Bartlett Cleland

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Prop 24: A Choice Between Expensive Ineffectiveness or a Prosperous Future

On November 3, Californians will be asked to make a what appears to be a simple decision, that is, would they like to increase their privacy? However, where Proposition 24, to enable the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act is concerned, appearances are deceiving. In 2018, seeking to address the ...
Agriculture

Big Government Won’t Improve Broadband in Rural California

Pick nearly any state in the union and likely it has a large swath of rural area and population. Even California, which is rarely thought of as a “rural state,” is still physically more than half rural, with about four million residents living in those areas. Many assume they know ...
Blog

Instead of Fining Businesses Government Should Get Its Own House in Order

Last month the state of California began enforcing its expensive and heavy-handed new business privacy laws despite the economic burdens already borne by business because of COVID-19 and the government’s shut down of the economy. At $55 billion in compliance costs with the threat of millions more in penalties and ...
California

California Doubles Down on Unworkable Data Privacy Law During Second COVID Shutdown

Businesses were ordered to close. Schools were shuttered. People were told to stay home. Many believed that in a week or two life for the most part would return to normal and that COVID would be a bad memory. Now, four months later, California has not just halted reopening but ...
Blog

The 6GHz Push Could Expand Innovation in California

Given that California has more than 33 million internet users, it is clear that the state loves its broadband access.  And recent action from Washington, DC has the potential to make California’s online experience even better and inspire more innovation. According to Broadband Now, California ranks 13th in the country ...
Blog

Innovation Champion No More

Much is always written about “innovation.” How to manage it. How to inspire it. How to benefit from it. How to create an environment where it blooms. So much lip service is paid to innovation that unfortunately many people tune it out. Certainly, ignoring the value of an innovation environment, ...
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

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

Prop 24: A Choice Between Expensive Ineffectiveness or a Prosperous Future

On November 3, Californians will be asked to make a what appears to be a simple decision, that is, would they like to increase their privacy? However, where Proposition 24, to enable the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act is concerned, appearances are deceiving. In 2018, seeking to address the ...
Agriculture

Big Government Won’t Improve Broadband in Rural California

Pick nearly any state in the union and likely it has a large swath of rural area and population. Even California, which is rarely thought of as a “rural state,” is still physically more than half rural, with about four million residents living in those areas. Many assume they know ...
Blog

Instead of Fining Businesses Government Should Get Its Own House in Order

Last month the state of California began enforcing its expensive and heavy-handed new business privacy laws despite the economic burdens already borne by business because of COVID-19 and the government’s shut down of the economy. At $55 billion in compliance costs with the threat of millions more in penalties and ...
California

California Doubles Down on Unworkable Data Privacy Law During Second COVID Shutdown

Businesses were ordered to close. Schools were shuttered. People were told to stay home. Many believed that in a week or two life for the most part would return to normal and that COVID would be a bad memory. Now, four months later, California has not just halted reopening but ...
Blog

The 6GHz Push Could Expand Innovation in California

Given that California has more than 33 million internet users, it is clear that the state loves its broadband access.  And recent action from Washington, DC has the potential to make California’s online experience even better and inspire more innovation. According to Broadband Now, California ranks 13th in the country ...
Blog

Innovation Champion No More

Much is always written about “innovation.” How to manage it. How to inspire it. How to benefit from it. How to create an environment where it blooms. So much lip service is paid to innovation that unfortunately many people tune it out. Certainly, ignoring the value of an innovation environment, ...
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

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 ...
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