Dear Delegate…

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An excerpt from my Open Letter about the Communications data Bill to LibDem delegates at their Annual Conference.

The draft bill is riddled with flaws. Look at the commentaries by experts such as Professor Robin Mansell of LSE, or the evidence given to the joint committee by Professors Ross Anderson and Peter Sommer.

Your political masters will tell you that it’s all very complicated, which it is. They will also assure that “the devil is in the detail” and if we can get the details right, then all will be well.

Well, actually, in this case the devil isn’t in the detail – it’s in the principles underpinning the bill. And they aren’t complicated at all. If you wanted to put it in everyday terms, the CDB is the equivalent of a proposal that all household waste should be accumulated and kept for at least a year because somewhere in that Himalaya of trash there’s bound to be evidence of wrongdoing.

Why am I telling you this? Because unlike the delegates to other party conferences, you have the ability to make party policy. And when the issue of the CDB comes up, ask yourself a simple question: is this what you came into politics to do — to facilitate the mission creep of the National Security State?

The next phase (and the threat to Apple and Google)

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From Business Insider.

There are two major trends that will dictate the future of the tech industry.By the end of this decade more people will be using the Internet through a mobile device than through their desktop.The Internet is becoming Chinese. Already, there are more Internet users in China than there are in any other country in the world. That lead will only grow. Research firm IDC says China’s market already accounts for 25 percent of the world’s smartphone sales, more than the US’s 17.5 percent.These trends combine to create an obvious reality: Any company that wants to control the future must have a firm grasp on the smartphone market in China. 

What’s a lawyer for?

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Terrific address by Larry Lessig to the graduation class at John Marshall Law School. It’s about what’s happened to the practice of law in America. Vintage Lessig: witty, thoughtful, moving. Inspiring, even. Best lecture I’ve seen in ages.

Make yourself a cup of coffee and watch it.

Nipplegate

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It seems that the New Yorker got temporarily banned from Facebook for violating their community standards on “Nudity and Sex,” by posting a Mick Stevens cartoon showing a post-coital Adam and Eve. Here’s a snapshot of the relevant section of the aforementioned guidelines:

Reassuring to know that male nipples are ok, isn’t it?

Broken Windows and the iPhone 5

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It’s not every day when one finds Paul Krugman writing about technology, but here he is today on the strange theory that the iPhone 5 (out tomorrow, for those who have been vacationing on Mars) might give a boost to the US economy:

I can’t judge how plausible the sales estimates are; but it’s worth pointing out how the economic logic of this suggestion relates to the larger picture.

The key point is that the optimism about the iPhone’s effects has nothing (or at any rate not much) to do with the presumed quality of the phone, and the ways in which it might make us happier or more productive. Instead, the immediate gains would come from the way the new phone would get people to junk their old phones and replace them.

In other words, if you believe that the iPhone really might give the economy a big boost, you have — whether you realize it or not — bought into a version of the “broken windows” theory, in which destroying some capital can actually be a good thing under depression conditions.

Of course, it’s nice that the reason we’re junking old capital is to make room for something better, not just for the hell of it. But you know what would also be nice? Building useful stuff like infrastructure employing labor and cash that would otherwise sit idle.