Obama Significantly Revises Technology Positions 940
method9455 writes "Barack Obama has edited his official website on many issues, including a huge revision on the technology page. Strangely it seems net neutrality is no longer as important as it was a few months ago, and the swaths of detail have been removed and replaced with fairly vague rhetoric. Many technologists were alarmed with the choice of Joe Biden before, and now it appears their fears might have been well founded." Update: 09/22 18:07 GMT by T : Julian Sanchez of Ars Technica passed on a statement from an Obama campaign representative who points out that the changes in wording highlighted by Versionista aren't the whole story, and that more Obama tech-plan details are now available in a PDF, saying "there is absolutely no substantive change to our policy - folks who want more information can click to get our full plan."
It's not just NN (Score:5, Informative)
They've cut out about half the content, and large chunks about what they'll do for kids.
Either they've had advice that they shouldn't be promising definite things (makes it harder to weasel out of stuff later) or they're just cutting down the page size for some reason.
Either way, bit of a non story.
Politician changes mind, big whoop.
Re:Lobbiest money. (Score:3, Informative)
Net Neutrality Position Remains Unchanged (Score:5, Informative)
"Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."
Barack is completely behind net neutrality, where as McCain is not [tmcnet.com], but don't let the facts get in the way of the way you try and put FUD out there.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:4, Informative)
From my reviewing, it seems that they removed details/explanation to make it concise. The overall meaning and principles remain the same as before.
WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
What the fuck are you talking about? It's THE VERY FIRST GODDAMN THING HE MENTIONS.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan
Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets
* Protect the Openness of the Internet
If you're a McCain supporter trying to weasel votes away on Slashdot, you need to say so.
He still supports network neutrality.. (Score:3, Informative)
From his current page:
"Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."
He still holds the same position, he dumbed down the verbage because dumb people wouldn't understand his first version of his website.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:3, Informative)
Hate to break it to you, but Obama voted *for* telecom immunity.
Re:Lobbiest money. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contriball.php?cycle=2008
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's important... but... (Score:2, Informative)
And on your last point, net neutrality is important. Without a voice for the people, how can we hear about those issues? I mean its not like the ISPs or conventional media have their own agendas or anything...
Re:It's not just NN (Score:5, Informative)
"Politician changes mind, big whoop."
Except he hasn't changed his mind, he has simply edited several points to make them more readable.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Informative)
Um, Barack lives right here on the South Side of Chicago. And brother, let me tell you, this ain't the suburbs.
Also, he only became a "millionaire" in the past three years or so after writing a couple of best selling books. He only paid off his and his wife's student loans about five years ago.
He was never "just another lawyer". Ask any of his students from the UofC law school or the people at the community organization at which he worked, for about $29,000 per year.
Don't be a bozo.
Re:It's important... but... (Score:2, Informative)
As he explained, FISA protects the telecoms from civil suits, but it does not protect them from criminal ones; and it's the criminal ones which are going to really hurt the people responsible (with a civil suit, the company would pay the damages, and the people responsible would never feel the pain - instead their customers would get higher bills).
It was important that the protections FISA legitimately provides were brought into effect. If FISA had been allowed to lapse, and that had been used as an opportunity for attack, the current Bush regime would have been cemented in place. This was a HUGE risk for the country.
Him voting to support it was acknowledgment that sometimes there is a bigger issue than something like civil lawsuits - and it doesn't close the door on establishing accountability both past and future.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, since the summary is clearly wrong, which is evident to anyone who actually clicked the link*, I have to assume the sole purpose was to troll. To be fair, though, I may have jumped to conclusions; it could just as easily be a libertarian troll. (Or even other politically motivated troll.)
* Verbatim from said link:
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Informative)
If you all (including the editor) would read the page, current as of 17 September, it specifically mentions Network Neutrality as a guiding principle.
Seriously, the whole commenting section is debating about something entirely wrong. RTFA!
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Informative)
Except Barack's net worth is $799,006.
http://fortune535.sunlightprojects.org/lawmaker/507/ [sunlightprojects.org]
Maybe you were thinking of McCain? ($36,431,099)
http://fortune535.sunlightprojects.org/lawmaker/498/ [sunlightprojects.org]
And if you think you will get *any* change from an old man who has been in Office 30 years and only agrees with Bush *MORE* as it gets closer to election, I think you are misguided.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, this is a non-story. The page still asserts that he's in favor of net neutrality. It looks like it's been edited; some new material was added and old material shortened to compensate.
