July 2011

[Commentary] The fact that Amazon refuses to collect California sales taxes obviously gives it a competitive advantage over all the brick-and-mortar bookstores and appliance showrooms with facilities here. If Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and chief executive, has a spare moment there in Seattle, he might go on his website and buy a copy of Norris' "The Octopus." (As a resident of Washington state, he'll have to pay sales tax.) In any event, he might skip to the end of the first chapter and consider how it might feel to have Amazon regarded as the poet-narrator describes the Southern Pacific: "The leviathan, with tentacles of steel clutching into the soil, the soulless Force, the iron-hearted Power, the monster, the Colossus, the Octopus."

The Republican presidential candidates will debate for the third time, but they won't get a chance to stare each other down or share a stage. It’s not even clear that all of them will be providing their own answers — they'll be participating remotely in the first-ever Twitter debate for a presidential campaign.

The debate, sponsored by TheTeaParty.net, will feature Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Gary Johnson, Michele Bachmann, Thad McCotter and Herman Cain. Conservative commentator S.E. Cupp and conservative radio host Rusty Humphries will pose the questions, which the candidates will then be encouraged to answer in at most two or three tweets. Others can submit questions to the moderators and candidates by mentioning @140townhall in a tweet.

The federal government plans to shut 40 percent of its computer centers over the next four years to reduce its hefty technology budget and modernize the way it uses computers to manage data and provide services to citizens. Computer centers typically do not employ many people to tend the machines, but analysts estimate that tens of thousands of jobs will most likely be eliminated.

The federal government is the largest buyer of information technology in the world, spending about $80 billion a year. The Obama administration is taking aim at some of that by closing 800 of its sprawling collection of 2,000 data centers. The savings, analysts say, will translate into billions of dollars a year and acres of freed-up real estate. The government is following the lead of private business. For years, companies have been using software that shares computing tasks across several machines in a data center. The task-juggling technology enables computers to run at far higher levels of efficiency and utilization than in the past, doing more computing chores with fewer computers and fewer data centers.

President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Maureen K. Ohlhausen to be a Commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission.

Ohlhausen is an attorney at Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP, where she is a partner in the firm’s privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity practice. Previously, she worked at the Business Software Alliance as Technology Policy Council. From 1997 to 2008, she served at the Federal Trade Commission in a number of leadership roles, including as Director of the Office of Policy Planning and, earlier, as an attorney advisor for Commissioner Orson Swindle. Earlier in her career, Ms. Ohlhausen worked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as a law clerk for Judge David Sentelle and clerked for Judge Robert Yock of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. She is also a senior editor of the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Journal and has taught privacy law and unfair trade practices as an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law. Ms. Ohlhausen received a B.A. from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law.