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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor here at how stuff works dot com, and
Speaker 1: sitting next to me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and uh, I think we have some official
Speaker 1: business to get to. We do very official, yes, well
Speaker 1: at least not quite official at the moment, but it's
Speaker 1: going to be official very soon. And this is uh
Speaker 1: for our for our listeners in other countries, UM, please
Speaker 1: humor us. We're going to talk about the United States
Speaker 1: specifically in this podcast because our President Barack Obama has
Speaker 1: decide to to um to to create a couple of
Speaker 1: new positions in his cabinet that are going to undoubtedly
Speaker 1: have an effect on the way we access the internet. Uh.
Speaker 1: The way internet um is uh well, kind of oversight
Speaker 1: of the Internet from a government level, lots of different
Speaker 1: things that are gonna really have an impact on us
Speaker 1: as consumers. That's right. Um. And this is uh complete
Speaker 1: departure from the past. I mean, Um, among the things
Speaker 1: that the former president, George W. Bush was criticized for
Speaker 1: was not being very technical. Um. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of well known now that Barack Obama's
Speaker 1: presidential campaign was extremely technical. He was everywhere on Facebook
Speaker 1: and on Twitter and all sorts of other social media
Speaker 1: to recruiting volunteers, trying to get votes. Um. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know it was a bit of a culture shock
Speaker 1: for some of the staffers when they entered the White House. Um,
Speaker 1: because you know, by nature, the federal government has to be,
Speaker 1: especially in the White House, he has to be somewhat
Speaker 1: restrictive as far as technological policies because you know, some
Speaker 1: of the stuff were to leak, you know, state secrets.
Speaker 1: That's some pretty serious stuff you don't want just bouncing
Speaker 1: around on the internet. Yeah. I've seen the documentary twenty
Speaker 1: four and according to that, it's really dangerous to let
Speaker 1: that information get out. Also, there's always a mole. There's
Speaker 1: always a mole. Really, Yeah, that's a completely different. Oh well,
Speaker 1: that's true. But anyway, what we're getting at here is
Speaker 1: way back in November two thousand seven, then Senator Baraque
Speaker 1: Obama announced that he intended that if he were elected,
Speaker 1: to appoint a Chief Technology Officer or c t O.
Speaker 1: And um, that was that was all a big deal.
Speaker 1: And of course, now he has been elected, he has
Speaker 1: not yet as of the recording of this podcast, appointed
Speaker 1: a c t O, but he has a pointed a
Speaker 1: Chief Information Officer or c i O. And um. Actually, uh,
Speaker 1: that kind of relieves me in a way. UM. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. It's because the parameters for the
Speaker 1: job of c t O we're so wide that I
Speaker 1: was convinced no single person could accomplish all of those tasks.
Speaker 1: But if he has a c I O and a
Speaker 1: c t O, then some of those duties can be
Speaker 1: split across two different people, and suddenly it becomes much
Speaker 1: more manageable. Um and uh. And some of those duties
Speaker 1: included here. I've got a list actually from this is
Speaker 1: from Congress. Okay, it's a Congressional reports. So the first
Speaker 1: role would exploits explicitly articulated on President Obama's earlier campaign
Speaker 1: and transition websites might be described as a supra Chief
Speaker 1: Information Officer with the mission of using information technology to
Speaker 1: improve the delivery of government services, increasing trans cureency of
Speaker 1: government policy making, and opening channels for increased citizen participation
Speaker 1: in government, as well as ensuring that the nation's information
Speaker 1: and communications infrastructure is robust and secure. In this capacity,
Speaker 1: a c t O would also ensure that best practices
Speaker 1: are identified, shared and implemented across agencies. That's one role.
Speaker 1: Role number two it might be described as an advocate
Speaker 1: for technological innovation in support of national interests such as
Speaker 1: economic growth, job creation, improvements to quality of life, national defense,
Speaker 1: and homeland security. Some have speculated that President Obama might
Speaker 1: charge a CTO with a wider scope of responsibilities, including
Speaker 1: development and advocacy of national I c T policies like
Speaker 1: net neutrality and broadband access technology policies intended to spur
Speaker 1: innovation and economic growth, intellectual property enforcement, and oversight of
Speaker 1: a federally backed venture capital fund to support deployment of
Speaker 1: clean technologies. So that's a tall order, yep yep um.
Speaker 1: And another one of the reasons that I read about
Speaker 1: was basically to promote the use of broadband in underserved
Speaker 1: areas the United States is and broadband penetration. About twenty
Speaker 1: three out of every hundred people are served with some
Speaker 1: sort of broadband, at least according to the Organization for
Speaker 1: Economic Cooperation and Development. So, I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: to do as far as getting technology, especially internet technology,
Speaker 1: more widespread use in the United States. So let's start.
