Lens of Liberty

The FCC is getting ready to decide a new system for handing out the $8 billion Universal Service Fund, which is funded from contributions by telecommunications companies, which means you and I fund it through our phone bills.

Witness the battle for the best spot at the government tit:

Walter McCormick, the president and CEO of U.S. Telecom, said the Federal Communications Commission should ignore the lobbying of the wireless industry, the cable industry and media reform groups as the agency looks to overhaul its Universal Service Fund. Instead, the FCC should adopt the telecom industry’s proposal to restructure the fund, he said.  (Full article)

When the government has billions of taxpayers dollars to play with, you can bet that the special interests will tear each other apart to get the biggest slice for themselves.

The FCC has issued a warning that it will vigorously prosecute those who sell or use devices that jam cell phone communications. Hopefully they will remember their objections the next time some nanny-stater comes up with a brilliant idea like mandating such devices in cars.

Yesterday, I posted a pretty optimistic appraisal of the Occupy Wall Street protests and it is still my hope that the movement can have a positive effect on the United States.

This wasn’t what I had in mind.

It is a half hour of footage from Oct. 15 in Denver and shows a tense standoff between protesters and police. Now, conflict like this between protesters and police is nothing new, and this incident wasn’t particularly bad. It does highlight, however, the problem with protests of this sort.

Confrontation with the police is nearly inevitable when a large group of protesters move in to, shall we say occupy, a public space. Many activists seem to feel that it is their duty to confront police or to get arrested. Governments add unneeded fuel to the fire by using heavily armed paramilitary personnel when attempting to contain or disband protests. It’s a recipe for conflict, but is it the way to create change? Occupy Wall Street claims the protests in Egypt and Tunisia, among others, as a source of inspiration. Those movements were successful in removing from power oppressive regimes. Does that mean the same methods will work in America?

I’m doubtful.

Civil disobedience as a means of shining a light on injustice can be highly effective, as history has shown. However, when conflict with the police is the primary means of expression, the movement is easily marginalized and the message, no matter how noble or prescient, is lost in a cloud of tear gas. This is especially true when, as in the video above, the conflict is over an ancillary issue like the use of public land. The Occupy movement may not have issued a formal declaration of beliefs or demands, but certainly they’re concerned with larger issues than that. Why allow your movement to be defined so narrowly?

The 23 protesters who entered a branch of Citi Bank, ostensibly to close their accounts, is a better example of effective civil disobedience. At least it relates to the larger issue. If true that some of the activists were wearing masks, well that was pretty dumb.

The Occupy movement has been very adept at using technology to organize and facilitate large gatherings of people, certainly they can use those skills to advance their cause while minimizing unnecessary conflict with the police. The movement was conceived and born using all the tools of the digital age, only to revert to 20th century methods of political activism.

The movement is still in its infancy and is still fueled primarily by anger so, at this stage, the need to scream and shout and raise a little hell is understandable. To move beyond infancy will require more. I don’t know that the Tea Party ever got past that stage and their effectiveness was limited as a result.  If there is any hope of ending the cabal of government and the monetary elite, it is going to require ingenuity and novel approaches to activism. Not slogans shouted through a bullhorn, but honest efforts at persuasion. Let’s see what happens in month two.

Cnet reports on problems some are having with activating their iPads:

Last Friday numerous eager to-be iPad owners lined up around Apple stores to await the release of the 3G version, but some of these people have found a problem when trying to activate their 3G data plans on the devices. When they enter their PO box addresses as a billing address for their credit cards, the registration process refuses to continue, claiming an invalid address.

The article links to an AT&T page which references the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act of 2002. Thomas.gov has this information:

Authorizes a taxing jurisdiction, or a State acting on behalf of such jurisdiction, to: (1) determine the place of primary use for purposes of appropriate taxing authority; and (2) if necessary, notify a home service provider to change the assignment of a taxing authority to reflect the appropriate place of primary use. Requires the home service provider to obtain and maintain the customer’s place of primary use for taxing purposes. Provides transition provisions and special rules.

Sounds to me as though the bill requires service providers to determine who has taxing authority over the customer purchasing a service so that they can be appropriately taxed. A post office box may be insufficient to accomplish that. I’m not a lawyer so it would be great if someone with more expertise could chime in.

If I’m correct, what a perfect example of the way the tentacles of government power reach into every aspect of our lives.