Slashdot Mirror
McCain Releases Technology Platform
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "John McCain has finally released a technology platform. Most of it is the same old stuff; lower corporate taxes, protect children from porn, and avoid Internet regulation unless 'necessary.' Alas, in his view, helping the RIAA's War on Sharing is necessary to stop the 'global epidemic' of piracy, while Net Neutrality is something he 'does not believe in.' Ars Technica has a review of McCain's platform."
A brief analysis is also available from Federal Computer Week. In addition to the technology policy, McCain has also released a paper describing his stance on security and privacy. We've previously contrasted his views with those of Barack Obama. Obama's technology policies are also available online.
Sounds to me like McCain's "platform" is centered around trying save a sinking ship. That's too bad. He's lost my vote on that issue alone.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
John McCain's stance on copyright infringement is hypocritical. The reason is that he is currently being sued by Jackson Browne for copyright infringement because he used the song "Running on Empty" without permission. This looks to be yet another Republican professing high fallooting morals but who by his deeds is shown to believe that morality is for the populace and doesn't apply to him.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
The Summary: "Net Neutrality is something he 'does not believe in.'"
The Website: "When Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts. John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like "net-neutrality," but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices."
The Summary: "helping the RIAA's War on Sharing is necessary to stop the 'global epidemic' of piracy"
The Website: "While the Internet has provided tremendous opportunity for the creators of copyrighted works, including music and movies, to distribute their works around the world at low cost, it has also given rise to a global epidemic of piracy. John McCain supports efforts to crack down on piracy, both on the Internet and off."
The Summary: "avoid Internet regulation unless 'necessary.'"
The Website: "Keep the Internet and entrepreneurs free of unnecessary regulation" and "John McCain understands that unnecessary government intrusion can harm the innovative genius of the Internet. Government should have to prove regulation is needed, rather than have entrepreneurs prove it is not."
Sadly when it comes to things such as network neutrality, MAFIAA litigation, censorship of the internet, and understanding how the internet has the potential to be an unstoppable force of intellectual freedom most U.S. citizens are woefully ignorant. They care about gas prices, making sure that they are not responsible for raising their kids, ensuring that gay couples are not recognized as a legal union, and which religion the candidate subscribes to. They have forgotten that there is a reason the the freedom of speech was the very first amendment, I have met very few that ever read the Federalist Papers, hell half of the people that I talk to have never even read the constitution or have the most basic understanding of how our government works. The internet has the power to be the most perfect force for the first amendment which is essential to the rest of the Constitution and in all honesty I don't think the GOP really wants the average citizen to have that kind of power.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
Technology is my area of expertise, and I guess it's that of many slashdot readers. There is probably no other area where we can judge a candidate as well; therefore if his program sucks balls in this respect, it's probably just fair to extrapolate to the others.
Besides, McCain is Bush III. He's pro war, pro war on terra, and so on.
The really lamest part of course is 'Educate Its Workforce For The Innovation Age', all the lamest politicians the world over have been rabbiting on about exactly the same thing and then in the next breath, global marketplace and free trade, with the net result that all those job are outsourced to countries that pay one tenth the wage and you have a flood of people in the food services industry with tech degrees. Either that or cannon fodder for the military industrial complex.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
go about protecting children from STDs, by preaching abstinence.
Abstinence is the only proven method of not contracting STDs. The only way.
I'm sorry, my friend, but if you're going to slut it up... you're going to pay the price. All the latex and gels in the world won't give you the same protection as abstinence.
Keeping children away from computers would probably work about as well.
This isn't about keeping children away from computers. This is about keeping porn from kids.
You do realize that you can use a computer without accessing porn, I hope.
Cue the "it's not the same thing" replies.
Having access to a computer and having sex are different. Maybe you just don't get it?
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Of Course. This _is_ the "McCain" in "McCain-Feingold" we're talking about, after all.
Surely you're familiar with the McCain-Feingold "incumbency protection act", who's aim is to create a dubious "protected class" of people for whom the 1st amendment (which protects _political speech_ and no other type) still actually applies.
For everyone else (people who aren't "real journalists") -- no more 1st amendment rights for you, anytime an election is 6 months (or wahtever the bill says) away.
McCain Feingold is one of these ridiculous laws that, when examined, seems totally ridiculous and unconstitutional.
Not for nothing, let's remember the fact that Democrats supported the bill 198-12, and Republicans supported it 41-176, in the House. In the Senate, it was 46-3, and 11-38. In the Congress, Republicans broadly opposed the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act," and Democrats almost universally supported it.
So let us not pretend (not that you were doing so) that Obama, a Democrat, who has already proven to be unprincipled on campaign financing (saying he would do one thing out of campaign finance principles, and then rejecting that principle and pretending what he was doing was following that principle), would not be in favor of McCain-Feingold too.