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<h2><a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/democratic_convention_platform_neutrality/">Obama
platform: 'Open' internet, strong IP protection</a></h2>
<p class="standfirst">Democrats duck specific net neutrality pledge</p>
<p class="byline">By <a
href="http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2012/09/04/democratic_convention_platform_neutrality/"
title="Send email to the author">Iain Thomson in San Francisco</a>
• <a
href="http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Iain%20Thomson"
class="more-by-author" title="More stories on this site by Iain
Thomson">Get more from this author</a></p>
<p class="dateline">Posted in <a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/public_sector/government/">Government</a>,
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/" title="More
stories published on this date">4th September 2012 20:54 GMT</a></p>
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<p>The Democratic Party has published its platform for the coming
election with a nod to net neutrality rules, support for tougher
IP protection, and a commitment to get 98 per cent of the
population onto wireless broadband.</p>
<p>The <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform">40-page
document</a> devotes just a single sentence to net neutrality:
"President Obama is strongly committed to protecting an open
Internet that fosters investment, innovation, creativity,
consumer choice, and free speech, unfettered by censorship or
undue violations of privacy."</p>
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<p>Given the complexities of the issues involved, this covers a
multitude of potential sins. Most telecommunications providers
are very keen to sponsor new investment by slicing and pricing
bandwidth to the bigger payers, for example, but that hardly
constitutes "open" in the minds of many.</p>
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<p>Supporting free speech and opposing censorship are noble
principles, although hardly earth-shattering demonstrations of
political courage – but the devil is in the details. There's no
clear support for the current FCC net-neutrality rules, Chairman
Genachowski's vaunted "<a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/07/genachowskis_third_way/"
target="_blank">third way</a>" that the <a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/29/republican_2012_election_platform/">Republican
platform</a>, published last week, extensively trashed. In
addition, the EFF will certainly be curious as to exactly what
constitutes "undue violations of privacy."</p>
<p>In contrast to its brevity on internet freedoms, the platform
document goes to comparatively great lengths to support the
rights of intellectual property holders. While the
administration wants to look at voluntary regulation that
"supports the free flow of information," it's also promising an
increasing crackdown on IP violations and the protection of
America's trade secrets.</p>
<p>The platform says that seizures of fake critical technology are
up 200 per cent, and that the Department of Justice is
aggressively going after those who seek to steal or counterfeit.
Kim Dotcom and the New Zealand police would certainly agree.</p>
<p>To be fair, the current administration has taken some
interesting decisions on this front. White House disapproval
with SOPA and PIPA was <a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/16/sopa_no_dns_block/">helpful
in stalling</a> those bills, and it has <a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/25/white_house_cispa_veto/">threatened
a veto of CISPA</a> cybersecurity laws over privacy
protections. Then again, the administration still hasn't totally
given up on ACTA yet, and the Trans Pacific Partnership
negotiations are <a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/21/greens_against_tpp/">worrying
many</a>.</p>
<p>On the infrastructure side, the platform commits to getting 98
per cent of the US population on wireless broadband, but no
specific timescale is mentioned. The <a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/08/genachowski_at_ces/">auction
of spare wireless spectrum</a> will be accelerated by having
existing holders trade their allowances, as opposed to the
Republican platform of selling spectrum off to the highest
bidder.</p>
<p>"Democrats know that the United States must preserve our
leadership in the Internet economy," the platform states. "We
will ensure that America has a 21st century digital
infrastructure – robust wired and wireless broadband capability,
a smarter electrical grid, and upgraded information technology
infrastructure in key sectors such as health care and
education."</p>
<p>Meanwhile, on cybersecurity the platform points out that this
administration has made positive steps, included creating the
first military command dedicated to cybersecurity and auditing
federal government vulnerabilities. The platform commits to
setting up national and international security partnerships and
doing more with private sector sources to lock down critical
infrastructure.</p>
<p>Apart from that, there was very little mention of technology in
the platform, which largely focused on ways to get the economy
moving again. The next Mars mission, the <a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/20/nasa_insight_mission/">static
seismic InSight mission</a> scheduled for 2016, will go ahead,
and there'll be more support for science and technology
teaching.</p>
<p>Based on the two party's platforms, neither has really made
many firm commitments one way or the other – which is exactly
what you'd expect with political commitments. The Republicans
are vocal on what's wrong with the current system (pretty much
everything, they say), and offer a few solutions in the form of
public/private partnership projects with industry and "<a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/07/open_internet_debate_at_ces/">reform</a>"
of regulations – with a legislative chainsaw.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the Democratic world there are a lot of high
ideals but very little in practical terms of how to get there,
other than the spectrum trading system currently stalled in
Congress. The cybersecurity stuff looks good, but one major hack
and that could well turn into a liability. ®</p>
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