In tech support, Obama bests Clinton
File photo: Sen. Barack Obama criticizes Bush's warrantless-wiretapping program in a speech at Dartmouth College.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News.com)In theory, Hillary Clinton should have been the perfect tech-friendly candidate in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination.
Practically from the moment she was sworn into office in 2001, the New York senator began wooing technology firms and their executives in preparation for her presidential bid.
She introduced five different broadband bills. She showed up at roundtables with chief executives like Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Adobe Systems' Bruce Chizen, and Symantec's John Thompson. She spoke at a board meeting of the Information Technology Industry Council, whose members include Apple, Cisco Systems, Dell, eBay, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. She talked up nanotech, lower taxes on stock options, and better e-voting security. She won a coveted endorsement from prominent venture capitalist John Doerr, and, in fact, in Silicon Valley during last month's California primary.
So just how did Barack Obama--who managed to retain his delegate lead despite losses Tuesday in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island--become the favorite in tech circles?
It shouldn't--again, in theory--have turned out this way. At the time Obama announced he wanted to be president, he had accumulated a mere two years of experience in the U.S. Senate.
The Illinois senator's tech-law forays were limited to topics like complaining that airline pilot uniforms were readily available for purchase over the Internet[1], and warning that TV networks had better tone down the amount of "adult content" in their broadcasts or Congress would do it for them[2]. An information-technology-in-health-care bill was co-sponsored with Clinton. And, in 2005, Obama even let his Barackobama.com domain name lapse--the ultimate politechnical misstep, solved only by a friendly domain auctioneer helping him out.
The only two Obama bills (of which he was the primary sponsor) that became law during those two years dealt with matters as unimpressive as naming a post office and doling out U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Congo. No wonder that his hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, which had endorsed him during his Senate run, reported that Obama managed "to finish his first year without a signature achievement."
What propelled Obama to Internet-ional prominence was a combination of charisma, background, a remarkably well-received convention speech four years ago, and a willingness to embrace technology.
One 2004 article from CIO Insight said: "While the power of online marketing is still in its infancy, Barack Obama, the senator-elect from Illinois, has collected more e-mail addresses in some states than the senators from those states. Stay tuned!" The convention speech opened other doors; it led him to meet Warren Buffett, who in turn introduced him to Bill Gates and Donald Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co.
Being relatively young and a favorite of political bloggers didn't hurt either. In August 2005, Obama was one of only four senators (Clinton not among them) with a blog, which he claimed he updated himself. He also--a rarity in a sitting senator-- engaged bloggers directly by posting a response on DailyKos.com about political litmus tests and judicial appointees. "It was a good opportunity to engage an activist community in a forum that is rapidly growing," Obama told the Washington Post at the time. "If you take these blogs seriously, they'll take you seriously."
From that beginning, it wasn't a huge leap to build a commanding presence in tech circles through mechanisms like an endorsement from Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, clever use of wikis, and the my.barackobama.com social-networking site. Obama's unambiguous opposition to the Iraq war and opposition to to telecommunications companies certainly helped too.
In October 2005, during a Senate hearing, Obama said this to Ellen Sauerbrey, a Bush appointee to a State Department post: "It doesn't appear that you have very specific experience."
This also happens to be the same charge that Clinton is levying against her Illinois rival today. And it's proving no more effective; Sauerbrey ended up getting the job anyway.
Footnotes:
[1] Excerpt from Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL) newspaper, March 11, 2005: "U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama, both Democrats, asked Congress to investigate the easy availability of airline pilot uniforms on the Internet after viewing a media report in which a reporter received a uniform without being asked for identification."
[2] Excerpt from The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, November 10, 2005: '"But if the industry fails to act-- f it fails to give parents advanced controls and new choices--Congress will," Obama said. He noted, however, that regulation is not the only answer and that the nature of TV sex is more important than the amount. "The adult content in 'Schindler's List' is far different from the type on 'Desperate Housewives,' " he said.'
