Technology and Legislation

As a member of the government group, I'm excited to start looking at some of the effects of technology growth on government. Having just read an article about the need for more regulatory laws restricting the ability of corporations to use technology to gather private information about their customers, I want to focus for now on the legislative branch. I'd like to look at where we've been, where we are now, and where we're headed.

Yep, that's the one.
Note the Walkman capabilities.

As I read the article, a thought struck me about something that my ISys 201 teacher told us last semester. I don't remember the exact statistic, but the point was that if transportation technology were improving as fast as information technology, we'd be able to travel around the world... well, a heck of a lot faster than we can now. Really though, everybody knows technology is improving fast. In fact, just last night I was thinking about my little Sony Ericsson that I had not to long ago, and how I always felt like the internet on that phone was a joke, and I wondered why anyone would ever need internet on their phone. Obviously times change. The reason this concerns me though, is that our government was not designed to be a fast moving entity. On the contrary, it was designed to take quite some time and a fair amount of hassle to get anything done, mostly to prevent rash decisions. It seems, however, that this does not coincide well with the ever adapting world of information technology.

For the next few posts then I'll begin outlining the life and works of three congressional subcommittees:

• Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology & the Law (which I'll likely have to abbreviate from now on as PTL, for obvious reasons)
•  Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet (CTI)
• House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation (TI... admit it, "whatever you like" is now stuck in your head). 

For each subcommittee I'll be focusing on the following areas:

• History
• Foundation, development, past legislation
• Recent and ongoing activity
• Growth
• Ability to adapt to rapidly changing technological environment
• Jurisdiction
• Areas of expertise 
• Members
• Representation according to political party - impact on legislation

I'm looking forward to focusing in on this area, and hopefully I'll be able to find some insights about the short and long term effects of technological growth with respect to congressional legislation.