[flomo]

Not that I ever gave a wit about Bob Dole, but this is HN relevant:

Bill Clinton Wants to Put "Big Brother" in Your Computer

Bill Clinton believes in bureaucratic micro-management of the information economy.

Within his first 100 days as President, Bill Clinton proposed the Clipper Chip -- a secret government-controlled encryption algorithm -- and a companion key escrow system where two government agencies would hold a copy of the keys for every Clipper user. Since then Bill Clinton has released updated versions of encryption proposals which insist that the government hold a key to individual's private data communications.

The Clinton Administration's Internet Task Force has proposed legislation that would reduce the rights of users of copyrighted material if that information is used on the Internet. Their infamous "NII White Paper" ignored important court decisions which balance the rights of information users with those of information creators.

Bob Dole Will Protect the Constitutional Liberty of Internet Users...

[Natsu]

It's amazing when a candidate from 1996 sounds more reasonable on tech issues than most of the modern candidates.

[flomo]

Or in 1996, it was easier to put up a page on your website which panders to some hypothetical internet libertarian demographic that might vote for you.

Ultimately this is just typical American presidential political theater. By election day 1996, Dole and Clinton were in almost total agreement on internet issues. Telecommunications Act, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, etcetera.

[Natsu]

In 1996, good luck finding many people who thought copyright was going overboard or talking about balance (heck, that's still a bit rare...). The DMCA would become law in just a couple years, it was a real pain to get a browser that wasn't hobbled with export ciphers, and Bill was actively pushing the Clipper chip.

About the only good thing that year was that Bill did ease encryption export restrictions by reclassifying it so it was no longer a "munition" but there were still controls, just via a different list.

[AceJohnny2]

Why would it seem amazing? To borrow an expression from cstross, the legislasaurus has woken up and smelled the roses. The legal/political class is now well aware of the importance of the digital frontier, which is full of terrorists/pedophiles and won't you please think of the children?!!!1one

[Natsu]

You'd like to believe that things would move forward over time. I mean, as much as we love to hate on things, we have come a long way even in just the past 100 years.

But progress seems to be more of a buzzword than anything substantial most of the time.

[LordKano]

It's a shame that people need to be reminded of these.

For some reason, people tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses.