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Review of Michael Heller's "The Gridlock Economy"

According to department of telecom (DoT) sources, an inter-ministerial group meeting has been called on August 20 and will be attended by senior officials from DRDO, the Cabinet secretariat, security agencies, National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT ) and DoT, to review the internet monitoring systems deployed nationwide by C-DOT . It seems there are new requests from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) for internet monitoring systems. Internet traffic in India is monitored at international internet gateways using C-DOT systems. Unlike mobile voice and data traffic, the government does not issue specific warrants for intercepting and monitoring messages on specific targets in case of internet services. The government has access to these through CDOT-deployed systems and can use them to access messages based on the needs of security agencies. Internet traffic monitoring also raises some serious issues of consumer privacy, because unlike mobile telephones , the operator has no role in carrying out specific interceptions.

"While governments throughout the world have different approaches to how they make their public sector information (PSI) available and the terms under which the information may be reused, there appears to be a broad recognition of the importance of digital networks and PSI to the economy and to society. However, despite the huge investments in PSI and the even larger estimated effects, surprisingly little is known about the costs and benefits of different information policies on the information society and the knowledge economy. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the current assessment methods and their underlying criteria, it should be possible to improve and apply such tools to help rationalize the policies and to clarify the role of the internet in disseminating PSI. This in turn can help promote the efficiency and effectiveness of PSI investments and management, and to improve their downstream economic and social results. The workshop that is summarized in this volume was intended to review the state of the art in assessment methods and to improve the understanding of what is known and what needs to be known about the effects of PSI activities."

"The Census Bureau has modified or suppressed some data on this site to protect confidentiality. Title 13 United States Code, Section 9, prohibits the Census Bureau from publishing results in which an individual's or business' data can be identified. The Census Bureau's internal Disclosure Review Board sets the confidentiality rules for all data releases. A checklist approach is used to ensure that all potential risks to the confidentiality of the data are considered and addressed. For more information on how the Census Bureau protects the confidentiality of data, please explore the following links."

The strategy contains more than thirty concrete recommendations for improvement, falling into six main categories. First, we will lead by example. Specifically, we will work to ensure that we do not mistakenly purchase or use illegal products. Second, the strategy underscores that this Administration supports transparency. That includes transparency in our development of enforcement policy, information sharing, and reporting of law enforcement activities at home and abroad. Third, we will improve coordination and thereby increase efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement efforts at the Federal, state and local level, of personnel stationed overseas and of our international training efforts. Fourth, we will work with our trading partners and within international organizations to better enforce American intellectual property rights in the global economy. In that regard, we will initiate a comprehensive review of current efforts in support of U.S. businesses that have difficulty enforcing their intellectual property rights in overseas markets, with a particular focus on China. Fifth, we must secure our supply chain. To achieve this most important goal, we will take a close look at the unique problems posed by foreign-based websites and other entities that provide access to counterfeit or pirated products, and develop a coordinated and comprehensive plan to address them. We will make sure our law enforcement has the authority it needs to secure the supply chain and also encourage industry to work collaboratively to address unlawful activity on the internet, such as illegal downloading and illegal internet pharmacies. Sixth, and finally, we will make sure we spend your money wisely, a process we have already begun. To do that, we have, and will continue to collect and track the amount of money we spend on intellectual property enforcement per year. We will use this information to map out the most effective way to fight this theft.

At the Governor's request, Secretary Thomas will work with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and State Board of Education President Ted Mitchell to develop a state approved list of standards-aligned, open-source digital textbooks for high school math and science. This list will be compiled after content developers across the country are asked to and have submitted digital material for review.

There is a growing debate about the best successor model to commercial newspapers, with many contending proposals. I will mention three, each of which assigns a large role to an electronic public sphere: (1) private foundations or donors either provide endowment for newspapers or for nonprofits that employ political journalists (Propublica is the leading example, with editors and twenty-eight journalists who provide content to print and online media); (2) a public system that would extend the public broadcasting model to print media; and (3) a national endowment for journalism, with support tied to audience size (proposed by Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres). This is not the time or place to explore these alternatives. But in this fourth arena, cyber-utopianism-a celebration of the dispersed, decentralized, egalitarian, Jeffersonian, participatory, deliberative electronic public sphere-is not only misplaced but dangerous.

Worth reading! "Such enthusiastic assessments also grace the rapidly growing body of academic and popular literature on digital natives in the United States and Western Europe. Books such as Born Digital by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Grown Up Digital by Don Tapscott, iBrain by Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, and The Pirate's Dilemma by Matt Mason, as well as a recent three-year study on digital youth by the MacArthur Foundation, come to mind. In these already-democratic societies, optimism about the Internet's impact on the civic engagement of young people-even the notion of "digital citizenship"-is a justified, if not particularly new, intellectual thread. "However, outside of the prosperous and democratic countries of North America and Western Europe, digital natives are as likely to be digital captives as digital renegades, a subject that none of the recent studies address in depth. If the notion that the Internet could dampen young people's aspirations for democracy seems counterintuitive, it is only because our media is still enthralled by the trite narrative of bloggers as a force for positive change. Recent headlines include: "Egypt's growing blogger community pushes limit of dissent," "From China to Iran, Web Diarists Are Challenging Censors," "Cuba's Blogger Crackdown," "China's web censors struggle to muzzle free-spirited bloggers.""

"How to make money from online content, even after it gets loose on third-party websites." We don't know yet seems to be the conclusion. But content creators are already changing their attitudes toward the piracy they discover. Matt Robinson, Attributor's vice president of business development and partnerships and a speaker at South by Southwest Interactive, noted that, two years ago, most of Attributor's customers used the technology to serve takedown notices. Today, he said, most are using it to gather statistics on where their content is appearing.