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Former BSA VP Confirmed as Tech Undersecretary
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:23 PM
from the get-your-scared-on dept.
from the get-your-scared-on dept.
RedOregon writes "The Senate has confirmed Robert Cresanti as the Commerce Department's new undersecretary for technology.
Who's that, you ask?
He was the former vice president of public policy at the Business Software Alliance.
Does this give anyone else the Heebie Jeebies??"
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Your Rights Online: BSA Piracy Study Deeply Flawed 437 comments
zbik writes "Corante reports that The Economist has blown the lid off the BSA's recent report on software piracy (covered by Slashdot), referring to their methods as 'BS'.
'They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.' The BSA has complained that the article is offensive but does not dispute their analysis. Score one for common sense."
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If that position meant anything, maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If that position meant anything, maybe (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What if it were all the undersecretaries? (Score:4, Interesting)
That is fine and dandy, but one has to wonder if this goes on all the time.
Sure one undersecretary isn't that bad, but what if all positions like this were dealt in the same way.
Boil a frog, anyone?
Parent
Re:What if it were all the undersecretaries? (Score:3, Funny)
You have to wonder if cronyism and giving government positions to connected corporate interests occurs all the time?
Let me help you out: Yes, it goes on all the time.
In this sense, the OP was right that a mere undersecretary position isn't anything special.
Re:What if it were all the undersecretaries? (Score:3, Funny)
Um, no thanks. At least, not without a good dash of cajun spices, or perhaps some good curry or chinese chilis. Otherwise, the boiled frog won't sit in your stomach and digest very well.
Re:If that position meant anything, maybe (Score:3, Insightful)
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Everyone except (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Everyone except (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Everyone except (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually that question really does not amount to much. Where is more EFFECTIVE to call them on it? Here or in China? The answer is that it is not effective in either place.
Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html [com.com]
So long, Redmond. You coulda had a bunch of seats, but I'm too busy to watch my back for the BSA, and frankly the security holes aren'
I'm shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Long live BSA (Score:3, Funny)
I loved those BSA motorcycles.
It's consistent (Score:5, Informative)
-Kurt
Better Analogy (Score:2, Insightful)
Them I forgive; they're senators, not technologists. But note this well:
As Cresanti pushes to expand the scope and scale of software patents, he knows full well that the term "intellectual property" is problematic at best and outright deceitful at worst. As rms said, when people use this term they a
Re:It's consistent (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets not forget to add to that list no bid sweetheart deal contracts for hailburton. Installing a big oil consultant as head of afghanistan, tax cuts, defeating net neutrality... doesn't seem to matter the issue, as long as it doesn't mean a bare breast on TV big buisness can just have its way.
-Steve
Re:Please explain why tax cuts help. (Score:4, Insightful)
Much of it is spent very, very inefficiently (relative to activity in the private sector). Or, much of it is "spent" as grants, social programs, and other hand-out-ish type stuff that doesn't actually require (or produce) an actual productive job in return for that money. Simple re-distribution of money from a worker to (say) a non-worker does not create a job.
Pork-type spending (like, building pointless highways in the middle of nowhere, or sponsoring a teapot museum in the Carolinas - really!) may ultimately employ people in the literal sense, but it doesn't focus that money in areas where there's a real, 'natural' demand for the output of those workers. It's very distorting, and creates false spots in the economic landscape.
Why do you expect investors to invest as much money in America as the American government as opposed to investing in overseas and multinational companies
I expect investors to invest money wherever it suits them. If they're smart, they'll invest a goodly amount in domestic activity... but there's nothing wrong with investing in operations overseas, because that creates larger, newer, hungrier markets in those other places... and if you're still banking on the US as an innovative, useful place, those other countries will then have more to spend on our higher-end goods and services. Do you really think we're better off running low-end textile mills in this country? Or, are we better off leveraging developing economies that need the stimulation at that level, and focusing locally on more high-end, info/service/brain-type stuff that we do so well? It's not as simple as investing in/outside our borders, because we're completely past that as an economic model anyway. Practically everything we consume is made in China... so why not invest there and have a greater impact in how we operate parts of our companies there, and do everything we can to make Chinese citizens able to buy from us the stuff that we're still better at?
