Tech Policy Summit blog

NPR's Take on Tech Policy

I was driving through Southern California on a business trip last Friday, listening to National Public Radio (NPR), when I heard that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially concluded that Comcast had engaged in discriminatory?network management practices.

The news has been well-covered since then, but I've been wanting to share a link to the NPR "All Things Considered" report because it's a critically important story and, selfishly, it featured three of the speakers from Tech Policy Summit '08 (and we always enjoy hearing from prior speakers): Progress and Freedom Foundation's Adam Thierer, Comcast executive Joe Waz and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell were among the individuals who gave their reactions to the FCC's order.

You can listen to four-minute podcast here.

p.s. Coincidentally, that same NPR broadcast had a segment about the presidential candidates' technology policies. Former FCC chairman Michael Powell spoke about Republican candidate Sen. John McCain's plans, while another former FCC chair William Kennard addressed Sen. Barack Obama's tech outlook.

Sciencedebate's 14 Questions on Innovation

Sciencedebate 2008 hasn't been able to convince Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to face-off in a debate on science and technology policy. Yet. 

But we're happy to report that the grassroots movement is continuing its effort to highlight the importance of science and tech issues by launching Innovation 2008, a series of 14 questions that it has submitted to the presidential contenders. Sciencedebate organizers have asked the campaigns to respond in writing, and to consider participating in a nationally televised program about the issues.

The questions were developed in consultation with 11 other groups after receiving more than 3,300 submissions from individual supporters. Here's a look at the first one, about innovation:

Science and technology have been responsible for half of the growth of the American economy since WWII. But several recent reports question America's continued leadership in these vital areas. What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?

A number of nonprofits have also banded together to pose a shortened list of seven questions to all of the 2008 congressional candidates. To see if candidates in your area have responded, search this interactive database hosted by Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA). And, if you support Sciencedebate 2008's mission, please spread the word.

LA Times Gives Props to Arrington's Clout

Thanks to Twitter, I discovered a recent Los Angeles Times' article about über blogger Michael Arrington's foray into 2008 election politics. 

It recounts how, impressively, the TechCrunch founder landed interviews with almost all of the presidential candidates back when the field was still crowded. What's more, if the accompanying photo is representative, Arrington was able to reach those political heavyweights while working (barefoot) from his home office in Silicon Valley. A testament to how the Internet has indeed changed politics.

Throughout last fall, Arrington asked Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, along with other candidates at the time like John Edwards and Mitt Romney, for their views on tech policy issues such as the annual cap on H-1B visas and net neutrality. He also hosted an online presidential primary for his readership, after which he endorsed Sens. Obama and McCain, even though TechCrunch's crowd favorite was overwhelmingly Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). 

According to the LA Times, "Arrington says now is the time for techies to have a greater voice in politics as Facebook, YouTube and other technologies shake up how candidates campaign."

Hear, hear!

Let's just hope they wear shoes.

What Will Change Congress?

As we've written before, Stanford law professor Larry Lessig has taken a step back from his work in the copyright realm to champion a new fight against what he calls "corruption of the political process." Though he decided against running for office himself, at least for now, Lessig officially kicked off his Change Congress campaign a few weeks ago.

The grassroots effort is attempting to build support for a series of reforms -- greater transparency in Congress, public financing of elections, abolition of earmarks and curtailing lobbyist and PAC contributions -- by convincing candidates to sign on to a Change Congress pledge. Supporters hope that taking a public pledge will increase accountability once those individuals are in office, and in power.

While most people probably agree that Congress could use a little "change," not everyone believes that Lessig's approach will do the trick. Tech Liberation Front's Tim Lee gave his take on the battle against political influence in a post earlier today.

Lee writes:

The problem is that if politicians are willing to be corrupted, and special interests are willing to spend resources to corrupt them, they'll find ways to get it done. You can certainly reduce the effect on the margin--by banning overt bribery, for example--but once you've banned the really obvious categories of back-scratching, it becomes more and more difficult to make any further progress. What's going on in Washington is disgusting, to be sure, but it's not new or unique to the United States. And I think fixing it is going to be a lot more challenging than Lessig imagines.

What do you think?

Update on Sciencedebate 2008

It's been a month since we first wrote about our support for Sciencedebate 2008, the grassroots campaign to hold a presidential debate focused on science and technology issues.

Since then, the organizers have set a date and location (April 18th at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia), invited the candidates (no takers yet) and picked up key endorsements by the Council on Competitiveness, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and others.

The momentum is there. But will that be enough to convince the candidates to face off in a science and technology-focused debate?

