[Infowarrior] - Can Techie Oust Orrin Hatch?

[Richard Forno]

Can Techie Oust Orrin Hatch?
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/1,70761-0.html

By Eliot Van Buskirk| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM May, 01, 2006

Listening Post columnist Eliot van Buskirk
Listening Post
Technology policy rarely makes for compelling campaign theater -- and rarer
still moves the body politic -- but I can't help rooting for Pete Ashdown.

In a political mismatch of almost biblical proportions, the tech-savvy
Democrat is running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Utah
Republican Orrin Hatch.

Hatch is a popular incumbent who has polled over 62 percent in past
elections. Apparently, Utahans couldn't care less about the Republican
senator's slavish endorsement of entertainment industry-backed bills that
would, without understatement, create the equivalent of a copyright police
state.

Hatch has terrorized techies from his Washington perch by sponsoring the
much-loathed DMCA. He's on record saying it'd be a good idea to let
entertainment companies remotely destroy the computers of those they suspect
of copyright infringement. And he's a co-sponsor of the Induce Act, a
moribund bill that aimed to hold tech companies responsible for creating
devices that could be used to pirate digital content.

Ashdown is a political novice with impeccable tech credentials. He founded
the first independent ISP in Utah, used to DJ raves, and uses a
collaborative wiki for his campaign.

This has all the makings of a classic Old West showdown between Hatch --
seemingly beholden to the entertainment companies who contribute to his
campaigns -- and Ashdown, who hopes to fight anti-tech policies and help
Congress understand the internet from the point of view of someone who has
been there.

Guess which one I chose to interview.

Wired News: You mentioned that you'd been to the Wired offices before. How
did that come about?

Pete Ashdown: I have a friendship with Brian Behlendorf, who helped set up
Wired's first venture on the internet, Hot Wired (now Wired News). He was
also in charge of Organic and continues to be a member of the Apache
Foundation -- a founding member of the Apache Foundation for that matter.
And I initially knew him (from) the internet rave scene, because a lot of
the early rave scene was connected through e-mail lists and the All Rave
newsgroup, and of course there was a big concentration of that in San
Francisco. So I came out to San Francisco frequently during that time.

WN: When I asked you if you had time for an interview, you referred me to
your online calendar. I was thinking that this openness is admirable, when
so many public figures seem to want to be anything but public, and I also
saw that you have a MySpace page. What would you say the upsides and
downsides of your open approach to this campaign have been?

Ashdown: Well I feel transparency is a big part of my campaign. That is
needed in Washington. And what I see in Washington is certainly we have a
lot of scandal (in which) the Democrats try and blame on the Republicans,
but I view it as a larger scandal of money and politics. And what I see in
Washington is the Democrats stomping around, and they stand up and sign
these ethics declarations for the television cameras, and then they say, "We
need more restrictions on lobbyists," but they really don't lead by example.
And it's a really simple thing to make your office transparent. And when
somebody takes on the mantle of public service, they lose the privacy that
is in regards to that job.

Now certainly their personal privacy should still be respected, but when
they are doing something in relation to making legislation, or meeting with
individuals, that should be open and transparent. And it's easy to do. I
mean, what I've done is elaborate in comparison to what Google calendar
allows you to do. And so for these people to make the excuse that they can't
do it, I don't believe it. I believe that they want to preserve the status
quo. They want to keep the American people in the dark. And you know,
there's also concern about safety. If people know where I'm gonna be next
Friday, a sniper could come and kill me. Well, publish the calendar
retroactively. I think people would still appreciate knowing what's going on
and who you're meeting with.

In regards to the broader question of how MySpace and being open and
transparent ha(ve) benefited me in this campaign, people are finding it
refreshing. People are finding it remarkable that a candidate is taking this
kind of approach and advocating this in government because it's so rarely
seen. On the drawbacks, I really haven't seen a lot. You know, they may come
later when the opposition tries to attack me, but I really feel that in my
own business being transparent has been my policy and providing internet
service in that we document the good along with the bad. And we put that out
for all of our customers to see, and even our non-customers can go to the
XMission website and see what the history of XMission is in regards to
success and failure.

And my competition looks at that and says, "How in the world can you do
that? Because it makes you look terrible." Conversely, my customers look at
that and they say, "Thank you so much for keeping me informed about what's
going on, because I know the cause of the problem when it happens."

WN: My column mainly focuses on digital music, so I have to ask, what do you
see as the right balance between consumers' and corporations' rights when it
comes to digital music, in terms of fair use and what should be allowed? How
do you think that line should be drawn?

Ashdown: Well it's interesting you say individual and corporation, because
there's a third party here, it's the artist. And I think the artist's rights
should be held over the corporation rights. I believe that the internet
presents a great opportunity for artists to make more on their work than
what they were formerly doing with the corporate distribution system. And I
think the writing is on the wall for that corporate distribution system, and
that's the kind of backlash we're seeing from them in regards to lawsuits
and restrictive legislation. So I absolutely believe the artists need to be
rewarded for their work, should be rewarded for their work, and that the
internet presents them an opportunity to do that in a more direct fashion.

So I support their rights, but I also support the rights of the consumer. I
support the rights of the consumer when it's in regards to fair use. If I
buy some media I should be able to do whatever I wish with that media inside
the domain of my own home, outside of sharing it with somebody else
commercially. That is, if I play it in the car for somebody else should I
have to charge them a use fee? I don't think so. But if I'm out selling
their music and the artist is getting no benefit from that, then that's an
obvious violation.

