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New Bill Would Ban Public NOAA Weather Data
ckokotay writes "Here we go again. Apparently for-pay weather companies (specifically Accuweather) have lobbied Senator Rick Santorum to introduce a bill to ban the National Weather Service from 'competing.' The NOAA just made data available for free on the internet in XML format. Essentially, that means no more free data, and the possible elimination of the NOAA web presence all together. Nothing like being able to buy off a clueless Senator - lets hope the rest do not fall in line, as I for one, do not like to pay for my information twice." This debate picks up where the last one left off. According to the article, the bill's biggest critics are complaining of the bill's vague wording which makes it unclear what exactly is being banned.
Well Senator M-O-D Santorum had better hurry up and pass the bill because he is about to have his lunch handed to him in his 2006 relection efforts:
8 65
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/21/11132/9
He's dropping faster than a rock so if this bill is stalled or set aside Accuweather will have to find some other "go to" guy...
Not that would be too difficuly unfornataly...
Accuweather does.
Why would anyone pay for accuweather's data if they can get the (probably) superior data from the NWS?
They're also based in the same state that has elected this blight on Congress.
Clearly you're being rhetorical, but I'll fire off a response anyway:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm a developer for a small weather software company and we rely on the NWS for a lot of information (forecasts, etc.) for one our products[/shameless plug]. If this becomes law, our software won't work anymore. 2 people cannot write 7 day forecasts for every county in the USA.
We pay taxes... so, collectively, we are
/. audience (L Lessig?) ;-)
- in effect - like members of a cooperative
(analogy: farmer's co-op), and - for part
of our "co-op fees" (ie, taxes) - we get
services, such as weather data, etc.
C'mon, lawyers in the
help us get value for our "co-op fee" bucks,
here.
You have an even bigger problem with Westlaw. you cannot cite a case w/o using a specific case by what volume and page, etc that it is in from one of their publications.
It would be nice if all of this sort of thing were taken into account throughout all agencies, and that information that should be free was really free.
My comments:
I've heard about your bill to limit access to weather data.
please research what this has done in Australia and look to how many people have been killed already because of this type of plan. A good place to research is the "sydney to hobart race 1998." That was a boat race but the organizers running the race relied on private weather information since the government had just started privatized the Bureau of Meteorology. The result was that 6 people died, several boats sank and the coast guard spent over 10 million dollars on rescue of the 115 boats. The total bill for "user pays weather" was $700 million dollars.
A second example of why this is wrong involves aviation weather and its resulting deaths. I don't want a small plane falling out of the sky because the pilot didn't get a good weather briefing. Australia also provides evidence that people will not properly check weather if it isn't free and therefor endangering other people.
Wow! You make it sound like the National Weather Service promtes the general welfare or something.
Where does it say that the government should do that??!
Oh - wait. Maybe someone should send Santorum a copy of the #%!#@!!? Constitution!!
Just so everyone understands, we here at NOAA provide many other products and services that have nothing to do with the National Weather Service. Check out noaa.gov to see the eight major areas of work, of which weather is just one. :)
I actually had an Accuweather account for years, dial-up (paid for long distance bill plus $10 per month). I stopped using it once weather via internet (both gopher and later http) became available because the internet product provided vastly more information (like satellite .gif images, radar maps) and in a much more usable format. The cost was only secondary. Remind me again, how will this bill better serve the public?
Our constitution defines treason as aiding and abetting the enemy. Clearly our greatest enemies are the corporations. I call for Santorum to be tried as a traitor. If he is convicted, he should be sentenced as harshly as possible.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
If you're a Pennsylvania voter, vote Santorum out in 2006. If you're not convinced, I implore you to do some research on the man, his various scandals (such as claiming PA residency but living full time in Virginia -- at PA taxpayer expense) or some of the crap he has pulled in the Senate.
This is hilarious: http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/index2.html
Obviously this is just another case of a business entity thinking the taxpayers can pay most of the costs of their business model but then they can keep most of the profits. I guess they figured if it works for professional sports it could work for them too. But seriously, corporate welfare is getting out of hand. I say if the weather forecasting companies want the NOAA to not make their data available to the public then it should no longer be a taxpayer funded service and Accuweather can pay out the ass to get a satellite feed from them. Somehow I don't think that's what the executives have in mind, though.
What's NOAA have to say about this? Do they WANT to only be responsible for warnings?
We see the following seemingly contradictory clauses:
XXX
(b) COMPETITION WITH PRIVATE SECTOR- The National Weather Service shall not provide, or assist other entities in providing, a service or product (other than a service or product described in subsection (a)(1)(A)) that is or could be provided by the private sector unless--
(1) the Secretary determines that the private sector is unwilling or unable to provide such service or product; or
(2) the United States Government is obligated to provide such service or product under international aviation agreements to provide meteorological services and exchange meteorological information.
