Congressional Elections - Who's Good for IT Folks?

rlp asks: "Most of the articles appearing in Slashdot's new political section pertain to the U.S. Presidential election. However, most of the political issues facing American IT people are issues that are dealt with (or more often caused by) Congress. Therefore, my question is: who are the heroes and villains (for U.S. IT people) in Congress that are running for office this year? How does your local Congresscritter (or the person running against them) feel about copyrights, privacy, data security, H1-B, outsourcing, software patents, Open Source, tech education, R&D funding, anti-trust, etc?"

Comments

Rick Boucher

[waldoj]

There is no bigger geek rockstar in the House than my representative, Rep. Rick Boucher (VA-09). The guy advocates the protection of Fair Use, a Digital Milennium Consumers' Rights Act, opposes the DOJ's anti-P2P work, proposed a great anti-spam act in 2003 (it didn't pass; that crappy CAN-SPAM did, instead), he sponsored the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act, and he testifies before various House committees all the time, representing, effectively, Slashdot. :) See the Internet section of his House site for more information. Alternately, you could see any of the Slashdot stories about him from over the years, including Slashdot | Rep. Boucher Outlines 'Fair Use' Fight, Boucher's Anti-DMCA Bill Gets High Profile Allies, Anti Spamming Act 2001 Proposed, and Webcasting and the DMCA.

Hell, Boucher guest blogged for Larry Lessig a few weeks ago, and the stuff that he wrote about is like a Slashdotter's wet dream. :)

He doesn't talk about these things in his campaign literature -- much of the very-rural, poor population of southwest Virginia just wouldn't care. Read over his campaign website and you'll find more about the tobacco buyout, healthcare and tourism than technology. :)

And everybody else in the House sucks. ;)

-Waldo Jaquith