Tom Friedman: If We Don't Sign The TPP Agreement, The World Will Be Overtaken By ISIS, Anarchy And China

Famed NY Times columnist Tom Friedman is pretty widely mocked for his ridiculous platitudes that are designed to sound smart (or, more directly, to make readers think that Tom Friedman is smarter than you). But, outside of corporate boardrooms and elite politicians, it seems plenty of people recognize that Friedman's musings don't make much sense. There's even a Thomas Friedman OpEd Generator that does a pretty good job, showing how formulaic his articles are.

The key element in a Tom Friedman piece is to take some basic, simplified conventional wisdom, and try to gussy it up so that it sounds really profound. Often, this means ignoring all of the nuances and complexity behind the simple idea. A decade ago, he turned this into a whole book, The World is Flat, about globalization and how it was changing the world. He wasn't wrong, but his insights weren't particularly insightful or useful. Furthermore, he's so wedded to his thesis, that he still fails to realize that he was focused on a very exaggerated view of things, without understanding all of the related forces and consequences of what he was selling.

Given the premise of that book (and he's apparently working on a followup), it's little surprise that he's now stepped up to defend the TPP in his NY Times column space. Of course, he's going to do that, because he has a kneejerk reaction to defend "free trade deals" based on his book -- and he doesn't even seem to recognize that the TPP isn't really about free trade, other than at the margins. At least his colleague, Paul Krugman, seemed to immediately recognize that the TPP couldn't possibly help much on trade (because most trade barriers are already gone), and after talking to lots of folks realized that the TPP was likely dangerous.

Friedman, on the other hand, insists it's necessary, because without it... ISIS wins. Or something like that. Honestly, it's hard to parse out what he's actually saying because the broad meaningless platitudes just take over:

Because these deals are not just about who sets the rules. They’re about whether we’ll have a rule-based world at all. We’re at a very plastic moment in global affairs — much like after World War II. China is trying to unilaterally rewrite the rules. Russia is trying to unilaterally break the rules and parts of both the Arab world and Africa have lost all their rules and are disintegrating into states of nature. The globe is increasingly dividing between the World of Order and the World of Disorder.

When you look at it from Europe — I’ve been in Germany and Britain the past week — you see a situation developing to the south of here that is terrifying. It is not only a refugee crisis. It’s a civilizational meltdown: Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq — the core of the Arab world — have all collapsed into tribal and sectarian civil wars, amplified by water crises and other environmental stresses.

From there, he wanders through random musings about the collapse of civilization in the Middle East that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with a trade agreement concerning countries in the Pacific Rim. Then he magically brings it back around to the TPP by arguing "something something New World Order World of Order."

What does all this have to do with trade deals? With rising disorder in the Middle East and Africa — and with China and Russia trying to tug the world their way — there has never been a more important time for the coalition of free-market democracies and democratizing states that are the core of the World of Order to come together and establish the best rules for global integration for the 21st century, including appropriate trade, labor and environmental standards. These agreements would both strengthen and more closely integrate the market-based, rule-of-law-based democratic and democratizing nations that form the backbone of the World of Order.

What's amusing is that just paragraphs above, Friedman talks about the importance of "bottom-up communities" -- and yet here he seems to be saying that the big countries have to do the exact opposite and create top down order. And what kind of "order" is this? As far as I now, Tom Friedman doesn't have access to the text of the TPP because President Obama refuses to make it public.

So, as far as I can summarize, Friedman's argument is that "The Middle East is turning to anarchy, so the rest of the world needs to create strict authoritarian rules." Why? Because if we don't, China will. Because....

As Obama told his liberal critics Friday: If we abandon this effort to expand trade on our terms, “China, the 800-pound gorilla in Asia will create its own set of rules,” signing bilateral trade agreements one by one across Asia “that advantage Chinese companies and Chinese workers and ... reduce our access ... in the fastest-growing, most dynamic economic part of the world.” But if we get the Pacific trade deal done, “China is going to have to adapt to this set of trade rules that we’ve established.” If we fail to do that, he added, 20 years from now we’ll “look back and regret it.”

So, wait, now it won't be ISIS and anarchy we need to be afraid of, but China and its own rules? This entire piece makes no sense at all.

