Scoble's back to pushing his Orwellian "Government should have it's hand in all technology" agenda again.  This time he wants a national Chief Technology Officer...

On the way over to the interview I kept thinking back to our Washington DC visit. Both Republicans and Democrats told me they wish there were someone in the White House that they could talk to about tech and science issues. That seemed to support Barack Obama’s tech policy, which calls for a national CTO position.

Now first, let me just say that I'm extra sensitive about this topic right now. 

I have many friends and several family members who currently work for the State Government here in California.  Currently all those people (about 150,000) are about to have their salaries cut down to minimum wage because the Governor and the Legislature can't agree on a budget after 52 days of trying.

For the record that cut means they'll make $6.55 an hour which comes to $229.25 a week before taxes.  So if two Government workers making the average salary of $35,000 a year are married they'll see their combined monthly salary drop from $5833 to $993 with practically no warning

(The courts have stayed the decision until the end of August but a month's warning is essentially none in my book)

This sort of situation is why the last thing we need is a national, government dictated tech policy.  Because Government can't move quickly and that's exactly what IT needs to do.  A Government based CTO would need congressional approval to make decisions which would be a disaster. 

Let me give you one hypothetical scenario.  Some new threat arises and the CTO of the United States decides we need new Firewalls immediately.  Congress agrees but the Senator from Utah wants to buy the technology from Novell while the Senator from Washington wants to buy it from Microsoft.  Suddenly we're playing politics and the congress ends up debating the situation for weeks while our technological infrastructure gets compromised in the mean time.

Think I'm wrong, look at the areas hit by Katrina.  For all the political blame passed around the bottom line is the Katrina situation would have been avoided if any of the various Governments (State, Local or Federal) had managed to do their job competently.  Moreover, the situation could have been resolved in minutes had there not been a bunch of Government imposed rules that prevented competent people from stepping in (Most notably, the Military deals with these types of situations all the time overseas but they couldn't help our own citizens because Posse Comitatus prevents the use of any Military forces on U.S. Soil)

I don't think I need to point out that a virus hits much faster than a Hurricane. 

That's the point: Government, by it's nature, can only hope for baseline competence at best.  If anyone can name even one example of a Government operation that runs efficiently I'd consider rethinking my position but after spending my whole life asking that same question I've yet to get even one good answer. 

Given that why would you want to entrust more power over things, especially something as vital as IT infrastructure, to an organization (aka the Government) that has never managed to do anything right? 

Addendum: A thought that occurred to me while I was posting this…

Most Obama supporters see George Bush as a bad president with no respect for privacy and Obama as a good possible president who would respect their privacy. Hence, they’re willing to give Government control over our technological infrastructure to Obama.

Now, I’m not saying that is true (I don’t take political sides here) but let’s assume for the purposes of getting into another person’s mindset that it is true. How then does it never occur to these people that a bad President like Bush might come in after Obama and use all the control they gave Obama for nefarious purposes?

2nd Addendum: I hate doing two addendums to a post but I just love this quote from Duncan Riley because it proves exactly what I was saying the first time Scoble brought this up...

One of the promises of the Obama campaign is to appoint a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the United States should he win in November. It’s recognition of tech has a driving force within the US economy, and it’s an idea that I know I’d want copied in my native Australia.

This is what the whole things has been about from the start.  Bloggers wanting validation so badly that they're willing to inflict terrible consequences on the world to get it.  The message is...

"Give Government control over the infrastructure, let them dictate over the Internet and basically drive full speed ahead to the future that George Orwell warned about.  As long as someone's paying attention to me I'm happy"

Bottom Line: Technolgoy does not need the Government to validate it's importance.  It's done just fine and will continue to do so.  Bloggers on the other hand seem to want it more than anything else.

Those who might think I've given up my "no politics" stance need not worry.  The title is just a little bit of sensationalism to perk everyone's ears up on this lazy Saturday.  It could just as easily say John McCain up there. 

The reason I used Obama is because the inspiration for this post is a quote by Robert Scoble in his most recent post entitled "The changing power in Washington DC".  In it he says...

Interesting to have been in that room, though, talking about tech policy with one of Barack’s advisers. He told me that Obama is going to make tech (both the policy of, and understanding of) one of the key differentiating points between Obama and McCain. To me that mattered more than who was raising money for the candidates, even as that story swirled all around us.

Now first lets address the Obama issue.  Regardless of what people might tell you no candidate gets an issue all to themselves.  If Obama unveils an "online plan" then John McCain will have one three days later.  That's the nature of politics. 

So this really isn't about one candidate its about the nature of Government itself. 

That being said, and with as little intended offense as is humanly possible, the above quote is profoundly ignorant of what I think are the realities of the world we live in.  Government involvement is not a good thing.  Ever.  Sometimes it's a necessary thing and that is why Governments exist in the first place but its  never preferable. 

Why is that?

Because Government exists to restrict freedoms.  That's their job.  If you get drunk and then hop in your car you are a danger to others around you so Government makes laws to prevent it.  They restrict your freedom to drive based on your intoxication level because of how dangerous your intoxication makes you to others.  But they are restricting your freedom because that is what Government does. 

So the question becomes whether there's something so dangerous on the Internet that it requires the restriction of people's freedoms.

Because there is a danger in Government intervention itself and that is Government's inevitable need to over restrict.  The FCC started as a service that simply assigned frequencies to people so they wouldn't interfere with each other's broadcasts.  But its now grown into an agency that concerns itself with everything said and done on any of those airwaves and which actually doles out punishment for saying things that the Government doesn't approve of. 

If you remember nothing else from this post remember this: Once Government turns its attention to something it will continually place more restrictions on that thing. 

This trend is so inevitable that it even has a name, the "slippery slope".  Anyone who studies history knows that this "slippery slope" has brought the end of almost every form of Government in history.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Government is as close as we have to absolute power in this world.   

So my question becomes why do people like Robert Scoble want Government involvement in the Internet?  What do they think it will accomplish other than to restrict it? 

Sadly, I appear to have gotten my answer in a quote further down in the post... 

I asked Ross to get Obama online to demonstrate he’s willing to use online media to listen to his supporters and have conversations. I also encouraged Ross to bring Obama out to meet with other bloggers so he could explain his tech policies and how they are different from McCain’s.

So really this comes down to plain old self importance.  They might as well create a lobby entitled "Bloggers so desperate to feel important that they're willing to bring down the Whole Internet to get attention"

Addendum: For the record some will cite "net neutrality" as a reason for Government interference but honestly that, like many things in politics, is a made up issue.  No ISP is ever going to impose bottlenecks because its too good of an opportunity for their competitors to steal market share.  The only way "net neutrality" is an issue is if every ISP imposed those bottlenecks and that is an anti-trust violation and already against existing laws.