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Tech community mourns the late Sen. Ted Stevens

An outpouring of sad remarks arose from the tech community after former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who had led the Commerce Committee, passed away in a plane crash on Tuesday. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, all four commissioners, Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), and National Assocation of Broadcasters president Gordon Smith expressed regret over the loss. Smith said Stevens was a "towering figure in the U.S. Senate and shepherded some of the most important legislation through Congress during his tenure on the Senate Commerce Committee."

Conservative groups, bloggers oppose broadband reclassification

Over 150 conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, state legislators and bloggers will send two letters on Wednesday to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voicing their opposition to an agency proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecom service. The signatories, which include Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott, Michelle Malkin and Erick Erickson of RedState, urge the FCC not to move to increase its authority in that way.

The first letter signed by advocacy groups and state lawmakers accuses the FCC of "relentlessly pursuing a massive regulatory regime that would stifle broadband expansion, create congestion, slow Internet speeds, jeopardize job retention and growth, and lead to higher prices for consumers." The second letter from bloggers and members of the media uses more measured language but argues no net neutrality regulations are necessary and claims the only two known net neutrality violations were halted without the FCC's intervention.

Net neutrality activists buy up Facebook ads. A coalition of progressive groups that oppose a proposed net neutrality framework from Verizon and Google, which the groups said is not strict enough, are buying up ads on Facebook. "Tell Google 'Don't be evil,'" the ads say. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political action committee for candidates on the left, bought the ads.

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Industry notes

4Chan founder testifies against Palin email hacker. Christopher "Moot" Poole, founder of the 4chan.org message boards popular with the online hacker community took the stand to testify against the man accused of hacking former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's email account, according to The Smoking Gun. Poole, 22, previously turned server logs and other records over to the FBI implicating David Kernel in the Palin hack. According to court records, he was asked to give the court an impromptu lesson on the slang used on the site's notorious /b/ message board. http://bit.ly/bC2m3e

Analyst: Google blessed wireless exemption because its 'crazy like a fox.' Some industry sources say Google's seeming policy shift might also be part of a longer strategy by the company in service to its long-held view that the Internet should remain open. "I would say Google's strategy is crazy like a fox," said one industry analyst, who noted the rough publicity Google has faced over the wireless exemption, including accusations from net-neutrality diehards that it is "evil." http://bit.ly/9vXROZ

Executive notes

Census Bureau returns $1.6 billion from 2010 budget. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Census Director Robert Groves announced Tuesday that costs for the 2010 decennial count came in 22 percent below budget forecasts for the first half of the fiscal year. Locke attributed the savings to a lack of breakdowns in the Bureau's information technology and a higher-than-expected response rate. Groves took over as Census director last year and promised to control widely-reported weaknesses in the system used to manage the Bureau's field operations. http://bit.ly/aul4p7

Barton, Stearns urge FCC to block VoIP fees. Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) told the FCC to block states from imposing fees on phone calls made over the Internet, according to a report from TechDailyDose. The letter comes in response to FCC requests by Kansas and Nebraska to collect fees from VoIP providers for their Universal Service Funds. The lawmakers argue imposing such fees would stifle innovation and harm the growth of online voice services. http://bit.ly/d3RIbg

Sunlight Foundation slams White House on transparency. Sunlight Foundation executive director Ellen Miller accused the Obama administration of wavering in its commitment to transparency in a Tuesday blog post on the departure of White House ethics czar Norm Eisen. Miller criticized the appointment of White House counsel to oversee ethics matters and said the administration hasn't delivered on its promises of transparency. The White House has characterized its new approach as an elevation of ethics issues, noting that incoming Domestic Policy Council member Steven Croley and a team of six lawyers will be charged with enforcing existing policies and leading new initiatives. http://bit.ly/9p2FNT

Said.

"After making some dramatic statements and issuing important directives, and taking some very positive initial first steps, the White House has already fallen short on delivery of the things we have been promised. We’re now more than 18 months into this administration, and particularly now, we are wondering what is going on."

-Ellen Miller, executive director of the non-profit Sunlight Foundation on the Obama administration's commitment to increase government transparency.

Watercooler.

BAILER...Cameras caugt a guy jumping out of the way as his girlfriend gets hit by a baseball, according to Mashable, and now it's viral. The Mashable verdict: "Sure, we feel bad for the guy, but you can't abandon your girlfriend on TV and expect to get away with it." http://bit.ly/dtRt52