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
more of the same from either one of these candidates. In the
last 20 years, we've had 12 years of a Bush and 8 years of a
Clinton in the White House. Are we really happy with where we
are as a nation? McCain will carry on with Bush's agenda without
making the adjustments needed to make this country stronger
and safer. We're spending a crazy amount of money on a war
and in a country where we will see no benefit. We have no
money for programs to help people go to college or for job
training, but we've got plenty of dough to fight a ridiculous war
in a place that will reap no benefits for the American people.
We've had bad trade agreements, we've been blindsided with
"globalization" with absolutely no help from the government.
The economy -- it's the jobs stupid -- put policies in place that
will make offshoring much less attractive. Most insulting is the
fact that companies get tax breaks for incurring the cost to
offshore American jobs...Does this make sense? How many
people in the tech community have been replaced by lesser
talent in other countries? All most of us are trying to do is
support our families. We're hardworking tax payers who have
been betrayed by our government. When is it going to be
enough for everybody?
Understand that although Obama is somewhat of an unknown,
he's not apart of the same machine that the other candidates are
from. We need somebody who's willing to turn things upside
down and level the playing field... Is Obama the answer? I don't
know. All I can say is based on what we've all seen from the
other candidates, I'm willing to at least take a chance that he
might be able to help the working middle class of this country.
"... overturn the machine" Do that without a new one ready to roll and you walk home. Caveat vendor.
I don't take the bloggers that seriously. The Nixon generation didn't take us that seriously. It is easy to campaign and put enough spin there, and you can win. But to govern, you have to have the people in place who have the knowledge because no single man, woman or President will change a government of laws. For Larry Lessig, the answer has always been, ignore the laws and do what feels best for you. As a result of that, I can go to YouTube and find one of my songs taken without permission or acknowledgement and used in a video. There is another web site selling that song, also without permission and without sharing the profits.
Boy howdy, what a deal for me.
However you slice it, that's theft, and worse, theft of goods that I have shared graciously when asked and credited. But Lessig and now Obama keep promoting an idea among the young that whatever they want they can take without any preconditions because They Are The Internet Generation. In fact, they are a mob organizing for a generational war.
It will fail but with a price. Perhaps they are a generation that history and power should by-pass because they have failed to learn the lessons of history, have not earned the power.
Security is a boat in a storm where the captain keeps a light hand on the tiller. The tiller is technology. You need it but it is just stuff. The hand requires experience. You can't steal that.
This odd comment has bothered me, so I am going to ask. What are you talking about? The first sentence is completely made up as Lessig has never suggested anything remotely similar to that.
Are you talking about Lessig's work on Creative Commons, which gave authors some very useful license agreements they could choose to use to better express what they want to pre-authorize, and what they do not? There is nothing in Lessig's work at Creative Commons or elsewhere that can cause what you mention.
I have heard some cases of some authors signing up to legal documents without understanding them, and having regret. In the music industry this applies to most label contracts that suck the life out of musicians who are allowed to own little but debt. There have been some musicians who have applied the same lack of interest in contracts, and used Creative Commons licenses without bothering to even read the plain-language commons deed.
Lessig is a law professor that has spent much of his career voluntarily teaching people far beyond law students about the law. This teaching has lead to more respect for the law than any amount of nonsense "tough on crime" rhetoric ever could. Especially around Copyright the core problem causing the disrespect for the law is the excessive complexity of the law and practice.
If you didn't understand a contract you can't legitimately blame Lessig who has done everything humanly possible to help you!
IANAL -- I'm a technical person who became a fan of Lessig's with his book "Code: and other laws of cyberspace" who taught me that the best way to understand and explain software is to compare it to social sciences like political science and law, and not a natural science as far too many people incorrectly do.
As to your comments about "theft", I'll just point you to a more seasoned speaker on this topic: Thomas Jefferson
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate
He talks out of both sides of his mouth, and he's corrupt (belive me as a Chicagoan I know it's as rare as Haley's Comet to get elected to the US Senate in Illinois without being corrupt). In other words, he's a typical politician with a thin resume. This would be emperor has no clothes.
I'm a Canadian, so am obviously not a voter.
