The Politics of Technology

airrage writes "An interesting Washington Post article today, concerning technology's voice on Capital Hill, talks about how the high-tech sector is no longer the belle of the congressional ball. Apparently, circa 2000, politicos were simply tripping over themselves to be seen as pro-technology. Currently, it's much harder to get congressional leaders to embrace pro-technology initiatives. Seems like technology in general is trending towards more regulation as the industry is seen as staid as railroads, coal, or shipping."

Comments

But the internet

[reitoei1971]

Politicians love technology! Gore virtually single handedly invented the internet!

CmdrTaco - US Flag desecrator and anti-Delawarian!

[Anonymous Coward]

As noted on the Smithsonian Institution's site, the first official American flag had thirteen stars and thirteen stripes, each representing one of the thirteen original states.

The flag icon for Slashdot's 'United States' section is missing its first stripe - the stripe that represents Delaware, the first state admitted to the Union. While a simple oversight could be forgiven, it should be known from here on out that Slashdot is in fact aware of the missing stripe, and even worse, refuses to do anything about it!

This vulgar flag desecration and rabid anti-Delawarism must be put to a stop. Let the Slashdot crew know that we will not accept a knowingly mutilated flag or the insinuation that Delawarians deserve to be cut out of the union. I ask you, what has Delaware done to deserve this insolence, this wanton disregard, this bigotry?

This intentional disregard of a vital national symbol is unpatriotic. Why, the flippant remarks CmdrTaco made about our flag border on terrorism! I urge you to join the protest in each 'United States' story. Sacrifice your karma for your country by pointing out this injustice. Let's all work together to get our flag back. Can you give your country any less?

1.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans unveiled an "e-contract with America" and Democrats responded with a series of high-tech legislative agendas numbered like software releases ("e-genda 1.0," etc.).

ummm... since when has a software release looked like "e-genda 1.0" ? maybe "e-genda 2.4.51-pre0" would be more like it...

Re:Not suprised

[DarkSkiesAhead]

If they really cared about the internet and such, we would have people like Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds (oh yeah, and CowboyNeal and CmdrTaco and...) as top Presidential/Senatorial/Congressional consultants

"Mr Gates, how do you propose we deal with Iraq?"

"Well, have you tried buying up the country and annexing it? Or if that doesn't work you could patent plutonium and sue the pants off of Saddam."

What Gore giveth...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Gore taketh away....

Re:Bribery

[sconeu]

If you look at the amount of money actually given to politicans, it's scarily low. What's shocking is not whether they will sleep with you for money...it's how low their prices are.

Reminds me of an old story...

A man walks up to a woman, and asks her, "Would you sleep with me for $1million?"

She says yes. He then asks, "Would you sleep with me for $10?"

Shocked, she replies, "What kind of woman do you think I am?!?"

He answers, "We've already established that. What were doing now is haggling on price."

Sounds like our Congress.

It may be necessary, but it still sucks

[Goonie]

Call me a dreamer, but wouldn't it be nice if money didn't talk so loud in your politics?

I'm not naive enough to believe that money doesn't talk loudly in other countries' political systems, but, really, the roar seems to be deafening in the states. Even The Economist thinks so, and its editors are well-known fans of America's free enterprise.