JUNE 1999 · VOLUME 20· NUMBER 6

The high-tech sector had its Washington, D.C. coming-of-age-party in June.

The newly minted millionaires of Silicon Valley are on track to be major political players. Increasingly, they are abandoning the view that they could ignore government to rapidly deploying their economic power to attain political power and influence on Capitol Hill.

The first venue for the Silicon soiree was a "High Tech Summit" organized by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. A series of high-tech executives paraded before the Senators and Representatives to offer hosannas for emerging new computer technologies, to plead for particular legislative preferences and to encourage the government to maintain its "light hand" in intervening in the high-tech sector.

Senator Connie Mack, R-Florida, offered a warm embrace, suggesting that "We are now faced with the challenge of De-inventing Government -- to get it out of the way before it stifles the Innovation Economy that has made America the world's preeminent economic leader."

Microsoft's Bill Gates addressed a deferential panel of Members of Congress on the second day of the High Tech Summit, propagating his views on technology and society.

The tech executives stayed in town after testifying to lobby Members of Congress. Congressional staff reported that the executives have learned a lot in recent years, and now understand how to relate to elected officials.

And Members of Congress promised to attend to the high-tech executives' legislative wish list. "We will continue to explore legislative options for the issues of concern that were discussed this week -- encryption, R&D, education and immigration, to name a few," said Mack.

"We have come to understand in a way that we really had not understood before just how powerful, important and all encompassing the information revolution is," said Senator Bob Bennett, R-Utah, chair of the new Senate High-Tech Task Force. "I expect we will now move forward with high-tech legislation to address some of the proposals that have been made at the Summit."

The proof of the Members' commitment lay in the second venue for the coming out party: the Senate floor. The upper chamber waited for the High Tech Summit to pass the Y2K immunity bill -- legislation that will give special protections from lawsuits related to computer systems' inability to process Year 2000 dates properly. 

Even though the fear of litigation is what prompted many companies to address Y2K in the first place, the high tech argument was that computer companies need protection from lawsuits so they could concentrate on remediating Y2K problems.   As a result of the Y2K legislation, victims of Y2K problems -- whether they are consumers whose VCRs stop working, small businesses who find special software programs fail to function, or communities who are forced to evacuate due to chemical releases -- will have the normal right to file suit against the perpetrators of harm vastly limited. The bill will hinder consumers from filing class actions, limit victims' ability to win punitive damages and put burdens on victims when more than one party (a software company and a chemical company, for example) was responsible for the computer harm they experienced.

The third scene in High Tech's triumphant week occurred not in Washington, but in Tennessee, with Al Gore's formal announcement of his presidential candidacy. The Gore-Tech connection is as tight as can be. The clearest manifestation of GoreTech is Gore's inner circle of advisers -- which prominently features men like Peter Knight, Roy Neel, Tony Podesta and Tom Downey, all of whom have cashed in on close ties to Gore by taking out consulting contracts to represent computer and other advanced technology companies.

High Tech's week of passage did not come without extensive preparatory work. The computer industry is beginning to escalate its political contributions, which totaled about $9 million in the 1997-1998 federal election cycle.

And they have forged a powerful lobby force, TechNet, headed by former Netscape General Counsel Roberta Katz. Made up of computer executives, TechNet specializes in bringing politicians to Silicon Valley and wowing them with their latest innovations.

Perhaps even more than other industries, High Tech's proclivity is to answer every question with, "Let the market take care of it," or "We'll self-regulate."

As privacy, antitrust, fair competition, consumer protection, liability and many other issues become increasingly important in the context of internet commerce, the new political strength of the high-tech industries seems certain to significantly shape the contours of the debate.

-- Robert Weissman