The many overlaps of politics and technology

Over the past 100 years I've been writing this column, readers have sent me several irate letters because they were enraged that I would dare to bring politics into a technically oriented publication. For those of you who feel this way, you might want to stop reading now.

Here's the thing about technology and politics: They are inseparable. You can't do things like you guys do at the scale you do with the huge amounts of money involved and pretend that the ugly realities of politics don't have profound implications.

Just consider H-1B visas , the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , the Sarbanes-Oxley Act , the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act , privacy policies, technology import/export restrictions, the CAN SPAM Act (for what it is worth).... It is a long list of stuff that affects you in one way or another, and it's all overtly political, or at the least has political spin.

And then there are the big social issues, such as the nonexistent national broadband policy and network neutrality, which have hugely complex political dimensions. These affect many of you guys because you are in the industries that are directly or indirectly involved, while the rest of us have our technology choices (or lack thereof) modified by those issues.

As an example of politicized technology let us consider the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). I have had more than a few opportunities to criticize this body over the last 1,000 years and for good reason: It obviously has an agenda, or rather several agendas, that are unarguably political and transcend the technical realm by moving into the role of censors, albeit, so far, censors with fairly limited scope.

This topic is on my mind because, finally, the Supreme Court is going to rule on the FCC's authority regarding "indecency" in the broadcast media.

In case you don't know the background to the FCC "broadcast decency" policy it is all comedian George Carlin 's fault. Here's the story: A Carlin monologue was broadcast over the radio on Oct. 30, 1973 and it featured seven "obscenities" (the famous "Seven Dirty Words").

Some guy who, in the company of his son, heard the broadcast and rather than switching it off, took offense at being subjected to these words and protested to the FCC. The FCC issued a "declaratory order" (in effect, a letter that says "Do it again and you'll be in trouble, buster"). The broadcaster got the order overturned by the Court of Appeals so the FCC, for what I can only assume were political reasons, appealed the appeal to the Supreme Court and won. Thus was born the legal framework for Janet Jackson to be fined almost 30 years later for her Super Bowl stunt.