The first place to start a discussion of Barack Obama and techonology policy is to note that Senator Obama is endorsed by Standford Law Professor and technologist Lawrence Lessig. (Lessig titles his endorsement piece 4Barack)

Who is Lawrence Lessig and why should we take what he says about Barack Obama and technology seriously?

Lawrence Lessig is the founder of the Center for the Internet and Society at Stanford, the founder and CEO of Creative Commons, and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The author of the monumental Code: and other Laws of Cyberspace, in 2007 Professor Lessig began to turn his attention from copyright issues to the issue of "corruption in the political system."

Here's what Lawrence Lessig has to say about Barack Obama's technology policy:

As the technology document (pdf!) released today reveals, to anyone who reads it closely, Obama has committed himself to important and importantly balanced positions.

First the importantly balanced: You'll read he's a supporter of Net Neutrality. No surprise there. But read carefully what Net Neutrality for Obama is. There's no blanket ban on offering better service; the ban is on contracts that offer different terms to different providers for that better service. And there's no promise to police what's under the technical hood (beyond the commitment already articulated by Chairman Powell): This is a sensible and valuable Net Neutrality policy that shows a team keen to get it right -- which includes making it enforceable in an efficient way, even if not as radical as some possible friends would like.

Second, on the important: As you'll read, Obama has committed himself to a technology policy for government that could radically change how government works. The small part of that is simple efficiency -- the appointment with broad power of a CTO for the government, making the insanely backwards technology systems of government actually work.

But the big part of this is a commitment to making data about the government (as well as government data) publicly available in standard machine readable formats. The promise isn't just the naive promise that government websites will work better and reveal more. It is the really powerful promise to feed the data necessary for the Sunlights and the Maplights of the world to make government work better. Atomize (or RSS-ify) government data (votes, contributions, Members of Congress's calendars) and you enable the rest of us to make clear the economy of influence that is Washington.

After the debacle that is the last 7 years, the duty is upon the Democrats to be something different. I've been wildly critical of their sameness (remember "Dems to the Net: Go to hell" which earned me lots of friends in the Democratic party). I would give my left arm to be able to celebrate their difference. This man, Mr. Obama, would be that difference. He has as much support as I can give. [emphasis mine. k/o]

Now, Professsor Lessig is a longstanding friend and colleague of Senator Obama, but he is not the only technology and internet critic who sees Obama's three-pronged commitment: workable net neutrality, cabinet-level CTO, and a commitment to opening government records with standard machine readable formats as representing the best technology platform.

Read what the influential Sean Garrett of the 463 Tech Policy website says in his nuanced review of Senator Obama's Innovation Agenda:

Obama says: "(Let's make) government data available online in universally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities."

I say: Wow. What was that groaning sound that I just heard come from Redmond? Sun Microsystems, IBM. Google, Red Hat, librarians, academics, etc, etc, have been fighting Microsoft's dominating installed base of their proprietary formats in governments that amounts to a taxpayer funded software tax every time the 800-pound gorilla exacts licensing revenue from governments. The trouble is that governments see the barrier of exiting the Microsoft world too steep and the cycle of the software tax continues. But, Obama hit on something significant (however subtly) when he called for "universally accessible formats" like open document format (ODF) to give citizens access to their government data. This is important because if a proprietary format fades away, you won't be able to access documents on it. Data on ODF will last forever.

Obama says: Barack Obama will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information systems, including electronic health records. He will also phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT and commit the necessary federal resources to make it happen.

I say: Amen. This is a big deal, and just hope that this isn't only mentioned in front of geeky audiences. I hope it plays a major role in big debates on health care. The Bush Administration has said as much. So has many leaders in Congress. But, the political will hasn't extended far enough beyond platitudes to get enough done on an issue that could be saving lives today.

