May 18, 2007
PDF2007: The Next Tech Candidate?
Live Dispatches From The 4th Annual Personal Democracy Forum In New York
NEW YORK – It’s hard to imagine any candidate that doesn’t want to be the next “Tech President.” There’s the single-story news buzz from trying Twitter or text messaging. There’s the online blog support from the influential Netroots and Rightroots. And then there are the Silicon Valley and NoVa campaign donations, which despite traditionally giving to Democrats are increasingly donating to Republicans too. Take, for example, John McCain, Bill Richardson and others recent visits to Google’s California HQ.
All of those reasons are why almost all of the campaigns have sent representatives from their Internet teams to this year’s Personal Democracy Forum today. This years conference is more than 750 people strong, according to organizers, including 100-plus media covering the conference today at Pace University in downtown Manhattan. And the event has almost doubled in size since last year.
But not one candidate has a comprehensive technology policy, say PDF/TechPresident.com Founder and Editor Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry. So conference organizers have challenged all the WH ’08 candidates to sign onto their Tech President pledge or come up with their own policy alternatives. Sifry said the pledge has not been personally delivered to every campaign, but many of the WH '08 e-campaign aides at the conference (including ones from Obama, Romney and Clinton) have told him that they’re sending it on campaign HQ to take a look at it.
Except for on a wonky level, this pledge is not a big deal until a candidate actually signs PDF’s challenge – even more so if they do it by the end of the day. In that case, that candidate is showing he or she is willing to seek (or kiss up to) the heart and wallet of the Internet community.
Check out a broken down version of the tech president pledge/petition after the jump, or read the full version here [SHIRA TOEPLITZ].
*Declare the Internet a "Public Good" in the same way we think of water, electricity, highways, or public education and massively accelerate its deployment universally and at low cost;
*Commit to making Wireless connectivity universal and accelerate the creation of a wireless blanket to help create efficiencies in how our government delivers services, how emergency communications are enabled, and how education and health resources are available.
*Go from "No Child Left Behind” to "Every Child Connected" and dramatically increase Internet access in education at home and in schools;
*Commit to giving Americans a "Connected Democracy" with access to government activities, hearings and data;
*Firmly support "Net Neutrality" and forbid Internet service providers from discriminating among content based on origin, application or type.
*Build a National “NetGuard” of technologists to be deployed in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster to rebuild communication networks, databases, and aide in relief and recovery;
Posted at 12:30 PM
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