Digital Liberty

Digital Liberty advocates for free-market Internet, tech, telecom, & media policy, & a justice system that works for all Americans not a select few.

[Grover Norquist @GroverNorquist]

The European Union is looting American Companies to raise money independent of the European nations and people.
The European Union is stealing from Americans to build a "self-funding" powerbase so they don't have to care what the people of France, Germany, Italy etc want or do not want.

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

The @FCC just announced day one of the new auctions (which was yesterday) pulled in $54 million.

Demand for spectrum is high - and revenues may well exceed the CBO’s official projection.

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

@ITIFdc If you just want to skip to the infographic: https://t.co/64akDoqfzd

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

Good morning. A huge day for two reasons:
1. The FCC will kick off its first spectrum auction in 4 years (woohoo!)
2. The House E&C committee’s subcommittee on Commerce will hold a hearing at 10:15am on the SECURE Data Act.

Watch live: https://t.co/GLs5PpGaS9

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

The good people over at @ITIFdc have a graphic showing how bills that inspired this one passed with broad bipartisan support in several states: https://t.co/i50a7Rv9aI

[Will Rinehart @WillRinehart]

Some comments on this new EO:

- For the most part, this EO is the same as what was leaked by @politico but the 90 day review period is now down to 30 days. Is that all that was needed to get President Trump to support this EO?

- Like @deanwball, my big worry is that this voluntary agreement will turn into a de facto mandate. This was exactly my concern with the Biden EO on AI. It used DPA as a hook to mandate model reporting. That possibility hasn't been taken off the table. And while I am generally supportive of model reporting, the specifics matter, which means Congress needs to pass a law outlining this authority.

- I'm still not sure what voluntary means, especially since the last provision clearly states that, "Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models." So, this provision doesn't prohibit mandates, it just says this EO doesn't create one. A follow-on order could exactly that.

- Determining what should be considered a covered model will be controversial. As @neil_chilson pointed out, "Experts do not agree on even the correct methodology for determining capability." https://t.co/MkaFtvMBhJ That matters, because even if experts can't agree on methodology, NSA and CISA are still going to make that determination inside a classified benchmarking process. Importantly, Sec. 3(a) says assessments are shared with developers "as appropriate," which means developers may not even know the criteria used to designate their model.

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

So far, $18.73B has been spent under BEAD. This has leveraged $11.84B in private investment and state matching funds.

If the private sector and states are spending at this level, the $20B in BEAD savings aren't needed and should go back to the taxpayer.

https://t.co/sBpO1Ni3WZ

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

@FCC This suite of policies has reduced overall prices 10.7% in the past year alone, bringing the five-year decline to around 35%.

Consumers win when market forces prevail.

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

Wireless service keeps getting cheaper despite inflation. A combination of sensible antitrust enforcement, spectrum auctions, pro-investment tax provisions, and regulatory relief have engendered strong competition and reduced prices: https://t.co/HAcBKpiTBk

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

The @FCC's Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding has repealed thousands of words of rules that were outdated or overly burdensome, allowing the wireless industry to become more agile.

Allowing mergers to go forward has enabled the major carriers to compete at scale.

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

https://t.co/P2bfdwtNB6

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

I don't want Buc-ee's in my town because it only creates temporary construction jobs. The water usage in the toilets will melt the ice caps. What about the hum?! No Buc-ee's is worth losing the field it's built on.

https://t.co/Jqr2BBgZVC

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

Another new op-ed from @erwin1854: a victory lap on the failure of semiconductor export controls:
https://t.co/IQGtwzI37n

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

The latest by our executive director, James Erwin: https://t.co/rjT6ehc2gl

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

Last year @Apple enabled 300,000 entrepreneurs to get their products to market while stopping 2 million suspected fraudsters.

This is what consumers are choosing. They don't need the government to protect them from it.

https://t.co/dXlDr55aZk

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

Electricity prices rise when utilities fail to keep up with demand, often because regulations prevent them form building more infrastructure fast enough or sources like nuclear and coal are kept out of the market. Embracing energy abundance will solve the problem.

[Digital Liberty @DigitalLiberty]

It doesn't appear that data centers directly raise electricity costs – no consistent relationship can be found.

https://t.co/1kj95EuXR5

[Brendan Carr @BrendanCarrFCC]

Thanks to President Trump, America is leading the world again. 🇺🇸

Today, the @FCC approved two major transactions that mean faster Internet, stronger competition, & global leadership in next-gen Internet from space (D2D).

These FCC approvals unlock big wins for consumers!