Presidential candidates stake out tech positions

To help voters weigh in on Super Tuesday, here's the rundown on where presidential candidates stand on tech-related issues.

Senator Hillary Clinton
New York Democrat Clinton, like other candidates, hasn't made tech issues a central part of her campaign, but she has championed an " innovation agenda" as one of her top issues. That agenda includes several policies that many large tech companies have embraced.

Clinton wants to pump up the basic research budgets at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the Department of Defense by 50 percent over 10 years.

She also would require that federal research agencies set aside at least 8 percent of their research budgets for discretionary funding of high-risk research, and she would increase funding for research on Internet- and IT-based tools, including supercomputing and simulation software.

"Under the Bush administration, agencies like the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reduced support for truly revolutionary research," Clinton's Web site says. "This is a problem because DARPA has played a major role in maintaining America's economic and military leadership. DARPA backed such projects as the Internet, stealth technology, and the Global Positioning System."

Clinton also wants tax incentives to encourage broadband providers to deploy services in underserved areas. She has called for federal support of state and local broadband programs, including municipal broadband projects. Clinton has also called for a research-and-development tax credit, extended temporarily multiple times since 1981, to be made permanent.

Clinton has said she would support net neutrality regulations for U.S. broadband providers.

Senator Barack Obama
The Illinois Democrat in November released an extensive tech policy paper, earning him praise from several tech groups.

Obama gets technology, said Julius Genachowski, co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and a longtime friend. "He will be a true 21st-century president, using technology to improve the lives of all Americans," Genachowski said at a tech forum last week.

In the tech agenda, Obama called for net neutrality regulations for broadband carriers. "Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices," he said in his tech policy.

Parents need better tools and information to control what their children see on the Internet and television, he said.

He called for greater privacy protections for all U.S. residents, including Internet users, and he said government and businesses should be held accountable for privacy violations. He wants an update of government surveillance laws that allow intelligence-gathering on U.S. citizens to be done "only under the rule of law."

Obama would also increase the Federal Trade Commission's enforcement budget and focus increased international cooperation to track down cybercriminals.

Obama also wants to make government data more available online. He would revamp a number of existing programs and create some new ones to help roll out broadband in the United States. He called for a review of wireless spectrum use in the United States and said he would "confront the entrenched Washington interests that have kept our public airwaves from being maximized for the public's interest."

He has pledged to make the research-and-development tax credit permanent. He also called for patent reform, primarily by giving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more resources to improve patent quality.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/05/Presidential-candidates-stake-out-tech-positions_3.html