by Jeff Dorsch
What can the technology industry expect in President Barack Obama’s second term? If American history is any guide, the answer won’t be “More of the same.”
Broadly speaking, second presidential terms have often proved to be troublesome for re-elected incumbents, especially in the past four decades. Since he doesn’t have to face another election in his political career, it is widely assumed that President Obama will go for making significant progress on burning political issues, such as the federal deficit and debt, immigration reform, and taxation.
There was a stark difference between President Obama and his Republican rival, former Governor Mitt Romney, on a variety of issues, including technology policy subjects and related topics.
The Technology page of the White House website sets out a dozen “examples of progress” in the president’s first term, including the naming of the federal government’s first chief technology officer.
While tech policy didn’t get much attention in the 2012 campaign, there are five leading tech issues facing the Obama administration in the second term, Heather Kelly of CNN writes in an analysis. They include copyright piracy, cybersecurity, and privacy rights. The U.S. Senate has twice this year turned back consideration of cybersecurity legislation, with Republicans objecting to government oversight of computer networks run by private enterprises. In response to that rejection, the administration is expected to go ahead with an executive order mandating the protection of critical infrastructure in the U.S.
In addition to consumer privacy and infrastructure cybersecurity, the allocation of wireless spectrum is a leading topic. “This president has laid out a very aggressive mobile agenda and has begun to execute on it. I think the next four years are really going to be about execution, execution, execution,” said Bryan Tramont, a managing partner at Wilkinson, Barker and Knauer. Tramont once served as the chief of staff for Michael Powell when Powell was the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
“We have to do everything we can to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit, wherever we find it,” President Obama said in an address last year. “We should be helping American companies compete and sell their products all over the world. We should be making it easier and faster to turn new ideas into new jobs and new businesses. And we should knock down any barriers that stand in the way. Because if we’re going to create jobs now and in the future, we’re going to have to out-build and out-educate and out-innovate every other country on Earth.”
The next four years will determine whether the Obama administration can achieve those lofty goals.