Senator John Kerry, Democratic challenger to U.S. President George Bush, would seek more government involvement on issues such as broadband adoption, cybersecurity, and spam, while Bush, if reelected, would continue to take a more market-driven approach to those issues, a panel of Washington, D.C., technology experts predicted Tuesday.
Predicting the impact of a Bush or Kerry presidency on other tech-related issues proved difficult for the panel, however. Congress in 2005 is likely to start looking at ways to rewrite the Telecommunications Act of 1996, but most of that initiative will come from Congress, not the president, the panel agreed Tuesday.
It's also difficult to predict the effect of the presidential election on two important issues before the U.S. Federal Communications Commission--reforming intercarrier compensation and reclaiming unused broadband spectrum.
PC World recently examined both candidates' stands on technology issues in our story "Tech 2004: Where the Candidates Stand."
Although partisan, both sides agreed that the two candidates would take sometimes radically different approaches to technology-related issues. Kerry would use tax incentives and other government programs to encourage the rollout of broadband and faster broadband, while Bush's position has largely been to reduce regulation on broadband providers and let the market respond to the need, said Thomas Lenard, senior fellow and vice president for research at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a free market-focused think tank.
Kerry would pay for broadband subsidies by selling off unused broadcast spectrum as broadcasters move to digital signals, but television stations have been fighting that sell-off. "Of course, by the time we get [the spectrum] back, everyone will have broadband," Lenard, a Bush supporter, said during the debate on what's at stake for technology in the 2004 election.
While many technology issues are bipartisan, a Kerry administration would have a "level of engagement" on broadband deployment and other tech issues that the Bush administration has lacked, said Robert Atkinson, vice president for the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank aligned with centrist Democrats.
Congress Leads the Way?
Most technology issues over the last four years have started in Congress, not the Bush administration, Atkinson said. "This administration has largely been AWOL [absent without leave] on the tech debate," he added. "The tech people are in the minority in the Bush administration."
Bruce Mehlman, cofounder of the Mehlman and Vogel public affairs consultancy and a former assistant secretary for technology policy in the Bush administration Department of Commerce, disagreed, saying the Bush administration has taken several positions that help the technology and telecommunications industries.
The Bush administration has found radio spectrum for 3G (third-generation) technologies, has resolved ultra-wideband rules and has pushed for legislation that would create a spectrum trust fund to reimburse government agencies that give up radio spectrum to be auctioned to commercial bidders, Mehlman said. In contrast, Kerry hasn't been a leader in technology issues during his 20 years in the Senate, Mehlman said.
Bush has also advocated free trade, while Kerry has criticized corporations that hire workers overseas, he added. "Calling those company CEOs 'Benedict Arnolds' is not the way to draw [foreign] allies to our side," Mehlman said.
Republicans Favor Market-Driven Approach
While both candidates have advocated universally available broadband, Bush's market-driven approach may not accomplish that goal, countered Blair Levin, managing director and telecom and media analyst for Legg Mason Wood Walker. Market-driven approaches may not bring broadband to areas that do not now have broadband, and market-driven approaches may not help the U.S. catch up to Japan and other countries that have broadband speeds of up to 50 Mbps, Levin said. In some cases, the Bush deregulatory approach doesn't lead to more investments by companies, but more profits, Levin said.
"There's a difference between driving investment and increasing profitability," he added.
But Lenard questioned if it was too early for the government to start picking broadband technologies to push. "It's far too early," he said. "These technologies are changing every year."
Atkinson also criticized Bush's leadership in the areas of cybersecurity and consumer issues such as spam and spyware, saying the president has largely taken a hands-off approach. He suggested that cybersecurity takes a low priority at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and that may have contributed to the sudden resignation of Amit Yoran as director of the DHS National Cyber Security Division last month.
"If you look at where we are today [in cybersecurity], things are not very good," Atkinson said.
Bush has done nothing to stop spam or spyware, Atkinson added. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, also known as the CAN-SPAM Act, signed by Bush in late 2003, was written "in response to some lobbyist who didn't want a spam bill," he said.
But technology companies are solving problems with spam, spyware, and other security threats, Mehlman countered. "This may represent a difference in philosophy," he said. "Whether you'll respond to things like spam or pop-up [ads] by saying, 'There ought to be a law,' or, 'There ought to be a technology,' is a bit of the philosophical difference one may find between a Kerry administration and a Bush administration."
