Tech Policy's Dirty Dozen

A recent report from the Cato Institute discusses the steady increase in legislative and regulatory activity surrounding technology—noting that nearly 350 tech-related pieces of bills were proposed in the 107th Congress—a large increase. While some of these are promotional in character, alarmingly most are more regulatory in nature. Cato is right to worry that politicizing this dynamic industry and imposing a traditional command and control regulatory paradigm subject to the whims of the bureaucratic elites under the canard of "public interest" would be an unmitigated disaster.

The Economist is right to point out that much of this has been brought on by the technology community itself and that government programs and investment have contributed to tech development, though they are wrong to brush off Valley libertarianism and to suggest that “Without money from the Pentagon, Silicon Valley might still be covered with fruit orchards” in this fairly snooty article.

While the tech community occasionally gets rankled when politicians mess with options accounting or do Hollywood’s dirty work for them, by-and-large it has stood by or even lent a hand as Pandora’s box has been opening. Are we prepared for technology to wallow in the regulatory morass that the telecom and biotech industries endure? I can’t think of a greater danger to the dynamism and growth of the tech industry.

Cato’s list follows: