Barack Obama and technology

Barack Obama and technology

by kid Oakland

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The first place to start a discussion of Barack Obama and techonology policy is to note that Senator Obama is endorsed by Standford Law Professor and technologist Lawrence Lessig. (Lessig titles his endorsement piece 4Barack...I'm not alone in wishing I would have thought of that.)

Who is Lawrence Lessig and why should we take what he says about Barack Obama and technology seriously?

Lawrence Lessig is the founder of the Center for the Internet and Society at Stanford, the founder and CEO of Creative Commons, and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The author of the monumental Code: and other Laws of Cyberspace, in 2007 Professor Lessig began to turn his attention from copyright issues to the issue of "corruption in the political system."

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Now if you don't believe me yet, read what Matt Stoller at OpenLeft, a passionate and informed voice for net neutrality and never one to mince words or spare Barack Obama criticism, has to say about the Obama tech policy. And while you are at it, check out what Stoller dug up about Senator Clinton's tech platform:

I've written about Obama's transformative proposals on media and contrasted them to Hillary Clinton's 'Connect America' plan to expand broadband access, which is based on a private-public partnership model called Connect Kentucky. Well, it turns out that Connect Kentucky is basically a fraudulent front group funded by government grants set up by telecom interests to advance their legislatve agenda and lie about internet access. And what Clinton wants to do is spread it nationwide.

I've been skeptical of both Connect Kentucky and Hillary Clinton's telecom plans for some time. Art Brodsky has shown that the reality is much worse than I had imagined. Hopefully Senator Clinton will get rid of the telecom lobbyist inspired dreck writing the plans in her shop. There's room for Clinton to maneuver away from Connect Kentucky, but her plan still doesn't contain a commitment that her FCC will uphold net neutrality provisions. Clinton's media and internet proposals may allow the destruction of the internet.

Or, if you don't want to take Matt Stoller's word for it, try Jon Stokes kick ass run down of Obama's plan on Ars Technica.com entitled, "Obama's innovation plan a Christmas list for the geekerati—analysis."

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