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Do any of the representatives passing these inflated budgets have any idea what their five billion dollars is buying? I have to imagine that all of our elected

Do any of the representatives passing these inflated budgets have any idea what their five billion dollars is buying? I have to imagine that all of our elected officials hear about our "cybertroops" supplying "cyber-fire support" enacting "cyber-kinetic attacks" and they might as well be hearing about stealth bombers without knowing what radar, explosions, or airplanes are. Are there some kind of Congressional training sessions where basic information about computers is disseminated and explained, or is it all really just a bunch of hand-waving for all the individuals involved? I assume the latter, but I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.

asperous 13y ago
From watching the C-SPAN video that was on the front page of HN, I take from it that different senators and congressman have different levels of understanding. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). While Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) had a better idea of what was going on "How did we get from the reasonable grounds, relevant authorized investigations, statement of facts, to all phone records, all locations, all the time." (@ time 1:22:05)
- u2328 13y ago
  > Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). I saw that too. She was completely dumbfounded, and apparently just defaulted to the attitude, "well, I don't understand what the hell is going on, and I trust you guys are doing a good job, so... good job!" It's terrifying. We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because the current crop are dinosaurs.
  - marshray 13y ago
    At least no one was actively joking and boasting about their computer illiteracy the way so many do. ("I have to ask my kids for help to turn the thing on").
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    > We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because the current crop are dinosaurs. In NL, one of the most important things Bits of Freedom (Dutch equiv of the EFF) does, is writing reports and summaries explaining just what all this computer stuff means, what the consequences are, that politicians can use and read to be informed. Afaik, they word them in a decidedly non-partisan manner, so they can be used by left and right, conservative and progressive all the same. Now you might have seen the posts about surveillance in NL being at least as bad or worse, they're all true, but I've also seen politicians change their minds about things because of these reports. And not just the leftist or progressive ones, either.

asperous 13y ago

From watching the C-SPAN video that was on the front page of HN, I take from it that different senators and congressman have different levels of understanding. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). While Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) had a better idea of what was going on "How did we get from the reasonable grounds, relevant authorized investigations, statement of facts, to all phone records, all locations, all the time." (@ time 1:22:05)

u2328 13y ago
> Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). I saw that too. She was completely dumbfounded, and apparently just defaulted to the attitude, "well, I don't understand what the hell is going on, and I trust you guys are doing a good job, so... good job!" It's terrifying. We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because the current crop are dinosaurs.
- marshray 13y ago
  At least no one was actively joking and boasting about their computer illiteracy the way so many do. ("I have to ask my kids for help to turn the thing on").
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because the current crop are dinosaurs. In NL, one of the most important things Bits of Freedom (Dutch equiv of the EFF) does, is writing reports and summaries explaining just what all this computer stuff means, what the consequences are, that politicians can use and read to be informed. Afaik, they word them in a decidedly non-partisan manner, so they can be used by left and right, conservative and progressive all the same. Now you might have seen the posts about surveillance in NL being at least as bad or worse, they're all true, but I've also seen politicians change their minds about things because of these reports. And not just the leftist or progressive ones, either.