(c) ISSUANCE OF DATA, FORECASTS, AND WARNINGS- All data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings received, collected, created, or prepared by the National Weather Service shall, to the maximum extent practicable, be issued in real time, and without delay, in a manner that ensures that all members of the public have the opportunity for simultaneous and equal access to such data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings.
XXX
Don't compete, but you have to inform the public, "without delay" in a way that the public "have the opportunity for simultaneous and equal access to such data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings."
Hmmmm.
The next step is for the Mafia to incorporate. They begin watching local businesses and... taxing them.... Then they sue claiming that the federal government has no authority to compete with them.
Other similar variations included private toll road operators, private security forces, and new start-ups whose sole purpose is to hire people to do things that aren't necessary. By doing so, we could ban state toll roads, the Department of Homeland Security, and about 95% of civil service jobs at the federal level, respectively.
Maybe it's just me, but this seems like a good start... but only if you -do- take it to the extreme. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Basically, the Air Force will not let this happen. The Air Force is reliant in many ways upon the NOAA data for its forecasts.
While NOAA does make its data available over a satellite uplink (called a NOAAPort), this data is typically only used for detailed local modeling and display on AWIPS terminals. I've personally witnessed Air Force Forecasters using the NOAA website and its XML data to do their reports, and that is part of The Procedure.
Which means, it costs a huge boat of money to change, which means it costs concrete tax dollars which must be allocated to cover the costs to change. You and I might find such a change trivial, but I assure you the sheer volume of paperwork that needs to be revised, analyized, reported on and certified means that the process would easily take millions, and take years.
No. As much as Accuweather would like to stifle NOAA to turn a profit, they're too late on the scene.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
If there is money to be made, private industry doesn't need to worry about government competition.
I can think of plenty of ways to offer better data to the consumer than what NOAA provides. Aggregating public and private information and providing that to subscribers is a great idea!
Personally, it's nice to check out the NOAA radar maps before I head out on a bike ride. However, because of the location of the regional radar (San Jose), I can't get a great idea of what obstacles I might face in riding from San Francisco to Marin. Overlaying the radar data from multiple sources might provide me with more useful information.
NOAA doesn't always provide the best information in terms of point-forecasts, and there is a market ($$) for someone to do a better job. The problem is that people like the Weather Channel and Weather Underground were the original obnoxious advertisers! Their weather forecasts were not worth the "cost" of the advertisements. On the other hand, some of of the "personal weather stations" were pretty useful.
This is bad legislation. If you want to "cripple" NOAA, cut their budget to make it easier for private competition to do a better job. I don't support it, but if you want to stick with Republican values, that is the only way to go.
is the same cock-up who said legalizing homosexuality would lead to beastiality and kiddie porn legalization.
That's about as clueless as it gets. I could probably buy him off myself.
The question does beg itself, does the government have a role in dispensing this data to the public? I say yes but I can see where someone might think not.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Considering that weather forcasting is pretty necessary for commerce travelling via ship and plane, it's pretty easy to put weather forecasting as easily within the powers granted by the Consititution.
Never mind that it's pretty damn hard to "promote the general welfare" of a population so that it has the required "general liberty" to "[pursue] happiness" if said population has no warning that a hurricane is about to wax it.
Santorum is not clueless. He knows exactly what he's doing, i.e. favors for corporations in exchange for massive campaign contributions later. It's against the public's will, but that's never stopped him before. The money in politics problem is systemic, and the only real hope for change is full public financing of campaigns so elected officials respond to the public instead of corporate interests.
Bush republicans (the reason I no longer vote Republican) tend to believe in running businesses like a government (RIAA, Halliburton, SBC)
Please. Get. A. Clue.
RIAA is predominantly oriented towards the DNC (hello? entertainment industry?) Most tech firms and telecom heavily lobby the DNC and Democrat candidates more than Republicans, because the former is much more of an open one-stop-shop. Both sides are overwhelmingly oriented towards special interest. Don't forget Worldcom (which if you actually READ, you'll find was more heavily oriented towards liberal politicians), Global Crossing and Enron were all predominantly Democrat friends, though all three were smart enough to grease anyone who'd take a handout.
To fall into the "evil Republicans" trap is just plain sad. The only corrolation you need to factor is any legislator that has been in office for more than ten years. Party no longer matters.
