Slashdot Mirror
Hollings vs. McCain on Broadband and Copyrights
tabdelgawad writes "The Washington Post has a mostly speculative article on the effects of John McCain (R-AR) replacing Ernest 'Fritz' Hollings (D-SC) as chairman of the powerful senate Commerce Committee. Topics in the article include the future of pending broadband and copyright legislation as well as the Senate's relationship with the FCC. Best quote from the article belongs to ITAA president Harris Miller: 'If Jack Valenti had been around at the time of Gutenberg he would have organized the monks to come and burn down the printing press' :-)."
In the areas of policy of most concern to the Slashdot community (Telecoms, IP rights and so on), McCain is probably the best person the US has for the job. Based strictly on his voting record and the policies he defends, we often wouldn't see eye to eye, however philisophically he is very much in the same camp.
McCain tends to take positions based on a populist stance--certainly the best way to do it in a democracy. Less so than most other politicians he listens to ALL voters--not just Republicans, or corporations, or lobby groups.
That's probably why the Post article is all wishy-washy. Normally you can count on a Democrat to bend over and take it in the butt from Jack (Valenti, or most others in the entertainment industry cartels) and for a Republican to bend over and take it from Bill (Gates, or the BSA or others trying to lock people into their tech IP).
McCain is going to be hard to pin down by the pundits because he'll be influenced by everyone and anyone, and the press in north America is very poor at correctly gauging what populist sentiment is--it tries to steer public opinion rather than follow it.
All in all, it is a promising move to have committees steered by those like McCain. The press AND government these days really have a problem listening to what the public wants...