JJB Blog

One of the areas where Obama impresses me is his technology platform. Not only is he hip on net neutrality and media consolidation, but he has a BIG emphasis on using technology to make the government more accessible and transperant. I was going to compare his platform to Clinton’s, but as far as I can tell she does not even have a page about technology policy.

Check out this list of people in technology I respect who also support Obama:

• Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google
  

  He is the most inspirational, he has the integrity to stand up for what is right and admit when he was wrong (a quality that Clinton seems to lack), and he is honest in answering questions where other candidates are political.

  Most importantly, Obama is willing and able to work with everyone, not just with his base. Clinton wants to reach out to republicans and others who disagree with her, but the level of animosity that many others have towards her may make it difficult for her to do so. McCain and Romney seem to be intent on playing towards their base, and have not shown how they will reach out. Obama has shown he can do it — he can be the president that brings the whole country together and leads us in a new direction.

• Greg DeKoenigsberg, über geek, Fedora community leader, something or other in Red Hat communications, OLPC evangelist
• Lawrence Lessig, intellectual property guru / free culture messiah
  

  … I believe in the policies. Clearly on the big issues — the war and corruption. Obama has made his career fighting both. But also on the issues closest to me. … Obama has committed himself to important and importantly balanced positions.

• The XKCD guy, (makes this comic)
  

  Obama has shown a real commitment to open government. When putting together tech policy … others might have gone to industry lobbyists. Obama went to Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons … and longtime white knight in the struggle with a broken system over internet and copyright policy. Lessig was impressed by Obama’s commitment to open systems — for example, his support of machine-readable government information standards that allow citizens’ groups to monitor what our government is up to. Right now, the only group that can effectively police the government is the government itself, and as a result, it’s corrupt to the core…

  Obama stands against bad governing not only in his support of specific practices like open data standards and basic network neutrality, but in his work against corruption from day one. He’s sponsored legislation to restrict gifts to Congress by industry representatives (which also carried a whole slew of anti-corruption measures that were a breath of fresh air). He’s fought against vote fraud. He’s been pushing for election and lobbying reform from the start, and in his campaign he’s refused to take lobbyist money.

  Clinton has done nothing of the sort, and when questioned seems baffled that anyone would have a problem with what is, by any reasonable standard, bribery. I find her basic lack of integrity troubling, and I think as president she would continue fighting to maintain the status quo.

• Tim Wu, intellectual property guru, coined the term “Net Neutrality”, professor at Columbia law school
• Karl Fogel, software engineer, open source software community leader, copyright reformer
  

  Barack Obama is exactly what he seems: terrifically smart, well-intentioned, utterly free of the personal insecurities that drive far too much of the decision-making in the current administration, and eminently electable. He stands a much better chance of winning against McCain than any other Democratic candidate would have. The canard that he’s light on policy simply confuses a primary-season tactic for a general electoral strategy. There’s no point trying to out-wonk Hillary Clinton, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done his homework: when the time comes, it’s there in reserve.

• Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, very successful entrepreneur/investor/visionary, down to earth and fun blogger
  

  Smart, normal, curious, not radical, and post-Boomer.If you were asking me to write a capsule description of what I would look for in the next President of the United States, that would be it.

  Having met him and then having watched him for the last 12 months run one of the best-executed and cleanest major presidential campaigns in recent memory, I have no doubt that Senator Obama has the judgment, bearing, intellect, and high ethical standards to be an outstanding president — completely aside from the movement that has formed around him, and in complete contradition to the silly assertions by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns that he’s somehow not ready.

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