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Barack Obama's Technology Position Paper: Part 2 of 5

December 27, 2007

In November, U.S. Democratic Party Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama released his 2008 technology policy position paper. The paper is entitled: Barack Obama: Connecting and Empowering All Americans Through Technology and Innovation.

I reviewed this paper for the non-partisan politics-information site PoliticalBase.

Here's Part 2 of my 5-part analysis:

Now we turn to Section II of Sen. Barack Obama's 2008 technology policy position paper. The paper is entitled: Barack Obama: Connecting and Empowering All Americans Through Technology and Innovation.

Section II calls for the creation of a "transparent and connected democracy."

The main points here seem to be:

To lift the veil of secrecy of government and make governmental information available to citizens without compromise to security, and to appoint a Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Government to "ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices."

Well, that sure sounds noble- but also far easier said than done.

For a Federal CTO to be effective, the current technology procurement policies of or labyrinthine governmental infrastrure will have to be freed of stovepipe purchases of tools that don't work outside individual departments as well as turf battles within and between these departments about which systems should work with others, to what degree outside agencies get to go in to computer systems of other agencies and suggest/make changes, etc.

While positive, integrating changes in these areas are to be praised, they don't happen easily. Resistance sometimes bubbles up from field operations. How intrusive will the tentacles be of a Federal CTO that he or she will be able to head an office that can reach down to field levels and nuke what is still largely a non-collaborative interagency environment when it comes to tech?

Do I have my doubts that this can be accomplished easily? You betcha.

Next, we'll consider Sen. Obama's scrip on how to "Deploy a Modern Communications Infrastructure."




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