McCain, the candidate for big telecos

If Obama is the most technologically knowledgeable candidate, McCain is the one most likely to vote in favor of big telecommunications companies and against necessary ideals like network neutrality. He doesn’t vote that way out of any pool of knowledge, he votes that way because he is firmly in the telco lobby pockets.

Not only does he have firm financial ties to lobbyists from the telecommunication industry, he heads the committee in the Senate that is supposed to oversee it. His campaign donations received from telecommunication industry special interests have nearly reached $800,000 USD so far. Of his 66 member campaign staff, 23 have lobbied in favor of big telecommunication company interests in the past.

In his capacity as head of the Senate committee on telecommunications, he backed several bills in favor of their special interests. One of these was the infamous tax ban legislation favored by big telcos. In his stint as committee head he has consistently sponsored legislation that favors big telcos and lowers their tax burden while giving them more control over their users and pushing to lessen free speech and open use of the pipelines they control.

The short version of this story is that a McCain presidency would be great for big telecommunications companies who are looking to throttle bandwidth and line there own pockets, and bad for internet users and online entrepreneurs, not to mention a thriving internet economy and free speech online. If the latter is what you want, Obama is more your speed. If the former, McCain is your man.

Source

• What a McCain win could mean for technology and science
• McCain staffer suspended for using Twitter
• John McCain beats Barack Obama – at Internet search marketing
• McCain gaming Digg, Obama Google bombing McCain
• AT&T propaganda machine spins tale of a full Internet by 2010