I wrote this series of questions a few years back for the candidates. I did this at a time Joe Trippi assured me that I’d have an online interview with then candidate, Governor Howard Dean. I lived in Vermont at the time and had done a great deal of work with Governor Dean’s staff, and had met him personally several times. Yet neither Trippi, nor Governor Dean made the effort to step forward and answer questions from the tech sector.
I reposted the questions some time ago, yet they remained unanswered at every turn. Now we seem to be closing in on a time when the junior Senator, Obama, seems on track to charge against McCain in the election. Neither are candidates I especially like or support. McCain scares me…a man riding on his past with zero visio for the future. Obama seems to be winning it all too easily. he’s too glib and frankly, I haven’t seen substantive answers to big questions.
So once again, I’ll pose these questions to the candidates.
April 4, 2006
Quite some time ago I posted a set of questions for the Presidential candidates. I did so after engaging in some conversation with Joe Trippi about Howard Dean’s campaign. At the time I lived in Vermont and had been engaged with Governor Dean and his staff as some levels. Joe committed to an interview with Governor Dean to address my questions online, but that never materialized. This static page is to carry those questions forward for the next cycle of political candidates and is a copy of a recent post reiterating my questions.
Dean’s use of the Internet brought some energy and visibility to blogging at the time. More importantly, it painted a vision of a re-energized political campaign process. It revitalized many and really opened the doors to what our next election might bring.
We recognize the significance of these trends on the Internet and on how we communicate. We’ve come a long way in the four intervening years. We the people have come a long way. We the technology have come a long way. They, the adminstration have deon everything possible to lead us into the dark ages. We’ve achieved a level of communication at the grassroots level not seen since our national population was small enough for town meetings and small gatherings. We are connected. The ends of the fragmented network are loosely joined together by technology. But the use of the technology in a campaign like Governor Dean’s, and the ramifications of these change aren’t enough to win my vote. They aren’t enough to win the vote of a huge swath of the population. There are some key underlying issues that I want to see addressed and articulated (articulated well, in words pronounced properly, using complete, thoughtful sentences) before any candidate is going to win my support as a voter.
What follows are an evolution of the questions that I prepared for Governor Dean back then. I’ve edited or revised where appropriate. I believe these questions have been utterly ignored for the past four years by the administration. Then agan, I think in too many ways the American people have been ignored for the past four years. Ignored by the administration, and ignored by our elected officials. I’m prepared to throw them all out. It is time for a clean slate. All major candidates from all political leanings are welcome to address these issues. Jon Tester in Montana is welcome as he pursues a US Senate seat. Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico is invited to respond as he considers his future goals. I certainly invite anyone running for office in Washinton to respond. Senators…Congressmen, heed the call, for the tech sector can propel you to success or impede you progress based on how you are either welcomed or rejected.
I’ll be happy to aid early on in giving voice to those who present a solid undestanding of these issues. I believe they’re been ingnored too long.
I will post all replies, with no edit other than cosmetic, from any viable candidate who might choose to respond here for reference and comment. I will do reasonable validation that responses came from actual candidates. Reponses from staffers will probably be discarded unless I can validate the candidates involvement.
Candidate Interview Questions
1) The current Federal Communications Commission has come under considerable fire at times due to their blatant support of big business and utter failure to listen to Americans. What specific changes do you envision in the FCC under your administration? What do you see their role being in the future?
That’s how I worded the question four years ago. This election cycle the question is “What will you personally do to divest the Federal Communications Commission from being a fully owned subsidiary of the legacy telecommunications industry?” How will you reshape the charter, mission and role of the commission into an effective body that serves the people?
2) The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has had technologists around the country disturbed for some time. The RIAA has garnered considerable support from the legislature. How do you propose we achieve balance between the author or performer’s rights, the publisher or recording studio rights and the wants of consumers?
Not much has changed in four years. The industry has shown they view their customers, we the people, as miscreants and thieves.
