McCain's Tech Policy Silent on his former pro-Internet Initiatives

Missing from Sen John McCain's technology plan are two McCain pro-Internet initiatives -- the McCain Lautenberg Community Broadband Act and Spectrum Re-regulation. The time is ripe to develop cognitive radios with the ability to use spectrum a bit more intelligently than 1920s technology would permit, but the plan simply nods to stillborn past efforts on this critical issue; it provides no way forward. The plan lavishes lip service on "innovation," and this masks the fact that the first two things the U.S. Internet needs have nothing to do with innovation. We need (a) fiber-optic access for everybody, and (b) a free and open Internet. In other words we need a "Fat Pipe, Always On" and we need the telcos and cablecos (and their deep packet snooping) and the government citizen-spies, and the content police to "Get Out of the Way." To the McCain plan's credit, there are nine mentions of "citizen" and only five mentions of "consumer." But the Plan's treatment of the Four Freedoms, which guarantee that "consumers" can buy any device or service they want, is more about shopping than citizenship. Deliberately missing from the Four Freedoms is the ability to say whatever you want to say on line. In summary, the McCain plan says, "What's good for AT&T and Comcast and Cisco and the RIAA is good for America." It's about their Internet, not ours.