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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."
Politicians love technology! Gore virtually single handedly invented the internet!
I'm not surprised by this. 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 and there would be GOOD anti-spam legislation.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
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.
The pols don't want to be burned again like they were burned when the dot com bubble burst. A lot of people lost a lot of money and politicians don't want to be linked to that.
Pigs will fly, or I will be a politician. If I were a politician, then there would be at least one person who knows how to avoid infecting their computer with a virus, or that there should be legislation against SPAM mail. Too many Computer Science geeks are too meek to run for office where they could further the nerd agenda.
;-)
Gates for President!
[I'd say Linus, but he wasn't born States side.]
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
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?
Some things are long overdue. Like applying standard contract law to EULAs and declaring them unenforceable. Or using existing product liability laws to hold software vendors accountable for their defective products.
Legislators treating technology like a special case is exactly what gives us crap like the DMCA and UCITA.
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.
This is especially crucial when politicians start to introduce crazy new laws (DMCA anyone?) without any deeper understanding of the implications.
People claiming that Open Source must remain apolitical and neutral are naive. To address this subject we are running an open debate on technology and politics on our website digitalagora.com and would welcome your comments and debate.
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
If you are one of the companies that can line their pockets with cash.
Some things never change.
A lot of people had to learn that not everything that glitters is gold the hard way - they probably would not trust someone who promises a second dot-com boom.
Politics is not so much doing the best for the country's future as trying to please voters and supporters.
where's all that Karma?
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...
"Seems like technology in general is trending towards more regulation as the industry is seen as staid as railroads, coal, or shipping."
If anything its the opposite. Look at how they dealt with Microsoft. Personally I would welcome a little more regulation. It seems that we in the technology sector seem to like the Wild Wild West and the Internet Gold Rush.
Sure, shit laws like the DMCA get passed, but that's not regulating the technology industry as much as it is the Consumers of the technology. The DMCA actually give more power / less regulation to technologies companies at the expense of the consumers.
Tournament Management Online &
I suppose you are also going to tell me that congress allows 181 Fortune 500 companies loopholes so they don't pay any federal taxes just because these corporations fill up their war chests.
Nothing is new under the sun.
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
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
I don't think it's about the dot com bubble, at least not completely. There are a lot of conflicting viewpoints, and lobbying dollars at the moment. The entertainment industry wants to castrate some technologies, so they can't be used for piracy. The manufacturors want fewer restrictions, because restrictions will lower demand, and restrict possible international exports. The open source communities, the ACLU, etc, want fewer restrictions on principal. And so on like that. In an environment like that, strong support for any given position is likely to get a politician in trouble from someone, so they probably think it's better to be seen as indifferent or neutral.
When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
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. ;)
Technology lobbies and companies must focus their energies and resources on candidates who have stuck their neck out for the high-tech industry, said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), noting that the industry's campaign "piggy bank is less fat than it was last time around." "Rather than dropping a little bit of money here, dropping a little bit of money there," ITAA is looking to help established "friends" on Capitol Hill, especially those locked in tight races, Miller said.
Aren't you glad to hear the tech industry has upright, honourable people like this to help them in times of need?
It is because of one of the negative side-effects of capitalism that is being used in the USA. Too much capital is in the hands of too few people. Those with the most capital can pay for the TV ads, flyers, etc etc to get political people in power.
This will just get worse and worse. When someone has 30 billion dollars, that is 30 billion dollars that someone else doesn't have. (Imagine how many people would live quite well if they split that 30 billion into 250k/person.)
The solution is simple... let people be rich, but tax the fuck out of them for being so. This tax money will then be used by the government which will spread the money back through the economy which will be more likely to end in the hands of you and me and we can use that money to get the political people to do what we want. Unfortuantly monkies will fly from my butt before this happens.
The most likely sitution is that too many people will acquire too much capital and the riots of L.A. will look like chickenshit compared to what will happen.
It is funny because unemployment is supposidly at a historic low.. but I qestion those figures because I know many people that have skills and degrees that should get them nice jobs, but have to take more menial dayjobs to support themselves. If you are a computer science major yet you are selling tuxedos for a living than you should be considered unemployed as far as statistics go. This isn't a world where just anyone can go work a hard day's work at any old job and buy a house and support a wife and two kids anymore.
Ohh well, what do I know...