I think the other thing that's worth mentioning is that "tax cuts" cover a lot of ground. Where it really counts is in reducing the capital gains taxes, so that people who have their cash tied up in something (a second family house, or a pile of stocks, etc) can liberate it and move the investment onto something else (which stimulates growth) without getting killed by taxes. This is much more of a middle class thing than people think it is. Just selling one stock and turning right around to buy another that looks promising... that can clobber you with taxes. No money has landed in your hands, and some other company's just raised the capital with which to expand their business (and thus hire people, etc), but all the sudden 20% or so of the money you were willing to relocate into a needy part of the economy is... gone. That completely kills the incentive to push money into the hands of growing businesses that will make the most of it.
Parent
Re:It's consistent (Score:3, Insightful)
It could also be argued that the administration is picking people who know something about what they're regulating and understand the issues. Mind you, I don't say you're wrong, just that there's more than one interpretation of this.
Re:It's consistent (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:It's consistent (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's a coincidence that they are all from the pro-business side of the resource managed? I do see how they could select people in the know, but to only select people from within the industry that had direct conflicts with the exact same government agency they are now worki
Re:It's consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
No, "foxes guarding the henhouse" usually implies people who know the situation but profit from not enforcing the rules.
The problem with conservative government is that it's primarily run by people who wish it didn't exist in the first place. The reason why everything is so screwed up in the current administration is because it's staffed by people who have such disrespect for the institutions that they are running that they don't bother to do the job right.
Witness FEMA. Grover Norquist of the Americans for Tax Reform once stated, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Congratulations. Was New Orleans a good enough bathtub for the people to realize the problem with letting people with this attitude run things?
Parent
Re:It's consistent (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, so why don't we hire pedophiles to protect our children?
Oh wait...we do [uidaho.edu]
Business as Usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like par for the course to me.
About the same as a Doubleclick hack [wired.com] (Nuala O'Connor Kelly, Chief "Privacy" Officer of Doubleclick) advising HomeSec on privacy.
Or the Gator/Claria hack [slashdot.org] (D. Reed Freeman, former Gator/Claria Chief "Privacy" Officer) sitting on HomeSec's Data "Privacy" and "Integrity" Advisory Committee.
Maybe we should be thankful. Based on precedent, the BSA guy should be put in charge of the Copyright office, or perhaps hired by NSA to... adjust its priorities when it comes to what sort of traffic is worthy of further investigation.
Anyone taking bets on when Jeff Bezos gets picked to head USPTO?
Re:Business as Usual (Score:2)
Re:Business as Usual (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000294.php [tpmmuckraker.com]
this is getting to ALMOST be so scary its funny.
Parent
Re:Business as Usual (Score:3, Insightful)
Not sure if you read the link I posted, but in summary, the guy who was THE HEAD of DHS task force for finding pedophiles was convicted of being a pedophile.
I'm not damning all of DHS. There are hundreds of thousands of hard working people who work under that general banner. My point is that the leadership is unfortunatly appointed by moronic political leaders who would rather give jobs to a friend
Duties of the Office and Suing Public Schools. (Score:4, Informative)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Technical Information Service and the Office of Technology Policy all fall under the oversight of the Technology Administration
So there's one big no vote on making any free file formats or programs standard issue for government offices. That's a big deal.
People from the BSA have no place in government service in any case. The BSA is an organization that sued public schools systems for copying a text editor [salon.com]. People who do things like that should be shunned.
Ugh, he even looks like a bit character from the Sopranos [hillnews.com].
Parent
Hit it like the nail it is. (Score:3, Insightful)
"the poor teachers copied a text editor and they got sued by the evil BSA" hardly helps your cause.
You are entitled to your belief, but most people would dissagree.
