US Senator Joseph Biden, Barack Obama’s choice for Vice-Presidential candidate has a long track record in the US Senate of chipping away at Americans’ privacy rights and freedom of expression rights - especially when it comes to the Internet and technology.
A Democrat, Biden has done the bidding of Hollywood in the Senate for decades - he’s fought peer-to-peer (P2P) file networks, been a staunch supporter of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), sponsored RIAA bills to restrict a consumer’s right to record songs over satellite and Internet radio for personal use, among a long list of other misguided policies catalogued in this article about Biden’s record on technology issues by Declan McCullagh.
Besides serving as Hollywood’s "Man in the Senate," Biden sponsored FBI wire-tapping bills, voted in favor of Bush’s war in Iraq, voted in favor of the (Anti) "Patriot" Act, and has a long history of working to keep strong encryption out of the hands of Americans. In 1994 Biden helped the FBI and the NSA to restrict Americans’ access to encryption without backdoors for the US Government with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).
Biden may be an astute "political" choice for V.P. for Obama, but America can expect more government spying, less innovation, Bigger Brother, and more one-sided intellectual property rights legislation with Biden at the wheel.