DRAFT!!!!!! Work in progress
This is a sample letter addressed to the presidential candidates and media making suggestions about the role of technology policy in the campaign. Our goal here is to have something that the vast majority of conference agrees can (largely) agree with that is still specific enough to be actionable. The initial example recommendations in this draft are outputs from "alpha tests". At dinner on Wednesday, we will be asking each table to come up with their lists, and over the next 36 hours distill the final version from those.
Dear presidential candidates -- and media, old and new:
We, the undersigned, believe that there is a pressing need for more thoughtful debate and attention to what we call technology policy: the collection of government policies and practices that address the relationships between information and communication technologies (IT) and traditional policy areas, such as social welfare, governance, economic development, trade, innovation, foreign relations, and the environment.
Although it has been over thirty years since the advent of the Internet, we are still in an early stage of the digitized and networked world. The only certain thing about future IT developments is that they will bring more: more information from more sources, more computing power to more people, more people to the network, more data storage and analysis, more collaboration among far-flung people, more disruption to traditional social and economic models, more crime, and more positive opportunities for industry and society.
However, the U.S. has yet to develop a coherent Technology Policy that is based on open debate between policymakers, the public and industry and coordinated across supportive governing institutions. Because of the importance of Technology Policy to so many national issues, we believe it is imperative that Technology Policy be addressed in presidential debates and campaigns – indeed, in debates and campaigns at all level of political offices – on par with economic matters and domestic affairs. It is our hope that this deliberate focus will continue through the years of the next administration as well as all subsequent administrations.
To help promote public debate on Technology Policy in this election year, the attendees of the 18th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference initiated a web-based, interactive and open Technology Policy '08 letter to the next President and administration. In parallel, we'll be developing a framework based a set of theses initially drafted by the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and working to provide reference materials on various subjects related to Technology Policy. We expect to continue to evolve these through the election, and will present the final version before your inauguration in January. This is an open forum in which citizens can support the general idea of this Letter and disagree on the particulars, yet build a constructive public dialog through that disagreement. We hope you will find it useful.
There are also several things you can do that we think would help:
- an online debate specifically focused on technology policy
- candidates, please ask the techies who support you to work with other campaigns' supporters to lead discussions online focusing on technology issues
- media, please give as much attention to technology policy as to "gaffes" and the candidates' spouses
- other ideas here
- ...
While we're on the subject, we also think that several important topics on technology policy haven't gotten enough attention. Here are a few examples, where we'd like to hear what the candidates will do as President -- specifically in terms of your plans for the executive branch, and also using your "bully pulpit" to lead Congress and the states
- identity theft: how to cut down on the repeated leaks of personal information, including from government databases and web sites? and what can the FTC and FBI do to take leadership roles here?
- other ideas here
- ...
Finally, we think that the media is dropping the ball, and presenting some technology issues in extraordinarily superficial ways. We think it's time to raise their standards; and we'd appreciate the candidates' help holding the media accountable. A few specific areas:
- cyberterrorism, and computer security in general. How safe are we really? What are the most important risks? What are we as a country doing about it?
- other ideas here
- ...
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We look forward to hearing what you, and the technology policy experts in your campaign, think of it.
Signed (in whole or in part),
(names, with the ability to abstain or dissent from specific recommendations, and links off to optional signing statements)