Over the weekend, AAAS hosted what might be considered a dry run when it invited the candidates' science and technology advisors to debate each other at the organization's annual meeting in Boston. None of the Republican candidates' campaigns accepted the invite, which left two surrogates for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton advisor Thomas Kalil, once President Bill Clinton's deputy assisitant for technology and economic policy, and Alec Ross, vice president of external affairs for One Economy Corporation and an advisor to Sen. Obama outlined their candidates' positions on digital health, funding for research and cleantech but were "noncommittal" about the April debate. (Note: Mr. Ross will be among the speakers at Tech Policy Summit next month).

State of the (Tech) Union?

President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress tonight. And if past speeches are any indication, there won't be much talk about tech even though the economy is expected to be a key topic.

According to eWeek, "in his previous seven addresses to the nation--adding up to almost 34,000 words--the president has never uttered the words 'Internet,' 'broadband' or 'digital.' Wireless? Not a word. Spectrum? Not a single mention. Network neutrality? Forget it."

We've noticed a similar phenomenon in many of the presidential debates that have taken place thus far, which is why we're among those calling for ScienceDebate 2008. We are biased in favor of promoting a national discourse on tech policy. Still, in an increasingly digital world, it's hard to believe that political leaders would overlook such opportunities to address the role that technology plays in our lives.

We'll be watching tonight to see if we're pleasantly surprised.

For more, check out this post by Adam Thierer of the Progress & Freedom Foundation. Thierer, who is quoted in the eWeek article, will be among the speakers at Tech Policy Summit in March.

Science Debate 2008

If you've watched any of the presidential debates thus far, or read coverage of them, you probably have a decent idea of where the major candidates stand on issues like the war in Iraq, healthcare and taxation. As you should.

But it's been much harder, if not impossible, to know each candidate's position on science and technology policy. With the exception of a few topics that get national media attention, like immigration, stem cell research and global warming, most of the candidates haven't spent much air time talking about key issues impacting science and technology. We know there have been some interviews covering tech issues and Sen. Obama made a splash in Silicon Valley when he released his innovation agenda, but very little has surfaced in the debates.

Which is why a nonpartisan coalition of voters, including Nobel laureates, university leaders, policymakers and everyday people like me, have signed on to a petition called Science Debate 2008. The goal is to convince the presidential candidates to have a televised debate in Washington, D.C. that focuses on science and technology policy.

You can learn more at Science Debate 2008's site where you add your name to the petition, and get contact info to submit your own question for consideration should the debate take place. There's also a Facebook group you can join.

If you support the concept, we encourage you to "represent" for tech policy! And for more tech policy news and info, visit our Tech Policy Central site.

TechCrunch Hosts Its Own Prez Primary

Apparently, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington isn't content with just interviewing candidates for the U.S. presidency. The über blogger has now decided to host his own online primary race to select the best "TechPresident" candidate (despite the use of the term, there doesn't seem to be a deal with techPresident.com).

Supporters can "vote" for their candidate at TechCrunch's primary site through midnight PT on Friday, January 18th and the top Democrat and Republican will receive a formal endorsement from TechCrunch. So far, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)and Ron Paul (R-TX) are way ahead of their opponents, something Arrington expects to see change as more people participate.

How much weight such an endorsement will hold outside of Silicon Valley's inner circles is unclear, especially if Kucinich and Paul retain their current leads. You never know what will energize techies to get more involved though, and we're all for ideas like this that spread the word about tech policy issues.

To read the rest of this post, please visit TechPolicyCentral.com.

Gravel's Take on Tech

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has released a transcript of his fifth presidential candidate interview -- this time, he spoke with the always colorful Democrat, Mike Gravel. Arrington asked the former Alaska Senator for his views on many of the same issues he discussed with the other candidates.

We've posted highlights from Sen. Gravel's interview below; you can also look back at our write-ups of Arrington's earlier talks with Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, Sen. John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama.

On advancing tech's growth in international markets: "I'd be very open to immigration, both technical people and also other people and also student visas and tourists. It is appalling, we've lost about $20 billion this last year on this criteria of batting down the hatches, that we're afraid of everybody in the world."

On H1-B visas: "I am very much an advocate for them and not only that, I would leave it open-ended, I would not put a limit on them. This is just so short-sighted, here we've got a program and we want to limit intelligent people coming to our country, does it get any stupider than that?"

To read the rest of this post, please visit our Tech Policy Central site.

techPresident Grades Republicans

Last month, the techPresident team gave grades to the Democratic presidential candidates, rating each of them on a series of six criteria that techPresident's founders considered key. There was a tie for first place, with Sens. Barack Obama and John Edwards receiving a grade of A-.

They've since published their review of the Republican candidates -- and, taken as a whole, the ratings are much lower than those given to the Dems. The top grade was a C+ given to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who inched out Rep. Ron Paul and former Gov. Mike Huckabee (techPresident gave both Cs).

For the rest of this post, visit our Tech Policy Central site.