By Teresa A. Martin
Can technology be legislated?
I’m not sure it can, but the US Congress is sure trying. There was a lot of legislative activity this week – much of it of resembling the "sound and fury signifying nothing" variety.
All this thrashing is tied to the development of a massive telecommunications bill-- the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act-which has been in Senate committee in its final stages this week.
When I think about technology and legislation, I can’t help but think about the story that our last July speaker, Astronaut Dr. Al Sacco, told. One of his flights was to be a joint US-Russian flight. This was shortly after the tragic Challenger explosion and the US Congress decided to mandate that astronauts train with parachutes and travel with parachutes. Hours of miserable training ensued. Dr. Sacco said that the Russians just sort of rolled their eyes and laughed and blissfully stayed free of the legislated used of technology – after all, Dr. Sacco pointed out, rudimentary knowledge of physic and biology tells us what would happen to a human body that parachuted out at the height and velocity of the shuttle. Let’s just say that it wouldn’t be saving any lives.
The wave of legislative debate over various Internet applications isn’t so different. A large group of people without deep industry knowledge, inflated by huge coffers of competing industry dollars, are trying to legislate areas as diverse as digital copyright protection schemes, sexually explicit web warning pages, user tracking, and social networking. Not to mention the hot topic of ‘net neutrality’ which basically boils down to a question over who controls the data pipelines and what kinds of tolls can be placed upon them.
I don’ think anyone says we should be able to steal digital music or movies – but why not let the marketplace figure it out? That’s basically what the judge in the Research In Motion patent case suggested – that fights over specific technology applications belong in the marketplace. If fleets of talented coders are still working on useful copyright protection technology – why should we think that a bunch of attorneys in Congress can identify the technical answer?
The answer is, again, fear of the unknown and protection of known territory. Heck, if we can legislate a solution then we can bring the unknown beast of technology under our control -- and the status quo will remain intact.
The same is true for the various user tracking, porn flagging, and related legislative proposals. The web is a reflection of all that is human. Attempts to use technology to control human action is destined to backfire.
Net neutrality is another topic that is badly understood and politically loaded. At its core is the question of who owns rights to control network traffic. Well, who owns rights to control roadway traffic? Who decides if milk trucks should get a more favorable tariff than highly sugared and caffeinated soda trucks? Who decides that Best Buy trucks should pay less or more than Stop and Shop truck or than Cape Cod Express trucks? The fear of technology companies is that the vendors who own portions of the digital network – the AT&Ts and Verizons – will charge different rates for different data. This would cripple competition and put a chilling effect on a critical economic resource. Not to mention that all the US taxpayers funded much of the network that carries our data.
But will legislation fix the fear or will it just give us the illusion of a fix? I don’t know the answer to that, but the legislative outcome will have an impact on our country’s ability to compete and invocate. The net neutrality provisions in the bill were rejected this week.
One bright spot that was addressed was actually a sort of anti-legislation legislation. With the public acknowledgment that wireless access and wireless data transport is critical to cities and towns, the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a component of the package that says no state can prohibit its municipalities from offering broadband services.
Do any of these topics really have anything in common? Aside from the fact that they somehow touch online communications and reflect changes in our society enabled by the online abilities, no. The legislation is one huge mishmash of reactions to a changing world.
To me, these frenzied actions in our capital city give off the whiff of a frightened attempt to tame a half-known beast. But technology is no single thing and it isn’t the same to any given person, business, or application. One rule will never fit all. Of course, when we don’t fully understand something that’s exactly what we want: a simple rule to explain it all. Oh, if only life were that easy!
But, alas, there are no easy answers in how to use or not use these tools that we create. I just hope that what finally passes errs on the side of the physician's oath: first, to cause no harm. Time and use will define the structure of technical application that works or doesn't. One can only hope that we give ourselves the space to let the natural process take place.
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