Silicon Valley Stays Quiet As Washington Implodes

dcblogs writes "In a better time, circa 1998, Cypress Semiconductor founder and CEO T.J. Rodgers gave a provocative speech, titled 'Why Silicon Valley Should Not Normalize Relations with Washington D.C.' This speech is still important to understanding the conflict that tech leaders have with Congress, and their relative silence during the shutdown. 'The metric that differentiates Silicon Valley from Washington does not fall along conventional political lines: Republican versus Democrat, conservative versus liberal, right versus left,' Rogers said. 'It falls between freedom and control. It is a metric that separates individual freedom to speak from tap-ready telephones; local reinvestment of profit from taxes that go to Washington; encryption to protect privacy from government eavesdropping; success in the marketplace from government subsidies; and a free, untaxed Internet from a regulated, overtaxed Internet.'"

Comments

Silence until NSA spying hurts sales

[ScottCooperDotNet]

They'll stay silent until America's reputation, and the NSA spying specifically, starts to impact sales. Until then, Silicon Valley's lobbying policy seems to be "pray they don't affect us".

Since TFS doesn't list it, here's Why Silicon Valley Should Not Normalize Relations With Washington, D.C. from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute.

WASHINGTON NOT IMPLODING

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Stage management. Drama. Theatrics.

In the end? The powerful will be more so - you will pay more, and get less.

Mission accomplished, and your expectations diminished, as planned.