The USA candidates on technology

Technology Review publishs an article about what Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain stand on key technology issues, such as privacy, net neutrality, stem cell research, and biofuels.

Privacy. . .


"At all levels, the privacy protections for ordinary citizens are broken, inadequate and out of date…So we need a new set of consumer protections that boil down to three Basic rights. First, people have the right to know, and to correct, information which is being kept about them. Second, people have the right to know what is happening to their personal information when they are cooperating with a business and to make decisions about how their information is used. And third, in a democracy, people have the right and the obligation to hold their government and the private sector to the highest standards of care with the information they part of a basic privacy bill of rights that has to be adhered to by every commercial information gatherer or marketer.”

Hillary Clinton June 16, 2006, remarks to the American Constitution Society



“The struggle against Islamic fundamentalism is the transcendent foreign-policy challenge of our time. . . Every effort in this struggle and other efforts must be done according to American principles and the rule of law. When companies provide private records of Americans to the government without proper legal subpoena, warrants, or other legal orders, their heart may be in the right place, but their actions undermine our respect for the law”

McCain, January 3, 2008, response to a CNET News questionnaire



“Barack Obama supports restrictions on how information may be used and technology safeguards to verify how the information has actually been used. Obama supports updating surveillance laws ensuring that enforcement investigations and intelligence gathering relating to U.S. citizens are done only under the rule of law. Obama will also work to provide robust protection against misuses of particularly sensitive kinds of information, such as e-health records and location data that do not fit comfortably within sector-specific privacy laws. Obama will increase the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement budget and will step up international cooperation to track down cyber-criminals so that U.S. law enforcement can better prevent and punish spam, spyware, telemarketing and phishing intrusions into the privacy of American homes ann computers”

Barack Obama website