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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?"
But Carol Mosley Braun and Sheila Jackson Lee have been great promoters of software freedom as well as the rolling back of property rights.
Dancin Santa
Doesn't really matter, because IT has become such a neccessity, and such a commodity, that it's silly to say "who should I vote for? who will support IT the most?". It's a non-issue. It's like saying "gee, which party will support accountants more?" or "which party supports telephone use?". It just isn't one of those economic sectors thats on one side of the spectrum politically, like trial lawyers.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Do you mean intellectual property rights? Or just property rights? (Or both?)
Liberals tend to value the needs of society above those of the individual, and hence, sacrifice property rights for environmental protection. (Often this is good; sometimes it goes too far without compensation for property owners, but that's another debate.) Perhaps that's an angle that we can use in lobbying our Congressmen on the Democratic side--emphasize the societal benefit of looser IP laws.
I have the honor of living in the district of Rep. Rick Boucher
It feels odd to have to feel "lucky" that my congressional representative's The Real Thing. Frankly, I don't like guys that run for congress because they think it's a good gig.
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
There are only about 30 seats with even a remote chance of changing hands. Realistically, there are about 15 competitive races, and five of these were created by the retaliatory Republican gerrymandering of Texas.
Thanks to a combination of Gerrymandering, Entrenched incumbents, and the McCain-Feingold legislation (which prevents parties from using soft money to neutralize the advantage of entrenched incumbents) congressional races are entirely uncompetitive. Charlie Cook today says that there is virtually no chance of the house changing hands.
So who cares where the candidates stand on the issues when only a very few people actually have the oppotunity to cast a meaningful vote.
Let's just say he's the only guy in Congress to vote AGAINST the Patriot Act. From his website (russfeingold.org): Senator Feingold supported 90% of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act, but too many provisions were deeply troubling. Certain provisions may infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens, while doing little protect our country against terrorists. If he ever runs for President, he's got my vote.
You want a job? Vote Republican. I know that's hard for liberal slashdot to swallow, but it's the truth.
No, it isn't.
In fact, we're better with neither .
But it might help get an idea of where people stand:
www.vote-smart.org lets you look up the voting records of Concresscritters.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
This Bill O'Reilly? Why would anyone want to vote for a clown with such skewed view of reality?
Yet Another Web Site
OK, but how do I register with the Republican party so I can get my QUID PRO QUO job. Do I have to work for Halliburton?
I'm afraid the good paying Halliburton jobs are taken, at least until Ayman al-Zawahri creates a few new openings -- in the necks on the next two unfortunate contractors who couldn't find a safe state-side job in Bush's economy.
But the way things are going, the Republican party will ensure you a job if you GO ARMY!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Naturalised citizens are here because they chose to be, people born here are here because of accident of birth and either never had the ambition, means, or desire to go anywhere else.
WHat does this have to do with being "geek friendly"? Nothing at all.
Is there something wrong with people who have come to our country from somewhere else and found enough love for the place to go through the process and take the oath to become a citizen?
If the country and even the district is now their home, why should they not involve themselves in the government there. It is their home. Or do we lose all right to participate (which is more than the vast majority of peopl ein the district do I imagine, born there or not) in the community and the government?
Should they just be dowtrodden outsiders, taking it as its given to them and liking it?
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Depends on your definition of "IT folks". If you mean shareholders and senior management of technology-related companies, then anyone in their wholly-owned subsidiary known as the US Congress is good for IT folks.
If, on the other hand, you mean people who work for a living, I can't think of a single person who supports us.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
I'd really love to see some sort of mathematics applied to Gerrymandering. Something to the tune of limiting the perimeter of a district to 3 or 4 times the square root of its area. Some sort of allowances would need to be made for irregular state borders and natural features like rivers or mountains. For that matter, I'm not that hung up over the number 3 or 4, just some reasonable limit.
It would be really fun to look at some Congressional districts and find their Gerrymander-Factor=perimeter/sqrt(area).
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Just visit Issue s 2000 (2004)</a> and checkout how candidates voted on technology issues.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
damn it...Here is the link.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
American Corporations use H-1B, L-1 visas to bring in "guest workers" to undercut the American Job Market. Once a person becomes a NC he is no longer a cheap commodity labor. He's part of the expensive American Labor force.
Either way we shouldn't be robbing the world of valued labor to feed our greedy corporations. How bout we(USA) stop supporting dictators that run their countries so bad that the people flee them.
Or how bout we stop raising our National Debt so freeking high that our Dollar has more buying power overseas then it has here.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
http://www.opensecrets.org/ is a great place to find out what organizations and industries are giving the most $$ to each candidate.
There's a lot more content than that there, check it out.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
This shouldn't be about Pork for IT. It should be about common sense. Stop whining about what your congressman is going to do for your iPod, and start looking at what he or she stands for as a WHOLE. Yes, we probably all want our jobs back from Bangalore. But at any cost?
I want my congressmen to be operating under the premise that government exists solely to protect the lives, liberties and properties of its citizens, that government is the servant of the people and not its master, and that honest (and genuine) free trade is the best foreign policy. I don't expect any candidate to be perfect, but one who made the previous the foundation of his platform and could demonstrate he was serious about it, would have vote.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
That is ridiculous. First off, your link assumes that current economic prosperity is somehow causally linked to who the president currently is. I think it would be more realistic to speculate that economic change has a lot of inertia and attibute econimic prosperity to previous administrations/congresses. What that time constant is I have no idea. Along those lines, I would much rather see the same data correlated to who is control of the congress, state legislatures and governors,... all of who probably have more of a real impact on the economy than a sitting president.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Why not vote for Badnarik for President?
Sounds like a tech person to me!
Became a Computer Programmer in 1977 for Commonwealth Edison at their nuclear power plant in Zion, Illinois; taught control room operators about computers. Was promoted to Senior Software Engineer for their Braidwood Nuclear Simulator project, which he managed from '82-'85 (his favorite job assignment, basically a $6-million "computer game" for which he was totally responsible). Moved to Montebello, CA, and held a "secret security" clearance at Northrop to work on the Stealth Bomber simulator, '85-'87. Relocated to San Luis Obispo, CA, in 1987 as a System Administrator and computer trainer at PG&E's Diablo Canyon nuclear plant; spent 10 years as a member of the Applied Technology Services Team writing software and traveling the state installing real-time data-collection servers to their remote power stations; was an instructor for hundreds of employees teaching state-of-the-art systems being installed. Moved to Austin, TX, in 1997 where he was a programmer and a trainer for Evolutionary Technologies International. He quickly became the Senior Trainer and began traveling across the U.S., and to Canada, England and Australia, as instructor, consultant and "high-tech diplomat." Became an independent computer consultant in 2001, but began to turn his attention (and talents as an instructor and communicator) to teaching his 8-hour "Introduction to the Constitution" class.
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Bite Me Fanboy!!
This makes sense if you think of the Democrats as a centrist party. 'Liberal' more accurately describes a party like the Greens.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling