Fast Company

In 2015, shortly after Donald Trump announced that he was running for president, polls found that only 19% of Americans trusted the government “always” or “most of the time.” (The survey has not been repeated, but presumably, the numbers have not improved.) Only 11% approved of Congress. Those numbers are historic lows; in 1958, when a poll first asked the question, 73% of Americans said that they could trust the government most of the time.

Flux’s app is one of a handful of new platforms that aim to use technology to let people participate directly in politics, at scale. All are premised on the fact that–around the world–representative democracy isn’t working well. But technology could potentially help end corruption and lobbying, allow people to delegate votes to trusted friends rather than politicians, and empower experts in a field to meaningfully impact policy.

Many in the media are already writing the epitaph for net neutrality in the Trump era. And it’s true that with every new press release and statement out of the Federal Communications Commission (and they’re coming fast and furious) it’s become pretty clear that new chairman Ajit Pai is aligning the agency with Donald Trump’s business-friendly and less consumer-friendly agenda. But six weeks into the new administration, it seems less and less likely that Chairman Pai has it in mind to completely kill the network neutrality principles.

Apparently, Chairman Pai is more likely to scale back the effects of the order, rather than pushing the commission to withdraw it or asking Congress to pass legislation that overrides it, two commission insiders who insisted on anonymity told Fast Company. Chairman Pai may “soften” the order by allowing broadband carriers some kinds of web traffic prioritization or throttling under clearly defined conditions, one source said. For example, if a broadband customer is paying for 100 megabit-per-second broadband service, the provider might be allowed to prioritize some kinds of bandwidth-sensitive traffic (like video) in order to meet the speed promise. There are other ways to “lighten” Wheeler’s order. Regulatory agencies like the FCC can write new rules, and they can decide how vigorously to enforce existing ones. The FCC under Chairman Pai might do a little of both.

With every change in power, especially in the social media era, questions are raised about the new US president’s commitment to privacy rights. Here are some of the biggest things to look out for:
1) The Federal Communications Commission Makes it Easier for ISPs to Share Your Data
2) Citizens and Non-Citizens: Since Donald Trump entered office, the news media has regularly reported on phones and social media being searched at the airport. Although this also took place during the Obama era, anecdotal reports suggest that immigration officers are now requesting these searches of more travelers, and of both citizens and non-citizens.

As the CEO of Connecting for Good, a nonprofit in Kansas City, Esselman helps several thousand households at low-income housing projects in the city get free access to the internet. His group has provided such services since 2012, in addition to conducting computer training sessions for poor and working-class Kansas City residents. Now it wants to expand its reach, having recently applied for a federal program called Lifeline, which provides a monthly subsidy of $9.25 to low-income Americans to allow them to get online. But the Trump administration just made it harder for the new program, which launched in December, to have an impact.

Ajit Pai, the newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has announced a review of the program and blocked most of the already-vetted companies from participating in Lifeline, which could make it difficult for tens of thousands of low-income Americans to get online. The move shocked broadband access proponents in both parties, who have long argued that helping low-income and rural Americans get internet access is essential to educating young people and training the workforce of the future.

President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t commented publicly on the issue of network neutrality since his election, nor has he indicated who he’d nominate to fill Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s position or another open commissioner’s seat at the FCC. But some of his top tech advisers have backed calls to reduce the telecommunication regulator’s clout.

"In terms of net neutrality, I think their intention is to deregulate the cable and telephone industry completely," says Ernesto Omar Falcon, legislative counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "I think that’s their intention right off the get-go, and I think that’s a fight that we’ll have to engage in pretty quickly." Traditionally, the FCC doesn’t issue major new policies in the absence of a permanent chair, as will be the case after Chairman Wheeler’s departure, but it’s unclear whether the regulator will maintain that tradition under Trump, Falcon says. But any push to revoke the existing Open Internet Order would require a period of public comment and could potentially spur Congressional hearings as well, he says. And while Republicans and telecom groups have publicly denounced the FCC rules, business groups are also averse to regulatory uncertainty and shifting legal frameworks, says Harold Feld, senior vice president at the pro-neutrality group Public Knowledge.

In recent years, people have become more aware of a type of cyberattack called "denial-of-service," in which websites are flooded with traffic—often generated by many computers hijacked by a hacker and acting in concert with each other. This happens all the time, and has affected traffic to financial institutions, entertainment companies, government agencies and even key internet routing services. A similar attack is possible on 911 call centers. In October, what appears to be the first such attack launched from a smartphone happened in Arizona. An 18-year-old hacker was arrested on charges that he conducted a telephone denial-of-service attack on a local 911 service. If we are to prevent this from happening in more places, we need to understand how 911 systems work, and where the weaknesses lie, both in technology and policy.

Over the last eight years, President Barack Obama has upended the way the executive branch of government interacts with technology. When President-elect Donald Trump moves into the White House in January, he'll find the place buzzing with tech talent. As part of his legacy, President Obama will be leaving President-elect Trump with an in-house startup called the United States Digital Service that pairs the nation's top tech talent with public servants, and a consulting firm called 18F that government agencies can hire to build websites, manage data, or do user research.

But, it took a lot of effort to bring the government to this level of ease with technology. All of President Obama's hard work is now President-elect Trump's to preserve and push forward—or squander.

For Silicon Valley and the tech sector, the ground has dramatically shifted in the last seven days. In the months leading up to the election, the sector overwhelmingly contributed more money to Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. There were persistent rumors that some of the Valley’s brightest minds, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, were being considered for top positions in a Clinton Administration. And Clinton’s tech platform read so much like the industry’s wish list that some joked that it was a love letter to the Valley.

To find out what else Silicon Valley and the tech sector want from the new administration, we asked dozens of executives and entrepreneurs for their wish lists. Most of them included comprehensive immigration reform, STEM education, smarter regulations, and incentives to increase technology development and to spur innovation.

[Commentary] For smart cities and smart cars to succeed, a legal framework needs to exist to undergird the technology. Officials will have to understand how the new technology will impact every corner of their state. States will have to create new rules of the road for autonomous and self-driving vehicles on all streets and highways. And federal officials at all government agencies will deal with unprecedented levels of tech integration in their areas of governance. They will need to understand next-generation technology and its ramifications as they’re asked to regulate a world where technology must be applied equally and fairly within their purview.

Unless our elected officials become more tech-savvy, they will only slow down the role technology will play in their cities, states, and the broader US. We will need our legislators at all levels to grasp how technology will impact their constituents so that they can make laws that work for everyone.

[Bajarin is President at Creative Strategies, Inc]

Clinton generally favors continuing Obama's cyber policies, while Trump calls for more cyber warfare and surveillance.