I often wonder how our elected officials can write laws to protect us concerning technological matters, when they seem so out of touch with technology. Two recent events amplify my feelings in the matter. Recently Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” poked at little fun at Congress during hearings concerning videogame violence. Several congressmen considered themselves gamers for playing pong and solitaire, that’s a joke right? Congressman Joe Pitts made remarks that poorer kids would be more influenced by these video games than their well to do suburban counterparts. My jaw dropped when I heard those remarks. The video below is an excerpt from the show in question and is quite humorous to watch.
Now on to the Net Neutrality issue. The net neutrality legislation which is trying to make its way through is in essence trying to protect the consumers and business alike from being charged a tiered level to have content delivered to them. AT&T started the matter off by saying that Google and other companies like them were getting a free ride off the ISPs backs to deliver their content to the consumers requesting it. This is far from the truth since companies like Google pay for their Internet access and bandwidth which I would have to assume is quite sizeable. Telcos are getting worried since they see their customers moving away from conventional telephone service to cheaper VOIP solutions. In essence they want any content not coming from their own services charged extra to get to their customers. This is just short of extortion. Ted Stevens recently gave a speech concerning the matter in front of his peers and is one of the most hilarious things I have ever heard. Below is a clip of his speech. When you hear comments and speeches like this, you fully realize that probably most of our elected officials have no clue about technology and the Internet. If you are going to talk about or even vote on legislation you obliviously know nothing about, shouldn’t you learn about it first so you can make a sensible logical decision or statement?