Spectrum White Spaces

DrewClark.com (The Politics of Telecom, Media and Technology) discusses the spectrum white spaces issue, complete with many good links.

Clark is connected with Tom Hazlett and the George Mason crowd, and likes the idea of auctioning off the spectrum. Certainly, this is a better idea than giving it away to the broadcasters, but I still have a nagging concern that auctions put the government in the position of a rentier, charging for scarcity of a resource without contributing anything to the process of development and exploitation. I am a bit of a Lockean; I like to see investment mixed in with resources as a foundation of property rights. 

Also, if the government collects for scarcity, then it has a huge incentive to ensure that the resources remain scarce, and much of the dispute here is over this very question -- is spectrum really a scarce resource?  The last thing needed is to replace government giveaways with induced scarcity.