Two leading thinkers at the intersection of technology and politics on Friday challenged all 2008 presidential candidates to adopt a comprehensive technical platform that includes protections for Net Neutrality and the expansion of open Internet access to available public spectrum.

Speaking during the Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) Conference in New York, Andrew Rasiej said: “It’s time that high speed access to the Internet be recognized as a public good, like water, available to all Americans at a low cost.

The Medium Is the Message

In a release circulated later in the day, Rasiej, who runs PDF and TechPresident alongside editor Micah Sifry, called on candidates to “firmly support ‘Net Neutrality’ and forbid Internet service providers from discriminating among content based on origin, application or type.” The release added:

“By issuing this call, they are elevating the issue’s prominence in the election and asking voters to judge America’s next leader by how well he or she would accelerate the country’s conversion from the industrial age to the connected economy of the 21st century.”

“We’re calling on the next inhabitant of the White House to articulate more clearly where they stand and what they will do to bring the United States into the 21st century,” Sifry said Friday. “The Internet is the dial tone of the 21st century. If you aren’t connected, it’s as if you don’t have a phone.”

“Politicians still don’t know the difference between a server and a waiter,” Rasiej said during the conference “Technology shifts the power much more into the hands of the voter.” With this change, we need to be certain that citizen’s Web connection is not manipulated in ways that could discourage his or her participation.

Some in the race have already come out on neutrality. Let’s see how soon they take up other components of the PDF platform.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.-->