TechFreedom’s spent the last five years tirelessly pushing boulders up the Sisyphean hill. A few tech policy reforms have actually reached the top — like the modest improvements to U.S. government surveillance in the USA FREEDOM Act passed last June, moves to make broadband deployment easier, and basic protections for private property in outer space, just to name a few highlights of 2015.
Most of them roll right back down again — like basic email privacy, the fact that we’re now talking about shutting down parts of the Internet, keeping the Internet working across national borders, and keeping consumer protection regulation from doing more harm. But we keep on pushing…
We’re always looking for bigger hills to climb. It’s in our blood. And so we’ve set our sites on the biggest (once-inhabited) hill we could find, that monument to overweening, imperial bureaucracy… Machu Picchu, our new headquarters!
No, there aren’t any Incan bureaucrats around anymore, keeping those crazy “wheel” startups from ever getting off the ground, but… after searching far and wide, the only creature we could find that was more stubborn than a member of Congress or regulatory agency chairman was… the llama.
Yes, they look cuddly, but don’t be fooled. They really don’t care what you think. Even if you’re wearing one of those Inca hats our own Dan Benavente (originally from Lima) got us all — you know, so we’d blend right in.
(We went with the understated ones.)
We’ll still be keeping an eye on things in D.C., of course. But you can expect to hear a lot more from us about tech policy around the world in 2016 — and not just in Peru. It’s all increasingly interrelated.
Oh, and expect more humor, too. If you can’t laugh about it, that constant uphill-battle thing is a real downer.
So here’s wishing you a happy, prosperous and funny 2016!