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December 2006
  • "One-Name Celebrities and Four-Letter Words," Reason Online, December 6, 2006
    "In a brief supporting the networks' lawsuit, the Progress & Freedom Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology note that the proliferation of video delivery methods, including the Internet and DVDs by mail as well as various kinds of TV, undermines the special constitutional status of broadcasting, which supposedly merits less First Amendment protection because of its 'uniquely pervasive presence.'
    "The brief suggests this trend, combined with existing technologies that allow parents to control what their kids see, augur a future in which household standards that vary from family to family replace 'community standards' determined by the idiosyncrasies of FCC commissioners or complaints from one or two pressure groups."
  • "Cities and States," Washington Internet Daily, December 6, 2006
    "[T]he pursuit of state net neutrality regulations will produce 'unavailing litigation battles,"' said Raymond Gifford, Progress & Freedom Foundation senior fellow: 'Consumer benefits from advanced broadband networks will be delayed while investment halts awaiting federal courts to overturn the states' ill-advised regulatory forays.' Gifford said the Supreme Court's Brand X decision made clear that broadband Internet services over telephone, cable and electric power lines are 'information services' immune from state regulation. So states and localities that try to adopt net neutrality rules would 'find themselves preempted by clear federal law,' he said: 'Consumers are the losers because, while regulatory skirmishes go on, network investment is being delayed.'"
  • "Blog Insights: The virtual taxman," ITWorld.com, December 5, 2006
    "The Progress & Freedom Foundation blog calls [taxation of virtual assets] 'taxation without representation,' and I'm inclined to agree. PFF suggests that laws that spill over from what gamers call the 'meat world' into the 'virtual world' should be decided by those who inhabit the virtual world, and not decided by lawmakers who have never been there and are clueless as to how that world operates. Seems to me that this is another case where the IRS smells money, and the government acts before thinking the whole thing through."
  • "Fox Wins Allies In FCC Indecency Fight," Information Week, December 1, 2006
    "The Center for Democracy and Technology announced that it had joined [The] Progress and Freedom Foundation in filing amicus briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd and 3rd circuits Thursday."
    "The groups argue that the FCC's indecency rulings violate the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act. They claim the FCC fails to identify the 'community standards' applied as a test for indecency, making it easy for small vocal groups to block content that they do not like."
    "Adam Theirer, senior fellow and director of the Center for Digital Media Freedom at PFF, said that, with the V-chip and other filtering technologies, the government ‘no longer has a compelling interest in imposing an amorphous community standard on Americans.'"
  • "Wireless Enters the Political Arena," Wireless Week, December 1, 2006
    "Wireless phones could be an important catalyst – from increasing the impact of campaign strategies to how voters stay informed about elections, says Adam Thierer, senior fellow and director of the Progress and Freedom Foundation's center for digital media freedom. For instance, using 'lash mobs' – which have been an online forum phenomenon, where people are directed to be at a certain place at a certain time – could become a campaigning technique for candidates looking for mass support at a given time, he says."
  • "Guilds, ACLU Challenging FCC Regulations," Variety, December 1, 2006
    "A joint brief filed by think-tanks the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology carried an ominous tone: 'The FCC's increasingly aggressive attempts to control speech on the radio and television are on a collision course with a wave of technological change that will soon render the commission's involvement in these matters obsolete.'"


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