Speaker 1: Let's break this down and talk about both of these
Speaker 1: in turn. We'll start with the Chief Information Officer. I
Speaker 1: blogged about this guy earlier, so I should be able
Speaker 1: to talk about him a little bit. So you've got
Speaker 1: the information on the Chief Information Officers. Yes, I even
Speaker 1: have his correct title. He'd he'd be proud of you, Yes,
Speaker 1: I would hope. So his name is Vivic Gundra. And uh, okay,
Speaker 1: here's where I get a little ill because Vivic is
Speaker 1: the same age as yours. Truly, really, I'm the same
Speaker 1: age as the United States Chief Information Officer. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm older than you. I know you're older than I am.
Speaker 1: So you're older than the United States Chief Information Officer.
Speaker 1: I'm going to retire after this podcast, I know. Isn't
Speaker 1: that incredible? Okay, So granted, now when you're talking about
Speaker 1: things like the Internet, I T infrastructure, that kind of stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: you really are looking for people who have their their
Speaker 1: finger on the pulse of what's going on right now.
Speaker 1: So I guess it kind of makes sense that he's
Speaker 1: going young with this. It's just kind of sobering when
Speaker 1: you start seeing people who are in charge of a
Speaker 1: very important positions who are the same age or younger
Speaker 1: than you are, and then you start questioning what you've
Speaker 1: done with your life. Anyway, So he's a thirty four
Speaker 1: years old. Um. He was born in New Delhi. Then
Speaker 1: as his family migrated to Tanzania, and then at the
Speaker 1: age eleven he moved to the United States. And before
Speaker 1: he was appointed the Chief Information Officer of the United States,
Speaker 1: he was the uh ct OH, the Chief Technology Officer
Speaker 1: for the District of Columbia, and so that's he was
Speaker 1: actually in charge of eighty six different agencies there. Um
Speaker 1: he was they all reported to him essentially in his
Speaker 1: role as CTO. And before that, he was the Assistant
Speaker 1: Secretary of Commerce and Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Speaker 1: So he's held some pretty serious high end tech positions.
Speaker 1: And this is a man who knows his stuff, And
Speaker 1: he's already come out and talked about the sort of
Speaker 1: things that he wants to do as the c i
Speaker 1: O of the United States, and it's a big list. Um.
Speaker 1: Part of that is, like we we talked about transparency earlier.
Speaker 1: That was one of the things that Congress said Barack
Speaker 1: Obama wanted in his c t O. What looks like
Speaker 1: the c i O is gonna handle that part of
Speaker 1: the equation. Uh, And when we're talking about transparency, we're
Speaker 1: saying that it will be his responsibility to make sure
Speaker 1: that public information is easily available to the citizens of
Speaker 1: the United States, that you don't have to jump through
Speaker 1: hoops in order to find information that should be publicly available.
Speaker 1: To that end, he's trying to establish a website called
Speaker 1: data dot gov, which will kind of be a clearing
Speaker 1: house of all this information, hopefully organized in such a
Speaker 1: way that it's easy to navigate and find exactly what
Speaker 1: you're looking for. So this is a big deal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's going to theoretically give the average citizen a chance
Speaker 1: to see the decision making process that goes that's involved
Speaker 1: in creating policies. And uh, you know that this really
Speaker 1: does fall in line with what Barack Obama had done previously,
Speaker 1: his idea of communicating to the people and making things
Speaker 1: as clear as possible so that the people know what
Speaker 1: what they're elected officials are doing and why they're doing it,
Speaker 1: because a lot of times, you know, well, people will
Speaker 1: elect an official based upon apology, a party affiliation, and
Speaker 1: and maybe a few policies. Like you, you happen to
Speaker 1: know that person's stance on a particular issue, but beyond that,
Speaker 1: we kind of let them do their thing, and then
Speaker 1: we get upset when tax time comes around. And then
Speaker 1: you know that, we get more upset when elections come
Speaker 1: around and we decided to throw one group out and
Speaker 1: bring another group in, but we don't tend to build
Speaker 1: build a lot of understanding of what's going on throughout
Speaker 1: that time. This is an attempt to change that, which
Speaker 1: I mean now, granted, a huge responsibility is going to
Speaker 1: fall upon the American citizens to make sure that they
Speaker 1: actually take advantage of these opportunities. But it's a huge step.
Speaker 1: I think that's true. And um, it's been notoriously difficult
Speaker 1: over the past few years to get it a lot
Speaker 1: of this information, Um, you know, things that should be
Speaker 1: available via the freedom of Information Act um, you know,
Speaker 1: simply because it's it's you know, not ready for h
Speaker 1: for public consumption, right, you know, in the public area.
