Policy
Muni Wireless in Chicago
Just got an email from a contact in Chicago. The nonprofit sector there is holding a meeting this week to discuss the implications of the municipal wireless project there.
As municipal wireless projects take off across the country, it's great to see that the local nonprofit scene is there to make sure that the community is educated about the issues surrounding muni wireless, and that community access issues are addressed. I think municipal wireless can be the way to finally solve those digital divide issues - but it will take the dogged persistence of the nonprofit sector to make sure that muni wireless lives up to its potential for underserved communities.
More Opinions on Congressional CAPCHA Puzzles
A few weeks back, we did a free webinar on the new logic puzzles that some House members are starting to adopt on their email web forms. There's a lot fo back and forth on this issue on the N-TEN discuss list, as well as on this
Net Neutrality Overview on NPR
Last week, NPR aired a pretty decent overview
of the Net Neutrality issue. The commentator is definitely on the side
of Net Neutrality, but gives a pretty fair overview. I liked this
piece particularly because it raises some of the social arguments
surrounding the issue, not just the economics.
The Chronicle on: Charities Urged to Monitor Congress Internet Debate
N-TEN and the Innovation Funders Network, together with the Surdna Foundation and the funder affinity group GFEM, recently hosted a funder briefing with John Podesta, Ben Scott (Free Press), and Mike McCurry on Net Neutrality; laying out the main issues and helping funders understand the significance of the debate. The Chronicle of Philanthropy in its 6/30 issue features an overview of the call. The article is available to subscribers only - if you want to see the full copy, please contact us:
NPR Takes Up Net Neutrality: Part II
Craig Newmark takes up the Net Neutrality issue in this second installment of the series from NPR.
It's really very interesting for me to hear Craig (who I think can
safely be assumed to fall on the "progressive" side of the political
scale) highlight Net Neutrality as an opportunity for LESS government
oversight, while the
NPR Takes Up Net Neutrality
I caught this commentary about the Net Neutrality issue on NPR this
morning. Tomorrow they'll feature the other side of the issue - with
Craig Newmark of Craigslist. It'll be interesting to hear Craig as a
spokesperson! Catch today's commentary here.
Another House Logic Puzzle Resource
If you've been following the debate about the House Logic Puzzle on the N-TEN discuss list, you may be itnerested to know that a new site has launched at DontSilenceThePeople.org. Here, you can send a message to the House about the Logic Puzzles, and see some of the more interesting puzzles that are part of the system. And yes, I hear they are planning an interesting delivery for the messages collected on the site.
If you want to learn more about both sides of the issue, check out the free webinar we did on the topic.
2006 Rewrite of U.S. Communications Policy Needs to Ensure Public Interest
By Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Center for Media & Democracy
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a National Video Franchising bill on June 8th 2006. This bill, known as COPE-the
Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006
(H5252)-permits the telephone companies to get quickly into the cable
TV business by sidestepping local government approval (franchises) in
favor of national service approval from the FCC.
The Senate will mark-up a version of this bill in June. The Consumer
Competition and Broadband Promotion Act (S.2686), sponsored by Senator
Ted Stevens - R/ Alaska, raises many of the same public interest
concerns in COPE. By moving into the
Puzzled Logic? Letter to Congress from the Advocacy Community
There has been, on many lists on the right, left, and middle,
furious debate about the CAPCHA/Logic Puzzle that the Congressional
Admin Office (CAO) instituted for email delivery to Congress. It is an
optional system for Congressional Offices. Gavin Clabaugh expressed
his opinions below,
and while I agree with his assessment about a 'broken system' (after
all my work, for many years, was deeply steeped in the then-very-active
campaign finance reform), I also believe that email communication with
Congress is essential, that advocacy organizations have a role in
educating their members and aggregating their opinions on complex and
difficult policy matters, and that restricting their ability to
communicate with
Hearing the People's Voice: Of Logic Puzzles, Advocacy and Heresy
Dear friends,
This is a copy of the reply I posted on NTEN-Discuss - It was in reply to a call for action against a plan to:
... "require human interaction (by answering a question or retyping displayed letters/numbers) before the email could be submitted to [Congress]" and thus make the "use of 3rd-party email vendors impossible."
I think I'd like to take a whack at this issue, even though the discussion has died down a bit.
First off, let me just state, up front, that I believe in democracy,
really. And, in line with that, I believe that all people should have a
voice and that voice should -- indeed
