On Democrats' wish list: Tech help for a clueless Congress

[turbinetree]

Advocates say reviving the Office of Technology Assessment would be one way to help Congress get a grip on the complex topics it is trying to tackle.

By NANCY SCOLA 12/29/2018 07:05 AM EST

Lawmakers' cluelessness at regulating the powerful yet controversy-plagued technology industry is fueling a new push by Democrats to bring back the squad of congressional tech advisers that Newt Gingrich abolished in the 1990s.

Advocates say reviving the Office of Technology Assessment would be one way to help Congress get a grip on the complex topics it is trying to tackle, ranging from digital privacy, encryption and quantum computing to online election interference and allegations of social media political bias. In the past year, lawmakers have appeared perplexed by the basics of modern technology — as shown by their struggles to piece together coherent questions during hearings with the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google.

“I use your apparatus often,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) told Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a hearing this month, referring to the company’s search engine. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who has been in office since 1976, offered the most rudimentary of questions to Facebook CEO Zuckerberg in April: How does his multibillion dollar company make money? (“Senator, we run ads,” Zuckerberg said, failing to suppress a grin.)

The displays of tech illiteracy drew a lot of mockery at the time. But the months since then have brought new revelations about Facebook’s business practices, including its sharing of users’ data with other tech companies, as well as questions on issues such as the way Google’s search algorithms give more or less prominence to certain kinds of content.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/29/democrats-technology-congress-1074187

[blaze]

1. Technology is current day weaponry

and we are very much under attack.

Seems we should be doing more than (or in addition to) reviving an office.

When you read about all the tendrils of cyber stuff... and see Microsoft and Facebook teaming up with the Russian version of Google.... https://news.clearancejobs.com/2018/12/23/russian-search-engine-and-facebook-align-what-could-go-wrong/

[turbinetree]

2. I agree....................

What is remarkable is that back in the day, when a company came along, they did not do business with communist country anywhere, just because of the principles, and now that globalization is the new word for greed, they do not have any problem taking that alliance one step further and turning a blind eye, just so the stock acquires a value.

There is article out in the New York Magazine which is also a good read :

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/how-much-of-the-internet-is-fake.html

[area51]

3. Hell,

idiot Giuliani thinks Twitter allowed him to be hacked.

[turbinetree]

4. Thanks for the refresher.....................