Technology
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 ...
Evan Harris
February 24, 2020
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, ...
Bartlett Cleland
January 2, 2020
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 ...
Bartlett Cleland
December 23, 2019
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 The Court upheld the current Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the prior administration’s heavy-handed, 1930s-style regulation of ...
Bartlett Cleland
November 21, 2019
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 ...
Evan Harris
November 19, 2019
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 ...
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.
November 6, 2019
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 ...
Evan Harris
October 31, 2019
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 ...
Bartlett Cleland
October 25, 2019
California
California’s AB 5 will kill the gig economy and force more companies to leave
Proposition 13 was called the political equivalent of a sonic boom by economist Art Laffer. In limiting how much local governments could drain from Californians through property taxes, fed-up voters changed the political landscape with the 1978 ballot measure in a way that few state policies have, before or since. ...
Kerry Jackson
October 14, 2019
Blog
Is California’s Data Privacy Law a Ticking Time Bomb for Business?
With the deadline for California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign or veto legislation fast approaching, one public policy issue that received little to no attention at the end of California’s legislative session is the state’s pending data privacy law. In 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act was made law when ...
Evan Harris
October 3, 2019
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 ...
California’s AB 5 will kill the gig economy and force more companies to leave
Proposition 13 was called the political equivalent of a sonic boom by economist Art Laffer. In limiting how much local governments could drain from Californians through property taxes, fed-up voters changed the political landscape with the 1978 ballot measure in a way that few state policies have, before or since. ...
Is California’s Data Privacy Law a Ticking Time Bomb for Business?
With the deadline for California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign or veto legislation fast approaching, one public policy issue that received little to no attention at the end of California’s legislative session is the state’s pending data privacy law. In 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act was made law when ...