Pete Ashdown’s Journal

The Salt Lake Tribune published an opinion piece today that I wrote on our Republican congressional delegation’s recent grandstanding on behalf of the oil, gas, and coal industries.

Come celebrate Senator Hatch’s latest reassurance that the government is fully trustworthy and always does the right thing at Salt Lake Acting Company’s “Nutcake Night” on July 16th. I have 10 tickets at a discounted rate of $35 available. Please email if you are interested in attending with me, my wife Robin and fellow nutcakes.

Over a year ago, Provo City put out an RFP titled, “Request for Proposals for Partnership Opportunities with Telecommunication Service Providers on the iProvo Network”. This was a public invitation to companies like XMission to provide services to the citizens of Provo over the fiber network installed by the city. You can read the full text of the RFP on the Provo city website.

XMission was excited to respond to Provo’s request. This was in fact, the first time we had been invited to participate at all. The process that Provo originally engaged in to select their disastrous first Internet provider, HomeNet, and then subsequent providers was never extended to XMission. This in spite of the consistent calls from Provo residents to iProvo to allow us to participate on their network.

After responding to Provo’s request, XMission had a number of meetings with iProvo which were welcoming and positive. The last meeting we had with them was in December when we were told that we were on track to be a participant and some wholesale pricing was reworked. Yesterday, iProvo held a press conference where they announced the sale of the network to a company named Broadweave.

I attended the press conference and asked a simple question of the mayor, “Do you think the sale of a public asset should be done through a public process?” His response was that it was done in a public fashion and that I only needed to read the RFP to understand that the network sale was a possibility. The RFP title states, “Partnership Opportunities with Telecommunication Service Providers on the iProvo Network” with the keyword being “on”. Later in the document the “goals and design for the Network Project” are laid out, with the first being, “To provide the citizens of Provo a full range of competitive choices for telecommunications services and applications.” How exactly does selling the network to a business which will lock out out all other businesses meet this goal of the RFP? As recent as two weeks ago, Mayor Billings was claiming there were offers, but “due diligence” had prevented a sale. If this is the same “due diligence” that selected HomeNet, an out-of-state company which used forged documents to prop up its financials, then it would have been enlightening to see how Broadweave was selected.

Unfortunately, none of the proceedings in selecting Broadweave are public. Provo officials have handled the public trust much like a private entity in signing “non-disclosure agreements” and not being fully clear that iProvo indeed was for sale. Although the claim is made that Broadweave is paying $40 million for the network, they are simply assuming the bond debt, which will fall back to Provo City if they can’t sustain their business model and Sorenson Capitol backs out of the transaction.

I wish Provo the best success in their efforts, others have been more critical. Some have claimed my comments to the press are so much “sour grapes”. Let me be clear, my interest in iProvo since its inception was being a provider on an open-competition network. I believe there is a very good reason private interests worldwide are not building ubiquitous fiber networks — the payback is beyond 20 years. There is no doubt in my mind that if Qwest, Comcast, and all data service providers were restricted to providing service over one municipal fiber network, it would not only succeed, the public would see cheaper rates and superior service. The lack of proper RFP for the sale of iProvo hands the network over to a single private interest that will control rates and service.

I have been told that there were other national and international companies who expressed interest in purchasing iProvo. Would they have kept the network open to service provider competition? Would there have been a better deal instead of just assuming the bond debt? Without a proper RFP process in place for the sale, the public will never know.

Since the beginning of iProvo, XMission has wanted to help the network succeed. Instead, we have been inexplicably stonewalled and blocked at every turn. What is certain now is that there will be no open competition on the iProvo network. Eventually this country will realize that fiber infrastructure is not a luxury that can be sustained by a business model, but a necessary investment in our economy. Sadly, it is going to take another decade of mismanagement and lost promises by the private sector before that is realized.

A number of people have asked whether I would be interested in running for Utah governor or congress this year. It is humbling to be considered. However, currently my commitment to my family, XMission, and the local organizations I sit on boards for does not lend the time required for a candidacy this year. In January I took on the role of chairing the Utah Heritage Foundation for two years and I feel strongly about seeing that role through. I am looking forward to the political possibilities presented in 2010.

Another sweet gem of ignorance has been dispensed from the Utah Legislature. HB407 asks for creation of a “Community Conscious Internet Provider” seal, which can then be used by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for marketing their virtue. Where it gets fun is how it asks the ISP to voluntarily give up the 4th Amendment protection of its customers. Line 85 reads, “cooperate with any law enforcement agency by providing records sufficient to identify a customer if the law enforcement agency requests the information and supplies reasonable proof that a crime has been committed using the Internet service provider’s service”. It says nothing of reasonable proof being determined by a judge and thusly issuing a court order.

