CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. TECHNOLOGY
The expanding use of microchip implants raises privacy concerns.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Jim Harper on why the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags being used are an unlikely privacy threat:
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology promises many consumer benefits. With RFID, goods on trucks, in trains, and in warehouses can be inventoried without unloading and digging through pallets and packaging. Embedded in or attached to consumer products, RFID can improve customer convenience by permitting receipt-free returns and suppressing post-sale theft. As a personal identification device, RFID already enables keycard holders to quickly enter secure buildings and pass through toll gates.
2. BUSINESS
Satellite radio providers XM and Sirius announce new ‘family-friendly’ subscription plans in advance of their impending merger.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on why regulators should not get in the way of the two companies joining forces:
Satellite company mergers are one element of an evolving marketplace that increasingly magnifies consumer choice and ability to customize information; not merely information received, but also that which individuals themselves create or assemble for distribution to others. That personalization coexists with media enterprises that exist on a gigantic scale.
3. ENVIRONMENT
Al Gore and other global warming activists tout “carbon offsets” as an alternative to reducing one’s personal energy use.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Steven Milloy on the questionable accounting in the offset market:
Congress began investigating the carbon offset industry this week. The inquiry could produce some “inconvenient truths” for Al Gore and the nascent offset industry. Carbon offsets ostensibly allow buyers to expunge their consciences of the new eco-sin of using energy derived from fossil fuels. Worried about the 8 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted each year by your SUV? Similar to the indulgences offered by Pope Leo X in the 16th century, you can absolve yourself of sin by purchasing $96 worth of CO2 offsets – typically offered at $12 per ton of CO2 emitted – from offset brokers who, in turn, supposedly use your cash to pay someone else to produce electricity with low or no CO2 emissions.
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.
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