Monthly Archives: February 2007

The Dangers Of Government Provided Wi-Fi

Free Speech, Individual Rights, Technology

In recent years, several American cities have implemented or announced plans to provide “free” wireless internet access to their citizens. Of course, there really isn’t any such thing as free internet access. Taxes will pay for it somehow. What is often overlooked, though, is the price that might be paid if the government is in charge of access to the Internet.

Witness Culver City, California as reported on CopyOwner:

First, they offer Internet access, but you must agree to “limited” Internet access. And they don’t mean limited hours of the day, limited locations, or a limited amount of time you can be on. No, when they say “limited,” they mean that they will censor access to parts of the Internet. (”By using this free wireless network you are agreeing and acknowledging you have read and accepted these terms and conditions of use, and this wireless network provides only limited access to the Internet.”) In other words, they do not offer Internet access at all. As the Dynamic Platform Standards Project points out so well, anyone offering access to a “limited Internet” is engaged in false and deceptive advertising because a “limited Internet” is an oxymoron.

Second, in order to gain the right to enjoy this free, public, non-Internet access, no matter what you read in the Bill of Rights (and the First Amendment, in particular) you must agree that the government may abridge your freedom of speech and you further agree that when it does so (as it promises to do), you will not exercise your right to sue for the violation of your First Amendment rights!

I’m not making this up. Here’s the fine print: “Further, [by using it] you are agreeing to waive any claims, including, but not limited to First Amendment claims, that may arise from the City and Agency’s decision to block access to … matter and websites [of its choosing] through this free wireless network ….”

Coyote Blog likens it to the Chinese approach to Internet access, and it’s easy to see the comparison.  Essentially, the city is reserving to itself the right to decide what its citizens can and cannot see on the Internet.  So the price of that free wi-fi connection may turn out to be pretty high when you consider the impact it could have on your First Amendment rights.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

An Incredible Overreaction

War on Terror

There’s been much discussion over yesterday’s security scare in Boston that turned out to be a marketing campaign:

A guerrilla marketing campaign for a cartoon show about a box of french fries and his milkshake pal set off a scare that nearly shut down Boston’s commercial district yesterday, as bomb squads closed highways and two bridges in search of what turned out to be magnetic-light versions of the cartoon characters.

Turner Broadcasting, parent company of the Cartoon Network, said the small electronic circuit boards, which hang from girders and bridges, are part of a 10-city marketing campaign for the animated late-night television show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Such guerrilla ad campaigns seek to place products in unexpected corners and count on those who spot the characters to “get” the gag.

But much of Boston was not in on this joke. The packages were discovered near the New England Medical Center, two bridges and a tunnel. Attorney General Martha Coakley said Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, Mass., and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, Mass., had each been arrested on a felony charge of placing a hoax device and a charge of disorderly conduct.

We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger,” said an e-mail message released by Turner spokeswoman Shirley Powell. “They have been in place for two or three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia.”

The light boxes portrayed “mooninites,” essentially juvenile delinquents from another galaxy making an obscene gesture.

And the grave threat that was terrorizing Boston ? Here it is: » Read more

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Signs Of Progress For School Choice

Education

In today’s Washington Post, George Will writes about what may be signs that the battle for school choice has taken a turn:

The public school lobby, which apparently has little confidence in its product, lives in fear of competition — the fear that if parents’ choices are expanded, there will be a flight from public schools. But the tide is turning:

Newark’s mayor, Cory Booker, a member of the board of the national Alliance for School Choice, proposes a scholarship program similar to Arizona’s. New Jersey corporations could get tax credits totaling $20 million a year collectively for scholarships for low-income students in five cities with especially troubled schools.

New York’s new Democratic governor, Eliot L. Spitzer, proposes lifting the cap that restricts the state to a mere 100 charter schools. This common-sense idea — lowering a barrier the government has erected to limit innovative schools that compete with the government’s existing system — is welcome, but it is not as bold as what Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is doing with the nation’s largest school system, New York City’s, with 1.1 million pupils.

He is dividing large schools into smaller ones, emancipating many principals to be educational entrepreneurs under a system that holds them accountable for cognitive results. The logic is that public money should follow wherever students are attracted by competing schools. So school choice is gaining ground in the city that has historically been ground zero for collectivist, centralizing liberalism.

If that’s not progress, I don’t know what is.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com
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