Technology and the Obama Administration

by Kakofonous

As a bit of an expansion of my last post, which was about how technology will be used in the Obama administration as a way of increasing transparency of governmnent, I thought I'd talk more generally about the implications of technology in the new White House and how campaign talk will or will not be translated into real action in the next four or eight years.

The Internet has evolved tremendously since the beginning of the last administration: it has become difficult, especially for those of Generation Y, to conceive of a world without the bare necessities of YouTube and Facebook. However, the first real political campaign in which the Internet played a crucial role was the 2004 presidential race between Bush and Kerry. It was in that campaign that blogs like Daily Kos, founded in 2002, first had a real voice. This role was expanded greatly in the 2006 Congressional race and even more in the 2008 presidential election. It was Obama's Internet-based campaign that lead to the historic success in November. But how does this symbol of the political power of the Internet translate into regulation and law for technology in the years to come?

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Let's start with the bad news: Cass Sunstein, who will be heading the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (an agency that will serve a key role in the implementation of technology policy) in Obama's White House, doesn't appear to have particularly progressive views towards Internet policy: he has variously advocated for an Internet Fairness Doctrine and invasive technology to increase civility on the Net. These ideas would have no place in the philosophy of a truly free Internet that is advocated by network neutrality, a policy that Obama supports and will include as part of his technology agenda.

Obama also seems preoccupied with the idea of having greater government involvement in the Internet and technology in general: his proposal to appoint a White House Chief Technology Officer is poised to bring in more bureaucratic solutions to the issues that the Information Age has thrown our way. Whether or not this is the way to go is not the important question—it is the fact that there are major inconsistencies in Obama's approach to the Internet.

Putting these troubles aside for a moment, however, it seems like there has already been tangible progress made by Obama towards making government more transparent: whitehouse.gov has been redesigned and now includes video addresses, the full texts of Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations, a blog, etc. Hasn't Obama shown, then, that he has what it takes to use technology and the Internet responsibly and usefully and create technology policy that will allow America to prosper further? Not really. He still has to explain, for example, how his grand plan for broadband infrastructure will help Americans without it to compete in the digital economy if they don't even want it. Or how he's going to help today's students to succeed in the coming years of the 21st century if all they're doing in computer science class is learning how to use Microsoft Excel.

The overwhelmingly complex and convoluted world of the Internet and technology at large has made it difficult in the past for our government to make sense of it all and thus to make informed and productive policy decisions. Obama's experience in his campaign and of his relative newcomer status in the political arena have given him a unique chance to improve how the U.S. interacts with technology—how it can be used to get out of the current recession or the United States' scientific achievement gap with the rest of the world, industrialized or not. Whether we make it will hinge on his commitment to his promises to keep technology open, accessible, and innovative.

Plus: Technology policy recommendations to Obama from the Center for Democracy and Technology