Examining Presidential Candidates' Tech Agendas

Aaron Ricadela writes to mention that BusinessWeek is taking a look at the tech agendas for several presidential candidates. The amount of attention being paid to Silicon Valley especially is unprecedented with the computer industry citing contributions of $2.2 million up from just $1.2 million in the first six months of the 2004 and 2000 primary campaigns. "So even while the general election is likely to be dominated by the war in Iraq, the continued threat of terrorism, and economic issues, candidates have staked out early positions on topics dear to the tech industry, including increasing federal spending on research and development, allowing more highly educated foreign workers into the country, widening the availability of high-speed Internet service to create new markets for hardware and online services, and improving the state of U.S. math and science education."

Conspicuously absent

[allthefish]

i find it interesting that Former Senator Mike Gravel was not mentioned in TFA. Although he's far from a mainstream candidate (much to my chagrin), he's been the oevrall biggest supporter of net neutrality among the candidates. From his official platform [gravel2008.us]:


Net Neutrality aims to keep the Internet free from large companies who are using their networks to limit the amount of websites their customers can view, and the speed at which they can view them. Examples range from, being forced to use the search engines your Internet Service Providers (ISP), only being able to view streaming videos that your ISP deems acceptable, and charging a website an extra fee to maintain the usual connection speed. Senator Gravel guarantees a free and open Internet with no restricted access to any site, for any reason. He will do this by supporting legislation and regulation that keeps you in control of your Internet usage. Intelligent replies welcome, redirect flames to /dev/null

Ron Paul

[Anonymous Coward]

Ron Paul is not for "net neutrality", but he seems to be the only candidate who actually cares about keeping the internet deregulated and free from warrantless surveillance, and stupid bans on gambling and weird ID laws for social networking sites. Does anyone know what his views on copyright/DMCA are? I'd imagine he supports the 14 year maximum copyright term specified in our earliest laws, but I could be mistaken.

Re:Ron Paul

[moore.dustin]

Ron Paul is not for 'net neutrality' because he believes that if the government prevented business from regulating the Net, then it would unfairly jeopardize their freedom (See: Right) to do so.

Other technology votes by Paul: Source [ontheissues.org]

• Trusts the Internet a lot more than the mainstream media. (May 2007)
• Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet). (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on increasing fines for indecent broadcasting. (Feb 2005)
• Voted YES on promoting commercial human space flight industry. (Nov 2004)
• Voted NO on banning Internet gambling by credit card. (Jun 2003)
• Voted NO on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access. (Feb 2002)

Democrat candidate talks about Health Care

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't heard any Democratic Party candidates talk about... ...seriously talking about health care either.

I've certainly heard one, and she stated that she wants to enforce mandatory health insurance as a prerequisite to be permitted to get a job. That's totally nuts!

How fitting that the captcha I had to type in to post this is "tyranny".

Get a clue yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadian H1-B holders comprise a tiny fraction of the H1-B's issued. The big Indian outsourcing companies (Wipro, et. al.) grabbed about HALF of the available H1-B visas this year. And that doesn't comprise all of H1-B's that go to India. China is next on the list. Canada is hardly noticable.

In otherwords, the OP was speaking about MOST H1-B's.

All of the presidential candidates are trying to take us back to the dot-com bust as fast as possible, with the exception of Edwards. If you'll recall, it was in the years 2001-2003 that Congress increased the H1-B limit from the standard 65,000 to 115,000, for each of those years.

In fact, the reason why this is such a hot topic this year is because the visa's issued in 2001 are expiring this year. This is what you don't hear in the media. And the tech companies know very well that they have absolutely no chance of getting the Visa limit increased in a major election year.

So, if you want to relive the dot-com bust years, vote for Clinton or Obama. Edwards seems like the only one who isn't pwned by the high-tech lobby, and actually gives a damn for the average U.S. citizen.

Re:The one they missed is the one that counts

[taoman1]

Ron Paul is against [ontheissues.org] Net Neutrality.

Re:And yet again...

[rolfwind]

He's not an isolationist, he's a non-interventionist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism [wikipedia.org]

"Not to be confused with the non-interventionist philosophy and foreign policy of the libertarian world view, which espouses unrestricted free trade and freedom of travel for individuals to all countries."

As for the rest of your fear mongering prattle, he is for free trade - just not the corporate welfare protectionist trade like NAFTA represents.

And no, when your country is $9 trillion in the hole and $50 trillion of entitlements is looming on the not-too-far away horizon, foreign entitlements (foreign aid) should not be the first priority. Besides, I bet a lot of countries can do without us sending foreign aid (why shouldn't they be able to stand on their own two feet?)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html [spiegel.de]

Re:Edwards the ambulance chaser

[jmcharry]

Do you think Valerie Lakey should have gone without top notch legal representation? That is the case that made his reputation representing a little girl who was disemboweled by a defective swimming pool drain-- and survived. Edwards has made a large fortune as a trial lawyer, but he has made most of it representing individual clients wronged by powerful interests with powerful legal representation. He is also the only wealthy candidate I know of who did it pretty much all on his own, starting life as one of the little people and rising by force of merit. He can chase my ambulance any day.

Re:Ron Paul

[Scrameustache]

if the government prevented business from regulating the Net, then it would unfairly jeopardize their freedom...

Voted NO on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access.

Does anyone else find this a little contradictory?

Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001: Vote to pass a bill that would allow the four regional Bell telephone companies to enter the high-speed Internet access market via their long-distance connections whether or not they have allowed competitors into their local markets as required under the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The bill would allow the Bells to increase the fees they charge competitors for lines upgraded for broadband services from "wholesale rates" to "just and reasonable rates." It also would also allow the Bells to charge for giving competitors access to certain rights-of-way for broadband access. Certain FCC regulatory oversight would be maintained although the phone companies' high speed services would be exempted from regulation by the states.

Re:Racism and Sexism is the way?

[Mspangler]

"white males are born into an advantageous position"

That must explain why I had to join the Navy for 8 years to get the money for college.

That must also explain why my father did not graduate from high school.

And why his father died at 50, forcing Dad to take over the farm at 16, which is why he had to drop out of high school.

You are a dolt, or have a huge silver spoon in your mouth with attendant guilt, or are a blatant racist. I'm not sure which, and I'm not really interested in picking a category for you;