Hillary Clinton on Technology Secretary of State; previously Democratic Senator (NY)

Sub-sections under Technology:
• Infrastructure
• Internet
• Voting Record
• Other issues under Technology

Inspirational, achievable, and affordable space initiatives

CLINTON: President Kennedy's challenge in 1962 to go to the Moon electrified the nation, prompted a long period of American leadership in science & technology, and spurred a generation of innovators. In the decades since, we have explored the sun and every planet in our solar system. As president, my administration will build on this progress, promote innovation, and advance inspirational, achievable, and affordable space initiatives. We must maintain our nation's leadership in space with a program that balances science, technology and exploration; protect our security and the future of the planet through international collaboration and Earth systems monitoring; and expand our robotic presence in the solar system. As a young girl, I was so inspired by America's leadership and accomplishments in space that I wrote to NASA about becoming an astronaut. As president, I will help inspire the next generation of young Americans.

Collaborative consortia for technology transfer of R&D

The innovation payoff comes from the commercialization of research results. The first step is what universities call "technology transfer" and the medical community calls "translation"--demonstrating the use of research results in practice and sharing the knowledge with the business community. The government has a critical role to play at this stage by opening access to and sharing government-funded research results. I will support the development of collaborative consortia that accelerate the creation of new industries while providing valuable feedback to researchers.

1% of federal budget is underinvesting in basic research

CLINTON: Historically, federally funded basic research-- often done without a particular application in mind and intrinsically long term--has yielded breakthrough discoveries of new knowledge and technologies. I share the concerns of the science and technology community that the United States is underinvesting in research. Federal funding of basic research amounts to less than one percent of annual federal spending, yet it is an investment that pays big dividends. I believe it is essential that we strengthen our research capacity, by funding talented young investigators, looking for ways to prioritize "high-risk, high-reward" projects that have the potential to transform entire fields, and enhancing partnerships between government, universities, and the private sector.

Cyberwarfare will be greatest challenge for next president

A: I think cyber security & cyber warfare will be one of the biggest challenges facing the next president, because clearly we're facing at this point two different kinds of adversaries. There are the independent hacking groups that do it mostly for commercial reasons to try to steal information that they can use to make money. But increasingly, we are seeing cyber attacks coming from states. The most recent and troubling of these has been Russia.

Partner with tech community on terrorist encryption

CLINTON: I would not want to go to that point. Given the extraordinary capacities that the tech community has and the legitimate needs and questions from law enforcement, that there could be a Manhattan-like project, something that would bring the government and the tech communities together to see they're not adversaries, they've got to be partners. And maybe the back door is the wrong door, and I understand what Apple and others are saying about that. I don't know enough about the technology to be able to say what [the methods are], but I have a lot of confidence in our tech experts. I just think there's got to be a way. Otherwise, law enforcement is blind--blind before, blind during, and, unfortunately, in many instances, blind after.

Make sure surveillance doesn't go too far, like Snowden did

While she has backed reforms to "make sure that it doesn't go too far," Clinton told NPR that "collecting information about what's going around the world is essential to our security."

"There were other ways that Mr. Snowden could have expressed his concerns," such as reaching out to Congress, Clinton continued. "I think everyone would have applauded that because it would have added to the debate that was already started. Instead, he left the country, taking with him a huge amount of sensitive information," she said, adding that during her trips to Russia, she would leave all electronics on the State Department plane with the batteries out to prevent hacking.

Developing world cell phones open up education & opportunity

There were nearly 4 billion cell phones in use in the developing world, many of them in the hands of farmers, market vendors, rickshaw drivers and others who had historically lacked access to education.

WikiLeaks revealed State Department internal documents

The media reaction to these stories concentrated heavily on Wikileaks itself, its founder, Julian Assange, and the process by which the cables became public. The substance of the cables got much less attention.

As a result, it was easy to overlook the impact of the Wikileaks cables overseas, particularly in smaller countries where autocratic rulers were described in unflattering terms. [As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had to deal with those autocratic rulers].

Post-WikiLeaks "Apology Tour" to insulted world leaders

As a result, it was easy to overlook the impact of the Wikileaks cables overseas, particularly in smaller countries where autocratic rulers were described in unflattering terms. America's senior officials recognized the significance of the leaks more easily than the media because they were obliged to deal with the fallout--the furious protests from presidents and prime ministers whose foibles and private conversation were brought to light. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who traveled abroad much more often than other senior officials, joked to an aide while on a trip to the Middle East that she should wear a jacket like that of a traveling rock band, bearing an image of a globe with the words "The Apology Tour" surrounding it. "I think I will be answering concerns about Wikileaks for the rest of my life, not just my tenure as secretary of state," Clinton said.

