The issues that stir the growing army of tech-sector lobbyists and trade groups in Washington aren’t generally front-page news in the mainstream press. But two of the biggest stories of 2013 — arguably the biggest, at least of the second half of the year — had technology stamped all over them.
Then there were a litany of other more industry-specific issues that came up for debate in 2013 that, though of a lower profile than the NSA revelations and the government healthcare website, were nonetheless of great concern to technology firms and their policy advocates. Here’s a look back at some of the headline tech policy issues that played out over the past year.
NSA Surveillance
The fallout from Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the U.S. government’s secret intelligence gathering made the former NSA contractor a leading contender for Time’s person of the year. That honorific went to Pope Francis, but it’s hard to overstate the import of the Snowden leaks, particularly in the tech world.
The drumbeat of revelations about the NSA’s activities began in June, stoking concerns about the role of communications providers and Internet companies in providing customer data to the government. Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others have tried mightily to debunk the notion that government spies had a direct pipeline into their servers, collecting data about their customers at will. They are suing to gain authorization to publish more information about the data requests they receive from the government, and have been vocal in their calls for more checks on the government’s intelligence-gathering activities.
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Date: December 23, 2013