High Tech Voting Guide

If, like me, you’re having trouble deciding who to vote for, ITIC has a High Tech Voting Guide. There, they list whether Senators and Representatives voted “pro-IT”.

According to a C|Net article on the voting guide, apparently Republicans are generally more pro-IT than Democrats (which surprised me a bit).

The trade association released only a list of how individual politicians voted, but an analysis performed by CNET News.com shows that House Republicans voted in accordance with the tech industry's views 89 percent of the time, compared with just 43 percent of the time for Democrats. […]

But then, I came across this bit which explained how the (sometimes) freedom-restricting Republicans ended up with such a pro-IT rating. Essentially, the guide ends up being pro-IT business, and not necessarily pro-technology:

Two votes that ITIC liked—on a computer crime bill and on an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—were controversial among civil liberties and privacy groups.

In July, the House voted for a computer crime bill that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers and expand police ability to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without obtaining a court order first. The liberal Electronic Privacy Information Center and the conservative Free Congress Foundation both opposed it, but ITIC and other business groups lobbied for the measure.

Hmm, maybe this particular “high-tech guide” isn’t so great after all... Now, if only I could find a freedom-based voting guide :-/.

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