November 2014

Election Day PSA: It’s illegal to share photos of your ballot online in many states. Here’s why.

This Election Day, feel free to tell Facebook you voted. Get that jaunty little voting hat on Tumblr. Tweet it on the #election2014 hashtag. But unless you live in Wyoming, North Dakota or a small handful of other states, do not, for the love of democracy, share a photo of your ballot on social media.

“Ballot selfies,” as they’ve been dubbed, are still illegal in most of the country -- and punishable by ballot invalidation, if not significant fines or jail time. So, in an age where ceaseless self-documentation has become the cultural norm, why do those laws exist in the first place? Suppose you were a nefarious character who wanted to skew the voting process in some way. You could buy votes, but you’d want proof that people actually voted like you told them to. You could mislead people who don’t understand the voting process or don’t speak English well. You could intimidate other voters into voting like you do. In these cases, photos from inside the voting booth would really help you, the nefarious character, perpetrate election fraud. And so, many states have just banned those photos categorically. In this narrow circumstance, they’ve indicated, there’s something more essential to democracy than free speech.

The Republican Party's Tech Countdown To 2016

If you think the political fight playing out in public right now is wonky, wait until you hear about the machinations of the tech companies working behind the scenes to sway your vote. We surveyed the latest efforts from both parties to find out about the state of the art in electioneering engineering. The big obsession among the Republicans, it seems, is gearing up for the 2016 Presidential election.

Net neutrality was the biggest tech issue of the year. But nobody campaigned on it.

[Commentary] I argued that the expanding role of technology in people's daily lives has made tech policy a more relevant and viable campaign issue in the 21st century election cycle. Looking back now on this midterm cycle, however, it's clear that I was completely, totally off-base. Flat-out wrong, even.

Take net neutrality -- arguably the biggest, baddest tech issue of the year. More than the Comcast merger, more than National Security Agency surveillance, more than pretty much any other item on the tech policy agenda, net neutrality drove people to the barricades. In absolute terms, net neutrality produced a staggering response from the public. The Federal Communications Commission got a record-setting 3.9 million comments from Americans who felt, at some level, that the future of the Internet was at stake. But compared to other election issues, net neutrality barely registered on the candidates' scales.

Why?

Net neutrality is primarily an issue for the executive branch, not Congress.
The public response to net neutrality has mostly been the result of Internet organizing -- which, by definition, involves people who are spread out and not a cohesive political actor.
And because Internet users skew younger, and younger people aren't very politically engaged, it's not crazy to think that net neutrality activists might wield less power at the ballot box more generally compared to their older peers from the outset.

Diminishing the Prospects of Further Net Neutrality Litigation

There has been a lot of speculation lately that, whatever the Federal Communications Commission decides about new Net Neutrality rules, the whole thing is headed for another round in court. That doesn’t have to be the case.

The FCC has the opportunity to create Net Neutrality rules that prevent any harmful “paid prioritization” practices that some fear, and to do so in a way that both ensures the rules are not overturned and makes further litigation a diminishing prospect. The key to whether there is further litigation is the statutory basis the FCC chooses as the foundation for its new rules. If, as the FCC proposed back in May and as the D.C. Circuit suggested in its decision nearly a year ago, the new rules are based on Section 706 of the Communications Act, then the possibility that a rule prohibiting paid prioritization will be overturned is essentially eliminated, and the chances that there will even be appeals of the rules are reduced considerably. Here’s why.

Etsy CEO: Congress still doesn’t get the Internet

Etsy chief executive Chad Dickerson says he spends a lot of time convincing official Washington just to pay attention. Lawmakers and regulators, says Dickerson, have trouble imaging a type of work that might take place at someone's kitchen table in between life's other responsibilities.

He starts his pitch for the micro-manufacturing movement. The amiable CEO flashes the cufflinks on his tea-rose-pink shirt. One features a tiny map of Berkeley, (CA) Dickerson's former home town, and the other Brooklyn, where Etsy is based. The niche mismatched cufflinks are the perfect online product, where with low overhead a small manufacturer can profitably reach a scattered audience. But that bid at persuasion doesn't always work. "In a really crude way, I think that policymakers still need to understand the Internet," says Dickerson. "It's surprising sometimes."

Dish’s Ergen to Control LightSquared in Newly Announced Deal

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen would receive a controlling stake in troubled wireless company LightSquared under the company’s newest restructuring plan.

The deal, reached as a result of mediation with US Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain, would give Ergen 60% of the new equity in the restructured LightSquared plus $1 billion in new junior debt. J.P. Morgan Chase Co. , one of LightSquared’s lenders, would receive a total of 31.9% of the equity and a seat on the board of directors in exchange for its debt and $189 million in funding. Other lenders would receive a smaller piece of equity and warrants to purchase common stock. The company would also raise between $750 million and $1 billion in fresh capital as part of the plan.

The proposal still faces hurdles -- mainly the approval of US Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman. Previous proposals, including one reached through mediation with Judge Drain, have failed or have fallen apart.

Suspect must use finger to unlock phone, as debate shifts over device privacy

For police the warrant rule is now one of two obstacles standing in the way of a cell phone search. The other is the new prevalence of passcodes, which most people use to lock their phones, and which are harder to get around than ever before thanks to expanded encryption. The result is a new controversy over when cell phone users must assist the police.

Recent legal battles over cell phone searches have focused (correctly) on the Fourth Amendment, which is how the US Constitution protects people against unreasonable search and seizure -- specifically, by requiring cops to get a warrant for performing most type of searches. In light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, however, that question has been largely put to rest. Now the debate is turning instead to the Fifth Amendment, which protects suspects from having to testify against themselves. While the historical right to “plead the Fifth” is well understood (it prevented soldiers from getting a confession by beating someone up), its role when it comes to cell phones is less obvious.

What to Do with Gigabit Internet

With new services emerging, the time is coming when homes will have a use for faster speeds -- and companies will have the capacity to deliver it.

Google's diversity chief started her crusade young

For Nancy Lee, Google's director of diversity and inclusion, the inclusionary fire was lit when she was 16 working at a restaurant chain specializing in hosting birthday parties for kids. Later she earned a law degree at the University of California at Berkeley, which led to a job with a San Francisco firm specializing in employment law. While embraced by colleagues for her skills and work ethic, Lee nonetheless had hurdles to vault.

Lee joined Google's legal team in 2006 and two years later moved to people operations, the search engine's name for human resources. For the past few years, she has focused specifically on improving the company's diversity numbers, which like most of the tech world skew predominantly white and male.

Should journalism worry about content marketing?

Advertisers and journalists have always been partners, and that partnership has always contained an inherent tension. Content marketing has the potential to turn that tension into an existential threat.

Journalists like to think of themselves as protectors of the public interest, intermediaries who police both fact and rhetoric. The very premise of the profession is that it’s dangerous to have words pass straight from the mouths of CEOs or politicians to the public’s ear. This intermediary function is at the core of journalism’s identity and, though it wasn’t always thought of this way, the core of its business model. But each successful piece of content marketing is, in effect, a statement that a journalist wasn’t wanted or needed. Each time a consumer clicks on a piece of content marketing, or shares it with a friend, it’s confirmation that they’re very comfortable being out there in the information landscape on their own.

Benton

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