Common Thread Between Net Wiretaps, Piracy, and Comcast Merger

Three parallel events in US communications policy today, all reported on widely - but with a common thread.

1) Law enforcement and national security officials want to make sure that they have the same ability to execute warrants and surveillance orders online that they had in the switched-telephone-circuit age - which will mean substantial government design mandates for new software, hardware, and communications facilities.

2) Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is introducing the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act that would allow to Department of Justice to instruct Internet service providers, domain name registries/registrars, or perhaps other actors (it's not clear) to shut down, or block access to, online sites found to be "dedicated to infringing activities."

3) The Comcast/NBCU merger is steaming ahead, and even though neither DOJ nor FCC has yet approved the deal Jeffrey Zucker is out, Steve Burke will be running NBCU, and Vivendi is selling its interest in NBC for $2 billion.

What's the common thread? As access points to the big pipe consolidate, the idea of using bottlenecks to carry out the desires of both content providers and government becomes easier to implement - and the bottlenecks know that they have the upper hand because both content and government need them. New laws, new institutions, and new asymmetries of information are appearing, and the objection that "this is a big change" doesn't get much attention. It is, certainly, a big change, but there are many big actors who are perfectly happy that way. Nothing to see here, move on, business as usual.