There's no dramatic front-page worthy change of direction indicated.
Frankly, I think he should include a page on the details of various plans where possible, but the linked page is not that page. It's too long as is!
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Informative)
As I've pointed out elsewhere, the Republicans still control Congress, by keeping it from passing anything substantive. They have 49 votes in the Senate, which makes anything the Democratic thin majority (49 + 2 independents, one of them Lieberman) does subject to filibuster (the Senate rules say 60 votes are needed to stop discussion), and the President has veto power, which can only be overridden by a 2/3 majority in both houses, so again Senate Republicans can keep any change from happening. Beyond that, regulations and oversight are the job of the Executive Branch through its agencies.
As for Pelosi, given that she (as Speaker of the House) would be third in line for the presidency [wikipedia.org] should Bush and Cheney be impeached and lose their positions, I didn't blame her for saying it was off the table, as otherwise it would seem like a naked power grab by her. She hasn't, though, kept other Congresspeople from proposing impeachment. {ProfJonathan}
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:2, Informative)
, and this:
I forget which of those things he later regretted and begged forgiveness for, but he doesn't seem like a Libertarian at heart to me.
I think I'm still an Obama supporter until I see something better come along.
"Change" is normal: Look at earlier campaigns. (Score:5, Informative)
I was watching campaign ads from previous American presidential elections here [livingroomcandidate.org] -- it starts with the Eisenhower campaign and works forward -- and I was struck by how many candidates used the same rhetoric. "Change" has been a staple campaign theme for a long, long time.
It seemed there were three major types of ads:
There might also have been a fourth, "Our candidate is a nice human being!"
Here are some examples of #2, "Change," below (I've quoted the last sentences from a number of the ads at the above URL):
"Change" is exactly what you can expect the opposition party to be selling in any election. The only reason Obama's campaign seems novel is that we have the collective memory and attention-span of a goldfish.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:4, Informative)
Not only that, the page still contains
Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
So I think all that is happening is that he edited the actual text to make it more readable, without substantial change in his position (atleast) on network neutrality. The summary is just an overreaction and an unfounded attack on the VP candidate.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure you can have one of these things but it's hard to see how you would get both.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:3, Informative)
The immunity is not ex post facto. Ex post facto only applies to laws which criminalize something after it was done, increase the penalty to a crime after it was committed, or make it harder to obtain an 'innocent' verdict by raising the burden of proof after the date of commission.
Since the Telecom Immunity provision makes something NOT a crime after the date, it is not technically ex post facto law. Here is the relevant quote from Calder v. Bull, the US Supreme Court case which, in current case law, defines Ex Post Facto in the United States:
In my opinion, the true distinction is between ex post facto laws and retrospective laws. Every ex post facto law must necessarily be retrospective, but every retrospective law is not an ex post facto law. The former only are prohibited. Every law that takes away or impairs rights vested agreeably to existing laws is retrospective, and is generally unjust and may be oppressive, and it is a good general rule that a law should have no retrospect; but there are cases in which laws may justly, and for the benefit of the community and also of individuals, relate to a time antecedent to their commencement, as statutes of oblivion or of pardon. They are certainly retrospective, and literally both concerning and after the facts committed. But I do not consider any law ex post facto within the prohibition that mollifies the rigor of the criminal law, but only those that create or aggravate the crime or increase the punishment or change the rules of evidence for the purpose of conviction.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:1, Informative)
Maybe you should read your own Wikipedia link. Retroactive legislation is not universally unconstituational. Maybe you've heard of the presidential pardon, for example?
Ex Post Facto applies primarily to applying new punishments to crimes that have already been committed; There's nothing in the U.S. to prevent *loosening* of laws after crimes have been committed.
Granted, the telecom immunity is abhorable, despicable, etc., but it's not unconstitutional. And it's a sad day when we have to continually beat on the constitution in an attempt to wring basic morality out of our legislators.