WikiLeaks tears at fabric of government

"There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people, and there is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations," she added. Clinton emphasized that she wanted to "make it clear to the American people and to our friends and partners that we are taking aggressive steps" to hold those who leaked the documents to account.

WikiLeaks posted more than 250,000 documents online and provided them to [several newspapers] for release. The documents offer an unprecedented look at the American diplomatic process--from 1966 to cables written as recently as this past February.

Fight for interoperable communications for first responders

Introduced CAMRA to study how sex in media affects teens

A decade of new research confirms that heavy exposure to violent and sexually explicit media triggers unhealthy responses from boys and girls alike, regardless of race. But we don’t yet know the full effects of all this technology on our kids. CAMRA, the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, which I introduced in the Senate, would coordinate and fund new research into the effects of viewing and using electronic media, including television, computers, video games, and the Internet, on children.

Innovations make better parent-child connections at distance

Increase spending for libraries

We can do more for New York’s biotechnology industry

Train teachers to use technology in classrooms

Underinvestment in water infrastructure impacts minorities

CLINTON: Chronic underinvestment in our nation's drinking and wastewater systems has sickened and endangered Americans from Flint, Michigan, to Ohio and West Virginia. Outdated and inadequate wastewater systems discharge more than 900 billion gallons of untreated sewage a year, posing health risks to humans and wildlife, disrupting ecosystems, and disproportionately impacting communities of color. In addition, many struggling communities around the United States have limited or no access to clean, safe water. We will invest in infrastructure and work with states, municipalities, and the private sector to bring our water systems into the 21st century and provide access to clean, safe drinking water. We will also work to bring cutting edge efficiency, treatment and reuse solutions to our nation's water challenges by establishing a new Water Innovation Lab.

Invest $250B in public transit and NextGen aviation

Hillary will fully pay for these investments through business tax reform:
• Boost federal infrastructure investment by $275 billion over the next five years. Under Hillary's plan, $250 billion would go directly to public infrastructure investment.
• Expand public transit options to lower transportation costs and unlock economic opportunity. Hillary will increase investments in public transit. She will also encourage local governments to work with low-income communities to ensure the unemployed and underemployed are connected to the jobs they need.
• Accelerate aviation technology and invest in American airports. Hillary will invest in building world-class American airports and get the Federal Aviation Administration's "NextGen" program back on track to modernize our national airspace system.
• Build a faster, safer, and higher-capacity passenger rail system. Hillary will invest in a world-leading passenger rail system to meet rapidly growing demand and build a more mobile America.

Infrastructure investment creates jobs AND improves security

A: We have to make investments in infrastructure. This will create jobs, not only if we once again focus on our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports, our mass transit--it will put millions of people to work--but it is also part of homeland security. We need to have a better infrastructure in order to protect us. And it’s not only the physical infrastructure, it is the virtual infrastructure, like a national broadband system that our police and firefighters can actually access and use to be safe. So I think that we’ve got to look at this, with the disaster that we see, from the levees of New Orleans to the bridge in Minneapolis to what happened to us in New York City on 9/11, as the highest priority, and it will be at the top of my list when I’m president.

Respond to cyberattacks economically & militarily

CLINTON: As President, I will fight to ensure that the Internet remains a space for free exchange, providing all people equal access to knowledge and ideas. While we must protect this exchange and the privacy of individuals, we must also invest in cybersecurity, which is not only essential to our national and economic security, but will become increasingly important as devices across sectors are networked. As president I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses and we will invest in protecting our governmental networks and national infrastructure. I believe the United States should lead the world in setting the rules of cyberspace. If America doesn't, others will.

Retroactive classification can make any email problematic

Work with Silicon Valley: security consistent with privacy

O'MALLEY: I believe whether it's a back door or a front door that the American principle of law should still hold that our federal government should have to get a warrant, whether they want to come through the back door or your front door. And I also agree with Benjamin Franklin, who said, no people should ever give up their privacy or their freedoms in a promise for security.

CLINTON: I was very pleased that leaders of President Obama's administration went out to Silicon Valley last week and began exactly this conversation about what we can do, consistent with privacy and security.

Q: The leaders from the intelligence community went to Silicon Valley, they were flatly turned down. They got nowhere.

CLINTON: That is not what I've heard. Let me leave it at that.

