My latest InformationWeek story:
Joe Biden has a mixed record on privacy and Internet civil liberties issues. He often votes with the FBI and media companies against consumers and citizens. He sponsored legislation designed to make it illegal to circumvent copy-protection -- even on content and devices you legally own. He also sought to weaken encryption, and introduce a bill like the controversial PATRIOT Act long before 9/11. But in other areas he's defended privacy rights.
Days after Barack Obama named Biden as his pick for VP, political and technology bloggers examined Biden's record and found no clear trend. On some issues he votes with big government and big business. Other times, he stands up for privacy.
Biden sponsored a bill in 2002 that would make it a felony to hack some devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs, according to CNET's Declan McCullagh. The legislation had the backing of media companies including News Corp., but died when Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.
McCullagh writes:
A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks." Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits. Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans' ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over precisely this point.) All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. (Photos are here.)
Biden was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and introduced the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act in the 90s, requiring carriers of encrypted communications to turn the keys over to law enforcement, according to McCullagh.
Biden's bill spurred Philip Zimmerman to invent the PGP algorithm and publish it for free, McCullagh notes.
However, Zimmerman defends Biden. "Declan seems to be trying to draft me in his opposition to Biden, and, by extension, makes it seem as if I am against the Democratic ticket. I take issue with this," Zimmerman wrote Tuesday on Slashdot.
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