April 2014

An arm of the US government seeking to destabilize the Castro regime in Cuba has taken covert actions to overthrow the government there. No, that's not a line out of a Cold War history book. The US Agency for International Development created a fake version of Twitter for Cubans to use in hopes of fomenting what the Associated Press calls a "Cuban Spring" that could, according to one of 1,000 pages of US Agency for International Development (USAID) documents, "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society."

The plan was to bring Cubans onto the service, called ZunZuneo, then begin feeding them political content designed to incite huge protests reminiscent of 2011's democratic uprisings in the Middle East, according to the AP. It all sounds rather implausible at a time when the United States is trying to avoid embroiling itself in places, such as Syria and Ukraine. But the program actually exists. Technology can facilitate organizing. But it can't overthrow governments, much less on a timetable of your choosing. That USAID failed to appreciate such an important lesson -- from the most up-to-date evidence available -- seems surprising for an agency that specializes in international development. It also raises questions about why it still (reportedly) forged ahead with the program, and why it kept it a secret.

The White House is not amused that Samsung is promoting a selfie with the president taken by Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz on a Samsung phone. Spokesman Jay Carney says the White House objects any time the president's image is used for commercial purposes. Carney says in this case, quote, "We certainly object." Carney didn't say whether the White House has asked Samsung to stop using the image.

A parade of executives managing state online health care marketplaces shared stories with Congress that echoed the turbulent tale of the federal site HealthCare.gov. Troubles included glitchy launches, conflict with vendors and patchwork personnel changes. The fixes and workarounds instituted by state exchanges often included hiring 100 or more people to staff call centers and to manually process backlogged forms using state and federal grant money, the officials testified. In most cases, though, as with the federal exchange, state exchanges were ultimately able to approach or meet enrollment targets despite technical challenges, officials told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Aereo definitely has friends in a trio of law professors who weighed in on its side with the Supreme Court.

Filing the brief were Warren Grimes is a professor of law at Southwestern Law School and co-author of The Law of Antitrust: An Integrated Handbook; Shubha Ghosh, law professor at University of Wisconsin Law School and cofounder of the American Antitrust Institute; and Joshua P. Davis, associate dean for academic affairs, professor and director, Center for Law and Ethics at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

In their amicus brief, the professors called Aereo a "healthy free-market response to a dysfunctional and anticompetitive television distribution system that raises prices, reduces output, and denies consumers meaningful choice." They say broadcasters have a responsibility to support the wide dissemination by Aereo of their free TV signals, a responsibility given their spectrum grants that trumps the pursuit of copyright payments. They point out that broadcasters have two limited government monopolies, access to free spectrum -- free except for the public interest standard--and certain exclusive copyright protections of a "fair return" for their creative investment in local programming.

But the academics argue broadcasters undermine their public interest obligation to free, over-the-air TV by invoking copyright law. They say Aereo simplifies access to those over-the-air signals, signals that already ensure a fair return to broadcasters through ad revenue. Granting broadcasters the relief from Aereo they seek would "decrease the output of local television broadcasting and leave consumers with very limited, technologically deficient and expensive choices for obtaining local programming," they say.