[A2k] Declan McCullag: An Obama presidency: Good, bad news for technology

[Manon Ress]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10082672-38.html

  November 5, 2008 4:00 AM PST
An Obama presidency: Good, bad news for technology
Posted by Declan McCullagh 36 comments

When Barack Obama becomes president in January with a strongly
Democratic Congress, he'll have the chance to push a technology policy
that relies more on government subsidy and regulation than that of his
immediate predecessor.

In Washington and Silicon Valley circles, betting has already begun on
who will be the nation's first "chief technology officer." Could it be
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who conveniently endorsed Obama? Or Vint
Cerf? If there's an opening for a Beltway type, perhaps ex-regulator
Reed Hundt, who's been a proxy for the president-elect?
Barack Obama

Obama wants the CTO to "ensure that our government and all its
agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the
21st century," plus protecting the security of .gov computer networks.
That's a pretty tall task for one person, although there's some
precedent; President Clinton handed much authority for Internet
regulation to Ira Magaziner after his administration's health care
debacle.

Any administration will find health care to be a massive project,
especially one that likely will be distracted by the Iraq occupation
and a recession. Enacting new government regulations aimed at health
care records and their electronic storage is an obvious first step
that's already been kicking around Congress for a while.

On copyright, the conventional thinking is that Democrats are more
likely to align themselves with the recording and movie industries'
wishes. That may not be the case here: it was John McCain who talked
up more aggressive enforcement of copyright law domestically, while
Obama said "we need to update and reform our copyright and patent
systems to promote civic discourse, innovation, and investment while
ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated."

That is, of course, intentionally vague. Obama was also vague when we
asked him whether he wants to amend the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act to let Americans make a single backup copy of a DVD or computer
game they legally purchase. He said only that he'd support it "in
concept."

Internationally, though, Obama would not take an obviously different
approach than the policies that the Bush administration has followed
and that a McCain administration would have. His Web site says that
"China fails to enforce U.S. copyrights and trademarks" and that
additional international enforcement and standards are needed.

Congress and free trade
For technology firms, a substantial downside--and one that's difficult
to overstate--is how hostile a solidly Democratic Congress and White
House could be toward free trade.

Obama doesn't have the ideological bias toward free trade that Clinton
had and is certain to face strong protectionist pressure from within
his own party. After a handful of Democrats joined Republicans to
approve the Central America Free Trade Agreement in 2005, the 15
dissidents were hounded by their own party and by labor activists.
Only a rare politician would take that risk again.

Democrats' populist streak could hurt technology companies in other
ways as well. Obama has promoted more aggressive antitrust actions,
which could hurt Silicon Valley companies like Yahoo and Google that
are already reeling from the scrutiny of a supposedly free-market
Republican administration. Additionally, Obama has only promised to
expand the H1-B visa program temporarily.

President-elect Barack Obama's Web site, post-election.
(Credit: BarackObama.com)

More tax dollars diverted to universal broadband is a goal often
promoted by the Democratic party, and Obama's CTO would at the very
least influence how such a goal is met. The Obama campaign has
enthusiastically called broadband access the way to a more perfect
democracy, and Democratic members of Congress like Rep. Anna Eshoo of
California have promoted the idea.

Eshoo's resolution, however, does little beyond call for more work to
be done. Finding the funds to create wider broadband access could be a
challenge; it would have to be paid for by higher taxes, reduced
spending elsewhere, or running up the federal deficit.

Michael Powell, former chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission, said at a forum in September that it is unrealistic to
entertain the "idea that there's money to get people to dig up streets
and put in fiber. National broadband policy is probably going to have
to be a lot more subtle."

Net neutrality is another open question. It was a striking difference
between the two major party presidential candidates: Obama wanted new
government regulation of the Internet, and McCain was skeptical. Some
prominent technologists including Cisco Systems' Robert Pepper,
Carnegie Mellon University's Dave Farber, and Internet founding father
Bob Kahn are skeptical too.

Because politicians tend not to like to seek out trouble, a resolution
will probably wait until a federal appeals court deals with Comcast's
appeal of a related order by the FCC. Comcast claims the FCC does not
have the authority to impose Net neutrality regulations and didn't
even follow its own rules when levying them in the first place.

If the court sides with the FCC, it will sap energy from a push for
extensive new Net neutrality laws; if the decision goes the other way,
look for Congress to get involved. Net neutrality is, after all, the
very first issue addressed in Obama's technology policy platform.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has talked up the idea, and Sen.
Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) introduced related legislation last year.

CNET's Stephanie Condon co-authored this article.

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Manon Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org
Knowledge Ecology International
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