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Lost in techno-land: Lawmakers’ computer knowledge doesn’t extend past their Blackberries |
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Written by Paul Chavez, asap
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Thursday, 19 October 2006 |
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 There’s no shortage of jargon-laden high-tech issues waiting for Congress after it returns from midterm elections. But just how tech-savvy are our elected lawmakers?
The issue came to the forefront in June when Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, in a stammering 11-minute speech described how the Internet works.
“The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes,” said Stevens, chairman of the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation committee.
Bloggers immediately ridiculed Stevens, 82, for that comment and Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” also lampooned him. A Ted Stevens music remix even made the rounds.
Since then, several high-tech lobbyists have said many of our lawmakers don’t fully understand the technology they’re legislating.
WHAT THEY KNOW
Lisa Sutherland, Stevens’ staff director on the Commerce Committee, told the Anchorage Daily News that Stevens was being mocked unfairly for a simple mistake — using a “tubes” metaphor instead of the “pipes” analogy that is common telecom slang.
But some lobbyists say the problem is bigger than Stevens.
“The single biggest problem that tech has right now is that so many members of Congress really don’t understand the technology,” said John Palafoutas, senior vice president and chief lobbyist for AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association.
And with technology becoming a major driver in the economy, that’s a bad scenario, said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C.
Technology is far from the only complicated issue before Congress, but because high-tech issues are both relatively new and difficult to comprehend, lawmakers can’t easily fall back on party lines.
Adding to the problem is the 1995 elimination of the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Atkinson said. For 23 years the OTA provided nonpartisan analysis on technical issues for lawmakers.
Yet another hurdle is the generation gap. Older lawmakers tend not to be as focused on using and understanding technology as their younger constituents.
“I think there’s a lot of members who are using Blackberries or their equivalents, but I don’t think there’s a lot of members downloading onto their iPods,” Palafoutas said.
TEACHING TECH
To lawmakers’ credit, says Palafoutas, “I think they understand that they don’t understand technology.”
So they seek more information and don’t pass laws on matters they don’t understand. Palafoutas cited the telecom reform bill with its net neutrality provisions as an example of Congress declining to push through legislation it didn’t fully comprehend.
Meanwhile, high-tech lobbyists reach out to them and their staffers in simple, easy-to-digest formats. Palafoutas said the AeA prepares colorful four-page primers to help lawmakers understand complex issues such as RFID, radio frequency identification.
With issues on the agenda ranging from warrantless wiretapping to protection of children, lobbying requires being “not just lawyers, but also computer scientists” says Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology. She says lawmakers need to know more about technology.
Lawmakers can also look to more knowledgeable colleagues for guidance, among them Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Republican, and Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat, both of Virginia, in the House and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont in the Senate. | Only registered users can write comments.
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