Adam Thierer's Recommended Reading

I just saw my former colleague Adam Thierer's post, Important Cyberlaw & Info-Tech Policy Books (2012 Edition). Put simply, Adam's review of important books in 2012 represents a prodigious effort on his part for which we should all be grateful. As usual, his comments are insightful, knowledgeable, fair, and well written.

I was obviously pleased that Adam had nice things to say about the Free State Foundation's new book, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years. Possibly I'm a bit biased.... but I'm confident that FSF's new book is important, and I am grateful that Adam agreed.

Adam takes note -- well, quite justifiably, tears apart -- Susan Crawford's new book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age. If you want to get a glimpse of the argument for pervasive government control and public utility regulation of today's Internet providers, then Crawford's book will provide it. At least, in reading this unrelenting polemic, those of us who advocate for free market-oriented, First Amendment-protective polices will know what we're up against.

And if you want to understand the case for a deregulatory, free market policy regarding broadband Internet providers -- in other words, if you want to know why Susan Crawford is wrong -- then you should definitely read Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years.

But I digress. When you see Adam, thank him for continuing to read and read what often must be well into the night when many us simply decide that bedtime calls.