Meanwhile, actual experts in trade, like Simon Lester at Cato (who obviously is also a big supporter of free trade, but actually understands these issues), note that the whole "if we don't make the rules, China will" argument makes no sense in the real world.

And here we see yet another reason why the negotiators have made sure to keep the TPP a secret. This way, people who only vaguely think they know what "trade agreements" are about can project whatever they want on to them. And thus, magically, a "trade agreement" concerning countries in the Pacific Rim that the public can't see magically saves the world from an ISIS takeover and Chinese-made rules that aren't likely to actually show up.

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Dear Tom Wheeler: I'm Sorry I Thought You Were A Mindless Cable Shill

Having written about the FCC for most of my adult life, I've grown cynically accustomed to an agency that pays empty lip service to things like consumer welfare and the painful lack of broadband competition. It doesn't matter which party is in power; the FCC has, by and large, spent the lion's share of an entire generation ignoring last mile competitive problems and the resulting symptoms of that greater disease. When the agency could be bothered to actually address these issues, the policies were so tainted by the fear of upsetting campaign contributors (read: regulatory capture) they were often worse than doing nothing at all (see our $300 million broadband map that hallucinates speeds and ignores prices or 2010's loophole-filled net neutrality rules co-crafted by Verizon and Google).

Whether it was former FCC boss turned cable lobbyist Michael Powell's claims that massively deregulating the sector would magically result in telecom Utopia (tip: that didn't happen) or Julius Genachowski being utterly terrified of taking any meaningful stand whatsoever, the broadband industry has spent decades as an agency that, at its best, is too timid to do its job, and, at its worst, is an obvious revolving-door lap dog to an industry it's supposed to regulate.

So in 2013 when it was announced that a former lobbyist for both the wireless and cable industries would be the next FCC boss, the collective, audible sighs of disgust unsurprisingly rattled the Internet. I, like many others, believed we were bearing witness to a twisted culmination of decades of regulatory capture, a giant, living, breathing middle finger to a public hungry for a more consumer and innovator-friendly FCC. John Oliver even put Wheeler's name in lights when he infamously compared hiring the former cable lobbyist to employing a dingo as a babysitter:
Most people (with a few notable industry exceptions) believed Wheeler was the final nail in a grotesque, campaign-cash stuffed telecom coffin long under construction. We were painfully, ridiculously wrong.

Since coming into office, Wheeler has raised the base definition of broadband to 25 Mbps to aggressively highlight how three-quarters of the country lack more than one competitive option at that speed. He's started threatening wireless ISPs for using throttling and congestion as bogeymen to make an extra buck. Wheeler also surprised everyone by reclassifying ISPs as common carriers and pushing tougher net neutrality rules. More importantly (I believe), he's spearheaded an effort to kill ISP-crafted, state protectionist laws designed specifically to hinder broadband competition, an issue the FCC had spent the last fifteen years ignoring. Then, last week, Wheeler played the starring role in killing an ugly Comcast merger most sector analysts originally believed would see little regulatory resistance.

In fact, if you read profiles on Wheeler, he's turned out to be a complete 180 from the thinking of a traditional revolving-door regulator, basing his decisions on all available information -- even if that data conflicts with previously-held beliefs (a unique alien indeed in 2015). And while it's true that massive grass roots advocacy helped shift Wheeler's thinking on issues like Title II, his embrace of issues like municipal broadband required little to no shoving, since the lion's share of the public had no idea the issue existed. One of the biggest reasons Wheeler's willing to stand up to the broadband industry? He's 69, and no longer biting his tongue and biding his time for the next cushy lobbyist or think tank gig. Perhaps we should make a rule that all future FCC bosses must be on the brink of retirement to avoid what we'll henceforth call Michael Powell syndrome.

Still, watching Wheeler fills me with cognitive dissonance, as if my frequently-disappointed brain isn't quite sure what to do with an FCC Commissioner capable of objective thought free of AT&T, Comcast and Verizon lobbyist detritus. As a sure sign of the looming apocalypse, last week I watched an FCC Commissioner issue a statement about protecting competition -- and actually mean it:

"Comcast and Time Warner Cable’s decision to end Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable is in the best interests of consumers. The proposed transaction would have created a company with the most broadband and video subscribers in the nation alongside the ownership of significant programming interests. Today, an online video market is emerging that offers new business models and greater consumer choice. The proposed merger would have posed an unacceptable risk to competition and innovation especially given the growing importance of high-speed broadband to online video and innovative new services."