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
There is this concept that if we look at a homeless man and a billionare, the latter somehow obtained his riches by stealing from the former.
I think this theory is intellecutally bankrupt, but that's me.
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.
The american political system is dominated by two groups: a small minority who know how to push buttons to get their agendas pushed forward, and the great unwashed masses who would rather sit about and complain about the system.
If you want change, then you must join the former rather than sitting about navelgazing and blaming the problems of society upon whichever group you're not a part of (rich, poor, white, black, hispanic, drug users, terrorists, aliens from outer space).
One thing that we all hated about the .com period, poser geeks.
.com whatever the fuck.
.com sectors out there. Military is growing steadily which is sort of scary.
During that time, geek was shiek. Everyone and their sister was trying to be geek, people that had absolutely no idea of what underlying technology was powering their company would run around touting it as something grand, like upper upper class l33t society, gods gift to geekdom society.
So we had a lot of people with money hopping on the technology bandwagon, the politicians want their money (simple so far right?) Just like the CEO's that ran around swindling the savings out of unsuspecting retiree's for their latest
So basically we have a food chain like this..
Politicians swindle money from CEO's
CEO's swindle money from retiree's
Retiree's are plankton, they just kind of float around.
Now all this money floating around for technology, well it created a need for an IT infrastructure and support personal. People like myself were able to get their foot in the door and get their carreers started because of this. It was awesome because people like me who are sort of antisocial and enjoy solitude with a computer were finally able to fit into the scheme of society to be brought out of our darken CRT lit caves and into the cookie cutter cleanroom of cubicles and flourescent lighting.
Well, at least a few of the companies I worked for, the plankton started asking questions like...
"Is it ready yet?"
After a while, they got sick of being food for the CEO's, and like a food chain, everyone went elsewhere to look for food.
So now it seems everyone from the president on down are sort of being anti technology. I see construction workers still have jobs. Construction hasn't seen nearly the hit technology has. Nor has most of the other pre
Sad thing to see it all go. For once in my life I had found something that people liked about me that just came naturally. But back to the politics.
Right now there is more investment than ever in anything that does not equal technology. America is gearing up for war according to our president. In fact he mentioned something about a draft last thursday. The only thing that comes to my mind when I hear that is my younger brother or cousins. At 29, constant smoker, married and house ownin, they wouldn't want me. 24?? 23? 25? These are the ages of the youngest males in my family.
Politicians don't want to touch technology because it's left a bad taste in our mouths. A lot, and I mean a lot of really hard working people that put their money into these dot coms that dot bombed just would never vote for someone techno related because of it.
Bah, it's saturday, this comment is boring me, Hey post a michael story ok?
--toq
This is because every new technology is now tripping over legalities. The possibilities of litigation over every damned little thing (like all these stupid patents) have entangled new technology in years-long battles. Now, to be associated with technology means you're associated with so-called criminals. (Of course, since the RIAA and MPAA have succeeded in having the laws changed to favor them, those people are criminals.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
May I point you to my campaign website: www.VictorMarks.com ?
Gore taketh away....
Perhaps you've forgotten your history, or maybe you never looked it up... but the United States has had marginal tax rates exceeding 90%; and during the Carter years, the highest marginal rate was 70%; it took the Reagan tax cuts to bring things down to a saner place on the Lasser curve. See this table.
As for the wealthy, according to a CBO report in 1999, the top 5% of US taxpayers pay 50% of all taxes, while the top 1% pay 29%. Hmmm, that doesn't sound like "little or no tax" to me.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Reminds me of an old story...Sounds like our Congress.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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.
home page
Early in the auto industry there was a fascination stage, a glitzy new technology (invention) stage followed by the utility stage. The romance with cars continues but the glitz of the industry is gone. The IT industry will follow these stages also. For many of the so-called politicos it's not a matter of the glitz phase being over it's more of a matter of trying to distance yourself from economic sector in a slump. The bandwagon left with many holding the bag or at least that is the picture that gets painted for IT at the moment. Things will change and a health steady-state stability will set in for the industry with a healthy and manageable growth rate.
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Here's a nice summary of the "Gore invented the Internet" bullshit. Note that Gore claimed to have been directly involved in providing NSF funding for ARPANET. This, in fact, he did. More importantly, he NEVER claimed to have invented the technology and engineering behind the Internet. Here's what Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf have to say on the matter. Note that they ARE principal engineers of the original ARPANET. Essentially, they back up Gore and his involvement in providing the necessary funds to keep the ARPANET, and then the Internet alive during tough financial and budgetary times.
