YouTube has rejected Senator John McCain’s request for the video website  to consider fair use when responding to DMCA takedown requests.

McCain posted campaign ads with clips from CBS and Fox news broadcasts. The two networks sent YouTube takedown notices, which according to the DMCA, they are legally obliged to respond to immediately in order to maintain safe harbor protections.  McCain voted for the DMCA in 1998 and now has to deal with the consequences.

This shows McCain and few in Congress truly understood the effects of the DMCA and likely the same can be said for most complex laws put on their desks.  The DMCA includes the excellent safe harbor provision that protects platforms from being liable for what users do (like YouTube shouldn’t be liable for copyright infringement of its users).  But the takedown notices have become an abused system stifling free expression and negative opinions. This is not to mention how anti-circumvention laws violate upheld fair use rights and stifle innovation.

When first passed, Congress probably thought they were protecting intellectual property. Their intentions might even have been noble. But these under-thought, one-sided laws are going to hurt innovation and creativity. And you could argue it’s hurting democracy. McCain can’t even get his own campaign ads on YouTube because the site is too scared of being sued over copyright infringement (too late).

Too often laws are passed to pander “look what I did” rather than look what we accomplished.  Did the admittedly rushed Patriot Act (which many politicians never finished reading) compromise our rights too much to keep us safe? How much is the new PRO-IP law’s Copyright Czar going to stop piracy? And when is this bailout bill going to turn my 401k into 401 million?

McCain shouldn’t be looking for special treatment from YouTube.  He wants to be president, so why doesn’t he act like a leader and champion changing a bad law? I don’t want a politician to have their own class of laws; I want them to make the laws we all have better.  We’ve got to stop and smell the roses, before we accidently ban them.

Like a 14.4k modem, broadband is crawling into the nation debate as an actual issue. Barack Obama reminded voters of his plan to use tax money to expand broadband lines to rural areas (where the government is almost discouraging expansion), though John McCain disagrees. Also, the Senate passed a bill on Friday to improve broadband competition. The bill just scratches the surface, adding a question on internet access to the Census and charging the FCC to gather data on telecommunication services annually. A similar bill passed the House last year.

Obviously this bill does very little and I’d love if Obama would push this broadband agenda which, along with green energy, are growing markets that would create jobs, capital, and innovation. Plus it’s an issue McCain doesn’t even know exists. Except when he invented that Blackberry Obama loves so much.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been open about his lack of computer knowledge, saying “I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get.” He adds he’s “learning to get online” and “will have that down fairly soon.” He doesn’t read email and won’t blog. McCain’s aide Mark Soohoo added “you don’t have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country.”

Is that true? With so many technology issues going unaddressed or made worse with bad legislation, can we support a politician who isn’t fully informed.

Politicians, especially presidential candidates, should have a familiarity with the major technology trends, issues, and debates much like they would any other field from energy to foreign policy. I don’t expect candidates to design their own web pages or develop PHP applications, but using email and and search engines should be second nature.

The United States has no broadband policy, an out-of-date legal system unable to cope with online issues, and a steam of misinformation about security and privacy risks all likely do to a legislative body uneducated on the driving force of the world economy.  Politicians should know more than the average person because they have to make decisions that affect everyone else. Advisors are there to help filter the information, but some knowledge needs to come from the politicians, otherwise how can we trust they’ll make good decisions.

And admitting you don’t know something 73 percent of Americans use regular isn’t a good decision.

Last night’s Daily Show reveal the news media’s true goal this election cycle - to make it never end. Asif Mandvi had his fingers crossed as Hillary Clinton, on the night Obama won enough delegates to claim the nomination, refused to concede defeat. If she ends her campaign, how will three 24-hour news channels fill up their time?

This entire primary season has been an effort in futility for anyone seeking information. Beyond the wasted time on out of context quotes, inflammatory relationships, and flag pins, the media punditry has desperately tried to frame this election as a horse race where if you turn away for a second, you’ll miss the crucial turning point. The result has been a ratings boon for the cable networks, with CNN seeing 90 percent increases over last year’s first quarter. MSBNC grew 68 percent. Fox News hasn’t benefited as much, with a 14 percent increase. The Democratic candidates had shut out the station from interviews until Hillary Clinton went on Bill O’Reilly’s show, giving his show a 30 percent boost in total viewers.

The 24-hour news networks relied on the image of a close race to build its ratings and are continuing the mirage heading into the general election. I don’t mean to say Hillary Clinton and John McCain had/have no chance of winning, but the odds were/are so against them. The media knows a close race is better television than a sure thing and that is causing them to be unobjective in their reporting, often overblowing non-issues in the hopes that flag pins and Reverend Wright would keep the race going.

The general election looks be a Democratic landslide even as polls show Obama and McCain are in a statistical dead heat. These polls do not account for a unified Democratic party, one this split between rabid Clinton and Obama supporters who, very likely, have no intention of voting for anti-abortion, pro-war Republican McCain even though they say so now in polls. McCain has already collected support his primary challengers just as Obama will once Clinton accepts her 2nd place finish. The result will be an unprecedented coalition of the two biggest voter and fundraising networks in history, a network McCain can’t catch up to even if he didn’t have a fundraising issue.

The other point ignored by polls is that the electoral college counts, popular vote doesn’t. I think the popular vote will end up close between Obama and McCain. The electoral college will be a Democratic landslide benefited by anti-war and anti-Republican sentiments, McCain’s lackluster appeal to hard conservatives, and Obama’s massive appeal to the youth and African-Americans. Democratic wins of special elections in Illinois (Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the house’s seat), Louisiana, and Mississippi (Trent Lott’s seat former seat), by sizeable margins spell doom for Republicans. McCain might toy with winning states like New Jersey, Michigan, and New York, but he has to hold prior swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Iowa while playing defensive in Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, and in optimistic circles, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Kansas, Montana, and Texas. Short of an Obama imposition, it’s impossible to see an electoral scenario where McCain can win.

But the news media doesn’t want to entertain electoral math. It’s more fun to pretend Obama has a white problem (how many African American’s live in Montana, Iowa, and Wisconsin?) or highlight how much independents love McCain. It keeps the race looking closer than it really is.

I don’t want CNN to call the race for Obama or ignore McCain as an also-ran. Their responsibility should be to inform us of the facts of the campaign - who did what when and why. What if questions or conjecture have no place in objective journalism. Blogs, on the other hand, can go conjecture crazy. Without some source for objective, investigative reporting on both candidates, this election is going to once again defined by talking points, 527-organization, and out-of-context crap that doesn’t matter. Change and leaders we can believe in requires a media to change and lead.

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