Obama Stance on Net Neutrality Shows Import of Net to Broader Economy, Officials Say
Under President Barack Obama, internet and tech policy were mainstreamed and that’s not an accident, said current and former Obama administration officials during a panel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A former official said Obama may never have been elected without the internet. The Monday discussion, streamed from Cambridge, Massachusetts, was part of MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative.
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Internet and technology policy issues “have simultaneously been mainstreamed and they’ve been elevated,” said David Edelman, special assistant to Obama for economic and technology policy. “Issues that previously would have been very technical, dealt with by junior folks across … expert agencies are now increasingly at the forefront of our national dialogue.”
Obama’s decision to make a statement on net neutrality shows how technology issues have come to the forefront, Edelman said. “The president of the United States said the phrase ‘Title II of the Communications Act,’” Edelman said. “That’s incredibly in the weeds and wonky.” But Obama was willing to engage at that level because he saw an open internet as key to the future of the economy and “who had access,” Edelman said. Similarly, Obama has focused on cybersecurity because of its importance to the economy even though it's also highly technical, he said.
“Internet issues are rapidly becoming core, not just domestically, but internationally,” Edelman said. Privacy Shield, the new arrangement for trans-Atlantic personal data flows between the U.S. and the EU (see 1607120001), got presidential attention, and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker went to Brussels to sign the agreement, he said. “Fundamentally, it’s an internet issue, but it’s also a $200 billion-a-year trade deal."
Internet and tech issues have become “so mainstream and so central” that for a member of the administration to say “'I don’t really understand technology' is tantamount to walking into the cabinet room and saying ‘I don’t understand economics,’” Edelman said. “It’s just not done.”
The Obama administration has been focused on the internet since its beginning, said Daniel Weitzner, a principal research scientist at MIT and former Obama White House official. “It’s only a slight overstatement to say President Obama might not have been elected but for the internet.” Obama was initially the underdog whose first campaign for president was built around online fundraising and organizing, Weitzner said.
Karen Kornbluh, former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, said past administrations often had a clear line between economic and tech policy. Kornbluh, a former Obama congressional aide who became his OECD ambassador, acknowledged fault lines were slow to disappear.
Kornbluh said sometimes she would turn to economic officers in the State Department and ask for help on an internet policy issue. “These econ officers would say, ‘Well, that’s technical, we don’t know about that, we do the economy,’” she said. “That shocked me,” because the internet is so critical to the economy, she said. But Kornbluh said that probably wouldn’t happen anymore. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “really championed” an internet freedom agenda, she said. “That mainstreaming [of the internet] is extremely important if we’re going to move forward.” Kornbluh is now Nielsen executive vice president-external affairs.
FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny said there's general agreement the government plays a big role in spurring innovation and must have the right policies. Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, recently gave a speech in which he said the U.S. needs to have better immigration and education policies and the right competition, privacy and cybersecurity policies, McSweeny said. The FTC focuses on “getting the balance right on competition,” she said. “We focus on privacy and data protection and also consumer data security.”
People want new technology, McSweeny said. “We want to make sure that we can have innovation and a lot of really great developments, but at the same time, we have to make sure that we’re not harming people in the process and that people trust in the technological advancements so that they adopt them.” Privacy and security policies are key, she said.
The IoT offers great promise, but also raises privacy and security issues, McSweeny said. “This spring, we brought a case against a router company that really hadn’t followed through with proper security by design,” she said. “You think about a router, that could be first and foremost the frontline of security for your home network. You want that to be operating with the best security technology.” The case (see 1602230032) shows the FTC will hold companies accountable if they don’t keep privacy and security commitments to customers, she said.