This is the heart and soul of how non free software is evil and how out of whack "IP" laws are. Most people think of schools as worthy of public support and money. The BSA thinks of them as a source of money and thinks that money is more important than the school's mission. These suits were carried out in the
It's the suit mentality. (Score:2)
It's no wonder, therefore, given the current American political climate and composition at the federal level, that the suits are taking over. When the powers that be select a head for anything, they don't begin with a long line of p
Heebie-Jeebies? Hardly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Heebie-Jeebies? Hardly (Score:2)
Copyright Lobbyists now part of the US Govt? (Score:5, Informative)
The Central American nations participating in CAFTA must also:
- Permit software patents
- Extend copyright protection to "70 years after the author's death"
- Ban the "manufacture" or "export" of any hardware or software that could decode encrypted satellite TV signals
- Offer "online public access to a reliable and accurate" WhoIs database of domain name registration details
It's true that these may be ideas beloved by the Bush administration and business lobbyists, but they have far more to do with special-interest lobbying than traditional notions of free trade.
In reality, they're simply the latest in a string of victories that copyright lobbyists have managed to accumulate in the last decade--under both Democratic and Republican presidents--through adept work at influencing the arcane process of treaty drafting.
Negotiating below the radar "We push for that in trade agreements and treaties and bilateral" agreements, Robert Cresanti, vice president for public policy at the Business Software Alliance, told me last week. Members of his group include Adobe Systems, Cisco Systems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.
I'll tell you this much... (Score:2)
Jeez, don't scare me like that! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Jeez, don't scare me like that! (Score:2)
Re:Jeez, don't scare me like that! (Score:2)
To help the Girl Scouts get undressed.
Parallel World (Score:3, Interesting)
Generic "robotic" hardware, computer-controlled devices that do useful work for their owners, seems to be a required next step to convert centralized mass production into distributed mass production. Still the stuff of sci fi, though.
Public Policy (Score:3, Insightful)
To put a crony into this chief position is not news, it is status quo. The public is never served by the politicians, especially those who are not voted into office directly (which can have even worse consequences). The public is served by letting people make billions of decisions separately, and letting businesses and individuals find ways to serve those decisions, instantaneously adapting the market to what the public wants at that moment.
By the time government is ready to react, it is usually too late and unnecessary. Even worse, many of government's reactions are to previous reactions that were too late, making the situation even worse for the millions of individuals making billions of decisions, sometimes unable to get what they truly want because that decision has been judged criminal by previous generations of politicians who never appreciated that the individual's need is best served by the individual's decisions.
Read F.A. Hayek's many books for more details.
You were expecting? (Score:4, Funny)
No heebie jeebies (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I'm used to this sorta news by now.
So what? (Score:3, Funny)
In case you're serious (Score:2)
Ernie Ball [com.com] has something to tell you. Not sure that's the best account of that story. Then there are the school districts [salon.com] that have been attacked. They tend to pick targets and make examples of them. Sure, lots of places have "casual" violations, but the BSA comes in and asks you for affirmative proof of license for every piece of software on every computer you have - or else.
Apparently (IANAL) most people screw u
The BSA...I remember them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately Ebay did in fact reinstate my auctions but I was pretty unhappy about the disgusting way I had been treated. I can only hope that the shoot first, ask questions later attitude will be moderated now that this guy has a government job.
Re:The BSA...I remember them... (Score:2)
Ha! Moderated? More likely you'll be dragged off to a federal prison after you post your item on eBay, and when you prove it was really legal, in court, 2 years later, they'll let you go.
Did not RTFA (Score:2)
I work in the government and this is a serious problem for me. It is just too hard to get things done when your project manager is using words like doohicky and thingamagig. When they do try to BS their way through a presentation with fellow policymakers and managers, it is all you can do to keep from crying at the blatant misunderstan
Re:Sheesh, what a day (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, your Scientologist pharmacist won't be providing that to you any more because he has found it is against his religion. You'll just have to fly to Canada to read
Parent
Re:Sheesh, what a day (Score:2)
I've offshored my pharmacist. I don't think they have Xian fundies or Scientologists in Pakistan.
I'll bite the troll (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course I have an effect; many effects, in fact, some of them rather