Declan McCullagh gives a detailed overview of Joe Biden’s positions on a variety of tech laws. He brings out much of what I expected–there may be cause for some worry on a variety of fronts like copyright, privacy, and the “war on terror.” Whether you agree or disagree with his politics, there were a number of interesting responses to some of the laws that he proposed and voted for. I’d call these responses constructions of the law–or actions carried out in response to the law that essentially help “create” it in society.
On privacy, Biden’s record is hardly stellar. In the 1990s, Biden was
chairman of the Judiciary Committee and introduced a bill called the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act …
Biden’s bill — and the threat of encryption being outlawed — is what
spurred Phil Zimmermann to write PGP, thereby kicking off a historic
debate about export controls, national security, and privacy.
Zimmermann, who’s now busy developing Zfone, says it was Biden’s legislation
“that led me to publish PGP electronically for free that year, shortly
before the measure was defeated after vigorous protest by civil
libertarians and industry groups.”
“Pretty Good Privacy” (PGP) is a technology that encrypts or locks things and bases the unlocking on trust (the Wikipedia article is a surprisingly engaging read about the technology and history). The point here is that the restrictions created by the legislation played a part in driving PGP’s creator, Phil Zimmerman, to write this extraordinary piece of software.
One day after a bomb in Saudi Arabia killed several U.S. servicemen and virtually flattened a military base, Biden pushed to make posting bomb-making information on the Internet a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in jail, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. …
Biden’s proposal became law in 1997. It didn’t amount to much: four years after its enactment, there had been only one conviction. …Today there are over 10,000 hits on Google for the phrase, in quotes, “Drano bomb.” … Then there’s the U.S. Army’s Improvised Munitions Handbook with instructions on making far more deadly compounds, including methyl nitrate dynamite, mortars, grenades, and C-4 plastic explosive — which free speech activists placed online as an in-your-face response to the Biden-Feinstein bill.
A long quote, but it says a bit about the laws effectiveness and how people have responded to it.