San Antonio clears Google Fiber's legal hurdles ahead of a possible deal

San Antonio really wants Google Fiber. Really badly. So badly, in fact, that its City Council has approved leases for Google's networking nodes despite the absence of official rollout plans. The Texas town hopes that removing this legal obstacle in advance will make it a prime candidate for Fiber's next big launch. Google still has some evaluation to do before it can even consider a San Antonio deployment, so locals shouldn't dream of what they'll do with gigabit internet access just yet. However, it's not hard to see why the city is so optimistic -- even the hint of a Fiber launch tends to spur competition and improve speeds for everyone.

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In The Legal Battle Between Aereo And Broadcasters, The DOJ Sides With The Incumbents

In the never-ending legal battle between internet TV startup Aereo and major network broadcasters, the DOJ has stepped in to voice its opposition toward Aereo’s streaming/DVR service.

The Department of Justice filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Monday arguing that Aereo’s service infringes on the copyrights of broadcasters. The brief asked the Supreme Court to reverse the decisions made by the lower court that ruled in Aereo’s favor.

Aereo has been battling with broadcasters across the country including NYC, Boston and Utah, and in each case has (mostly) remained victorious in their argument. Recently, broadcasters asked the Supreme Court to pick up the case, which would end the matter once and for all. The hearing is set to begin on April 22.

The issue: Broadcasters believe that Aereo is stealing their signals out of the air and rebroadcasting those signals to consumers unlawfully. However, Aereo works very similarly to a regular set of rabbit ears above a TV. Because each Aereo user has their own remote antenna that records their very own copy of various programs, the startup has been consistently successful in court.

In fact, a ruling against Aereo is said to have averse affects on cloud computing as a whole.

The DOJ’s briefing, however, says that there is no threat to cloud computing/remote DVR if Aereo loses. Instead, the threat Aereo poses to the law is that users can “gain access to copyrighted content in the first instance — the same service that cable companies have traditionally provided.”

However, that would also mean that a company selling rabbit ears or antennas is also indirectly breaking the law.

Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler wrote the following in his brief: “Because

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NY Judge Rules NSA Phone Record Collection Is Legal

. “The right to be free from searches and seizures is fundamental, but not absolute,” New York’s Judge William Pauley wrote.

This stands in direct contrast to a decision earlier this month declaring the very same program is likely unconstitutional. “We are pleased with the decision,” said Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr.

In essence, Pauley was convinced that countermeasures to investigate terror plots justified mass collection of data.

The government learned from its mistake and adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world. It launched a number of counter-measures, including a bulk telephony metadata collection program — a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data.

He went a bit further, arguing that collection from private firms was likely more invasive, yet few consumers care. The government, moreover, has only had isolated instances of abuse.

Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to trans-national corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive than bulk telephony metadata collection. There is no evidence that the government has used any of bulk telephony metadata it collected for any purpose other than investigating and disrupting terrorist attacks. While there have been unintentional violations of guidelines, those appear to stem from human error and the incredibly complex computer programs that support this vital tool. And once detected, those violations were self-reported and stopped.

As I’ve noted before, ultimately, these decisions will likely have to be decided by the Supreme Court. Or Congress could decide to end bulk collection sooner.

The short of it is that, practically speaking, this decision won’t mean much, but could provide compelling arguments for the Supreme Court, should it decide on the controversial practice.

Until then, please have a wonderful holiday weekend and feel free to enjoy this joke.

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