A lot of congressional leaders don't really understand the "spirit" of the Internet and it's values. We need a Slashdot lobby group to push for our needs like p2p, open source/free software, etc. I'm sure we could get a lot of emails in the inboxes of people like Santorum.
Congressional offices have a position known as Legislative Correspondent (LC). It is the responsibility of the LC to draft letters. Depending on the importance of the issue, the elected member may actually read and approve. Though most letters are likely signed off by a senior staffer and not the member.
Interns and volunteers typically open and sort mail, but do not draft a response.
Believe it or not, these letters do matter. Though please don't just copy from pre-drafted language. Those letters do tend to get discounted quite a bit. It is rather difficult for anyone to seriously think that several thousand people spontaneously came up with the exact same language, type font and formatting for their letter on an issue. If you want your letter to carry some actual weight, take the time to compose your own thoughts and words, not someone elses.
Letters to the editor are important as well for more than one purpose. In addition to the general public, Congressional offices monitor papers within their district, especially for mention of the members name. If the member starts getting frequently mentioned in the letters to the editor column, this will eventually get noticed and is actually more likely to be read by the actual elected offical. Most offices compile a clips file of pertinent newspaper articles and editorials for the member to personally review.
Of course, every office varies in their routine. Some members are much more hands on and try and review as much of the material which comes into their offices as possible, others delegate almost everything to staff.
This is not the sig you are looking for...
Maybe we should (I wish I could, but I don't know XUL) change ForecastFox to not use weather.com. Link it up directly to the NOAA data.
I am not sure what this would do - except piss off weather.com even more - but this is the only knee-jerk reaction I can come up with.
AccuWeather's argument reminds me of the example used in Frederick Bastiat's "Economic Sophisms" where the candlemakers argued for legislation to block sunlight because it deprived them of their just livelihood. Pathetic, isn't it?
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Well maybe not for all congressmen, but most are paranoid about paper mail. Remember the anthrax scares of a few years ago? Staffers are still afraid. When mail arrives at their office they don't open it, they send it to an irradiation plant, then open it. The process intentionally takes weeks. (Some poisons are better destroyed by time than irradiation)
A post card is better because there is no easy way to hide poison on it (without killing everyone in the post office anyway). Still best is an email or fax, which cannot be tampered with by the sender.
Bill Frist's web site has a side bar "PLEASE NOTE: security restrictions now cause considerable delay in processing postal mail sent to the offices of Senator Frist. Accordingly, please consider e-mail, fax"
Once the NPOESS constellation of weather and climate satellites are launched (starting in 2008), anyone with a field terminal and a one-meter dish can listen in to weather data. Furthermore, anyone can take the data and format it in JPG or GIF and post it to a website, RSS feed, or what-have-you.
Don't have the cash to buy a field terminal? That's okay, you should be able to build your own from a relatively powerful Linux box, a COTS receiver, and a one-or-two-meter dish. You can FOIA the algorithms and write an open source client.
Well, no. My tax dollars already paid for those "free" school and police services. Just as in this case, my tax dollars have already paid for the "free" NOAA data.
From TFA: Santorum made similar arguments April 14 when introducing his bill. He also said expanded federal services threaten the livelihoods of private weather companies.
Since when does the government owe any corporation a living? If the corporation can't find a market and compete within it, that's just tough shit.
But back to your point -- this bill is the exact equivalent of banning "free" public schools, because they "unfairly compete" with tuition-based private schools.
More from TFA: "It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar products and services for free," Santorum said.
Evidently that market must be pretty damned good even with the NOAA's "free competition" -- otherwise how the hell did AccuWeather and its kin become multi-billion dollar businesses in the first place??
More from TFA: AccuWeather has been an especially vocal critic of the weather service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The company has accused the federal agencies of withholding data on hurricanes and other hazards, and failing to ensure that employees don't feed upcoming forecasts to favored investors in farming and energy markets.
This from the very worst weather service I have ever seen in my 50 years on the planet. Even wild-assed guessing is more accurate than their forecasts!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Damn! He's cheap! We could all pitch in a buck each and buy and sell his sorry ass. Maybe he's come wash my car for a few bucks.
