Security breaches involving the loss or theft of massive amounts of personal data have revived the call on Capitol Hill for some kind of security bill to preempt inconsistent action by the roughly 30 states now considering bills related to consumer data. Unfortunately, the whole furor has moved in the direction of reviving legislative interest in European-style data protection rules, which would broadly regulate the collection and use of consumer information by legitimate businesses.

This would be a very bad thing. People acting in the economy need information about other people to make good decisions. Startups and new businesses in particular, especially those going up against an established competitor who already has established consumer relationships,

No, F.A. Hayek never addressed net neutrality in his writings; I can't find it in the index of my copy of The Road to Serfdom (it jumps from "Naumann, Friedrich, Mitteleuropa," to "New Deal"). But in an op-ed that Brainwash was kind enough to post today, I play What-Would-Hayek-Do (WWHD) in looking at net neutrality. In so doing I examine his Nobel acceptance speech, "The Pretense of Knowledge," and echo Hayek's caution against unintented consequences resulting from public policy actions. Here's Hayek:

To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm. In the physical sciences there may be little objection to trying to do the impossible; one might even feel that one ought not to discourage the over-confident because their experiments may after all produce some new insights. But in the social field the erroneous belief that the exercise of some power would have beneficial consequences is likely to lead to a new power to coerce other men being conferred on some authority.

There's little to no evidence of market abuse in the net neutrality debate. Yet proponents of legislation say abuses are due any day now, and we must act prophylactically to prevent them through the creation of new regulations. WWHD? I think he'd say to slow down, lest action result in something worse than inaction.

Those wacky Chinese officials are at it again. Apparently they've grown tired of just pestering those curious critters who type "Tiananmen Square" or "Falun Gong" into their search engines. So, they're upping the ante and going after anyone who reports on natural disasters, industrial accidents, or health and security hazards without prior state permission.

Yes, you read that right: Reporting the news will soon be a crime in China. According to this report in today's Wall Street Journal, a new bill being considered in China's Parliament would "make reports on the handling of and status of public emergencies without approval" or "issue false reports" punishable by fines of between $6,000 and $12,000.

IPCentral.Info argues that data retention requirements are a Taking of property for which compensation must be paid.

The Maryland legislature, as expected, overrode Governor Ehrlich's veto of a bill that would have limits Baltimore Gas & Electric's rate increases and eliminated all the current members of the PSC. The bill is a travesty for two reasons, and bodes very ill long-term for Maryland's electricity customers.

First, the bill continues the Maryland legislature's well-known belief in its ability to suspend basic principles of economics. With this bill, the legislature effectively denies BG&E cost recovery for its electricity service -- or, rather, to pay the competitive price for electricity. While this is being hailed as a populist victory over corporate greed, no one has made an effective case that the PSC's determination back in the spring was indeed wrong. The 72% rate increase -- whether phased-in or digested all at once -- is certainly large, none of the opponents has made the case that BG&E's costs have not increased that much. With natural gas prices up in the neighborhood of 300% in the past few years and the market price for electricity being far above that currently charged by BG&E, it is no surprise that rates would rise, even substantially. Of course, none of this can get in the way of a good political skewering of the PSC and Constellation Energy, BG&E's parent. In the future, though, Maryland ratepayers will get to enjoy lower bond ratings for its utility, higher debt costs, less capital expenditures, diminished reliability, and all other byproducts of a good populist rebellion.

[This essay builds on Friday's blog entry on "Social Networking and Child Protection."]

At last week's National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conference entitled "A Dialog on Social Networking Web Sites," several law enforcement officials argued that expanded data retention mandates were needed to adequately police online networks and websites for potentially criminal activity. (In this case, child pornography or child predators were the concern, but data retention has also been proposed as a way to police online networks for terrorist activities among other things).

This push for expanded data retention was hardly surprising. In recent months, members of Congress and the Department of Justice have floated new proposals to require Internet Service Providers (ISP) and others (including search engines and social networking sites) to retain data on their customers and traffic flows for long periods (typically between 6 months and two years). These proposals mimic data retention laws that are being implemented in the European Union.

Let's step back and consider this issue from two very different perspectives.

. . are examined in an O'Reilly Radar blog that is linked at IPCentral.Info.

Yesterday I spoke at a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conference entitled "A Dialog on Social Networking Web Sites." It featured dozens of industry, technology, law enforcement and government experts discussing how to protect children on social networking sites. I spoke on the final panel of the day on "The Public Policy Challenges of Social Networking" and was up against two state AGs: Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. They both favored various regulatory measures to address concerns about online safety, including a complete ban on anyone under the age of 16 on social networking websites.

My response follows.

Last week I mentioned how some net-neutrality legislation proponents had taken a technical difficulty between Craig's List and Cox Communications' outside security provider, Authentium, and turned it into the latest cause celebre. Like many urban legends, the great Cox conspiracy just won't die. The latest to promulgate misinformation is Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) in the Wall Street Journal. I have supported Wyden on banning Internet taxes, been dismayed at his overconfidence in government solutions to spam and spyware, and have been appalled at his net-neutrality legislation, in particular comments he made at a press conference promoting the bill where he basically advocated a government taking of the Internet, saying the US government really owned it anyway. But his letter to the Journal is full of falsehoods, including on the Cox incident:

Cox Communications, a broadband provider that also has a large classified advertising business, is currently blocking access to craigslist.org, a large, free classified Web site that competes with Cox.

No one was blocked, although some Cox customers did get very slow connections, due to snafus on the parts of both Craig's List and Authentium. For more information on what's really happening with Cox and where Wyden is confused, see Richard Bennett here and here and also see The Only Republican in San Francisco. The former journalist in me appreciates blogs but still counts on the mainstream media, or MSM as bloggers call it, to tell it like it really is. I hope somebody in the MSM calls Wyden on this reckless letter.

If you thought the FCC's regime of speech controls for broadcast television and radio was arbitrary and excessive, then just wait till we give similar authority to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to regulate video game content! That's apparently what House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich) plans to do.

According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine, he is preparing a bill to give the FTC greater authority to fine video game manufacturers if they contain objectionable content. Barton, you will recall, was the sponsor of the recently passed Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which raised the fines that FCC could impose on broadcasters 10-fold. Apparently, he wants to give the FTC greater powers because he is angry about the agency's recent decision in the "Grand Theft Auto" investigation. He said that the FTC's action "wasn't even a slap on the wrist" and that millions of dollars of fines should have been levied.

It's just more bad news for the video game industry and fans of the First Amendment. (Here's my recent paper summarizing some of the other threats the industry faces).