Condemned China's use of Internet to monitor dissidents

She singled out Tunisia and Egypt, but the country to which Clinton devoted the most attention in her speech was China. Later, Google publicly threatened to pull out of China because of cyberattacks on its email system and the targeting of Chinese dissidents and human rights activists. Clinton's response was swift and pointed: She called on the Chinese government to investigate the attacks on Google. Countries that engage in such attacks "should face consequences and international condemnation," she said.

PIPA: When information is stifled, Internet is diminished

Hillary Clinton captured the problem best in her response to SOPA/PIPA: "When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled, and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us," Clinton stated. "There isn't an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet. There's just the Internet."

This week, SOPA was shelved (though many believe it's not gone for good).

Balance Internet freedom of speech against defamation

Q: I wonder if you think this new Internet media is necessarily an entirely good thing?

A: Every time technology makes an advance, we are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are always competing values. As exciting as these new developments are, there are a number of serious issues without any kind of editing function or gate-keeping function. What does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation, or to respond to what someone says? I’m a big pro-balance person.

Q: Sounds like you favor regulation.

A: I don’t know enough to know what to be in favor of, because I think it’s one of those new issues we’ve got to address. We’ve got to see whether our existing laws protect people’s right of privacy & protect them against defamation. So I think we have to tread carefully.

Against charging for e-mail

Clinton said she wouldn’t support such legislation, but - ever careful - said she was basing her answer on what the moderator had said. ”Well, based on your description, I wouldn’t vote for that bill,“ Clinton said. ”It sounds burdensome and not justifiable to me.“

The only problem is that the proposed bill, ”602p,“ does not exist. The hoax has circulated widely over the Internet since April 1999, despite continuing attempts to knock it down.

Details of “Bill 602P” hoax

The hoax has persisted despite warnings on some House members’ Web sites and despite the fact that ‘602p’ is not a valid designation for a congressional bill, which normally bears the preface of ”H.R.“ in the House and ”S“ in the Senate. Nor is there any member of Congress named Schnell.

Equal opportunity will bridge the digital divide

$90M grant for Children and Media Research

There have been thousands of studies investigating the impact of media violence on kids, but little in the area of sexually explicit me

Voted NO on restoring $550M in funding for Amtrak for 2007.

Proponents of the bill say to vote YEA because:
• [In my state], Philadelphia's 30th Street station is the second busiest train station nationally, with over 3.7 million boarding a year. And 3,000 people are employed by Amtrak in Pennsylvania. Amtrak and the health of Amtrak is important.
• Last year the Senate transportation bill had $1.45 billion for Amtrak, which is obviously more than the $900 million in the current budget proposal. I am offering an amendment to increase that funding from the $900 million which is in the bill right now to the $1.45 billion level and adding $550 million.
• I support funding through the section 920 account [without a tax increase]. We have seen that without raising the cap or without raising taxes, the Senate has been able to come up with a robust number for Amtrak which I will support within the context of a responsible budget.
• We have spent less money on Amtrak in the last 35 years than we will on highways in this year alone. And highways don't pay for themselves, even with the gas tax. Neither does mass transit, either in this country or anywhere else in the world. But we subsidize them because they improve the quality of our lives.
• We have never provided the kind of commitment to Amtrak that we have for other modes of transportation, and this amendment will be an important step to getting Amtrak off the starvation budgets that it has subsisted on for far too long.

Opponents of the bill say to vote NAY because:
• The problem with that is there is no money in the section 920 account. If we want to talk about "funny money" financing, that is it--taking money from an account that has no money. This whole budget takes money we don't have. The result is we keep running up the debt.

Voted YES on disallowing FCC approval of larger media conglomerates.

Chief information officer to digitize federal government.

Performance-Based Government
The strong anti-government sentiments of the early 1990s have subsided, but most Americans still think government is too bureaucratic, too centralized, and too inefficient.

In Washington and around the country, a second round of “reinventing government” initiatives should be launched to transform public agencies into performance-based organizations focused on bottom-line results. Many public services can be delivered on a competitive basis among public and private entities with accountability for results. Public-private partnerships should become the rule, not the exception, in delivering services. Civic and voluntary groups, including faith-based organizations, should play a larger role in addressing America’s social problems.

When the federal government provides grants to states and localities to perform public services, it should give the broadest possible administrative flexibility while demanding and rewarding specific results. Government information and services at every level should be thoroughly “digitized,” enabling citizens to conduct business with public agencies online.

Goals for 2010
• Require public agencies to measure results and publish information on performance.
• Consolidate narrow federal-state grants into broad performance-based grants that offer greater flexibility in return for greater accountability for results.
• Make it possible for citizens to conduct all business with government online.
• Create a chief information officer to drive the digitization of the federal government.

