The leaders of a group of tech industry associations penned a letter to the remaining presidential candidates to, among other things, strengthen the U.S.'s cybersecurity posture, and attached a “Technology Sector Presidential Platform” that lays out recommendations, including "narrowly targeted government access to user data" and recognizing “the importance of encryption as a critical security tool.”
“A central challenge of our time,” the industry leaders noted, “must be leveraging our strengths to expand opportunities and better prepare more citizens for the opportunities ahead.”
They called for the “doubling down on developing America's science and technology workforce” with one of the signers, John Neuffer, president and CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), writing in blog post that “a better framed question…is not whether the U.S. needs to trade with the rest of the world, but rather who will take the lead in writing the rules for global trade in today's complex, globalized world.”
The platform encouraged the candidates to strengthen cybersecurity by leveraging the “best practices that have proven effective in advancing cybersecurity and encourage other governments to do the same,” including enabling “enhanced real-time, cybersecurity threat information sharing; [focusing] on cybersecurity risk management; [allowing] for flexible approaches to improving cybersecurity; [and advancing] public-private partnerships.
The signers also called for enhancements to data privacy. “Advance policies that protect privacy while fostering innovation and growth and ensuring the free flow of data across borders,” were among the recommendations in the platform, which also called for the promotion of “global consumer trust in digital goods and services by encouraging policies that narrowly target government access to user data, while ensuring law enforcement and other agencies have the appropriate information needed to protect our safety and security.”
The tech associations noted that supporting “robust freedom of expression on the open Internet and [promoting] policies that prevent censorship by ensuring intermediaries are not unreasonably liable for third-party speech,” are critical to protecting creativity online. “Advance global policies that promote innovation and new cross-border services by ensuring clear and fairly balanced intermediary liability protections that enable platforms to host third-party content.”
The platform also called for the creation of an Internet of Things (IoT) strategy that promote policies such as support for “interoperable consensus-based global standards, investment in robust communications [and] incorporation of appropriate cybersecurity and privacy protections that would foster private investment, innovation and competition.
“We have many months between now and Election Day in November,” Neuffer wrote. “The Technology Sector Presidential Platform issued today is the tech sector's attempt to put on the table those priorities we believe are critical to America's future.”
In addition to SIA, other organizations behind the letter include the Internet Association, TechNet, Computing Technology Industry Association, Allied for Startups, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Information Technology Industry Council, BSA The Software Alliance, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Consumer Technology Association, Technology CEO Council and Software & Information Industry Association.