Speaker 1: So this is this is a serious, um, serious step. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and now granted, there's no guarantee that we're going
Speaker 1: to see a decrease in things like citing executive privilege
Speaker 1: anything like that. I mean, they're still going to be
Speaker 1: opportunities for politicians to keep information held back based on
Speaker 1: numerous kinds of criteria, but state secrets and all kinds
Speaker 1: of other things that are gonna you know, prevent it
Speaker 1: from being published at least immediately. Being sometime will tell
Speaker 1: whether or not this this data dot gov site will
Speaker 1: really be a great tool. But it's it's I'm being
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be optimistic about it because it sounds
Speaker 1: to me like it could really be an incredible development. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm interested to know who the CTO is going
Speaker 1: to be, boy, you and everybody else, you know, looking
Speaker 1: at a at the Business Week website, Um, I saw
Speaker 1: an article last fall and they had some pretty you know,
Speaker 1: because Senator Obama at that time had made public that
Speaker 1: he wanted a ct O if he were elected. Presidents
Speaker 1: and so they started floating some names around. I mean
Speaker 1: people like Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who actually pulled his
Speaker 1: name out of the running last fall the surf also
Speaker 1: another Google guy, Yes, the chief Internet Evangelists, one of
Speaker 1: the fathers of the Internet. Oh yeah, and that too, yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO and a fan of all
Speaker 1: the developers. Developers, Um, Jeff Bezos. That's Amazon dot Com right,
Speaker 1: yes it is. And look at that. And uh, you
Speaker 1: know Ed Felton from Princeton University and Lawrence Lessig from
Speaker 1: the Stanford University Center for the Internet and Society, also
Speaker 1: of Creative Commons fame. Uh you know, all those people's
Speaker 1: names have been mentioned. And uh, just in January they
Speaker 1: were mentioning two names that were very probable. Um. One
Speaker 1: of them was Vivek Kundra, who is now the c
Speaker 1: i Oh wait a minute, that leaves one name. Who
Speaker 1: would be ah put Mastere Warrior w No, no, I'm sorry. No,
Speaker 1: she's the CTO of Cisco formally yeah. Yeah, with with
Speaker 1: some seriously uh impressive credentials of her own. Now, so
Speaker 1: if the c i O is really in charge of
Speaker 1: information infrastructure and transparency and making sure to promote these
Speaker 1: sort of things. The ct O. What is the CTO
Speaker 1: gonna do? This is a good question. There's not not
Speaker 1: been a lot of discussion, official discussion from Obama's administration
Speaker 1: to really lay out all the different, um, the different
Speaker 1: job duties that the CTO would have. We can we
Speaker 1: can make some assumptions, I mean it, UH, perhaps forming
Speaker 1: policies on things like UH like technology innovation and UM,
Speaker 1: even things like net neutrality, that sort of thing that
Speaker 1: may be able to shape national policy on those matters.
Speaker 1: But also other things like kind of investigating sort of
Speaker 1: the the what kind of technology the government can use, UM,
Speaker 1: pushing that boundary a little further. And also another important
Speaker 1: role will be trying to help create more jobs in
Speaker 1: the technology field within the United States and UM. Just
Speaker 1: today when we're recording this podcast, I saw a report
Speaker 1: from c NET. This was very depressing actually, especially if
Speaker 1: you're in the tech sector and you're looking for a job,
Speaker 1: because according to c NET, tech job postings fell forty
Speaker 1: point four percent in March over a year ago figures
Speaker 1: and UH. And also most of those cuts came from
Speaker 1: full time positions. So if you're out of a job
Speaker 1: and you're looking for something in the tech industry. Um,
Speaker 1: there are a lot fewer jobs out there being posted
Speaker 1: than there were a year ago. This is a huge problem,
Speaker 1: and I mean it's it's not surprising because the economy
Speaker 1: has been so in so much trouble recently, but it's
Speaker 1: And also you've heard, of course about all the thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of of layoffs that various companies have had
Speaker 1: to do, including companies that had never laid off employees before,
Speaker 1: like Microsoft and Google both historically had never really done
Speaker 1: any of these mass employee layoffs until late two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: early two thousand nine. So that's a tall order for
Speaker 1: the c t O. UM. I wish whomever holds that
Speaker 1: position the best of luck. Well, one thing about these
Speaker 1: positions is, um they're going to have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: shape what the next c I O and c t
Speaker 1: O do because, um, you know, as the originators in
Speaker 1: these positions, they're going to have you know, people are
Speaker 1: going to look to what they do, you know, in
Speaker 1: successive administrations. You know, assuming that the next president keeps
Speaker 1: those two cabinet level positions in place, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: they're going to have a lot of influence on the
Speaker 1: technological future of the country and the way the government
