blog-like style they use sometimes encourages shortcuts or causes a story to miss big details. For instance, Sunday night, Matthew Lasar wrote a post…

A resolution for the House of Representatives to adopt a more relaxed Senate rule on Web video sites was stopped dead in its tracks by House Administration Committee chairman Mike Capuano, D-Mass., during a contentious Thursday hearing. The proposed resolution, offered by Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., is similar to positions he articulated in a letter…

I do apologize for the infrequency of posts. I expected more to write about. Now I have no excuse. Starting Friday, there will be a confluence of technology events that will be covered, here and elsewhere. Friday morning, I’ll be at the Broadband Census for America conference. I’ve written in this space about infrastructure before,…

Another filing deadline, another blast of press releases about the Comcast “network management” debacle. To quote the great philosopher Rodney King, “can’t we all just get along?” No, really. This topic gets people in an uproar, whether it’s the good and well-meaning people at Free Press and Public Knowledge, who brought the complaint, or the…