Summary
1. So, now we have a CIO, a CTO, and Chief Innovation Officer at the federal level. 2. Given the new CTO’s rather modest accomplishments, one may wonder if there could be any selection about which Silicon Valley companies, such as Google, would have expressed criticism. 3. The best news is that the more layers of bureaucracy that are created, the less of a chance of potentially harmful decisions by the current statist type of government.
Analysis
It is interesting the way believers in centralized governments use familiar and less threatening terminology. For example, there is a high level of recognition for the acronym, CTO, because it is a common position at a lot of corporations. (Of course, only the government could come us with such a mouthful of his true title, “Associate Director for Technology under the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy office.”) However, the use of such business titles is symbolic of the harmful proclivity for the present US government to take an active role in the running of industries including telecom. We are getting well beyond providing federal funds with only broad mandates attached. “[S]etting national technology policy” is contrary to the limited political authority that became the foundation for the country.
Business Week’s description of Aneesh Chopra as a policy wonk appears to be apt. Some may go as far as to call him a political hack.
