Technology
Blog
California Assembly Bill 5: An Update
Nearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news about efforts to smooth over the malign effects of the law: ...
Blog
Worker Freedom No More
Love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons when California enacts public policy the impact is felt across the country. And so, it has been again with the January 1st implementation of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the so called “gig employment” law that changes the worker status ...
Blog
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
Blog
A Ghost in the Machine?
In 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what of the metaphysical? That is, ...
Blog
When Protecting Privacy Reveals Secrets
The California policy gadfly is back with a new ballot initiative in 2020. Last year, San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart used the threat of a ballot measure to all but force the state legislature to enact dramatic new privacy regulations that were not ready for primetime. Earlier this ...
Blog
California Should Embrace Internet Freedom to Ensure Future Innovation, Prosperity
Last month the D.C. Court of Appeals settled, for now, the question of how much freedom consumers will be guaranteed to make their internet experience the one they want. The Court upheld the current Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the prior administration’s heavy-handed, 1930s-style regulation of ...
Blog
Meet the obscure federal interagency committee who keeps an eye on foreign investment and national security
The United States tweet first, tariff second trade policy against China continues to define American -Chinese relations. As both nations pursue the “Cold War light” escalation through tariffs, the United States continues to drum up new regulations to combat Chinese economic influence. One policy the federal government is embracing is ...
Agriculture
Tales of Woe: How Dysfunctional Regulation Has Decimated Entire Sectors of Biotechnology
“To observe government is to observe the absence of accountability,” James Freeman wrote in the Wall Street Journal.1 That’s certainly true of unwise regulation of many innovative technologies; and modern biotechnology, also known as “genetic engineering (GE)” or “genetic modification (GM),” perhaps along with civilian applications of nuclear power, could be ...
Blog
Zuckerberg, Facebook Go Full Public Relations Blitz as Libra Stumbles
This summer, Facebook unveiled their plans to incorporate Libra, a digital cryptocurrency, into the Facebook platform. By the end of 2020, billions of Facebook users will be able to use Libra like any other currency. In previous Right by the Bay post, I wrote about Facebook’s announcement, highlighting some of ...
Commentary
Facing Down the Surveillance State
A ban on facial recognition software used by law enforcement or government agencies that started in San Francisco and Oakland has, in part, gone statewide. The Body Camera Accountability Act passed the California Legislature and was just signed into law by Gov. Newsom. The law puts in place a three-year ...
California Assembly Bill 5: An Update
Nearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news about efforts to smooth over the malign effects of the law: ...
Worker Freedom No More
Love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons when California enacts public policy the impact is felt across the country. And so, it has been again with the January 1st implementation of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the so called “gig employment” law that changes the worker status ...
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
A Ghost in the Machine?
In 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what of the metaphysical? That is, ...
When Protecting Privacy Reveals Secrets
The California policy gadfly is back with a new ballot initiative in 2020. Last year, San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart used the threat of a ballot measure to all but force the state legislature to enact dramatic new privacy regulations that were not ready for primetime. Earlier this ...
California Should Embrace Internet Freedom to Ensure Future Innovation, Prosperity
Last month the D.C. Court of Appeals settled, for now, the question of how much freedom consumers will be guaranteed to make their internet experience the one they want. The Court upheld the current Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the prior administration’s heavy-handed, 1930s-style regulation of ...
Meet the obscure federal interagency committee who keeps an eye on foreign investment and national security
The United States tweet first, tariff second trade policy against China continues to define American -Chinese relations. As both nations pursue the “Cold War light” escalation through tariffs, the United States continues to drum up new regulations to combat Chinese economic influence. One policy the federal government is embracing is ...
Tales of Woe: How Dysfunctional Regulation Has Decimated Entire Sectors of Biotechnology
“To observe government is to observe the absence of accountability,” James Freeman wrote in the Wall Street Journal.1 That’s certainly true of unwise regulation of many innovative technologies; and modern biotechnology, also known as “genetic engineering (GE)” or “genetic modification (GM),” perhaps along with civilian applications of nuclear power, could be ...
Zuckerberg, Facebook Go Full Public Relations Blitz as Libra Stumbles
This summer, Facebook unveiled their plans to incorporate Libra, a digital cryptocurrency, into the Facebook platform. By the end of 2020, billions of Facebook users will be able to use Libra like any other currency. In previous Right by the Bay post, I wrote about Facebook’s announcement, highlighting some of ...
Facing Down the Surveillance State
A ban on facial recognition software used by law enforcement or government agencies that started in San Francisco and Oakland has, in part, gone statewide. The Body Camera Accountability Act passed the California Legislature and was just signed into law by Gov. Newsom. The law puts in place a three-year ...
