Bruce Edward Walker's Page

Yeah, you read that right. The Washington Examiner's Mark Hemingway reportsthat the cradle of U.S. liberty imposes $300 licensing fees on the city'sbloggers. With apologies to Sir Elton and lyricist Bernie Taupin:I used to be a blogging drone, you knowEvery day I’d write About anything that mattered to meI used to do this gig free…See More

File under d’uh: The Federal Communications Commission Broadband Performance OBI Technical Paper No. 4, the report issued this month, isolates some very pertinent facts. Among these are:1. Data hogs account for about 1 percent of residential Web users but 25 percent of all online traffic.2. For 2009, the median Web surfer used about 2…See More

His passionate advocacy of net neutrality has made Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) a tremendous boon to opponents of the Federal Communications Commission’s attempts to regulate the Internet. Franken’s lightning rod persona garners perhaps more media and public attention than many of his fellow senators, but it also serves to shine a bit more light on the issue for both sides of the argument to analyze. The quick syllogism to apply is “if Franken supports it than it must be bad; if he’s against it than…See More

The Daily Caller has taken net neutrality advocacy group Free Press to the woodshed for allegedly conducting extra-legal Federal Communications Commission lobbying efforts (again, allegedly, in violation of the Lobbying Disclosure Act) while decrying similar, albeit legal, efforts by industry bigs. While it may be easy to exhibit a bit of the ol' schadenfreude…See More

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is the “grandfather of net neutrality.” Stevens, readers may recall, uttered the infamous gaffe that the Internet was “a series of tubes,” among other howlers. While it is unkind to poke too much fun at war veterans and public servants who cannot fathom technological advancements that occur late in their careers (say for instance, grandparents who claim they witnessed something “on the t.v.” as opposed to simply…See More

I'm not prone to spreading conspiracy theories, but the recent story referenced in the post title does have a bit of .... shall we say ... schadenfreude. I must admit I cringed whenever the previous administration, esp. V.P. Cheney, consistently was linked to Halliburton in a sinister fashion. Whatever. There's a lot to be said for privatization of services that can be performed better and less expensively than government bureaucrats as Halliburton proved. But it was almost as easy as…See More

U. S. Transportation Security Administration employees came back from their Fourth of July weekend to face enforcement of new workplace Internet rules. According to a July 1 memo reported by CBS News, the TSA will now block employee use of Web sites that feature criminal activity, extreme violence/gruesome content, and controversial opinions. Also banned are chat/messaging and gaming.The new rules sparked negative criticism from privacy and workplace-rights advocates, many who express specific…See More

Sometimes no means no. Tell that to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, who is seeming more and more the teenage boy on his first date who pushes to see how many bases he can steal before the object of his amorous intent wields the final slap that ends his advances.Genachowski piloted his trusty FCC to the submarine races on his last date with the Internet last April. Fortunately his attempt to score regulatory authority over it was slapped down by a U.S. Appeals…See More

The announcement yesterday afternoon that Bighead Asian Carp have been found in Lake Calumet outside Chicago should prompt an outcry from all conservationists, environmentalists, politicians and citizens alike who are concerned about the Great Lakes ecosystem. Without quick action, the discovery portends disaster for the Great Lakes.The carp have overcome the locks and barriers of the Chicago canals as they swim ever farther north. The large fish grow to sizes of 100 pounds or more by devouring…See More

Fresh from a speech on net neutrality I gave today to a group of fresh-faced interns at Michigan think tank The Mackinac Center for Public Policy (complete with illustrations of the dastardly villain Snidely Whiplash standing in for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski), I received an email that details costs of the Federal Communication Commission's attempted Title II reclassification of the Internet. Much more will be written on the recent study conducted by the Advanced Communications Law &…See More