If you didn’t get a chance to read Garrett Graff’s opinion piece in the Washington Post last Sunday, “Don’t know Their Yahoo from Their YouTube,” take a minute to read it.

And then weep.

Every word of Graff’s piece right on target. The people in charge of formulating national policy on technology and the Internet don’t know much about either. That’s not news to CDT. In our experience, there are no more that 12 members of Congress at any one time that understands the Internet. That’s why we spend so much time testifying before Congress, to try and craft a solid technical and legal framework that policy proposals can be judged against, rather than the concern of the day. That is an uphill battle, to say the least. If you’ve ever tried explaining why a broadcast flag mandate would interfere with fair use to the Senate Commerce Committee, or why it may not be a good idea to task the NTIA with rating Internet content-and watched their eyes glaze over-then you understand my point.

The truth is that we’ve spent eight long years without strong and visible leadership on technology policy. The public dialogue about the future of the medium has been reduced to sound bites; without a clear agenda policymakers most often treat the Internet as a problem to be fixed rather than a critical national resource. The question is whether we can expect a renewed emphasis on technology policy from the next Administration.

Graff thinks it’s not likely, noting the lack of interest, attention and expertise demonstrated by most of the Presidential candidates when it comes to the Internet. He goes after Senator John McCain for saying in a recent debate that he might “rely on a vice president” for help on less important issues, like information technology, and asks whether we would tolerate a Presidential candidate admitting ignorance on any other key policy area?

I’m not sure that McCain’s statement is the worst of it. At least he acknowledges that the issue exists. You wouldn’t know that about other candidates from listening to the Presidential debates. The only question that I can recall in the debates touching on the subject of the Internet was an inarticulate one from Chris Matthews to Rudy Giuliani back in October asking about how he would “police the Internet culturally,” a question that sounded like it has been drafted by the Chinese Central Committee.

Giuliani, in turn, produced an even more confused response, which seemed to suggest perhaps that he favored turning over the Internet to the FCC, and he threw in a pitch against Internet taxes as a bonus. I guess there was no way to weave illegal aliens into either the question or the answer. Perhaps a question on whether the candidate had personally reviewed the immigration status of his broadband installer?

At a time when the Internet is a critical engine for economic growth and innovation, is it too much to expect that the candidates might give the challenges facing the medium a moments thought? Do the candidates have a view on Internet privacy? On Network Neutrality? On Broadband deployment? Thus far, it appears that only a few candidates have given the issues any serious consideration. Edwards has taken strong positions on network neutrality and broadband deployment, and Obama recently issued a thoughtful and fairly comprehensive tech agenda last month.

Maybe it’s asking too much to expect others to follow suit during the primary season. Primaries will not be won or lost over differences on Internet policy… unless we can find that broadband installer without a green card.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 5:44 pm and is filed under CDT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.