You are repeating a political dirty trick the Republican's used to discredit Gore during the 2000 election. That it was completely false and a total misrepresentation of Gore's words and intent didn't matter to Bush and his campaign staff. That people still repeat the slander as though it was God's truth shows how effective negative advertising and media manipulation really is. I note finally that I dod NOT vote for Gore, and was never a Gore supporter. And I won't vote for him in 2004. But that doesn't mean I think it's acceptable to let this untruthful meme perpetuate without refutation.
Cheers,
--Maynard
He did not say he invented the Internet, but he did say "I took the initiative in creating the Internet". From snopes.com:
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."
Now sure the "urban legend" uses the word invent instead of create, but the point is the same. Al Gore seemed to be taking credit for something that was *MUCH* larger that he was---even as Vice President. Especially for a project that had been going on since the late 60's. What about Vint Cerf the developer of TCP/IP? Or Tim Berners-Lee, developer of the World Wide Web. Or Ray Tomlinson founder of e-mail? Heck, if we are going to talk about politicans what about LBJ since the DARPA project that became the Internet was started during his administration?
There are a thousand people more deserving to proclaim they "took the initiative in creating the Internet". Sure Al may take credit in helping to promote it, but his statement was way too broad and arrogant. He didn't even acknowledge anyone else. It is everything I dislike about a powerful person taking credit for the work of the "little guy".
Brian Ellenberger
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.
Securities fraud, pump and dump, etc. are not news even to the old-timers on Capitol Hill. Securities fraud has existed as long as there have been securities to sell. It's just another kind of ripoff.
Stock bubbles are not news to anyone who's studied enough history to know what the "Dutch tulip bubble" was, i.e. enough history to get a 4 year degree back when most of the old-timers were in school. It crashed in 1636.
The SEC has been around since 1934. Why was it created? Because investors were ripped off, often in fraud pyramids just as intricate as anything that Enron created or that Andresen signed off on.
The reason for the high-tech companies losing political influence on the Hill has nothing to do with public reaction to the dot.bomb any more than corporations lose influence on The Hill just because their products killed a few people.
Any industry that wants influence on the hill has to buy and pay for it. High tech hasn't done this.
If high-tech companies paid the same miniscule proportion of their profits to DC politicians as the content providers do, we wouldn't have CBDTPA to worry about and the Broadcast Working Group probably wouldn't even exist.
Tech Public Policy stuff
It's irrelevant to the subject under discussion.
Where the hell did anyone here get the idea that political decisions in DC have any discernable relationship to the public interest?
High tech industries would be hugely influential anyway in DC if they paid the same microscopic fraction of their profits as campaign contributions as Hollywood does. Or the telcos do. Or for that matter, dog food manufacturers do.
Any major corporate CEO is supposed to know that paying off politicians is just another cost of doing business.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Folks may not like the facts of his involvement, especially considering how contentious this issue has been after the factual misrepresentations by operatives from the Republican party and the press during the 2000 election. However, facts are facts and those misrepresentations and lies don't take away the real good that Gore did in promoting the 'net during almost fifteen years in congress, often in tough financial times. According to Kahn and Cerf, Gore actually was instrumental in providing the necessary funding to keep development alive from the late seventies on through to the early nineties, after which it took off on it's own.
Again, I repeat that I am not a fan of Gore, didn't vote for him in 2000, and would not vote for him if given the chance in 2004. That doesn't make the slander that he misrepresented his involvement in funding the development of the net any less worthy of refutation.
Cheers,
--Maynard
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.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
politicians are happy to not know how it works just like they are happy to not know how anything else outside the self created fairyland called Washington DC works.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Most people who have large salaries deserve it...the other 10% didn't kiss enough ass to get to the top
I can see that you'll go far.
May we never see th
If Al Gore is "greatest political champion technology has ever had on capitol hill" then why did the DMCA get passed under his watch? Why didn't he convince Bill to rally against it and veto it? If he is the greatest champion we are in big trouble.
And while Al was a promoter of the Internet, he didn't "make" the Internet. The big event for the Internet was the invention of the WWW and the founding of Netscape. When everyone saw what this new technology could do that's when the boom began.
Brian Ellenberger