OpenMarket: Privacy and Cybersecurity

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Earlier this week, members of the 115^th United States Congress were sworn into office, and President Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated on January 20. To help these political leaders serve the...

Last week, the cult USA channel TV show Mr. Robot showed once again why it is required viewing for anyone interested in technology. In a conversation between E Corp CEO Phillip Price and a top government official named Jack (a thinly-veiled Jack Lew?), he talked about his plans to get official government backing for his virtual currency, eCoin:

Jack (James Lloyd Reynolds) : “…it’s unconstitutional, you can’t make your own currency.  That is the Federal Government’s job!  We simply cannot let you make big loans in eCoin that you would not make in dollars.”

Phillip Price (Michael Cristofer): “Jack look at me.  I am not the problem here.  The problem here is hard cash is fading rapidly. That’s just the way of the world right now.  And Bitcoin is spreading.  And if Bitcoin takes over, we are all in a...

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This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts will hold a hearing entitled “Protecting Internet Freedom: Implications of Ending U.S. Oversight of the Internet.” The hearing...

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It seems strange to think it’s been barely a week since Pokémon Go became the dominant pop culture phenomenon of the summer. Publications better known for their coverage of politics, economics, and international affairs have quickly jumped into reporting on the popular mobile game: the Washington Post is offering readers “...

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699) sponsored by Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.). The Competitive Enterprise Institute strongly supports this legislation, which would amend the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to require that the government obtain a warrant, based on a showing of probable cause, to compel a cloud computing provider to divulge the contents of a user’s private electronic communications. The Email Privacy Act enjoys strong bipartisan support, with well over 300 House cosponsors—a majority of House Republicans and Democrats.

Yesterday, CEI joined dozens of public interest groups, companies, and activists in a...

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unveiled a proposal to regulate how broadband providers may collect and use their customers’ information. These rules, which the FCC’s five commissioners will vote on later this month, mark the agency’s first major attempt to expand its power over the Internet since its controversial February 2015 decision to reinterpret federal law as authorizing the Commission to regulate Internet service providers as public utilities. That move, which FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler justified as necessary to protect so-called “net neutrality,” came after the Obama administration intervened in the FCC’s rulemaking process...

Later this week, the House is slated to vote on a $1.1 trillion “omnibus” spending bill to fund the federal government through next fall. Naturally, the legislation will likely contain numerous riders and add-ons that address issues unrelated to appropriations, ranging from oil exports to compensation for 9/11 victims. But one potential addition to the lengthy omnibus bill is extremely troubling: according to several reports, House leaders are considering adding cybersecurity information sharing to the package. Rushing a cybersecurity bill through Congress before the holidays is premature, especially given how little we know about the details of a potential cyber addition to the omnibus.

Congress has been busy with cybersecurity legislation this year. In October, the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, known as...

​The behemoth Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) played a big role in Tuesday night’s GOP presidential debate on Fox Business, both during the commercials and in the candidate’s answers.

A new ad by American Action Network that made its debut during commercial break correctly linked the CFPB—created by the Dodd-Frank so-called financial reform act rammed through Congress in 2010—to denial of mortgages and car loans due to the CFPB’s costly and paternalistic rules that hit Main Street bank and credit unions. The candidates critical of Dodd-Frank dinged those same policies, but often without naming the CFPB.

Carly Fiorina called out the CFPB directly and for another disturbing policy. She pointed out that the...

Most Americans own a smartphone and use cloud computing services such as Gmail, Dropbox, and Facebook. Increasingly, we store sensitive data on our devices and in the cloud—but is it safe?

On Tuesday, October 20, 2015, the Competitive Enterprise Institute held a briefing to discuss the current debate over data encryption. It was moderated by CEI Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia. Watch the video below:

This week, the U.S. Senate will vote on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. Also known as “CISA,” the bill aims to improve cybersecurity by making it easier for companies and the government to share information about potential cyber threats with each other. (The latest version of CISA is here; a package of amendments slated to be voted on is here.) But CISA suffers from a serious flaw that Senate lawmakers have repeatedly ignored: the bill doesn’t put agencies on the hook if they misuse information shared with them in the name of cybersecurity.

CISA’s basic premise—...