Obama’s Technology Platform

So Obama just published his principles for technology entitled “Technology and Innovation for a New Generation” in advance of his trip to see Google and the internet is already abuzz. He’s got a lot of points to make and I think it’s refreshing to see technology being so directly addressed - not just about security and anti-terrorism but across the whole spectrum. It’s interesting that he wants to appoint a CTO as a government (cabinet?) position - although it’s kinda dumb to call it a CTO given that the US government isn’t really a company… (another step into Snow Crash?). But still, if that is the right person and he actually can do something, it may help out with all the woes we’re seeing today (*cough*electronic voting*cough*dmca*cough*etc*cough*).

He has five major points:

1. Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Information through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets

Here he shows his support for network neutrality, it’s nice to see a little love for neutrality. He also smacks down the FCC’s tendency to favour consolidation over diversity.

His two main points are protecting children and safeguarding our privacy. Protecting children admirably eschews too much regulation in favour of working with the industries to provide parental controls and keeping things compartmentalized. Don’t know how well that will work, but who knows. I’m not really sure what creating the Sesame Street of the Digital Age has to do with this, but hey, I’m all for it.

His words on privacy are encouraging - specifically bringing up restrictions on how 9/11 lists can be used, making sure surveillance is reviewed and spanking down the spammers. Given that our current goverment is saying that we need to redefine what privacy means since the government is intent on stripping us of it, I’d say this is definitely a step in the right direction.

2. Create a Transparent and Connected Democracy

Here he gets to blast Bush’s government for being so secretive and talk about how he wants to make his government much more transparent. He wants to create websites that allow people to easily see what grants, contracts and earmarks are being created, make a lot more data available to the public and in general involve the public a lot more in the governmental process.

This is pretty great and clearly a good move, although much of what he talks about is internet related. That’s obviously the easiest way to get things going - the internet is well suited to broad distribution and soliciting comments (I would hate to be a moderator on any goverment blog, forum or wiki!), but I wonder if that is the sole method how it affects those without internet. Does it stratify the country into the wealthier interneterati who already have more money and now have even more input into the goings on in the country? Beats me, but I’d guess it’s something worth pondering…

3. Deploy a Modern Communications Infrastructure

…and clearly Barack’s pondered it. He addresses the sad state of broadband penetration in the States and outlines some ideas on how to start addressing this. Most interesting of which is his drive to add affordable broadband to the Universal Service Fund (while at the same time increasing the definition of broadband which the FCC strangely has at a mere 200kbps). He also wants to open up the wireless spectrum which would help break the monopoly the big boys have on our airwaves.

4. Employ Technology and Innovation to Solve Our Nation’s Most Pressing Problems

Here is a little pot-luck of ideas of where he wants to throw some money. He wants to lower health care costs by investing in information technology systems. While I’m all for more efficiency, I’m not sure that this is the cure that our screwed up system actually needs… He also wants to invest a boat load of billions into clean energy, including a clean energy venture capital fund. I think it’s interesting to make a distinction between grant money and a vc fund (which is only a small portion of the billions in this area). And I don’t know what this means, but I like the sound of a “digital smart energy grid.”

He also wants to get more math, science and technology into our curriculums since we’ve sadly started moving away from those things. I mean, Bush wants to drop the study of evolution from our schools, so pretty much anything is better than that. Obama’s got some ideas on how to do this with better teachers, better curriculum, etc… He also wants to bring businesses in to try and put their IT workforce in inner-cities and rural communities instead of outsourcing them. He also wants a pony for his next birthday.

5. Improve America’s Competitiveness

Another catchall topic… he’s going to invest in the sciences (kinda restating some stuff from above). He wants to make the R&D tax credit permanent to help stimulate long term innovation. He wants to reform immigration, but it is not clear from his statement what exactly he wants to do. He starts out by saying that a lot of H-1B’s only have bachelors and we don’t really need them because they aren’t PhD’s so they’re stealing other American jobs. But immigrants who earn US degrees should be allowed to stay. I don’t know… it’s very unclear what he wants to do here.

He also has a very few grafs on intellectual property at home. Clearly this is a touchy subject and not one he particularly wants to talk about here despite it’s obvious importance. He suggests that the MPAA is telling him the China’s selling a lot of pirated DVD’s and so they need to crack down on that. And he wants to address digital rights domestically as well. Dubious… as all this DRM is hostile to customers (and thus voters) and while not provably beneficial to it’s employers is rabidly defended by them (i.e. the campaign donors). He does go into a little more detail suggesting that the patent system needs to be reformed, with the goal of protecting legitimate rights but not stifling innovation. Shrug.

Overall, I think it’s a nice platform. It’s good to see technology being so directly addressed and he covers a lot of interesting ground. It isn’t so much that he has to do everything that I particularly agree with, but it is very important that he has a coherent and informed strategy on how to deal with these things as opposed to an ad hoc, uninformed plan. So, I think it’s a good step in the right direction. I haven’t seen any of the other candidates do anything similar, I wonder if I missed it or if I haven’t if this will make them cobble something together. What do you think of it?

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