Missing: Politicians who take clear stand on tech

As we all know, the members of Congress talk a big game in order to get/stay in the exclusive club, but once in it's business as usual. (Usually in favor of big business.)

Net neutrality became one the hottest political flashpoints in the last year. But in what might seem to be an odd omission, both Republicans and Democrats studiously ignored it this week when touting their technology agendas for 2007.
Also absent from the list of congressional priorities were controversial topics like social-network restrictions, Internet surveillance, data retention, spyware, and laws aimed at regulating Google and its competitors when doing business in China.

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Both documents are relatively brief and overflow with references to the technology equivalent of Mom, baseball and apple pie: innocuous statements touting the benefits of broadband (who knew?) and improving science and math education (who wouldn't?). Also making the bipartisan cut are calls to reform the patent system, which is about as controversial in tech circles as stating that Google enjoyed a successful IPO.

And then here's a shocker (well, not for those of you paying attention):

"The tech agenda is driven by corporate interests and lobbying, and I'm speaking of Republicans and Democrats alike," said Jim Harper, a former congressional aide who's now a policy director at the free-market Cato Institute. "It's not driven by the interests of individual Internet users."

Harper said an overall laissez-faire approach would be more beneficial. "More often than not, congressional involvement in technology policy leads to harmful outcomes rather than good ones," he said.

Thanks for stating the obvious.

Enjoy the read.