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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."
I'd say this is way to pessimistic, a lot of government money is washing into technology, which may not be good for the long-term considering the healthiness of most state supported industries.
Keep in mind those politicians who aren't interested in technology are there because you put them in power. (Well, at least in the states...) If you want more technically competant congressmen, some technically competant people need to quit their jobs as IT/IS folks and start campaigning instead. I personally would prefer that they stay disinterested in technology as long as they aren't savvy in the field. That's how we get things like the DMCA. Well, rich corporations buying legislation helps there too.
;)
Don't I hear half of slashdot whining about being unemployed all the time too? Of course, if you're unemployed, you may be overly incompetant to be a politician... well, let's be realistic, it's hard to be more incompetant than the current politicians.
If Congress began to act for the brick-and-mortar industries to stifle the internet revolution by creating laws such as bandwidth, sales, and e-mail technologies, it would be a further disaster for our economy.
.coms and tech companies, it could stomp our high-tech industry nearly into oblivion.
The internet/tech sector may have suffered a tulip fever and fell from it, but it is still the future of the economy -- any government regulation of industry is bad and damages free markets, both at the business and consumer level, and if the Democrats (with moderate Republican support) began putting all kinds of red tape and creating bureaucracies on
Actually, this happens to be a part of my college thesis - and it's really interesting to see the effect of control of technology(and who that control gives power to). These "politics of technology" are incredibly disruptive to the free flow of information within organizations. Most of these politics arise through the external pressure from the government and the internal pressures organizations are required place on themselves (employee monitoring, etc.). Neat stuff. ;)
Perhaps, now that the large tech leaders do not have the political influence that they once had it will allow for more policy directed towards users rights instead of the industries.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Does this mean there will finally be "regulation" of the H1B system? Or punitive legislation for those who outsource overseas?
Or does it just mean MS will be slapped with more lawsuits?
Depending on the regulation, this could either totally kill the job market, or maybe ease things a bit for those of us still trying to make a living at something we paid big bucks at college to train for.
From the article:
"We were a darling, definitely," said Robert Cresanti, vice president of public policy at the Business Software Alliance. "Some of that impossible-to-maintain perfection has worn off."
The BSA was the "darling" -- not Technology as a whole. The rest of us are in the same political position as always -- if not better, because of the lack of clout the BSA has now. Who's losing ground politically? The BSA. The Post is essentially mourning this fact, but it's actually pretty damn good news, I'd think.
Does the Free Software Movement even have anything resembling a lobby at this point?
If these things were happening I'd think there would at least be an excuse for politicans to not care about technology.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Somehow, the technology sector was promoted (and believed) to be "different" than any other sector in history, and therefore we couldn't, possibly, no never apply the same logic that we'd used to analyse other sectors at it. Look where that attitude got us.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't look at technology with fresh eyes as to the benefits and possibilities it brings. And I'm definitely not for forcing all technology into previously-defined cubbyholes via direct legal analogy (e.g. it's the Internet folks, not some fucked up mutant telegraph or road system. Look at the new paradigm). However, that doesn't mean we can't learn and use previous analytical and legal tools to help mold the direction of tech.
I'd actually love to see a good chunk more of regulation in the "tech" sector, which actually also includes the "Intellectual Property" sector. We really could use:
Tech needs to stop with the "we're special" attitude, and get back into the real world. This includes getting a bunch of regulation and responsibilities. Right now, the tech sector is behaving like a spoiled teenager. The sooner it grows up and realizes it needs to play by the same rules everyone else does the sooner that politicians (and everyone else) takes it seriously again.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
I worked in the senate this summer for the Majority leader and his top technology advisor (believe me, when I say we are trying to stick it to ICANN), and I saw first hand WHY politicians don't really work closely with the tech industry.
/.'er and I really want things to get done. Hell, I even call my old boss now and again and tell him to put the screws to ICANN (working on it, low priority, unforunately). However, the technology industry as a whole needs, and especially those of us who are smaller in #s but are out their trying to champion rights for everyone, to learn HOW to get their voice heard. Hiring lobbyists is not a "sell-out" thing to do, it is often the smart thing to do. MS figured it out, now it is time for us on the other side to figure out how.
Techies tend to stick to themselves, taking the attitude of "If you don't bother us, we won't bother you." With a few exceptions (MS is one of them), the technology industry does NOT lobby the Hill much at all.
While it isnt always about the money, one indication of their lack of involvement is money donated to campaigns. The technology industry is HUGE, much bigger in revenues than the TV/Movie/Music industry. But when it comes to money donated to campaigns, the tech industry gives considerably less ($12 million less in the last 3 years 2000-2002).
