Snowden Will "Beam In" To South by SouthwestWhistle-blower/Hero Edward Snowden will speak via Satellite at SXSW's Interactive event March 10th. Snowden will be speaking with Glenn Greenwald and the American Civil Liberties Union's chief technologist Christopher Soghoian on a panel that looks at technology and the global culture of surveillance.Snowden has been sporadically quoted since revealing the despicable actions undertaken by our government as well as the United Kingdom via shared NSA documents (the gift that keeps on giving), but this will be his first live speaking engagement since the disclosure of said docs. Snowden will take questions from the audience, so it will be of interest to hear what they have to say, and where their opinions on government surveillance fall. I'd venture that a vast majority of the crowd will be vehemently pro-Snowden and anti-government.If you can't swing out to SXSW to catch it, The Texas Tribune will be livestreaming the event.

The President's City Is Now Pot-FriendlyThe Washington D.C. City Council joined the 17 other states that have decriminalized or reduced the penalty for marijuana use or ownership, according to reports, including that of Businessweek:

The council today approved reducing the punishment for possession of as much as an ounce of marijuana to a fine, instead of potential jail time. The bill goes to Mayor Vincent Gray, a Democrat, who has said he will sign it, and the U.S. Congress, which can reject it.

The question of course is when the government will wake up to the absurdity not only of the federal war on marijuana, but all drugs. Unfortunately, the prison lobbyists may still have too much power. BTW don't tell CA Governor Jerry Brown about this latest development.Crony Cable CapitalismThere is a Bill on the Hill dubbed the "Video Choice Act" from Rep. Anna Eshoo, (D-Calif) who has been thoroughly lobbied by pay-TV companies to put forth an act that would put the government squarely in the middle of broadcast content negotiations. From the Washington Examiner:

The bill would impose government rate-regulation on local television programming and force television networks to sell their programming rights to pay-TV providers on an “a la carte” basis.It would also authorize the FCC to give broadcast programming rights to pay-TV providers, as well as force broadcasters to distribute their content online whenever the agency determines programming negotiations have reached an impasse.

As most people know, broadcast TV packages (as well as many web programming packages) are bundled affairs to allow broadcast content creators the ability to package their top content with lower tier that may not necessarily draw the same numbers, but still bring in revenue.  The rise of new online pay-TV companies such as Netflix, Amazon, etc have brought a bit more competition into the equation. Naturally, competition is a good thing and the free market should dictate exactly which model wins out among the Pay-TV companies, without government interference. For example, over the past 10 years cable subscriptions have fallen off almost 20% to 56% of the population, with a subsequent rise in "web-only" media consumers. That is the free market speaking.Government intervention mucks this whole process up. Why should the government be given the authority to dictate the programming TV networks sell to pay-TV providers?  If Broadcasters have content that they own, they should distribute it or hold it at their will. Broadcasters routinely bluff at blacking out channels during negotiations as a tactic with Pay-TV firms. It rarely ever happens, but that option should be on the table.

Pay-TV providers that own content have not opposed the bill, and those that don't own content expressly support it, because the bill would restrict only programming distributed by broadcasters.It would force television network affiliates to furnish their programming to pay-TV providers at below-market rates, while allowing cable and online programmers to set their own prices.

How's that for getting in the way of the free market?

The Eshoo bill would eliminate that risk for pay-TV providers, but would do nothing to mitigate the potential risk of lost advertising revenue faced by broadcasters.TV stations would lose their only source of negotiating leverage, and broadcast networks would have an incentive to shift from television to cable programming, which enjoys full intellectual property protection.

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