Though his tenure's unfinished, it may not be a stretch to say that a man most of us believed would be the epitome of revolving door dysfunction has proven to be one of the most consumer- and startup-friendly FCC Commissioners in the agency's history. Granted that may not be saying much; caring more about consumers than Martin, Powell and Genachowski is like getting an award for beating a handful of lobotomized ducklings at a hundred yard dash. And none of this is to classify Wheeler as a saint -- the agency's net neutrality rules have some very concerning loopholes and the FCC still refuses to talk much about pricing, whether that's the problems inherent in usage caps, unreliable meters, or sneaky below the line fees.

Still, it's a lesson learned in letting your mind run on cynicism autopilot, and it's a reminder that even our very broken, campaign-cashed soaked government can still occasionally manage to give birth to consumer-friendly policies. So in short, the tl;dr version is this: I apologize to you, Tom Wheeler, for believing you were a mindless cable shill. I was wrong.

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Pentagon Also Looking To Set Up A Branch Office In The Silicon Valley

It's officially a trend. US government agencies are making cross-country treks to Silicon Valley in hopes of talking tech companies into joining forces as they work towards thwarting the upcoming Cybergeddon.

President Obama’s newly installed defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter, toured Silicon Valley last week to announce a new military strategy for computer conflict, starting the latest Pentagon effort to invest in promising start-ups and to meet with engineers whose talent he declared the Pentagon desperately needed in fending off the nation’s adversaries.

I'm sure the government could use the help but sending pitchmen tied to domestic surveillance/crotch-grabbing airport "security" (as in the case of DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson) or extrajudicial killings/endless wars (as in the case of Carter and the DoD) isn't going to win many new converts. It's going to have even less success winning over those who've already decided there's no way they're partnering up with the US government, not after two years of leaked documents showing the NSA has backdoored hardware, software, mobile devices... basically anything these companies touch.

Carter wants to rebuild trust. He could start by declassifying a pile of documents on Dept. of Defense activities before some leaker does it for him, but he's really not here to offer increased transparency. All he's offering is the same talking point agencies have routinely deferred to when commenting on exposed surveillance programs.

“I think that people and companies need to be convinced that everything we do in the cyber domain is lawful and appropriate and necessary,” Mr. Carter told students and faculty at Stanford.

That sentence is full of truth, but fundamentally dishonest. Yes, people and companies need to be "convinced" that these government agencies are acting lawfully and only doing what's '"appropriate or necessary." But a really good place to start would be actually ensuring that government agencies act lawfully and only do what is appropriate and necessary. Simply claiming you are when the facts show otherwise doesn't do anything for anybody.

There's a CyberWar coming and the government is heavily scouting the West Coast for foot soldiers. If the government finds itself continually rebuffed by tech companies, will it decide to institute a cyberdraft? Legislators are pushing through bills to make "information sharing" -- something that would normally describe voluntary efforts -- mandatory. What Carter says sounds like he's prepared to initiate a cyber-Vietnam Conflict in hopes of heading off the next cyber-Pearl Harbor.

He urged the next generation of software pioneers and entrepreneurs to take a break from developing killer apps and consider a tour of service fending off Chinese, Russian and North Korean hackers…

Or, as Dealbreaker's Thornton McEnery refers to this pitch: "Lean in… or Die."

It's not just touching base with tech companies. The Pentagon wants an actual base in the Silicon Valley.

The Pentagon plans to open its first office in Silicon Valley and provide venture capital in an effort to tap commercial technology that can be used to develop more advanced weapons and intelligence systems.

The desire for bright, young minds is understandable. What isn't is the government's apparent belief that a few chats and moving into the neighborhood will somehow make years of uncovered abuses simply vanish. The outreach would be admirable if it wasn't mired in the usual talking points. The government should expect nothing from the tech world -- for years.

The DoD and DHS opening branch offices in the Silicon Valley just as cybersecurity bills edge closer to becoming law is no coincidence. Much like many military-industrial contractors build offices and plants in the Beltway area to ensure maximum access to legislators, the government must also have a West Coast presence if it wants to efficiently "lobby" for information sharing and surveillance-ready products and services. And let's not forget the government's desire to "share" information is still mostly about obtaining usable exploits and beefing up existing surveillance programs, rather than ensuring the security of its constituents. Any statements to the contrary aren't to be trusted.

