The Personal Democracy
Forum has outlined a six-point technical agenda that it believes
presidential candidates should support:
- Declare the Internet a public good.
- Commit to providing affordable high-speed wireless Internet access
nationwide. - Declare a "Net Neutrality" standard.
- Instead of “No Child Left Behind,” our goal should be “Every Child
Connected.” - Commit to building a connected democracy.
- Create a national tech corps.
More detail on each of these is available at the Forum’s web site. You also
can sign on as a supporter of these principles.
As much as I would like to see a President — and Congress and Senate — with more tech-savvy, this six-point agenda isn’t the way to go. Net neutrality is hugely important, and the “connected democracy” idea — which from the original article appears to entail making public records and hearings freely available online — seems good. But three of the remaining four (points 1, 2, and 6) are nothing more than Big Government Programs with all the promise of bloat, pork projects, and inefficiency that Big Government Programs usually involve. And point 4 isn’t really even an agenda item but jsut a new buzzword.
How about an agenda that leverages what America does best — come up with creative innovations through the use of free markets untampered-with by government interests? I didn’t see a word of that in the article.