Police around the country are having a hard time with the sudden proliferation of video recording capabilities available to the general public over the last 2 to 3 years. While video recording has been common in mobile devices for 5 years or more, it has really exploded in the last couple of years. Now, the [...]
The Texas A & M University System has started enforcing a rule barring state employees from filing public information requests. The rule has apparently been in place since 1997, but it is now in the news because journalism professors in the system have been warned that they face discipline if they direct students to such [...]
The Transportation Security Administration is coming under increasing fire for it’s “enhanced patdowns”. John Pistole, the head of the TSA, has gone out of his way to defend the agency’s updated procedures. Passengers are increasingly being faced with the choice of the “naked” scanner or enhanced patdowns. Naturally, the internet age has spread this issue [...]
The COICA bill (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) proposed by Senators Patrick Leahy and Orrin Hatch was shelved a few weeks back once they saw the political liability it held. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the RIAA want them to push the bill through once the mid-term elections have completed. First, [...]
The one thing that is as reliable as the sun is a media driven moral panic popping up every few months. When I was a kid, it was everything from satanists to backmasking (playing music in reverse to reveal a message). In the current technological age, there is plenty of fodder for panic. The media [...]
It appears the recording industry may get their way after all. They are working on a proposal with the National Association of Broadcasters that would see radio stations start to pay for the music they play on air. For over 70 years, broadcasters have not had to pay for what they played on air. It [...]
If you’ve seen the movie The Insider, you may remember this phrase uttered by Christopher Plummer, playing Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes: “They accused us of betraying the legacy of Edward R. Murrow.” Strong words indeed. However, I think they are truer than ever. Journalism, in it’s truest sense, has been abandoned by the journalists [...]
The recent flap between Blackberry maker Research In Motion and two Middle Eastern countries has again raised the question about service providers and their loyalty. Should they be loyal to the people that buy their products, thus giving them a reason for being? Or, should they be loyal to governing bodies? The problem we are [...]
The government has ruled in favor of consumers and educators in a series of rulings. Among the rulings, users who jailbreak mobile phones are not committing a crime. Consumers may also now break copyright protection on DVD’s for non-commercial and educational purposes. This is a surprising ruling to say the least. On the jailbreaking issue, [...]
We’ve had many recent examples of state Attorney’s General using their bully pulpit to sound off about whatever moral panic is big that day. Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut is just the latest. He joins New York’s Andrew Cuomo as one of the bigger gasbags in politics. His grandstanding moment du jour is the video game [...]