Re:FP! (Score:5, Informative)
You really have to question the submitters' motivation on this one.
If anybody bothered to read the diff, it is obvious that the page was re-written to improve accessibility, so that more voters can understand the issues. Long paragraphs were shortened and some of the details were omitted so that the page does not sound like a treatise.
Some of the items like immigration was taken out, I suppose, because it didn't belong on the technology page. A lot of the text was rearranged, I assume, for better structure.
If all you wanted to know about is net neutrality, then yes, a lot of the material that described the mechanism in detail is gone. However, this issue has been debated to death online and most people have less of an idea of how the internet works than Ted Stevens. I seriously don't think Obama has changed his stance on this, other than to put it on equal footing with other issues related to technology on that page.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Informative)
IMO: Although the pile of democratic nations has been growing, when the ability of U.S. voters to influence their government is considered, the U.S. voter is close to the bottom of that pile!
Well, I'd like to point out that the United States is not a democracy, it's a republic. So, there's that.
Re:When will we learn... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:3, Informative)
That can, and should be, argued. I believe it violates the first, fourth and fifth amendments to the US Constitution. The first is a violation of a persons right to have grievances redressed. The fourth is a violation of a persons right to be secure in their person or papers against warrent-less intrusions and the fifth is a violation of a persons right of due process. All these have been circumvented by the immunity. I for one do hope it is being challenged but don't hold my breath that the SCOTUS will hear it much less rule on it.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:1, Informative)
In the past two years, Senator and Mrs. McCain have contributed [johnmccain.com] $340,323 to charitable causes, according to their tax returns (they file separately). Senator McCain's giving constituted about 28 percent of his income for each of those two years.
From 2000 through 2004, Senator Obama and his wife contributed [huffingtonpost.com] less than $3,500 a year in charitable donations -- about 1 percent of their annual earnings (they were paying off student loans according to their spokesman). In 2006, however, that total jumped to to $60,307 (6.1 percent) and to $240,370 (5.8 percent) in 2007. (Sorry, couldn't find their tax returns on his website - anybody got that link?)
Here's the numbers [typepad.com] for last year:
McCain earned $396,527, paid $118,660 (30.7%) in taxes,and gave $105,467 (27.3%) to charity.
Obama earned $4,139,965, paid $1,396,772 (33.7%) in taxes, and gave $240,370 (5.8%) to charity
I'm not criticizing either candidate here, just pointing out the facts.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Informative)
It's also happened before; it's often called a 'poison pill'. There's been bills that even the original sponsor has turned against it due to an amendment that was attached.
Still, while this was a rather obvious version of it, how about something like option 3 is a renewal of the AWB? Some congresscritters will like it, some will be against it, and the NRA/libertarians like me will be screaming, even though before that we were meh of the bill beforehand.
Well, actually, the 2nd part would have had me reversing position - I'm all for legalizing drugs, but I DO believe drug patents are an important part of new development of drugs. It's essentially government confiscation of the company's assets. Now, adjusting patent rules, or restructuring the FDA/drug approval process, then we can talk. At least patents are extremely limited compared to copyrights today.
Re:Someone explain why it's a bad summary please (Score:2, Informative)
If you visit the page, the information was not so much deleted as refactored. The old page had detailed bullet points after many of the paragraphs. The new page has split the detailed bullets to a second page (linked to at the bottom with a "read more" link) and then used the extra space to include information about positions on other technology issues (ex: biotech).
So, I believe it was tagged as "bad summary" (which seems appropriate to me) because the summary implies that the candidates positions have changed. This does not appear to be the case.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:3, Informative)
Official reply from Obama campaign (Score:3, Informative)
From the campaign:
We've been updating the entire website to ensure consistency across the pages. The full tech plan is still available on the page, so there is absolutely no substantive change to our policy -- folks who want more information can click to get our full plan. http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf [barackobama.com]
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:3, Informative)
That's why rich child killers run free because of "procedural error"
Umm, that's what's supposed to happen in our system. It's not limited to rich kids either -- criminals of from every social class get off all the time because the police or DA screwed up. That's the way the system is supposed to work. Or would you rather convict someone based on evidence that wasn't probably handled or that was collected without a warrant?