3) The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was implemented to theoretically open the telecom industry to competition, yet failed miserably. The major incumbent telcos remain the dominant force in that industry, yet have done little to advance communications infrastructure in the United States. They invest little in R&D because the incentive remains for them to maintain the status quo. Other countries are embracing new technologies at an ever-increasing rate, and our margin of advantage is rapidly shrinking. What specific steps would you take to promote and advance these technologies in our country?
That was then. Today the question has identity and the identity is Net Neutrality. What will you do to guarantee that the neutrality of the Internet is assured for the next generation and that the legacy carriers do not leverage avarice and greed to swallow the Internet into their quagmire of overpriced, undervalued, questionable services? How will you protect the freedom of the Net?
4) The Patriot Act has come under much criticism as we citizens watch our personal liberties erode. While we all want a secure country, we also fought for our personal freedoms, which no other country has ever provided to its citizens. How would your administration revisit the Patriot Act to create a reasonable approach that would achieve balance between national security and personal liberty?
In the past four years, we’ve watched our personal liberties erode further. We do not trust the administration. We do not trust our legislators. You, the incumbents have shown repeatedly that you do not trust we, the people, your employers. Your jobs have been declared at risk and many of you will be downsized. Those of you who aspire to employment here in public service need to explain. How will you create a reasonable approach to bring balance between national security and personal liberty?
5) In conjunction with those personal liberties, we as citizens find our personal information threatened in our own country. Hotels often require a copy of our driver’s license or passport to check in. Companies increasingly ask for a social security number, which is clearly protected information and was never intended to be used for anything but taxpayer identification. What personal information do you feel the individual should have absolute control over? Where do you feel we, as citizens should have the power to draw the line and protect our own personal information? And from whom do you think it should be protected? (i.e. what do you feel is reasonable access to personal individual information for a law enforcement or intelligence gathering agency outside the course of active criminal investigation?)
How will you protect our identity? Please think in specific terms, not the platitudes and vagaries of the Bush administration.
6) Our First Amendment rights have long been a mainstay of our society. Ongoing changes in federal regulation have required libraries to implement filtering software in an effort to protect children. Libraries that refuse now lose federal funding. Most technologists, and many librarians agree that this action is (a) inadequate due to the inability of software to properly perform this task, and (b) improper because the government is effectively implementing forced censorship of information. How do you feel we can effectively walk that thin line between protecting our children online while ensuring free and open access to information?
Couple that with so many areas where we the people have been trampled on in recent years, it is fair to say there has been no child left unscathed. How will you protect our children while simultaneuously protecting the freedom of speech and information sharing?
7) What steps will your administration take to embrace what have been referred to as the disruptive technologies as tools to build our economy and stimulate growth? We’ve seen tremendous interest in segments of unlicensed spectrum. IP telephony presents a potential new voice communications medium for the future. WiFi technologies provide a potential for universal broadband service. All these require optical networks that reach much farther to the ends of the network than the current infrastructure. Free market enterprise has shown that growth in these market segments is terribly slow to deploy, leaving a tremendous percentage of the population relegated to slow-speed dial-up connections to not just the Internet, but corporate and government networks as well. How will you change that? How would you respond to the suggestion of a regulated monopoly broadband provider, similar to the monopoly once granted to the Bell system of old?
Will you lead us to the true information age? Or will you try to lead us back into the dark ages as has been the case?
8- The Internet has clearly played a role in this election process. It has proven to be a tool for community and global conversation. The Internet has enabled discussion among individuals in a way that almost allows the same level of discussion that town meetings and local gatherings did when our population was much smaller. How do you envision using Internet technologies as a tool for bringing people together? Can you give some examples of advisory groups you might pull together to consult with your administration? How will you achieve balance between the talent of the incredibly learned tech sector and the dollars behind some of the large, monopolistic companies in the telecom and tech sector?
Technorati Tags: Technology, Politics, Candidates, Election. Questions for the Candidates, Political Process, How to win tech sector support
Filed by Ken at 10:53 pm under General
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