My first choice for president would be Obama because he talks about a future vision of tech, and isn't accepting lobbying money from the very special interests that Clinton is cozying up to and accepting money from. The fact that he goes to people like Lessig rather than Gates for advise is telling. http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4555
My second choice would be John McCain. He seems to be an old fart who doesn't know anything himself about tech, and it is unknown who his advisers would be. Chances are he'd be too distracted on other things to do any harm to tech, both domestically within the US and pushing other countries through USTR/USPTO corruption. My other values don't mirror those of Republicans in the USA, but I've vote for McCain over Clinton.
My last choice of those still in the race is Clinton, and the very idea of her as US president makes me cringe. I feel like I've spent the last decade fighting against bad tech policies initiated under her husband's regime, and it seems her allegiances will be with the same people that are at the root of most of the problems in the tech sector globally (WIPO 1996 treaties, Great firewalls of *, etc).
It only encourages me to just delete your emails with such idiotic articles.
It is pure political propaganda and reflects a bias in your editorial process that is most unsatisfactory. Clean up your act or you will lose your audience!!
Some Clinton bodyguards have died before their time.
The Clintons stole property from the white house when they departed.
There were about 70 Congressional witnesses who have pled the Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate (or chosen to flee the country) in the Clinton-Gore dollars for political influence scam.
Chung Lo contributed $10,300 to the DNC. The bulk of the money was given in July 1996, the same month Ms. Lo was arrested on 14 counts of bank and mortgage fraud.
Obama became the favorite in tech circles because he:
(a) has a number of friends and advisers who are good on tech. He is a classmate of Larry Lessig, who endorsed him early on.
(b) His legislative record is not as sparse as you suggest. He co-sponsored the Net Neutrality bill (as did Clinton) and he showed up to vote against telco immunity (Clinton showed for one vote, but was absent subsequently).
(c)He has adopted a more detailed "innovation agenda" than Clinton. Thus, as Tim Wu told Matt Stoller in an interview last month, Clinton has been disappointingly vague compared to Obama in terms of key planks for the campaign platform.
Who's going to get us out of Iraq? Nobody!
Who's going to protect your Intellectual Property? Nobody!
Who's going to fix the economy? Nobody!
Who's going to fix American education? Nobody!
Who's going to fix the immigration problem? Nobody!
Who's going to fix the illegal drug problem? Nobody!
Who's going to fix the legal drug problem? Nobody.
Who's going to fix health care? Nobody!
Obviously, Nobody is the best choice we have. When you go vote later this year, vote for Nobody for President. Believe it or not, a vote for Nobody does count. I'd rather vote for Nobody than be responsible for putting any of the 3 major party candidates in office.
Find someone who will make a difference. Until then, Nobody for President.
Who
another year campaigning, has managed to author and pass into
law, (20) twenty pieces of legislation in her first six years.
These bills can be found on the website of the Library of
Congress (www.thomas.loc.gov), but to save you trouble, I?ll
post them here for you.
1. Establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site.
2. Support the goals and ideals of Better Hearing and Speech
Month.
3. Recognize the Ellis Island Medal of Hon
4. Name courthouse after Thurgood Marshall.
5. Name courthouse after James L. Watson.
6. Name post office after Jonn A. O?Shea.
7. Designate Aug. 7, 2003, as National Purple Heart Recognition
Day.
8. Support the goals and ideals of National Purple Heart
Recognition Day.
9. Honor the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton on the
bicentennial of his death.
10. Congratulate the Syracuse Univ. Orange Men?s Lacrosse
Team on winning the championship.
11. Congratulate the Le Moyne College Dolphins Men?s Lacrosse
Team on winning the championship.
12. Establish the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolution
Commemorative Program.
13. Name post office after Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda.
14. Honor Shirley Chisholm for her service to the nation and
express condolences on her death.
15. Honor John J. Downing, Brian Fahey, and Harry Ford,
firefighters who lost their lives on duty.
Only five of Clinton?s bills are more substantive:
16. Extend period of unemployment assistance to victims of
9/11.
17. Pay for city projects in response to 9/11
18. Assist landmine victims in other countries.
19. Assist family caregivers in accessing affordable respite care.
20. Designate part of the National Forest System in Puerto Rico
as protected in the wilderness preservation system.
