Daily Digest: Obama Unveils His Tech Policy

Obama’s Tech Policy Makes Waves

• Coinciding with yesterday’s visit to Google (video here), Barack Obama announced a comprehensive tech policy plan (download the PDF; what no html? Not very transparent!) that’s winning rave reviews from across the web. Among other things, Obama strongly supports net neutrality, is calling for technological approaches to governmental transparency, and wants to use technology to get citizens involved in the governing process. But that’s just the tip of the ol’ iceberg; you should read the whole thing to get a better sense.

• Lawrence Lessig — the Stanford lawyer who fought for copyright reform before taking on corruption in Washington — has officially endorsed Obama, citing his friendship with the candidate and, more importantly, his belief in Obama’s policies, not least Obama’s positions on corruption and transparency. It’s a big endorsement from one of the godfathers of 21st century tech policy thinking and activism.

• David Weinberger calls Obama’s tech policy “terrific, and squishy only in the difficult places where politicians always get squishy: How exactly are you going to enforce Net neutrality and get the telcos to behave?” Though Weinberger is a volunteer advisor to John Edwards, he’s “glad to have candidates trying to out-open-Internet each other.”

• Law professor and tech expert Beth Noveck calls Obama’s plan “a major and unprecedented step.” Instead of promoting a throwback to the town hall, Noveck writes that Obama actually wants to engage citizens in government. “He alone does what a President should do, namely articulate a vision for democracy in the digital age,” Noveck writes.

• Susan Crawford, the law professor and net neutrality advocate, says Obama’s plan is “refreshing,” and is optimistic about its potential. But, she reminds us, so far it’s just a campaign document. “No implementation plans here, no transition plan, just an outline. But I’m cheering all the same.”

• The progressive netroots are warming up to Obama, too. Matt Stoller — who has been critical of Obama for his stance on the war, but is more critical of Hillary Clinton in general — even says he is “now leaning towards Obama in my choice for President”! A significant statement from Stoller.

• Obama supporter and sometime techPresident blogger Peter Sericks rounds up some other responses from the progressive blogosphere at MyDD, including some money quotes straight from the Obama policy doc. Even if you’re not an Obama supporter or a Democrat, you ought to read the post if you want the gist of Obama’s policy.

• And remember that Google appearance? Wired’s Sarah Lai Stirland says the Googlites gave him a passing grade.

• Obama isn't the first candidate to show up at Google; John McCain, Ron Paul, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, and Mike Gravel have all stopped by the 'plex.

• Other candidates have also come out with tech policies (see John Edwards here and here) or have spoken about the issues elsewhere (like TechCrunch's interviews with John McCain and Mitt Romney). But we hope to see the other candidates respond in kind with policies that can be comparably scrutinized, and we will be digging in deeper on the details of Obama's proposal here on techPresident in the coming days.

In Other News

• Josh Marshall’s TPM Media has produced some great video lately, and a recent slam on Rudy Giuliani continues the trend. Taking off from Joe Biden’s “a noun, a verb, and 9/11” comment, the videos strings together dozens (hundreds?) of quotes from Giuliani, in which he mentions “September 11” over and over again. It hits a high point about two-thirds of the way through, when he gradually changes tense from “before September 11” to “during September 11” to “after September 11.” It’s like a mashup media symphony.

• Ron Paul supporters have done a great job using online video to their advantage, but there’s been precious little anti-Paul video out there. But a new video, shot at a Ron Paul rally in Philadelphia, paints an ugly portrait of some of his more radical supporters (he’s been getting attention from white nationalists). It’s well done, and adds another voter-generated perspective to Paul’s candidacy.

The Candidates on the Web

• John McCain added a new Flash-based game to his website, and it’s pretty funny. It pits an animated McCain against an animated Hillary Clinton, playing off of the campaign’s claim that McCain performs best against Hillary in a general election. To me there’s nothing offensive here, just a little fun. But Ari Richter at Off The Bus writes that if you select “Giuliani” in response to a question about who would be the best candidate to face Hillary in a general election, you’re told that a Giuliani nomination would lead to a 3rd party of social conservatives. Did McCain go too far?, asks Richter. He doesn’t think so. “I think it’s kind of a clever thing for the website,” McCain told bloggers in a conference call. Yeah, but is it true?

In Case You Missed It…

Huckwatcher Zephyr Teachout writes that Mike Huckabee’s web traffic is now tied with that of Hillary Clinton, and his Meetup numbers have tripled since the campaign started using it.

The email wars are flaring up again! This time, Barack Obama writes that he “just wanted to add” to an email thread started by campaign manager David Plouffe and Michelle Obama. So authentic!

In the last day of voting on 10Questions.com, we reached 120,000 votes on the site and faced a huge rush of traffic. Get ready for Round Two!