Why Congress Needs The Office Of Technology Assessment More Than Ever

from the bring-it-back dept

In 2015, following a tragic shooting in San Bernardino, California, Congress faced a difficult issue. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was in possession of a locked iPhone that belonged to one of the shooters, and it wanted to gain access to that phone as part of its investigation. Members of Congress found themselves in the middle of a contentious debate over whether Apple should be required to unlock the phone to give the FBI access to its contents. During this pivotal time, Congress did not have an unbiased source of information to turn to for an explanation of the technical feasibility and societal implications of requiring Apple to enable the FBI to bypass those protections. In the absence of such a source, we were forced to rely solely on the input of the FBI and of Apple—two players who had strong, conflicting interests at play in the debate.

But that wasn’t always the case. For more than twenty years we had the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), an independent, bipartisan agency set up to provide unbiased information on technology and its potential impacts. However, in 1995 the agency was defunded, stripping Congress of the ability to access unbiased tech advisors as we entered the digital age. Today, as Americans are feeling the effects of emerging technologies—including issues around data privacy and artificial intelligence—we are experiencing the repercussions of the decision to defund this vital piece of the Congressional support system.

Although some have suggested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s new Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) team should fulfill the role of the OTA, or that the combination of GAO and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) can meet Congress’ technology expertise needs, relying solely on GAO and CRS for all of our technology assessment needs is a short-sighted solution. Despite the potential of GAO’s new STAA team and the fine tradition of CRS, neither of these two organizations—independently or combined—fill the void left by the shuttering of the OTA. In the ecosystem of Congressional support agencies CRS summarizes; GAO evaluates; and the OTA anticipates.

During the encryption debate following the San Bernardino shooting, CRS generated a report outlining the debate and summarizing existing knowledge and laws on encryption and law enforcement investigations. GAO could have initiated a study focused on analyzing what happened and how the situation could be handled in the future. However, only the OTA is set up to anticipate this issue and have the foundational expertise to inform Congress about both the technological and policy questions at play when the issue arose.

Americans are starting to take notice of the lack of effective lawmaking following some of the biggest technology scandals in recent times. Without the OTA’s forward-thinking approach, Congress’ ability to address the technological challenges of the present, and of the future, will fall short of what effective lawmaking during the ever-evolving digital age demands. A well-funded agency whose sole purpose is advising Congress on technology issues, free from the influence of corporate and special interests, is absolutely necessary.

Congress’ technology assessment needs will only continue to grow as we work to anticipate the potential benefits and effects of emerging technologies. As we consider the use of technologies such as AI, facial recognition, quantum computing, and emerging energy storage and generation in both the private and public sectors, it is increasingly important that Congress have unbiased assessments of what is on the horizon. While CRS and GAO are well equipped to look at what is known and what has already happened, and to identify questions and gaps, the OTA’s role is to chart the way forward by generating new knowledge that answers those questions and fills those gaps.

We must make strategic investments in our ability to encourage innovation, understand its benefits, and help constituents be best equipped for the challenges emerging technologies may bring. Technology is transforming our daily lives. We should not fear it; we should be well-prepared to deal with the changes it will create—the Office of Technology Assessment will help us do just that.

Filed Under: congress, office of technology assessment, ota, politicians, tech literacy

Can We Make Congress Less Dumb About Technology?

from the one-can-hope! dept

Earlier this week, a bunch of organizations -- including Techdirt's own sister organization, the Copia Institute -- announced the launch of a new project, called Future Congress. It's a coalition of organizations, some of whom rarely agree on anything with some of the other members. It is made up of organizations with a variety of political viewpoints and policy ideas. But, this coalition does agree one one thing: we need to stop Congress from being so damn clueless about technology.

For many years, we've talked about the unfortunate decision by a Newt Gingrich-led Congress back in the mid-90s to dismantle the Office of Technology Assessment (or OTA). This was the organization that was a non-partisan, careful think tank focused on providing useful technology briefings to anyone in Congress who needed it. And yet, just as technology was becoming central to our every day lives, Congress defunded it (technically, the office still exists on the books, but it has no funding and no staff). Over the years there have been many calls to bring OTA back, and every so often someone in Congress floats a bill... which always gets shot down (the latest was just a few months ago).

The goal of the Future Congress coalition is to try to convince Congress to fix this -- for its own good. For many, many, many years now, we've highlighted how every time there's a hearing related to issues regarding technology, nearly all of our elected officials come off looking totally clueless to a degree that is outright embarrassing. They could easily fix this -- in a way that will both stop making them look clueless in front of the world and likely lead to better policy outcomes. Hopefully, they realize this.

I will note that last month there were some baby steps towards this, with Congress putting some language into an appropriations bill that fund a study of reviving the OTA while also moving to let the GAO take on some of the work that OTA used to do. It's unclear if this will actually survive or do very much, and Congress should be willing to step up and do much more. Hopefully, this Future Congress coalition will help make it clear to Congress why it should stop being so ignorant on technology -- especially when it has the means to better educate itself.

Filed Under: congress, future congress, gao, office of technology assessment, ota, tech literacy, technology

Ignorant Politicians Are Bad But Arrogant Politicians Are Worse

from the humility dept

Adam Thierer points out a Washington Post op-ed arguing that politicians should be embarrassed about their tech ignorance. Now, obviously it would always be better to have politicians who were more knowledgeable about the technology industry, and Sen. Steven's inability to tell the difference between an "Internet" and an "e-mail" was kind of embarrassing. Certainly, politicians who head committees where tech-related subjects are a major focus have a responsibility to have at least a minimal competence with technical concepts. And there are a few tech-savvy members of Congress, with Rush Holt and Rick Boucher as outstanding examples. We could certainly use more members of Congress with their in-depth understanding of tech issues.

However, I don't think it's reasonable to expect every politician to be an expert on tech issues, and actually think we should give some credit to politicians who are willing to admit that they don't know very much about technology. Our elected officials are asked to vote on a truly mind-boggling array of topics, from foreign policy to health care and from agriculture subsidies to copyright law. It's not physically possible for a Congressman, much less a president, to become an expert on every subject about which he's expected to cast a vote. And so it's perfectly reasonable for elected officials to pledge, as Sen. McCain did, that they would seek out deputies who would be experts on the subjects they don't personally know very much about. The alternative is not to find philosopher-kings who are experts about every subject they are responsible for regulating. The alternative is politicians who delude themselves into thinking they're experts and rush headlong into passing ill-conceived bills. That leads to a lot of poorly thought out legislative proposals. A politician who knows his own limitations will at least think twice before proposing legislation on a subject he doesn't understand. And that can only be a good thing.

Filed Under: politicians, tech literacy