Fund nanotechnology research & development.

Requires the President to implement a National Nanotechnology Program to:
1. establish the goals, priorities, and metrics for evaluation for Federal nanotechnology research, development, and other activities;
2. invest in Federal research and development programs in nanotechnology and related sciences to achieve those goals; and
3. provide for interagency coordination of Federal nanotechnology activities undertaken pursuant to the Program.

Facilitate nationwide 2-1-1 phone line for human services.

A bill to facilitate nationwide availability of 2-1-1 telephone service for information and referral on human services & volunteer services. Congress makes the following findings:

1. The FCC has assigned 2-1-1 as the national telephone number for information and referral on human services.
2. 2-1-1 facilitates critical connections between families seeking services, including community-based and faith-based organizations.
3. There are approximately 1,500,000 nonprofit organizations in the US [which would be listed in the 2-1-1 service].
4. Government funding supports well-intentioned programs that are not fully utilized because of a lack of access to such programs.
5. A national cost-benefit analysis estimates a net value to society of a national 2-1-1 system approaching $130,000,000 in the first year alone.
6. While 69% of the population has access to 2-1-1 telephone service from a land line in 41 States, inadequate funding prevents access to that telephone service throughout each of the States.
7. 2-1-1 telephone service facilitates the availability of a single repository where comprehensive data on all community services is collected & maintained.

Introductory statement by Sponsor:

Sen. CLINTON: In the immediate aftermath of the devastation of September 11, most people did not know where to turn for information about their loved ones. Fortunately for those who knew about it, 2-1-1 was already operating in Connecticut, and it was critical in helping identify the whereabouts of victims, connecting frightened children with their parents, providing information on terrorist suspects, and linking ready volunteers with victims.

Every single American should have a number they can call to cut through the chaos of an emergency. That number is 2-1-1. It's time to make our citizens and our country safer by making this resource available nationwide.

Ensure net neutrality: no corporate-tiered Internet.

A bill to amend the communications act of 1934 to ensure net neutrality:
• Broadband service providers shall not interfere with the ability of any person to use a broadband service to access or offer any lawful content via the Internet;
• only prioritize content or services based on the type of content or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization.

Sen. DORGAN. "The issue of Internet freedom is also known as net neutrality. I have long fought in Congress against media concentration, to prevent the consolidation of control over what Americans see in the media. Now, Americans face an equally great threat to the democratic vehicle of the Internet, which we have always taken for granted as an open and free engine for creative growth.

"The Internet became a robust engine of economic development by enabling anyone with a good idea to connect to consumers and compete on a level playing field for consumers' business. The marketplace picked winners and losers, and not some central gatekeeper.

"But now we face a situation where the FCC has removed nondiscrimination rules that applied to Internet providers for years. Broadband operators soon thereafter announced their interest in acting in discriminatory ways, planning to create tiers on the Internet that could restrict content providers' access to the Internet unless they pay extra for faster speeds or better service. Under their plan, the Internet would become a new world where those content providers who can afford to pay special fees would have better access to consumers.

"This fundamentally changes the way the Internet has operated and threaten to derail the democratic nature of the Internet. American consumers and businesses will be worse off for it. Today we introduce the Internet Freedom Preservation Act to ensure that the Internet remains a platform that spawns innovation and economic development for generations to come."

Overturn FCC approval of media consolidation.

Congressional Summary:Disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on February 22, 2008, relating to broadcast media ownership. Declares that the rule shall have no force or effect.

Proponents' Argument in Favor:Sen. DORGAN: The FCC loosened the ban on cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations. We seek with this resolution of disapproval to reverse the FCC's fast march to ease media ownership rules. The FCC has taken a series of destructive actions in the past two decades that I believe have undermined the public interest. [Now they have given] a further green light to media concentration.

The FCC voted to allow cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations in the top 20 markets, with loopholes for mergers outside of the top 20 markets. The newspapers would be allowed to buy stations ranked above fifth and above.

The rule change was framed as a modest compromise. But make no mistake, this is a big deal. As much as 44% of the population lives in the top 20 markets. The last time the FCC tried to do this, in 2003, the Senate voted to block it.

This rule will undercut localism and diversity of ownership around the country. Studies show that removing the ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership results in a net loss in the amount of local news produced in the market as a whole. In addition, while the FCC suggests that cross-ownership is necessary to save failing newspapers, the publicly traded newspapers earn annual rates of return between 16% and 18%.

This Resolution of Disapproval will ensure this rule change has no effect. This is again a bipartisan effort to stop the FCC from destroying the local interests that we have always felt must be a part of broadcasting.