Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia talks about how to prevent data privacy violations in the Internet age. Your data may be safe if it’s stored on your personal hard drive. But if it’s in the cloud, as with Gmail or Dropbox accounts, you can’t count on the Fourth Amendment to protect you against unreasonable search and seizure. Radia suggests some reforms to outdated laws to better reflect today’s technological realities.
Comments Off on CEI Podcast for March 10, 2011: Keeping Private Data Private
Posted in CEI Podcast, Technology
Tagged civil liberties, cloud computing, data, data privacy, fourth amendment, patriot act, privacy, privacy protection, ryan radia
CEI Adjunct Scholar and space policy expert Rand Simberg explains why NASA stagnated after its early success in bringing man to the moon. Fortunately, the future of private exploration is looking brighter every year. Private exploration’s increasing viability means that it is time to reevaluate NASA’s role in future space travel.
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Posted in CEI Podcast, Spending, Technology
Tagged nasa, rand simberg, space exploration, space policy, space travel
Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia gives his take on a Supreme Court case concerning California’s ban of violent video game sales to minors. Keeping such things away from children is traditionally a job for parents.
The case has implications that reach far beyond video games. Because censorship is such a subjective thing, allowing it could have a chilling effect on forms of expression from art to music to film. The First Amendment specifically prohibits the government from sanitizing culture. That is up to the people themselves.
Comments Off on CEI Podcast — November 15, 2010: Free Speech and Video Games
Posted in CEI Podcast, Free Speech, Technology
Tagged california, censorship, Free Speech, freedom of speech, ryan radia, scotus, supreme court, video games, violent video games
Ryan Radia, CEI’s Associate Director of Technology Studies, talks about obstacles and opportunities for job creation in the high-tech sector. Regulatory uncertainty is making companies wary of making long-term investments. The sheer number of regulations makes it very expensive to hire workers. According to an article Ryan and I coauthored at RealClearMarkets, rolling back the regulatory state could pave the way for more jobs.
Comments Off on New CEI Podcast: Creating High-Tech Jobs
Posted in CEI Podcast, Economics, Technology
Tagged cei podcast, deregulate to stimulate, deregulation, employment, hi-tech jobs, podcast, regulation, ryan radia, Ryan Young
Over at RealClearMarkets.c0m, my colleague Ryan Radia offer some ideas for how to create more high-tech jobs. Our main points:
-Do more with less. This often involves cutting workers who aren’t productive enough to offset their wages. Sounds like bad news. But it’s actually crucial to job creation. That’s because in the long run, automation frees up resources — and employees — for new opportunities.
-Hiring new employees means jumping through countless regulatory hoops. According to a 2005 study by economist W. Mark Crain, compliance costs average $5,282 per employee at large companies. Small businesses pay $7,647 per employee. Some of those resources could have been spent hiring more employees. Over-regulation causes unemployment.
-Politicians can’t create jobs. But they can help to foster better conditions for wealth and job creation. Regulations cost businesses and consumers $1.17 trillion last year alone. Congress should roll them back. Some companies fear potential clampdowns on their businesses. Congress should leave them alone. Some failing businesses are eating up resources that could be better used elsewhere. Congress should stop bailing them out.
Comments Off on Clearing the Way for High-Tech Jobs
Posted in Business Cycles, Economics, regulation, Technology
Tagged creating jobs, deregulate to stimulate, deregulation, economic liberalization, employment, high tech jobs, job creation, jobs, realclearmarkets, realclearmarkets.com, regulation
Over at the Daily Caller, I debunk the fear that long-term cell phone use can cause brain tumors. San Francisco and Maine already have warning label regulations on the books. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced federal warning label legislation. Here are the main reasons they’re wasting their time:
-Activists promoting the scare only ever mention brain tumors. But you hold your cell phone in your hand. You hold it next to your ear and your jaw. Why no mention of those cancers? Suspicious.
