Geeks aren’t the most important political voting bloc, but we have several important issues few candidates care to address.  These technology issues have major implications on technological development, the economy, and individual rights.  These are the issues most concerning to the under-appreciated geek bloc.

7. Expanding broadband

The fact that companies still advertise dial-up should concern everyone.  Europe and Asian countries have extensive broadband connectivity, even wireless technology which the United States has been unable to deploy in cities only.  The United States ranks 13th in broadband subscribers after Korea, Japan, and several Scandinavian countries with little strategy in how to expand access.  In fact, our government continues to fudge our own broadband numbers, even after other agencies have shown these numbers to be false.

6. Spyware, malware, and virus. Oh my.

All the spam, phishing scams, and crap software make the internet a scary and dangerous place.  All the information and technology available to the common person is locked behind firewalls, security warnings, and the fear of very website you visit and file you download.  While cautious is healthy in any scenario, the amount of people using the internet for evil makes for an unpleasant place to surf and enjoy.  And as the internet and computers consume more and more of our lives, these problems will only get bigger.  Both technology and the government have a vicious war ahead, which if the present is any sign, is destined to be as successful as the War on Drugs.

5. Fair use

The internet has revolutionized content generation in ways past politicians could never have predicted.  U.S. copyright law has provided exceptions for academic and journalistic uses of copyright protected works known as fair use.  Fair use also applies when use of the content will not effect the "potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."  This allows for movie spoofs and clips of shows on the news.

But modern technology raises questions about what fair use covers.  Does fair use allow for fan fiction or YouTube videos of babies dancing to a copyrighted song?  Copyright holders claim these violate their rights, but their claim (and abuse of the DMCA takedown notices) doesn’t make for truth.  Congress and/or the courts will need to re-examine fair use for the Internet Age.

4. Online privacy

We love advertising everything about ourselves on Facebook and MySpace and blogs, but sometimes information leaks out that you don’t want.  On a regular basis companies announce they lost a laptop filled with thousands of customers’ information or worse, these companies posted all the information online and got hacked.  Just because a website has extensive security doesn’t make it completely secure.  Once something is online, anyone can try to access it.  Laws and frankly even ethics haven’t figured out what rights people have to privacy online.

3. Net neutrality

While no law requires it, most internet service providers observe net neutrality, treating everything on the internet as equal.  Several ISPs are campaigning for a tiered internet where websites and services pay for preferential treatment helping support the higher bandwidth requirements for video and games.  Net neutrality supports like me worry the tiered system could lead to censorship or slower service to websites unwilling or unable to pay for preferential treatment.  The truth is bandwidth is not running out like ISPs claim.  And while net neutrality exists now in theory, piracy fears are inspiring ISPs to slow BitTorrent traffic without disclosing it to their customers.  So maybe legislation will be needed if ISPs decide they can run the internet however they want.

2. File-sharing/piracy

Much like fair use, media companies love making over-the-top claims that piracy is destroying the entire world and to blame for global warming and terrorism.  But the truth is media companies are making more money in more ways now than ever before and instead of trying to innovate and compete with new technology, they just want the government to make their lives easier.  The same piracy claims were made when home videos came out in the 1980s, but media companies found a way to embrace the technology and makes tons of money.  The internet and file-sharing could be the next evolution.

1. Patent system

Patents are confusing and complex, making for a tough issue to sway public opinion on.  But patents affect so much of our economy, from helping small businesses to expanding technology to helping develop pharmaceuticals.  Copyrights and patents were included in the Constitution trying to tread the fine line between encouraging innovation and limiting competition.  What has been happing now is companies are filing patents for every little thing they develop and using those patents to sue competitors, suppressing healthy competition.  Companies now are even focusing solely on busying patents with which to sue people with, often referred to as patent trolls.  They produce no products - they just want to drain money from the companies who do.  This issue is too huge to fully cover in this little blurb.  For regular updates, read Techdirt and Patent Troll Tracker.