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Can You Sue For Copyright Infringement Before It's Actually Happened?

A few months ago, we wrote about a lawsuit filed by a boxing promoter that sued UStream for not taking down streams of a boxing match fast enough. The promoter claims that because it warned UStream ahead of time to block these streams, it should have been faster about deleting them. That case is still ongoing and headed to trial, but in another story of boxing and streaming, we now have an attempt at creating a legal violation of pre-crime copyright infringement. It appears that HBO and Showtime have decided to pre-sue two sites that it claims are planning to stream the big Floyd Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao boxing match. If you've somehow been under a rock, this fight is getting a ton of publicity and is set to happen this weekend.

Yet, the two big broadcasting companies that will be showing the fight, Showtime and HBO, feel that they can sue ahead of time, according to the lawsuit [pdf] -- which raises a ton of legal questions. And it seems that many of those questions could be answered with a basic "Uh, no, you can't do that."

First off: can they sue over a copyright on content that simply doesn't exist yet? HBO and Showtime say, no problem, that they'll have it eventually:

Plaintiffs intend to register the copyright in the Coverage, as joint authors, within three months after May 2, 2015.

But then there's the bigger question: can these websites be sued for breaking the law some time in the future? It seems to raise issues a la "pre-crime" and Minority Report. Yes, the sites make it pretty clear they're going to try to stream the fight, but what's the actual infringement before it happens? You can't sue over theoretical infringement. You have to show actual infringement. But HBO and Showtime seem to have made up a new form of copyright infringement: "anticipated infringement."

Defendants’ anticipated infringement will cause Plaintiffs severe and irreparable harm.

This leads to odd statements in the lawsuit about future events that simply haven't happened yet:

Plaintiffs are informed and believe and on that basis allege that Defendants will materially contribute to direct infringement of their rights in the Coverage by others, including without limitation third parties from whom Defendants acquire the infringing stream and third parties who use other websites to redistribute the infringing stream from Defendants’ websites.

Perhaps it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things: on Saturday, the event will happen and these sites will or won't stream the boxing match. Maybe the lawsuit scares them off and they don't stream the match -- and then the lawsuit can be easily dismissed. Or, if they do, HBO and Showtime amend the complaint to move the future tense to the past tense and all is good. Assuming HBO and Showtime believe this is the case, then the lawsuit serves as something of a possible deterrent to the sites, showing that HBO and Showtime are so serious about potentially suing them, that they already have. Still, it seems somewhat questionable to sue over infringement that everyone readily admits has not yet happened in any way, shape or form.

And, don't get me started on the question of whether or not merely embedding a stream hosted somewhere else should be seen as direct infringement, but that's a discussion for another day...

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3D Printed Copyright Creep

When your car runs out of gas, you can fill it up at any gas station you like. You never worry if the company that made your car has an exclusivity deal with one gas station or another, or even if that company has a preference for one brand of gas. In fact, you would probably find it some combination of ridiculous, galling, and offensive if the company that made your car threatened you with a copyright infringement lawsuit if you didn't go to their preferred gas station to fill up.

This dynamic is true for all sorts of things. Once you buy it, it is up to you to decide how you maintain it and replace what needs replacing. This is true of gas in a car, water in a bottle, and filters in a vacuum cleaner. But as software gets introduced into more and more everyday objects, some companies are trying to stretch copyright law beyond its limit in order to lock you into buying replacements only from them.

A decade ago, we saw this play out with 2D printers and toner ink. Some companies that made printers decided that they would prefer that consumers buy replacement toner (at a substantial markup) only from them. In order to attempt to lock themselves in as the only place to buy replacement toner, these companies designed their printers to look for a special verification chip on new toner cartridges to prove that the new cartridge came from them. When another company figured out a way around these chips, the printer manufacturers ran to copyright law to try and shut them down.

Fortunately, the courts saw through this ruse and were able to recognize that allowing consumers to choose where they get replacement toner for their printers has nothing to do with copyright law. Unfortunately, today some 3D printer manufacturers are trying this same gambit and hoping for a different outcome.