I'm against the idea of DRM because it restricts the individual. It punishes
the individual, (restricts) the innocent from being able to do what they
wish with the property they've purchased. And if people say, "Well, the
pricing for this is so low that we can only sell it to a certain kind of
use," well, raise the price! You know, that's what the market's all about.
If you want to raise the price so I have no DRM on my music, I may pay an
extra 25 cents, or whatever you decide to do to get that music without the
DRM encumberment.

WN: Have you seen evidence as more and more people go online and buy iPods,
that Utahans might be realizing that Orrin Hatch may not represent their
best interests as citizens or consumers? I mean, there are all these stories
everywhere, everybody's getting onlineŠ. Do you think that's something that
people are going to vote with?

Ashdown: I don't think it's a primary issue in Utah, although we have a very
strong technology base and that receives a lot of support, at least verbal
support from the technology base in Utah. I don't think most people are
concerned about fair use as a primary issue. They're more concerned about
the energy policy in this country, and how it affects them at the pump, and
how it affects their security worldwide. They're concerned about health
care, and they're concerned about jobs. They're concerned about the future
of this country economically. So I think that is low on the list.

But I have been making an appeal to not only people in Utah, but people
nationwide in regards to technology, that it is important that we have
representation in Congress that understands technology beyond where the
power button is on the computer, because these laws that are being made by a
senator in Utah or a senator somewhere else affect everybody nationwide. We
all have an interest in getting people into Congress that understand these
things robustly. I get a lot of e-mail from people outside of Utah saying,
"Man, you're, you're a great candidate. I wish I could live in Utah to vote
for you," or "I wish you were a candidate in my state." Well there is a way
you can vote for me, and that's sending financial support.

WN: So speaking of people in Congress and how much they understand about the
internet, where do you stand on the whole "net neutrality" issue? What do
you make of that? Do you think that the internet is fragile, like Larry
Lessig says, and (that) it only exists because of careful planning, or is it
kind of a naturally occurring thing that will just survive no matter what
the rules are?

Ashdown: I tend to take more of the latter viewpoint. I've been doing
XMission since 1993, which makes it one of the oldest internet companies in
the country. And what I have seen is, you know, back in 1993 the internet
was controlled by the National Science Foundation. And when they turned it
over to private enterprise there was this idea that they would set up
neutral peering points for entities to come together and exchange traffic.
Now I'm in some of those peering points, and what I have seen, they're far
from neutral, (and) that this idea of net neutrality has been long lost, in
that if I try and exchange traffic with, say, a carrier on the level of MCI,
they're going to put down all sorts of crazy requirements that there's no
way a small provider of my size can meet. So I am forced to go another route
to get into their network.

Now the thing is that the bureaucrats and the executives of these big telcos
don't seem to realize is that they have as much need to reach my network as
I have a need to reach theirs, even more so when you have an entity like
Google. You have this guy just stomping around from SBC, I forget his name,
but he's saying, "Google should be paying me money to traverse my network."
Well, he receives as much benefit from having the connectivity to Google as
Google receives and vice versa, in return. So if he decides to lower
Google's traffic because they're not paying his extortion fee, his customers
are going to react to that. "Why can't I get to Google? Why is it slow?" And
so I think that this kind of balances out in the end.

I tend more to take an anti-regulation standpoint on the internet, and
(though) it is very easy to say, "We don't want the government censoring the
internet," it becomes a much more complex issue when we're talking about net
neutrality. "Well we should have the government confirm that neutrality, and
guarantee it." But does that mean that I can't prioritize video traffic and
voice traffic in my own network, (which) is obviously needed, that has to be
more of a real-time situation? You know, for a long time I prioritized
gaming traffic, because that's what my customers desire.

So I tend to think that the government getting involved with more regulation
on the internet is a bad thing. And so some of these calls for enforced net
neutrality I don't support, because I believe that these situations will
work themselves out in the end with the market that we have. Now you have
the other question of, well, if you're a smaller player, if you're not a
Google, if you're a mom and pop shop and you're on the rise, is your traffic
going to be discounted in the face of these other entities that are able to
pay for good traffic, say an eBay. And I argue again that there is enough
customer draw on these major networks to say, "Hey, I can't get to this
small entity; what's wrong with your network? What is breaking with your
network?" that the customers of these large telcos are forced into net
neutrality on their own.

WN: So the availability of alternate ISPs, especially smaller or independent
ISPs, is going to act as a pressure valve on this whole situation then?

Ashdown:I believe so. But also independent entities, like some of the free
wireless groups that are springing up. There's a great democracy that comes
through the technology of the internet that really anyone can provide it. If
you wanted to buy a connection from somebody and then send wireless out to
your entire neighborhood, that's in the realm of possibility for individuals
to do. It's not the same case when you're talking about satellite TV or
broadcast TV. So this is a very unique medium that enables democracy and
supports democracy and spreads by democracy.

WN: I have one more, very easy question: What software and hardware do you
personally use to listen to digital music?

Ashdown: Well, on my desktop I'm a big fan of Ubuntu, not only in my
campaign office -- I use Ubuntu exclusively, Ubuntu/Linux. I use Ubuntu
throughout my office at X Mission. We do have a need for a few Windows
desktops for running some of the accounting software we need, but that's for
the secretary. We try and put Ubuntu/Linux on everything, and of course our
servers (run Linux).

When it comes to music hardware, I have an iPod, 40-gig iPod, and I rip all
my own music. I prefer when I buy music to go out and buy the CD, bring it
home, rip the contents off it, archive the CD. Having been a DJ in the past,
I just recently completed ripping my entire collection of CDs, which was
over 2,000 CDs.

WN: Well, thank you so much for your time, and I can tell you if I were in
Utah, I'd be voting for you.
 
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