-Most phones only emit one watt of energy. The human body generates about a hundred times that much energy during normal, everyday activity. Adding a single watt to that baseline does nothing to contribute to the DNA damage that can lead to tumor growth.
-Cell phone photons are so weak, they fall short of DNA-damaging energy levels by about a factor of 500,000. So you might have something to worry about if you strapped half a million cell phones to your body. That would be getting crushed to death, not cancer. Phones don’t operate at cancer-causing frequencies.
Some people are scared that cell phones cause brain tumors. There are enough of these bedwetters that San Francisco just passed a new law to “require all retailers to display the amount of radiation each phone emits.”
For most phones, that’s roughly one watt; the legal limit in the U.S. is 1.6 watts.
Studies have yet to find a link between cell phones and brain cancer. The main reason is that it is physically impossible; one watt of radiation just isn’t enough to cause any tissue damage.
The human body naturally generates about 100 times as much energy at rest, and 1000 times as much during exercise. One measly watt isn’t enough to affect anything.
One wonders why the bed-wetters are only worried about brain cancer; cell phones are held in the hand. And unlike the brain, which is shielded by hair, scalp, and skull, the hand is completely unprotected from cell phone radiation. If cell phones did cause cancer, activists should be at least as worried about skin and bone cancers in the hand.
But they aren’t. One reason is that those cancers don’t sound as scary as brain tumors do; it’s harder to get people worked up and frightened.
The other reason is that cell phones don’t cause cancer. Not in the hand. Not in the brain. Not in the face, the, jaw, or any other body part might take the brunt of the single watt of energy our cell phones emit.
Hosting a Super Bowl party this Sunday? You might be interested to know that it is technically illegal to watch the Super Bowl on a tv larger than 55 inches under certain conditions.
Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson was kind enough to look through 17 USC 1.110 and lay out what’s legal and what isn’t.
This is serious stuff. The NFL sued a church three years ago for holding a Superbowl party… and won.
(hat tip to my fiancée)
Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 110: Watching the Super Bowl
Posted in Regulation of the Day, Technology
Tagged big screen tv, football, nfl, super bowl, super bowl parties, super bowl party, the big game
The Italian government is considering making it illegal for its citizens to post videos on the Internet without a license.
The free speech implications are obvious. But could the proposal also be a move to restrict unwanted economic competition against Italy’s state-dominated media?
Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 100: Posting YouTube Videos
Posted in Antitrust, Free Speech, International, Media, Regulation of the Day, Technology
Tagged belusconi, Free Speech, freedom of speech, internet video, italy, Media, media competition, video, youtube
The House passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act on Wednesday. If it becomes law, the FCC would control the volume level of television commercials. Some of them are noticeably louder than regular programming. This is, to put it tactfully, irritating.
Rep. Rick Boucher told the Associated Press that “It’s an annoying experience, and something really should be done about it.”
He was talking about the commercials, though his remarks better fit the regulations he voted for.
Still, he’s right that something needs to be done. Loud commercials are a nuisance. They are also avoidable. For example, I avoid them by watching as little television as possible. Maybe read a book or spend time with loved ones instead. There are other ways, too. Here are a few:
-Use the mute button on your remote.
-If you have DVR and you’re watching a show you recorded, you can fast forward through the commercials.
-Change the channel.
-Let broadcasters know how you feel. Tell them not to run loud commercials. You can contact ABC here; CBS here; Fox here; and NBC here. They’d rather you watch their channel than not, after all. And the best way to prevent a viewer exodus is not alienating them.
Besides, they’d probably rather hear from you than the FCC.
(Hat tip to Fred Smith)
Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 87: The Volume of TV Commercials
Posted in Media, Nanny State, Regulation of the Day, Technology
Tagged abc, advertisements, advertising, cbs, commercials, dvr, fcc, fox, nbc, regulation, Regulation of the Day, rep. rick boucher, rick boucher, tv. television
Inertia Wins! 