Hello! As is my right, I’m going to start tonight by shamelessly promoting my own piece arguing for the assignment of the D block of wireless spectrum to civil defense and public safety. I keep calling it civil defense because we learned about the need for this after 9/11, and if the actions of the first responders after those attacks wasn’t wartime civil defense, I don’t know what is.

I know some (but certainly not all) libertarian-leaning Republicans oppose this plan, despite or even because the 9/11 commission chairmen have come out for it. But I’m of the view that there are legitimate government roles in society, and that not all things must be (or even should be) sold or given off to the private sector. Civil defense is one of those that is perfectly fine in government hands.

Lot of things going on with Google right now. Google settled with the FTC over the Buzz privacy holes. Poorly tested software with a flawed design released too much information about too many people. So what do they do? Keep on trucking, of course. Gmail is going to track and store more information about you for advertising purposes, while Google’s new “+1” service asks users to tell Google what websites you like, hoping you’ll trust them this time.

Google’s also getting into the ISP business even deeper by announcing plans to roll out fiber in Kansas City. Plenty of opportunity for data mining in that line of business.

Amazon rolled out a new service*, too, offering online-accessible music storage. Some RIAA members want to leverage copyright law to hinder this innovation though. Unfortunate.

Netflix continues its descent into pure looterdom: constantly seeking to free ride off of the investments of others. By kicking up a political fuss every time an ISP announces reasonable, common-sense bandwidth caps, moving us closer to the necessary state of everyone paying for what we use, Netflix tries to win itself subsidy at everyone else’s expense. But the game is up, as they’ve revealed they’re perfectly capable of reducing their bandwidth use when pressed.

The FCC is spending lots more money on media relations. I take that as an admission that their regulatory activities are out of bounds and need defending.

It turns out we have a coming deficit of wireless spectrum to handle the growing demand for wireless data. People say they want lots of unlimited download, but how will we support it? Some Republicans oppose taking more spectrum away from broadcast television, which certainly limits our options. What will we do, then?

Francis Cianfrocca shared some security thoughts with us over at Bayshore Networks. The company’s Founder and CEO, as well as one of RedState’s contributors, hopes his industry will do a better job of doing its job than Detroit’s auto makers did. I don’t blame him.

Some socialist students in Argentina gave Hugo Chavez an award. For Press Freedom. Because he closed most every media outlet that criticized his Revolution. I’m not kidding when I say groups like Free Press also believe that stuff is good for America.

* Tech at Night’s strict rules forbid me to use the vague, overused buzzword contained in the service’s new name.