Here's the summation:

Overall, the complete position paper is impressive and is clearly full of thought from people well experienced in tech policy. Hillary Clinton's innovation agenda is well-considered, too. However it reads much like many innovation agendas that have preceded it by smart people on both sides of the aisle. I can't agree with everything in the Obama piece, but have to give credit to the creativity and desire to drive at new ideas.

That carries weight since Sean Garrett is an industry guy who participates in these debates from the inside, he's not a partisan politician.

Now, if you've been reading the criticisms coming at the Obama campaign from all sides, especially if you've been taking your cues from a guy whose initials are WJC, you'd get the impression that when it comes to the policy debate side of the equation, that Senator Barack Obama is all hat and no cattle.

I think the above two links prove that, when it comes to technology policy, that charge is nothing but pure bull.

Now if you don't believe me yet, read what Matt Stoller at OpenLeft, a passionate and informed voice for net neutrality and never one to mince words or spare Barack Obama criticism, has to say about the Obama tech policy. And while you are at it, check out what Stoller dug up about Senator Clinton's tech platform:

I've written about Obama's transformative proposals on media and contrasted them to Hillary Clinton's 'Connect America' plan to expand broadband access, which is based on a private-public partnership model called Connect Kentucky.  Well, it turns out that Connect Kentucky is basically a fraudulent front group funded by government grants set up by telecom interests to advance their legislatve agenda and lie about internet access.  And what Clinton wants to do is spread it nationwide. [snip]

I've been skeptical of both Connect Kentucky and Hillary Clinton's telecom plans for some time.  Art Brodsky has shown that the reality is much worse than I had imagined.  Hopefully Senator Clinton will get rid of the telecom lobbyist inspired dreck writing the plans in her shop.  There's room for Clinton to maneuver away from Connect Kentucky, but her plan still doesn't contain a commitment that her FCC will uphold net neutrality provisions.  Clinton's media and internet proposals may allow the destruction of the internet.

Or, if you don't want to take Matt Stoller's word for it, try Jon Stokes kick ass run down of Obama's plan on Ars Technica.com entitled, "Obama's innovation plan a Christmas list for the geekerati—analysis."

Obama has thrown down the gauntlet to the other primary candidates with this proposal. Hillary Clinton in particular, who appears to be on the industry side of the telecom immunity and network neutrality issues, should be worried about losing ground to Obama among the wired progressive crowd because of this document.

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Obama has been sending a message of his firm and substantive commitment to innovation all along.

Did you know that Barack Obama announced his candidacy with an online video? Or that he proposes to host Internet Fireside Chats if he's elected?

Have you met Farouk Olu Aregbe, the founder of One Million Strong for Barack?

Are you aware that Barack Obama embraces Social Entrepreneurship...a winning position with millenials and innovators inside and outside of the tech world? Do you understand that Obama fully comprehends the revoluation in our economy and tech sector that is being generated from within the non-profit sector? Or that Obama's green proposals dovetail with his technology proposals?

I could go on. I won't. I know that you will add numerous further links and proposals below. There are so many posts about Barack Obama's substantive and innovative policy proposals that I can't wait to delve into. This the first of many. Instead, I'd like to make one point in closing.

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Let me sharpen my elbows for a moment and say this.

Some folks have been selling Democratic voters a bill of goods about Barack Obama. They've talked about "false hopes" and "fairy tales." They've trumped up their supposedly superior policy experience to lull Democratic voters into a false sense of security about who can deliver on policy, who has the chops, who has the savoir faire to get things done, to innovate.

I'm here to tell you tonight in the face of that bill of goods, especially when it comes to technology policy, don't believe the bull

I'm saying follow the links. Read the policy papers. I'm saying that there's substance with Barack Obama and there's inspiration. I hope that I've demonstrated that tonight on the issue of technology policy. You can have both substance and hope if you choose; with the campaign of Senator Barack Obama it's both/and, not either/or...and it's about time.

I'm saying, 2008 is a time for us Democrats to dare to think different, it's time for us to start to vote different.