Technology
On August 14, 2008, McCain released a policy paper titled "John McCain and American Innovation" that proposed a ten-percent tax credit for wages paid employees doing research and development. The plan reiterated McCain's positions against Internet taxes and against laws guaranteeing net neutrality.
Crypto notes that Senator McCain and Senator introduced a bill in mid-1997 that would have refused the services of future government-sponsored certificate authorities to those who refused key escrow. However, it notes that by 1999, McCain had flipped on the issue of encryption, becoming "Mr. Crypto."
McCain voted against the Telecommunications Act of 1996, on the grounds that it would not ensure competition enough in practice.
In 2002, McCain introduced the Consumer Broadband Deregulation Act of 2002, a deregulation measure aimed at preventing the government from requiring broadband providers to offer access to competing ISPs in the residential broadband market.
In 2006, McCain advocated easing of regulations to allow cable television companies to offer programming on an à la carte, per channel basis, along the lines of the Family and Consumer Choice Act of 2007.
McCain is against government regulation of network neutrality unless evidence of abuse exists. He is quoted as saying "let's see how this thing all turns out, rather than anticipate a problem that so far has not arisen in any significant way." Until such a time, he supports allowing network owners to control what sites consumers view, saying, in May 2007, "When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment".
In October 2009, McCain introduced the Internet Freedom Act which would prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from regulating broadband providers and enforcing net neutrality rules, and characterized such regulation as "onerous" amounting to a government takeover. McCain has received over $890,000 in campaign contributions over his career from companies opposed to net neutrality.
On May 9, 2013, McCain introduced the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013; the bill would require cable and satellite providers to offer an a la carte service or lose their compulsory license to rebroadcast television stations, require broadcasters to offer carriage of their channels on a similar a la carte basis, ban blackouts of sporting events at any venue that was constructed using taxpayer money, and would allow the FCC to pull and auction off the broadcast licenses of any broadcaster who shifts their over-the-air programming to cable-only (in response to similar threats in response to the controversy surrounding the service Aereo).
Read more about this topic: Political Positions Of John Mc Cain, Economic Policy
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power ... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)
“If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)