Chris Nolan

Its been just about 10 years since the high-tech industry started to pay real attention to politics. Next year—just a few days away—will mark 10 years since securities reform legislation passed Congress. That means its been 10 years since it occurred to tech folks that they could battle the Federal Accounting Standards Board in Congress. […]

Telecom and copyright might be pretty much off the main Congressional agenda for the coming legislative session, but techs all-time favorite issue—stock option legislation—is looking better and better. Although the Federal Accounting Standards Board said last week that it would implement a new policy requiring companies to treat options as expenses as of June 15, […]

The U.S. Supreme Courts decision to take up the legal implications of file-sharing is one of those events whose impact in the political world of bank shots and sleights of hand isnt immediately apparent. The Supreme Court has said it will hear arguments in the case brought by Hollywood studios and record companies, led by […]

It may hold the promise of curing a number of diseases, but Proposition 71, the California ballot initiative that will raise $3 billion to research the medical applications of human stem cells, is running into political trouble. The travails the initiatives backers are encountering in the press and the state legislature are a good example […]

What if information—even information we now consider private or secret—were public and easily available? Making it subject to scrutiny by not just those who need it—lenders, law enforcement, doctors or government agencies—but everyone whos curious? That dramatic approach, says Danny Weitzner, technology and society domain leader at the World Wide Web Consortium, may be the […]

This presidential election cycle was as tech-rich as any weve seen. Weblogs, Meetups, Moveons, click-through fund-raising and—most of all—e-mail were put to use on both sides, Republican and Democratic, to get the word, the vote and the message out. The Internet, with its roughly 132 million users, is now part of the election process. It […]

The next session of Congress—with larger, newly elected Republican majorities on both sides of Capitol Hill—doesnt begin until January. But next week, lawmakers who have been in office for the past two years will head back to Washington for a “lame duck” session. In these days of incumbent supremacy, its a bit of a misnomer […]

Is the re-election of President George W. Bush good or bad for high tech? In strict business terms, its good. Very good. Seen from a longer-term economic policy standpoint, the benefits are less clear. /zimages/2/28571.gifCheck out Chris Nolans column “Is Bush Good for the Tech Worker?” If youre a high-tech entrepreneur, CEO or venture capitalist, […]

Back in the good old days when the Internet was a fad, not a business, it was commonplace for tech folks to divide the world into two groups: those who “got it” and everyone else. You didnt want to be “everyone else.” This was particularly true in politics. Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore “got […]

Outsourcing and immigration are two hot-button political issues that divide the tech community, making it difficult for the industry as a whole to find common approaches to the economic changes that everyone, more or less, agrees are inevitable. Its not just tech folks who are at a loss over what to do, however. Taking their […]

Right now, its something of an esoteric argument between human rights activists, civil libertarians and lawyers. But soon, the international conversation about what sorts of speech will be allowed on the Internet is going to effect tech businesses around the globe. Much of the Internets future growth is going to occur outside the United States—a […]

Its probably safe to say that very few of the precedents being set by voting-machine maker Diebold are going the way the company intended. Last weeks ruling—that Diebold overstepped its ability to invoke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to silence online criticism of its voting-machine technology—is just the latest misstep. The ruling, handed down by […]