Techies shouldn't suffer all of the blame, but in an atmosphere like the Hill, when everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is vying for the attention of politicians, those who scream loudest get heard. The NRA knows it, the financial institutions know it, but the technology industry DOES NOT.
I am an avid
"Seems like technology in general is trending towards more regulation as the industry is seen as staid as railroads, coal, or shipping."
... railroads circa 1900 that is ...
Sure, with the microsoft judgement technology is looking more like railroads every day
I don't get it. How do we have a trend towards regulation from a government trending away from antitrust? That doesn't make sense.
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And possible drop a few bombs on Finland, just out of spite.
Not a good idea, those guys invented the ranger (infiltration type special forces) and more or less held their own against both the russians and the germans in WWII. (although they were only at war with one at a time and more or less allied to the other.)
Anyway, fighting a war in finland is probably a really stupid thing to do.
If you're in the US, on Tuesday drop a postcard in the mailbox to your represetative letting him know how the DMCA influenced your vote. Do remember to vote.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
No matter whether you're democrat or republican (but libertarians, by virtue of their perversely compulsive adherence to an ideology are exempt), there is one immutable rule of politics : money == influence .
For better or worse, be it actual, factual, and true - or not - politicians have the same populistic view of the high-tech secor as the media and every other Joe Schmoe who has lost money (insert another rant here about the fallacy of the 'lost money' arguement here) from their 401k in the past 2 years. The tech sector isn't "hot" right now, and politicians don't want to be seen as meading out what limited special favors they have to lost causes.
That being said; there are a few out there such as Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who are at least still paying lip service to the high-tech industry. The Gov. still has his little self-empowerment council running, hell bent on making Utah the next tech hotbed.
The only thing is, I haven't seen anything but hot air for the past two years. This begs the question : is it just a lot harder these days to get tech-anything ventures moving (presumably moving to UT to save money with the dirt cheap labor force - insert other rant here about underpaid techies in Utah -), or has there been a real reduction in effort and money expended to woo tech firms into moving in state?
For my $0.02; I think it's a little of both.
Need a simple, easy to use data tier generator? http://www.gryphinsoftware.com/
Personally, I think that it would be cheaper for them to buy a few hundred politicians than to move R&D and production operations outside the USA and to develop separate dumbed down models of both consumer hardware and software for the US market. Doing this would require a far smaller percentage of profits than Hollywood is currently paying.
Apparently, the delusion that they can do business with the content industry and even profit by doing so is still prevalent within the industry, with the sellout led by Intel and AMD.
As someone pointed out on the "La Grande, TCPA, and Palladium" thread, what the public will get out of this will be slower, buggier computers and software that won't allow third-party vendor fixes. I'm sure the public will buy the first few thousand... and the word will get out about them within a few hours.
Hopefully, Via and the new microprocessor company in China will have sense enough to realize that a US "Big Brother Inside" in their chips is a BAD IDEA. Or Phillips or one of the other EU electronics hardware companies will start making DRM-free chips and HDs that happily accept open source software. They'll have to, they won't be able to depend on supply from Intel or AMD anymore. Of course, it won't be legal for US users to import these chips, but they might be available on the black market.
For those of you who haven't gotten this yet, AMD SUPPORTS TCPA JUST LIKE INTEL DOES.
When CEOs suddenly realize that they are personally going to have to move to England or Ireland or Canada or Holland or Beijing to keep their jobs, it's going to be a bit too late for them and for the USA. I mean those who are allowed to keep their jobs.
I don't think the investor community is going to forgive CEOs who don't realize a favorable political climate is just as important to high-tech companies as it is to a telco or a manufacturer of dog chow.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The chilly reception that tech sector interests are receiving on Caital Hill is hardly surprising in the wake of Enron, Global Crossing, etc. and the "dot-bomb" fiasco. Even mature representatives are likely to feel slighted by the past industry indifference to the Washington establishment, and when said representatives were being told only a few years ago that it was their "meddling" that was the principle threat to the glorious new economy, they can hardly be expected to race to the industry's side now that the Good Ship Lollypop has run aground and needs a tugboat. Of course, you also have your standard run of stereotypical capital critters: any perceived neglect on their part is simply a mirror of the irrational zeal that they invested in the dot-com phenomenon - it's shabby, but ever so consistent.
Nevertheless, regardless of the motivation behind it, this cold-shoulder routine is ultimately self-defeating. Both the government and high-tech industry have plenty to account for, and the problems facing the economy aren't going to evaporate. These two need to simply acknowledge their respective sins and move forward in a mature partnership.