Burma, Gay Republicans, Google, DCI Connection

The Bush Family Evil Empire once again in evidence

President Bush recently called for an end to the “reign of fear” in Burma and announced new sanctions against the military dictatorship in that country, telling the United Nations it should “help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom.” But it’s worth noting that not so long ago, a major Republican lobbying firm, whose employees included a long-time friend of the president’s, was lobbying the administration on behalf of the Burmese generals.

The firm in question is called DCI Associates. It also works for a number of major corporate clients, including Google. According to its website, DCI employs “a campaign-style approach to help [clients] address their most critical communications and public policy challenges . . . Our firm consistently delivers results that surpass our clients’ expectations.” CEO Doug Goodyear formerly served as political director for the Colorado state GOP; founding Partner Tim Hyde worked for R.J. Reynolds between 1988 and 1997 and has held several national and state political positions, including the post of Deputy Director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Back in 2002, DCI signed a $35,000 per month deal to work for the Burmese junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (it was previously called the State Law and Order Restoration Council until one of the generals figured out that name might not be good for PR). A lead lobbyist for the generals was Charles Francis, chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition (RUC), which describes itself on its website as “a relatively new name in gay political circles.” One triumph, the site says, was when Francis “managed to bring Mary Cheney, the Second Family’s daughter and a former gay and lesbian outreach operative for the Coors brewery, out of the shadows of Colorado and on to the RUC advisory board.” The website also says that Francis’ relationship with Bush (“which is a major asset for his RUC activities”) dates to Texas, when his brother Jim chaired GWB’s 1994 gubernatorial campaign, when Bush defeated Democratic incumbent Ann Richards.

The deal with Burma called for DCI to help identify “potential means of improving relations” between Burma and the United States. Issues to be addressed included the “War on Terrorism,” “human rights,” and the “War on Drugs,” which turned out to be the focus of the contract.

DCI had its work cut out for it, given that Burma is one of the world’s largest producers of heroin and the generals are known to have close ties to international drug traffickers. A Washington Post story in late 2002 said that thanks to DCI, the State Department was “close to recommending Burma’s removal froma list of ‘major’ drug producers,” which would have allowed the junta “to press for significant counternarcotics funding.” The story cited a speech by Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly, who had pointed to Burmese efforts on drugs as a rare bright spot in a “most frustrating challenge for American diplomacy.”

Ultimately, the State Department backed away in the face of protests from Congress, where some of the more finicky members were troubled by the junta’s use of rape against civilians as a weapon of war. In 2003, Burma terminated its deal with DCI.

Incidentally, Burma employed two other lobby shops with strong GOP connections during the 1990s–Jefferson Waterman International, and a firm headed by Edward von Kloberg. Both quit because they were disgusted by the junta–not for its human rights record, but because it stiffed them for fees. Von Kloberg committed suicide two years ago, jumping from a castle in Rome with a copy of a 1997 issue of Prime magazine whose cover featured a picture of him with President George H.W. Bush. Draw your own conclusions.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty an d mass murderers.

Don't Mess With Our Net!

Google Plays Offense - The Latest from the Net Neutrality Front
by publius

Over the past few days, I've been reading the net neutrality comments filed at the FCC last week (from the major parties, that is). There’s some good stuff in there (Susan Crawford has more). As background, the FCC (perhaps in an effort to avoid dealing with the issue) released a “Notice of Inquiry” this spring, essentially asking for comments on the state of the broadband access market (i.e., whether net neutrality is needed). Google’s comments (pdf) in particular are both interesting and illustrate some of the high-level themes and questions in the current net neutrality debate.

To back up, when you cut through all the rhetoric, the net neutrality debate is really about “access tiering,” which is the practice of charging content or service providers (e.g., Amazon, Google, Vonage) additional fees for a guaranteed level of service (or “quality of service” -- “QoS”). People raise the specter that the Verizons of the world will block websites and services, but I’m less worried about that. And frankly, that’s not really what the industry fight is about.

It’s about access tiering.

To be grossly simple, here’s how it works. The Googles of the world pay access providers (Verizon, Comcast, etc.) for the bandwidth they use. But they don’t pay additional fees to access you the customer. When you go to the Google website, its servers ultimately send the information through the wires (or “pipes”) running into your house. Because access providers own these “last-mile” pipes, the fear is that they will impose an additional charge for reaching you -- i.e., they will put bouncers at the door and charge a fee.

But these companies don’t necessarily want to block sites. What they really want to do is to set up premium “lanes,” with guaranteed QoS. For instance, to ensure that you get Google really fast, Google would have to pay up and sign on for QoS guarantees or get relegated to the slow lane. The fear, among others, is that this system (1) will raise the cost of entry for new providers/services, especially start-ups; and (2) will lead to a “second class” Internet as access providers ignore the non-premium lane.

The access providers’ arguments -- which aren’t necessarily absurd -- is that they need additional money to improve the Internet and, in particular, to increase bandwidth. The future of the Internet is high-data video and p2p services, so we need more bandwidth they say (and they’re right). Access tiering addresses this need by both subsidizing improvements and allowing for efficient management of congested networks.

Thus, the policy debate turns on whether net neutrality will prevent (or de-incent) network improvements. Access providers spend a long time saying “yes, it will,” while others say “no, it won’t.” Regardless, the focus is often on the effect that net neutrality regulations would have. Net neutrality advocates are often on defense, having to explain why net neutrality won’t harm the future of the Net.

Google puts an interesting twist on this -- and goes on the offensive. They argue that a QoS access tiering regime would actually retard network build-out and create fewer incentives to expand bandwidth. The basic idea is that access tiering relies on -- and creates incentives to maintain -- limited capacity.

Here’s what they say:

QoS robs broadband providers of their incentives to build out greater broadband capacity.QoS originally was conceived as a software-based technical response to limited capacity. Once QoS becomes a profit center for the broadband provider, however, that provider no longer has an incentive to remove the bottlenecks that generate QoS revenues. Instead, the provider has every incentive to maintain capacity constraints in order to justify the QoS fees to customers.

If the broadband providers are able to prioritize packets flowing over their network to the benefit of themselves and their chosen few, they will come to rely on QoS as a revenue-generating crutch that deters them from building bigger, faster broadband pipes that actually serve everyone.

In other words, regulatory policy should encourage a system of abundance rather than freezing a system of scarcity in place. Once this system is in place, Google argues, inertia and reliance will set in, limiting future reforms.

Access tiering isn’t an insane idea, but the broader argument against it is that it would have harmful effects (externalities) on the public at large by locking the broadband market into a “scarcity” model. Net neutrality, by contrast, would force access providers to expand their pipes, or so the argument goes.

In a sense, this seems unfair. We’re essentially asking the access providers to incur private costs for public benefits. Two responses – first, it may not be a public cost if the improved, net-neutrality-inspired pipes sharply increase demand and grow the market. Second, the providers networks' are themselves the product of earlier public subsidies.

But from a more realistic perspective, it's going to be hard to get anything passed if the uber-powerful access providers are passionately opposed to it. Thus, if the politics of net neutrality are hopeless mired on this question of fairness, maybe the ultimate answer is some sort of public subsidy for private fiber buildout, not unlike the great infrastructure projects of the past (railroads, canals). Instead of the stick, the government would rely on the carrot. For instance, we might say “if you agree to net neutrality regulation, we will drown you in money for new fancy-pants fiber.” A few months of Iraq spending would go a long way in that respect.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.