Speaker 1: and technology industries interact with one another. So you know
Speaker 1: that this is not something to be taken light. I
Speaker 1: also kind of hope that the CTO and the c
Speaker 1: IO can work together too to kind of really take
Speaker 1: a real close look at the way certain mega corporations
Speaker 1: are kind of throwing their weight around and essentially dictating
Speaker 1: what political policy is in the in the realms of
Speaker 1: the Internet. I'm talking here about I S P S.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like the net neutrality that would be it,
Speaker 1: or maybe the r I double A or the MP
Speaker 1: double A. I mean, we're talking about gigantic organizations that
Speaker 1: have been able to pretty much shape the way the
Speaker 1: u S. Law handles handles situations over the Internet. Are
Speaker 1: defining what is a crime versus what is not a crime. UH,
Speaker 1: And you know it's almost like the uh like they're there,
Speaker 1: they're making up the rules. It would be nice to
Speaker 1: have some people who really know the whole background and
Speaker 1: can really look at the big picture and define what
Speaker 1: the rules are. Now, maybe those rules won't be the
Speaker 1: same ones that I would like to see, but at
Speaker 1: least I know that it would be coming from a
Speaker 1: more impartial party. Well, and it's uh, it's true too
Speaker 1: that the FCC has had a hand in a lot
Speaker 1: of this in the past, but it's really sort of
Speaker 1: been a different role than what the c I O
Speaker 1: and CTO would do, uh, it would take in this case,
Speaker 1: because they're gonna be a lot more hands on. The
Speaker 1: FCC has um their fingers and a lot more different
Speaker 1: kinds of communication. Um. And it's sort of a I
Speaker 1: don't know, a peripheral rule in some In some ways
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's not the same as it would
Speaker 1: be for for these guys who are going to be
Speaker 1: completely focused on you know, tech and the Internet. And
Speaker 1: I do have one more hope for for them. Hopefully
Speaker 1: they can get this straighten out. I really hope that
Speaker 1: somebody can identify who took that poor Walrus's bucket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do too. I mean that that bucket has been
Speaker 1: missing for quite some time and is in a lot
Speaker 1: of distress. I've seen pictures, many of them. I can't
Speaker 1: believe you brought that up. I'm really surprised that you
Speaker 1: can't believe I brought that up. Well, I was also
Speaker 1: going to say, on a more serious note that they
Speaker 1: do have a big job ahead of them, and of
Speaker 1: course not all of these questions will be answered very
Speaker 1: quickly because when you think about Internet, of course is
Speaker 1: a global entity. It does not belong to the United States.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of lawlessness on there. It just comes
Speaker 1: from being a multinational entity made up of basically a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of individual people. Right, So, so they're going
Speaker 1: to be some limitations they'll be working with just based
Speaker 1: upon what the Internet is. So not to mention just
Speaker 1: getting started. Yeah, it's The're not building on anybody else's work, right,
Speaker 1: This is you know, it's so much of Obama's administration
Speaker 1: is really all about building from the ground up that
Speaker 1: it's sometimes really overwhelming. Um, I can't I'll be a maze.
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to seeing where we are in
Speaker 1: four years, just to see how much of that is successful,
Speaker 1: because to me, when I look at it just looks
Speaker 1: so monumental that I can't even imagine it. Lest we
Speaker 1: sound partial. Um, you know, honestly, I think these positions
Speaker 1: are would be useful to anybody, you know, Democrat, Republican, Tory,
Speaker 1: wig federalist, federalists, you know, anarchists, maybe maybe even like libertarian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you know these are you know, so
Speaker 1: many of us depend on technology. I think this is
Speaker 1: a good step for anybody to to put into practice.
Speaker 1: It's much better than ignoring it. Yeah, definitely, Sea So
Speaker 1: well that was that was a good discussion on the
Speaker 1: old ct O and c i O. So that brings
Speaker 1: us to listener mail. So listener mail. This one comes
Speaker 1: from Matt, and Matt says, hey there, it's my line, Matt.
Speaker 1: So I listen to your episode on niche social networks
Speaker 1: and I have one that is growing very fast, my
Speaker 1: leaky dot com. It springs off of the Harry Potter
Speaker 1: news site, the Leaky Cauldron dot org, and it has
Speaker 1: been growing steadily since January. Well, we have a few
Speaker 1: Harry Potter fans in the office, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: spread this information around so that we can see how
Speaker 1: many of them, uh you know, brandished their wands online,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Maybe I should have a warded that differently. Well,
Speaker 1: too late. Now, if any of you would like to
Speaker 1: send any comments or suggestions or corrections or anything of
Speaker 1: that nature to us, you can do that at tech
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com. Remember we also
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