High-tech bills in low-tech hands: Congress short on techno knowledge

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Weighing High-Tech Bills in Analog
Political issues pile up in the fast-evolving sector, but Congress' expertise isn't up to date.
By Jim Puzzanghera, Times Staff Writer
August 7, 2006

....Almost daily when Congress is in session, lawmakers are struggling to comprehend new technology and the government's role in shaping its future. In the biggest spurt of legislative activity since the dot-com boom, advocacy groups and businesses are seeking new laws to shape the fast-evolving digital landscape. The effort will resume in September, when Congress returns from its summer recess.

They say the nation's statutes once again must catch up to another generation of technology — high-definition TV, satellite radio, video downloads and Internet phone calls — just as they did a decade ago, when the World Wide Web, e-mail and digital music gained wide popularity.

Lawmakers this year could decide whether millions of Americans get TV piped through their phone lines and high-speed Internet access extended to their neighborhoods, how long Internet service providers retain Web-surfing records and how easy it will be to record programs broadcast over high-definition TV.

The task is all the more difficult because few in Congress understand what those engineers in Silicon Valley actually do.

One of the leading gatekeepers for technology legislation, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), has been lampooned on TV and tech blogs after recently describing the Internet as "a series of tubes." The lack of high-tech understanding is so pervasive on Capitol Hill that Vint Cerf, a Google Inc. executive known as a father of the Internet, is considering creating a comic book to show lawmakers how the global network operates....

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-policyboom7aug07,0,2485954.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Demeter]

1. High Tech? Hell, The Pols Can't Even Add

Faith-based arithmetic--only works if you have a dadddy with big pockets to bail you out.

[Igel]

2. Courts are only sometimes better.

They get duelling experts, and have to decide which expert's more correct.

[NVMojo]

3. this is very important to watch and take a firm stand, Congress must NOT

rubberstamp this corporate bullshit!!!