Capitol Hill Quiet On Tech

An anonymous reader writes "This year's Democratic-controlled Congress largely ignored technological issues in favor of social problems, CNet notes in another 2007 retrospective. Issues important to the tech industry (such as net neutrality) received short shrift, while the political body spent a considerable amount of time decrying the evils of the Internet. 'Hot topics this time around included foreign cybersecurity threats to U.S. government systems, terrorist cells flourishing on the Web, inadvertent file sharing through peer-to-peer networks, and sexual predators ensnaring unsuspecting youth through online social sites. And for a third time, the House passed not just one, but two, different bills aimed at deterring spyware.'"

Comments

not to mention funding for (computer) science...

[labrinid]

Funding for (computer) science research also got the shaft this year, in the budget for FY 2008, despite a prior commitment to double the budget over the next 10 years.

USACM has a nice perspective: http://usacm.acm.org/usacm/weblog/index.php?p=558 and so does the Computing Research Association: http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/archives/000646.html

Unfortunately, pork $$$ in the near-term wins over long-term benefits for the entire country...

happy holidays,
alex

too bad, nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrats don't give a damn about technology issues in general or the Internet in particular. Democrats only care about social issues and making you overpaid nerds pay more taxes so they can fund more giveaways to their core voters (which are not you).

Most of the Congresscritters that cared about the Internet are gone this year.

"democrat-controlled congress"

[woverly]

Referring our congress as "democrat-controlled" is either an example of parroting republic party talking points or showing a profound ignorance of both the make-up and the way congress works. The Senate is 49-49 with two independants, one of whom votes with Democrats, the other (Lieberman) with Republicans on defense, civil liberties and trade issues. If there is a tie, the Vice President breaks it, however ties are unlikely as partisan issues are never voted on as it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. The merciful lack of laws being passed is the result of neither party controlling congress.

In fairness, the previous congress, who brought us the DCMA was not controlled by Republicans either.