In a proceeding in front of the Copyright Office, 3D printer manufacturers offer a parade of horribles of what will happen [pdf] if users are free to choose the materials they use in their printers. Notably, none of these have anything to do with copyright. The only connection any of this has with copyright is that the printer manufacturers use a small line of code to verify if they sold the refills.

Just as adding a verification chip to a gas tank shouldn't be used as a pretext to lock a car owner into a single source of gasoline, adding a verification chip shouldn't be used as a pretext to lock a 3D printer user into a single source of 3D printing material.

3D printing is an emerging engine for innovation, and because of that this issue would be important even in isolation. However, the battle being fought over 3D printer material occurs against the backdrop of other attempts to use copyright as a pretext to limit consumer choice in all sorts of contexts. Be it accessing data from medical devices implanted in your body, repairing farm equipment that breaks down in the field, or unlocking your cell phone, the current proceeding before the Copyright Office – known as the "1201 triennial" after the part of the law that created it – is a preview of a future where manufacturers have the power to lock consumers into whatever they please.

That is what makes the Registrar of Copyrights' decisions so important in this proceeding. Not only will the right decision clear the way for consumer choice. Strongly siding with users and against copyright creeping into everything sends a strong message that copyright has its purpose, but that it should not be abused.

Public Knowledge is hosting a 3D printing event at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center April 29 from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. This free event is an opportunity to engage with 3D printing experts on panels and interact with the latest 3D printing technology. You may register here.

Michael Weinberg is a 3D printing advocate and can be found at michaelweinberg.org. He is a former Vice President of Public Knowledge and currently IP & General Counsel of Shapeways, but writes here in his personal capacity.

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US Marshal Shuts Down Citizen Recording By Grabbing Phone And Smashing It On The Ground

So… this US Marshal seems to have a ton of unresolved issues to work through. (h/t to Techdirt reader william)

Where to start… First off, this guy doesn't look like he's patrolling an LA suburb. He's dressed for a war zone.


There's a message being sent by this "tactical gear" and it says that these Marshals think they're a military detachment and everyone around them not clearly labeled as law enforcement is the "enemy" -- including anyone with a camera.

Now, it's pretty well established that citizens have the right to film law enforcement officers while in public places. There are exceptions, of course, but none of those appear to be in play here.

What does appear to be in play is the mental exception far too many law enforcement officers feel they can deploy whenever they'd rather not be "watched." According to an interview with Beatriz Paez, whose filming was "interrupted" by the US Marshal (and fortunately filmed by yet another person from across the street), the officers first turned their backs to her (which is fine) and then proceeded to keep moving towards her to block off her view.

When this more subtle intimidation failed to deter Paez, the US Marshal simply stormed up to her, grabbed her phone, smashed it to the ground and finally, kicked the shattered device back to her.

I guess she can be thankful he didn't demand she hand over the phone as evidence. Although, if he had deployed that BS tactic, he'd just look stupid rather than abusive and potentially dangerous -- a person armed to the teeth who can't control his impulses.

As is par for the course when law enforcement officials can no longer ignore the bad behavior of one of their officers, thanks to a citizen's recording, there's now an "investigation" underway.

“The U.S. Marshals Service is aware of video footage of an incident that took place Sunday in Los Angeles County involving a Deputy U.S. Marshal. The agency is currently reviewing the incident,” officials said in a statement.

I would hope that review has been concluded already. The video is only 58 seconds long and the marshal's actions are clearly visible. One would think the review would be about 60-65 seconds long and conclude with a supervisor's disgusted, "Seriously, dude. WTF." This should be followed by an appropriate punishment, like perhaps some sort of anger management courses and long relocation to the basement office, but will more likely conclude with a stern talking-to and a short paid vacation.

And make of this what you will:

Paez said she began recording when she saw the law enforcement presence, their military-style weapons and a line of people being detained. She said the officers started letting the people they detained go soon after she pulled out her phone and started recording.

Hmm. It would appear the officers were uncomfortable with possibly questionable actions being recorded for posterity. We don't know exactly what was going on, and it could just be a coincidence, but the attempts to intimidate Paez into putting down her phone (which concluded with a US Marshal's smash-and-grab grab-and-smash) suggest something not quite by-the-book was underway when she first began documenting the scene. We'll know more if Paez's footage can be recovered from her destroyed phone.

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