Mr. Internet President

What Barack Obama did for IT development during his six years in power

On November 10, US President Barack Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to abandon the principle of network neutrality, which prohibits providers from paying priority to one type of Internet traffic over another.

Obama's statement caused a wide resonance in the United States, where many media outlets assessed the words of the head of state very positively. TJournal decided to recall the main legislative initiatives related to IT, which occurred during the years of Obama’s service in the White House, and allow us to really evaluate what the 44th President of the United States did to protect and develop a free and open global network.

Tax benefits for Internet providers

At the beginning of January 2009, US President Barack Obama, who had already been elected but had not yet undergone the inauguration procedure, presented a program of tax incentives for large Internet companies in a special address.

The meaning of the new administration's proposals was to provide significant concessions and relaxations to providers actively involved in the development of communication networks within the country. The tax package was estimated by Bloomberg Businessweek at between $20 billion and $30 billion.

According to Obama's plan, companies that in the coming years will invest in laying the Internet where it does not yet exist will be able to return up to 60 percent of the funds they spent from the budget. Those providers that can improve the speed of broadband Internet access in the United States will potentially be subject to 40 percent compensation. Finally, companies that connect new subscribers to the Internet at a minimum speed of 20 megabits per second will receive up to 20 percent of what they spend on network development in the form of so-called “tax credits.”

In February of the same year, a decree providing “incentive” tax breaks and additional grants for the development of broadband Internet was signed. The final amount of funding for the document turned out to be much more modest than the initial figures voiced by experts, amounting to about $7.2 billion. Most of them were subsequently received by several of the largest American providers.

Digital Accessibility Act for People with Disabilities

On October 8, 2010, Barack Obama signed the so-called 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. Despite the fact that the document did not receive wide publicity outside the United States, in America itself, civil activists and non-governmental organizations called it almost historical.

The essence of the resolution was the introduction in the country of a mandatory requirement for the accessibility of all smartphones, television programs and any other types of modern communication for all people with limited hearing or vision. Until this point, all the additional improvements that were introduced by companies producing equipment for the disabled were actually optional.

The Internet played a decisive role in Obama's victory in the 2008 elections, and related initiatives were one of the important parts of his election platform.

By law, all browsers on mobile phones, as well as text messaging systems and email clients, were now required to be adapted in some form for use by blind and deaf people. The same was prescribed for producers of television shows, news releases and programs appearing on both regular and cable television.

The act also provided for the annual allocation of $10 million from the budget for the development of technologies that help people with disabilities be included in digital life.

In 2011-2012, marks of product compliance with the Obama law appeared on almost all types of content released in the United States - from late-night TV entertainment shows to Xbox applications.

Wireless Internet for 98 percent of Americans

In February 2011, the Obama administration, as part of an address to the nation prepared by the president, presented a new project for the development of wireless Internet in the United States.

According to the White House, the amount of wireless spectrum available to providers was to double in the next few years. The opening of new opportunities in this area, the authorities reported, would make it possible to cover 98 percent of all residents of the country with a wireless connection.

The new frequencies were supposed to be sold at special auctions, the total amount of revenue from which, according to the administration’s estimates, could exceed $9.7 billion based on 2021.

As Obama clarified in his February speech, all funds raised will subsequently be used to reduce the US government deficit.

In reality, everything turned out to be not as rosy as the president and his team had hoped. By 2011, the main problem with connecting to the Internet (regular or wireless) in American households was not its inaccessibility caused by a lack of infrastructure, but the high cost of doing the work and too high tariffs for a country still in crisis.

The plan proposed in 2011 was implemented extremely slowly over the next two years. In 2013, Obama actually re -voiced it, slightly changing the volume of investments and saying not 98, but 99 percent of coverage. The media perceived this not as an attempt to really promote wireless Internet in the country, but as an attempt to distract public attention from the growing scandal surrounding NSA mass surveillance.

The Rise and Death of SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was introduced to Congress back in 2011, but it was 2012 that became decisive in the struggle of Internet activists and representatives of the US IT industry against the unpopular bill.

The main message of SOPA was to impose on all companies in one way or another connected with the Internet an obligation, upon the first request of copyright holders, to stop providing services to any resources suspected of piracy. In fact, this meant that copyright owners had the opportunity to control and filter almost the entire worldwide network, prohibiting and seeking blocking of any services, including those located outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

According to the text of the bill, copyright infringement on the Internet was declared a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison. To successfully bring charges of piracy, it was enough to prove the fact of illegal distribution of at least 10 music or video recordings over six months.

The bill literally “blew up” the entire American Internet community. Representatives of Internet companies, technology experts, Internet activists and bloggers strongly opposed the adoption of the documents, emphasizing that this is a direct path to censorship on the Internet.

The failure to consider SOPA was the result of Internet activists, not the presidential administration.

On January 18, 2012, major Internet resources from Google and Wikipedia to Reddit and Yahoo held an “online strike” to protest SOPA. Leading national publications came out with advertising pages purchased by IT giants, calling for the refusal of the adoption of the anti-piracy bill. Mass protests also took place on the streets of several American cities.

Two days later, on January 20, the head of the US Congress Judiciary Committee officially notified the media that work on SOPA was suspended indefinitely. By the end of the year, it became known that the country's authorities abandoned plans to promote similar documents in the near future.

Snowden's revelations and computer courses for schoolchildren

2013 was marked by Edward Snowden's revelations . Thanks to secret documents from the National Security Agency (NSA), passed on to the press by Snowden, it became known about large-scale surveillance programs by US intelligence agencies for ordinary Internet users.

The scandal surrounding the NSA launched an ongoing public debate about how the ideal model of relations between the authorities and the global network should be structured.

In terms of legislative initiatives, the Snowden revelations led to attempts by the Barack Obama administration to reform the National Security Agency, reducing its powers and reducing its ability to spy on users.

Most of these initiatives, until the end of 2013, remained formalized in an incomplete, preliminary form, and concrete transformations that could actually change something in the current state of affairs were never achieved.

At the same time, during the second half of 2013, Obama paid significant attention to the development of various initiatives to promote programming courses and educational programs in American schools.

As with the wireless Internet plan, the media perceived it as a distraction aimed at smoothing over the consequences of Edward Snowden's revelations.

However, by the end of the year, some of Obama's proposals to conduct educational seminars for schoolchildren with stories about computer code began to be actually implemented. For example, as part of the national week of computer education (the so-called “Hour of Code” program).

Smartphone Unlocking Law, Failure of Immigration Reform and Anti-Patent Trolls Bill

Over the ten months of 2014, the United States completed the consideration of several important bills for the future of the Internet and information technology.

In June, the US Senate in its final reading approved a document abolishing the system of mandatory binding (blocking) of smartphones and the SIM cards used in them to a particular provider and its networks.

For the first time, gadget owners have the opportunity to legally unlock their devices and switch to any other operator whose contract suits them better.

The so-called unlocking law was, unfortunately, the only success of the Obama administration during this term.

Like many other reforms of Barack Obama, the president's Internet initiatives often did not reach the stage of real implementation.

2014 saw the painful failure of immigration reform, which the tech giants of Silicon Valley were actively seeking from the president. Companies were counting on an influx of new labor after the expected easing of immigration and visa policies. Even the $50 million spent by IT corporations on lobbying for the bill did not help the adoption of the document.

The reform aimed against patent trolls - companies that en masse register patents for certain inventions solely for the purpose of further litigation with successful companies that have rights to similar developments - also failed. Currently, its consideration is postponed.

One step forward and two steps back,
Victor Stepanov,
TJournal

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