XMission has always taken the stand that if you want customer information you’re going to need a court order. This act asks us to discard that stance in order to use a “seal” in our marketing. If we at some point decide the seal isn’t worth our customers’ privacy or we somehow fail to uphold the requirements of this law, then XMission is subject to a fine of $10,000.

To its credit, the bill makes handing over my customers’ privacy to the state completely voluntary. No thanks.

According to Ethan Millard, HB139 is dead. However, with the Utah Legislature it isn’t over until it’s over. This is a good sign, thanks to everyone who helped fight this legislation. Thanks to Representative Daw for listening to my and others concerns about the technical problems.

I have been reluctant to endorse a presidential candidate up until this time because I think the way our primary system works is utterly messed up. Seeing candidates drop out of the race after 124,000 people caucus in Iowa is not broad democracy in any sense. However, Utah’s primary is next Tuesday and I think now that it is down to two, it is time to make a public choice.
In Barack Obama’s first term, he sponsored a bill that required more transparency on government bids and earmarks. It creates a website that documents government contracts, grants, earmarks, and loans and allows them to be searched and openly inspected by the public. Accountability through technology was a key plank of my 2006 campaign and I was pleased to see Senator Obama write this bill and get it passed. He also took responsibility for transparency in his own office by disclosing his own earmark requests. Regardless of where I end up, the American public is going to continue to demand transparency in order take back the reins of government from wealthy interests. The fact that a first term senator made a major difference was also affirming.

As president, I believe Barack Obama will return accountability to the Whitehouse and international respect to the United States. I will be voting for him on Tuesday the 5th.

The informal meeting held Thursday on HB139 was the most level-headed meeting I’ve had the pleasure to attend at the Capitol. Thank you to all who attended. Representative Daw acknowledged a number of problems with the bill, but I do not know how that changes the status. I doubt proponents will let this drop so easily, regardless of the number of reasoned and thoughtful statements that were made in the meeting.

Since 2002, I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in building a free community wireless network. This initiative started with the Olympic games and has expanded to many other locations - gathering places, Salt Lake City Main Street, libraries, Liberty Park, Pioneer Park and an ambitious project in Ogden that will eventually cover most of the city. Unlike other many other municipal wireless projects, the installation and support of these systems has been done without tax dollars. The benefit to business, tourism, students and the public is clear and often spoken of to me.

This week, Representative Brad Daw wrote House Bill 139 which will effectively put an end to public XMission Free Wireless. Sourcing from a legislator who describes himself as being in favor of “limited government”, this bill introduces civil penalties if a minor is able to access pornography over public wireless Internet. With XMission wireless never earning one red cent in profit, the potential of a civil suit hanging over its operation immediately makes it not viable. The moment this bill is signed into law, I will shut down all XMission free wireless and cease expansion of this service.

Some may accuse me of packing up my “toys” and refusing to cooperate. When this plan surfaced last year, I had a long conversation with Representative Daw expressing my concerns of such legislation. In reading the text of this bill, I see those concerns were flatly ignored. XMission has provided free Internet filters longer than any other provider in the state, but I can never guarantee that a minor can not access pornography over an Internet connection. Nor do I believe government or business is the best parent of my children or anyone else’s.

While the corporatives at the Utah Legislature sharpen their knives to deal a death blow to the public infrastructure fiber-network UTOPIA to protect private interests, their cohorts effectively scribe business-burdensome legislation against XMission rolling wireless networks without public dollars. As the owner of the largest free public wireless Internet network in Utah, I see this bill as anti-XMission and anti-business to the core.

I received an email from the Utah Technology Council urging me to vote for vouchers today. They claimed that the issue has been clouded by “misinformation”. Yet one issue has not been answered for me since the start. Even when I posted this query on Steve Urquhart’s “Politicopia” before he proposed the bill, it was essentially laughed at by proponents.

Utah code defines a “private school” as having a minimum of 40 students and at least one teacher with a degree or “special training”. It is not specific as to what defines “special training”. If this is all that is required to setup a private school, what is preventing a minimum windfall of $20,000 going to Lafferty bin Koresh to indoctrinate their children with state funds?

When I asked this question of Senator Curtis S. Bramble at a recent Alta Club debate on the issue, he responded that the text of the vouchers law has an anti-discrimination clause written into it. However, I doubt many parents are desperate to get their kids into the next Jonestown Middle School. Given that the reverse is also true, that the government can not discriminate, it brings into doubt that there can be any destination screening of government funds. When Senator Bramble was confronted with this issue, he laughed that public schools are already indoctrinating children (is that what this issue is really about?) and that non-secular universities like BYU and Notre Dame get government funds already through Pell Grants. Yes, but adults go to BYU and Notre Dame not children. These funds are also based on individual need, not the fact that you’ve got 40 kids and someone with “special training”.

You can teach your children all sorts of wild ideology, just as long as you do it on your own dime. I don’t see how vouchers does that.