There you have it?the facts straight from the Senate Record.
Now, I would post those of Obama?s, but the list is too
substantive, so I?ll mainly categorize.
During the first (8) eight years of his elected service he
sponsored over 820 bills. He introduced:
233 regarding healthcare reform,
125 on poverty and public assistance,
112 crime fighting bills,
97 economic bills,
60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills,
21 ethics reform bills,
15 gun control,
6 veterans affairs and many others.
His first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-
sponsored another 427. These inculded:
**the Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006
(became law),
**The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and
Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, (became law),
**The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, passed the
Senate,
**The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, (became law),
**The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill,
(In committee), and many more."
So to sum up, we have a frenzy of activity from Obama that has led to few significant accomplishments other than to pad his resume. That 2007 Ethics bill has done very little, according to my daughter who works for a lobbying firm in DC. Looks good when you're running for President, though.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine in Syracuse, NY tells me Hillary played an important behind the scenes role in securing a major development project for that region.
An Obama presidency will use cutting-edge technologies to reverse this dynamic, creating a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America?s citizens. Technology-enabled citizen participation has already produced ideas driving Obama?s campaign and its vision for how technology can help connect government to its citizens and engage citizens in a democracy. Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making. Obama will integrate citizens into the actual business of government by:
1. Making government data available online in universally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities. Greater access to environmental data, for example, will help citizens learn about pollution in their communities, provide information about local conditions back to government and empower people to protect themselves.
2. Establishing pilot programs to open up government decision-making and involve the public in the work of agencies, not simply by soliciting opinions, but by tapping into the vast and distributed expertise of the American citizenry to help government make more informed decisions.
3. Requiring his appointees who lead Executive Branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can watch a live feed on the Internet as the agencies debate and deliberate the issues that affect American society. He will ensure that these proceedings are archived for all Americans to review, discuss and respond. He will require his appointees to employ all the technological tools available to allow citizens not just to observe, but also to participate and be heard in these meetings.
4. Restoring the basic principle that government decisions should be based on the best-available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on the ideological predispositions of agency officials.
5. Lifting the veil from secret deals in Washington with a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials.
6. Giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation.
7. Bringing democracy and policy deliberations directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national online town hall meetings to answer questions and discuss issues before their agencies.
8. Employing technologies, including blogs, wikis and social networking tools, to modernize internal, cross-agency, and public communication and information sharing to improve government decision-making.
How many letters do you write to your Congressman?
When your local council has meetings, do you attend?
Do you read the local political news and review the published bills?
There is abundant information. There are few users. The US government is not a large closed conspiracy (Bush I and II being exceptional). It is a large bureaucratic form of representative democracy (say Republic).
What you need to understand is WE ELECTED BUSH TWICE WITH FULL INFORMATION IN FRONT OF US.
What Obama is saying sounds good, but that is it. Neither he no those programs will change the culture or the goals of our government. Once elected, all those neat sounding ideas vanish into budgets and hearings and costs and taxes and finally into a low dull snore.
Technologists like the sound because they can sell more technology and they can *feel* empowered but this won't change Washington in the least. Competent persistent knowledgeable executive leadership can. When you vote, you are not voting for machinery but a machine. Be very very sure the machine you are voting for has your best interests at heart because once in, they have the power for four years, and the agenda they set determines the cultural changes possible within the limits of that power (and the limits are considerable).
The most telling aspect of Obamamania is that it sells hope but is driven by deep seated paranoia. That is why the shrillness in that camp when debating. It isn't that they are delusional but that they believe everyone else is stupid (citing the blue collar vote for Hillary Clinton). Technology cannot fix the government. In fact nothing can. The system we have is the one we passed legally, is in the Constitution, and is not in need of radical overhaul.
It is in need of competent executive leadership.
- by Alessandro Machi June 24, 2009 3:45 AM PDT
- Your quote... "Obama's unambiguous opposition to the Iraq war and opposition to retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies certainly helped too."
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(27 Comments)Youza.