I would just, for once, see any member of Congress own up and stop pretending they are working for us. Usually you have to go to the red light district to see this kind of prostitution.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Senator Santorum: I'm frequently more articulate and polite than what will follow, but at the moment I'm livid with disbelief and don't believe you've even earned politeness. After learning of your introduction of the proposed bill S.786, there are only two explanations of your character that seem capable of explaining such a gaping breach of common sense: either (1) you're a gullible idiot, or (2) you're a self-serving schemer. Given what I've already observed of Republican tendencies toward Machiavellianism, I consider the latter a more likely explanation. I don't believe that I need to explain to you exactly why this a poorly written bill that threatens freedoms, because you've unquestionably already had many people telling you exactly why that is so. The fact that you've chosen to ignore the clear logic they've presented to you is even more damning of your character. Do yourself and the nation a huge favor and retract or kill this bill, before you find yourself exposed to your constituents as a Champion of Greed or gullible or stupid... or all of the above. Is the padding of a few corporations' wallets really worth the risk of political suicide? No amount of promised campaign contributions will help your political career once word of this becomes widespread... and it is beginning.
You just described the scenario in Snow Crash. Rampant anarcho-capitalism, with the Mafia being a respectable company (and damn good in pizza delivery, too), and roads provided by Fairlanes Inc. and Cruiseways Inc. Security provided by General Bob's Army. And the government being reduced to a shadow of its former self because all the corps started to buy off pieces of the USA.
e rism/pop_stephenson1.html/
http://chnm.gmu.edu/history120/20thcentury/consum
Speaking as someone who monitored the NOAA website for months after Charley, Frances, and Jeannie... I really can't imagine what the hell they are thinking. Tax dollars paid for NOAA, but for us hurricane survivors, the effects of this could be all too real...
"Honey, bring me the credit card. I have to pay AccuWeather and make a campaign contribution to see where the damn hurricane is."
We had the TV until 30 minutes before Charley hit our area. I was one of the lucky ones that had cellular service restored within 2 days. Power and normal phone service were out for a week. We were able to use the Verizon wireless access to check weather, news, and the occasional Slashdot article. Of course, we needed to charge the laptops with a power inverter in the car. I can't imagine being in that situation again, and also having to pay for AccuWeather. NOAA is still one of the pages that loads when I start Firefox...
We file freedom of information act papers for the weather forecasts? If we all do it, we should be able to bury the government in even more paperwork.
Unfortunately, common sense isn't so common.
/.ers that immediately get on the evil Republicans/corporate conspiracy rant (part of the annoyance was my own idiocy in college sharing the same perspective - seeing Congressional races up front, and then seeing it from the boardroom of a Washington DC corporation, very much changed that). I'm of the same party, but would gladly throw Santorum out, along with Hatch, McCain (who got rolled by lobbyists on the crooked campaign reform) and many others who sold out long ago.
In a lot of cases, I'm afraid it's more than a common sense issue. Congress is a very influence oriented place, often manifesting in significant special interest motivation and what most of us would call blatent corruption. I've been told from my politically active friends that it is nearly impossible to make it to a US Senate seat without being "sponsored", and for the rare once-in-a-lifetime unsponsored Senator who makes it, they either are turned around in two terms and converted by the perks of membership, or end up not making reelection.
I get a bit annoyed at some of the less aware
Santorum probably believes he is representing his constituents, which would be what we would want of a Senator. Unfortunately, his staffers have a screening mechanism that usually requires a certain amount of financial support to pass. Santorum is fed information from only those immediate to him. His staffers know money is good, so they make sure their customer (e.g. Accuweather) is not opposed in their viewpoint. Santorum goes off like a good scout and pitches this bill. Regardless of Santorum's intent, if he's not wise enough to know that those around him will be bought for less than he costs, he has no business working for us as a Senator.
The real problem with this approach is that if there isn't an equally strong alternate special interest who can fund the opposition, the absurd special interest law usually makes it. Look at the recording and film industries efforts to make illegal film recording suffer a sentence worse than manslaughter. Lacking a well funded (and contributing) counter-lobby, the law slips right in. Insert cash, out comes your bill.
Back to political orientation and the Halliburton conspiracy crowd, the worst thing for all of us is to fall into the traps of buying the PR shoved out by both camps. Corruption is like parasites and both parties get them. If you really love your party, then clean it up first and out-compete the right/left/whoever you don't like. Lacking the baggage of parasitic inefficiency, a party ought to do extremely well.
As a resident of State College, PA (home of AccuWeather), I just have to argue that point. Helping AccuWeather make more money will definitely NOT put more money in Pennsylvanian's pockets. AccuWeather has one of the worst reputations for pay rates I have ever heard of.
Personal example: I interviewed for a computer support position several years ago with them. The job involved supporting Windows, Mac, and Unix / Linux systems, providing user support for everyone in the company and their customers, and working rotating shifts. For all of this, they offered me the whopping salary of $16,000 a year in a town where the average college professor makes $75,000. The interviewer actually asked me if I wanted to continue after he told me the salary.
So this bill only benefits AccuWeather and it's owners, NOT the people of Pennsylvania.