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I, for one, was impressed when 'Dubya released a detailed list of all his individual contributors to his compain (complete with dollar amounts). This kind of honest and full disclosure is refreshing, and more candidates should follow his lead.
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Al Gore's website at www.algore2000.com
is running Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) secured_by_Raven/1.4.2 PHP/4.0b3 on Linux.

Bill Bradley's website at www.billbradley.com
is running Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) mod_perl/1.21 on Solaris.

George W. Bush's website at www.georgewbush.com
is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98

John McCain's website at www.mccain2000.com
is running Rapidsite/Apa-1.3.4 FrontPage on IRIX

For the /. readers who live in the state of Texas let Govener Bush know how you feel about his attempts to shutdown this site at Govener Bush's web site.

Or his speechwriter does. Either way, that was my favourite part of the article. :) And, I'm even a George W. Bush supporter.

On the whole, it was a lot better than I expected. Perhaps Gore isn't the most technologically astute person, but he at least expresses opinions (his own or otherwise) well.

Wonder if he's studying the names of Justice Department heads around the world... :)

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You say this campaign 'will hinge on money'. I live in a country where it is illegal for a candidate to receive money from a corporation, since it makes the debate unfair.(France) Are you saying the government of the united states is not democratically elected? If so what do you plan to do about it? Should the other countries help you gain your freedom like you are helping Irak?

I'm sure you're not suggesting that major corporations in France don't influence elections. The largest corporations in France are either owned entirely by the French government or else the government has a large equity stake. To suggest that corporate interests do not play a role in French (or other European) politics brings to mind the French word naievete.

One of the foundational principles of American government is the right to free speech, and the right of a free press. If you want to spend ten million dollars to print up posters and distribute them, that's your right. It has been assumed all along that this inevitably means that a rich person can have more influence. To curb this, various limits have been placed on the amount of money that you can give to any one specific candidate. But there are no limits--either for a person or for a corporation--on how much money they can give to a political party. This is commonly called "soft money." Political parties, especially the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996, pushed the legal limits of "soft money" very, very hard. It was on this issue, when cornered by the press, that Al Gore made his infamous "no controlling legal authority" statement (rejecting the idea that the president and vice president are subject to federal campaign contribution laws).

What Al Gore was doing at Microsoft was shaking them down for soft money contributions. As other high-tech companies realize that Judge Jackson has just given the Justice Department carte blanche to regulate all of them (remember: by Judge Jackson's definitions Apple is a de facto monopoly, too--and Apple has been much more proprietary, and predatory, toward small competitors than Microsoft). He's trying to amass a huge war chest through soft money contributions.

The solution is easy: permit contributions (they are an expression of free speech). But, as George W. Bush's campaign is doing, post all contributions on the Web within 10 days. That way anybody can download the data and sort it, and determine just where a candidate's funds are coming from. Current rules require disclosure--but weeks and weeks after the contribution was made. A lot of contributions aren't made until right before the election, so the donor isn't known until final reports are filed well after the election is over. We do better by permitting any contribution--but requiring all contributions to be disclosed immediately.

Oh, and by the way...the government of the United States is not democratically elected. And it never has been. Any literate high school student in the U.S. knows that each state votes for electors--delegates to the Electoral College. The electors are typically pledged to a particular candidate--but it is the electors who select the president and the vice president.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with a profit motive, ...

Yes there is, if it's to the exclusion of all else. I think it's fair to blame many of the world's problems on the blind profit motive. It has corrupted government, news media, schools, our justice system, and other crucial elements of a free society. We'll be lucky if we can recover from it.

with men like Al Gore still holding elected office, many people doubt that governments can understand the basic issues (technical and otherwise) required for passing reasonable laws.

(Kind of a stretch to get political here. Any excuse to bash Democrats, Thrush?) Actually, Gore is ahead of the pack. He was more cognizant of Internet issues in 1992 than most politicians are today; he promoted it loudly and, FWIW, coined the term "information superhighway". Granted, he hasn't done much with it lately.

Just so you know, Bush would be worse. Here's a great example of his political doublespeak from his hi-tech plan, regarding encryption export restrictions:

"Second, we must allow American companies to sell products in the international marketplace when those products are readily available from their foreign competitors. That means easing export controls on computers and encryption products that can already be purchased on the open market. At the same time, as the use of encryption programs increases, American law enforcement must always have the resources to stay ahead of the criminal use of that technology."

But I do agree with you that a) less Internet regulation is better, and b) we may need some, unfortunately, if private industry keeps abusing personal data.

My question for Bruce is:

Beyond the obvious overworked subjects like global warming and nuclear winter, what social, political and/or technological hurdles must we overcome in order to avoid the "dark and scary" future? Or, alternately, which hurdles are unavoidable, and how will they darken our future?