Nancy Scola

Could the swamp really be automated? The question feels almost alien. At the moment, if “automation” and “Washington” are used in the same sentence, it’s usually to decry how behind the curve policymakers are on a transformative economic issue like industrial robots or self-driving cars. In its own workings, Washington seems almost a uniquely un-automatable place, a constitutionally erected edifice of institutions and people driven by irreplaceable experience and relationships. FiscalNote is demonstrating that’s not true. 

The relationship between new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and President Donald Trump is likely to continue to be a focal point for technology and telecommunications watchers. The pair met at the White House a week ago, one day before President Trump re-nominated Chairman Pai for another term. The Electronic Privacy Information Center is trying to pull back the curtain on that meeting, filing a Freedom of Information Act request seeking “memos, briefing papers, emails and talking points” pertaining to their conversation.

President Donald Trump sent a number of tweets to the 23.5 million followers of his personal Twitter account. But they didn’t show up in the tweets of his official Twitter handle @POTUS — raising questions about whether those messages from the most powerful man on Earth will be archived for posterity. Because some of Trump's headline-grabbing, market-moving tweets might never become part of the presidential history books, archivists fear that Americans could be left with an incomplete record of how the United States was governed in the Trump era.

President Donald Trump may be a master of combat on Twitter, but he’s suddenly run into a growing digital uprising — anonymous federal workers who are using social media to tweak the president even as his agencies crack down on information-sharing.

This Twitter rebellion, apparently centered at the National Park Service, is winning cheers from liberal activists who seize on every 140-character outburst for signs of anti-Trump resistance. It’s also forcing Trump’s agencies to mount a whack-a-mole response, as they delete tweets about climate change and order employees to stay quiet online, each time stirring up headlines alleging an information lockdown. President Trump has yet to tweet a response to all the needling. But his team may be realizing months too late that it’s up against a foe it didn’t reckon with: Thousands of federal employees and contractors have access to government Twitter accounts. And of course, anybody can set up a non-government account when the official channels are off-limits.

Twitter was told it was "bounced" from Dec 14's meeting between tech executives and President-elect Donald Trump in retribution for refusing during the campaign to allow an emoji version of the hashtag #CrookedHillary, apparently. Twitter is one of the few major US tech companies not represented at the Trump Tower meeting attended by, among others, Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg and Tesla's Elon Musk — an omission all the more striking because of Trump's heavy dependence on the Twitter platform. "They weren’t invited because they aren’t big enough," a Trump transition official said.

It’s not clear if a Donald Trump administration would approach tech and telecom policy the same way as conventional Republicans, but putting unknowns aside, a look at four issues where Trump could attempt to undo President Barack Obama’s tech legacy. 1) On the subject of network neutrality, a Trump Federal Communications Commission could try to repeal the Open Internet Order, but it would likely take a time-consuming notice-and-comment rulemaking process. 2) When it comes to internet governance, Trump has previously echoed Sen Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) opposition to the ICANN transition, which shifted the internet domain naming and numbering system to a nonprofit, from US government oversight. Trump might attempt to reverse the transition, but the options to do so are limited. 3) Regarding encryption, Trump has previously panned Apple’s stance versus the FBI and has the potential to appoint law enforcement heads who could more aggressively push the issue. 4) Media is another area where Trump could take a different tact, with an opportunity to “open up” libel laws and use the FCC to take action against outlets he disagrees with.

Chatbots, one of the hottest trends in consumer technology, are invading the 2016 election, with Democrats and progressives deploying the artificial intelligence-powered software to do things like register voters and keep supporters engaged with Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Type a question or statement to an online chatbot, and it will attempt to respond like a human would. They can be pulled up with a few key strokes on popular services like Facebook Messenger or via SMS text. Though chatbot technology has existed for years, it's entering the mainstream thanks in part to products like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Echo, which have quickly taught people that having a conversation with a machine isn't all that strange. Now, some in politics are trying to harness the power of bots to influence the presidential election.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has tapped a network of more than 100 tech and telecom advisers to craft a policy agenda that echoes many of Silicon Valley's top priorities, from knocking down laws that limit innovation to defanging so-called patent trolls.

The breadth of her outreach to technology experts — not previously reported — marks yet another contrast with Donald Trump, who has offered few clues about who might have his ear on issues important to the tech sector, and whose positions on issues like immigration have alienated large segments of the industry. Even more than Barack Obama did eight years ago, Clinton conspicuously embraces Silicon Valley's view of the world and what it needs from Washington — a view that’s often at odds with long-standing interest groups such as taxi unions and big cable companies. Clinton’s tech advisers — divided into about a half-dozen working groups — provided input for the "technology and innovation" agenda that she released June 28.

Whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins the White House, one thing seems sure: The US will get a president with scant first-hand understanding of modern technology. Clinton's tech travails are all over the headlines, including the lax security of her home-brewed e-mail server and her documented struggles with fax machines — and the recently disclosed hacking of the Democratic National Committee's e-mails won't do much to burnish her party's image of cyber competence.

But Trump's hardly a candidate for the Geek Squad either, despite the prolific round-the-clock tweeting strategy he uses to dominate the headlines. He has boasted that he hardly ever sends e-mails — and, like Clinton, he often relies on staff to print news articles off the Internet. “I’m just not a believer in e-mail,” Trump said during a news conference during which he criticized Clinton's use of a private server when she was secretary of state. The tech-aloofness of the two nominees marks a sharp break from President Barack Obama, who fought to keep a mobile phone when he entered the White House, spends downtime surfing his iPad and wrote about his awe at the power of the Internet in his 2006 book “The Audacity of Hope.” That raises the prospect that the next occupant of the Oval Office — charged with making decisions on issues like encryption, the fight against a social-media savvy Islamic State, and the growing automation of the American economy — will be less familiar with consumer technologies than the average citizens who use them.

The Senate has confirmed Carla Hayden to be the next Librarian of Congress. She was approved by a vote of 74-18. Hayden, the CEO of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library, was nominated by President Barack Obama five months ago. She replaces James Billington, who resigned as Librarian of Congress in September after 28 years on the job.

In 2003, Hayden, then president of the American Library Association, rallied librarians across the country to oppose the USA PATRIOT Act, saying the national security law passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks gave law enforcement "unprecedented powers of surveillance — including easy access to library records with minimal judicial oversight." The Librarian of Congress manages a vast national collection of some 160 million works. While it's a somewhat obscure post, the Librarian wields considerable power behind the scenes, particularly in the area of copyright. She decides, for example, whether Americans can tinker with their copyright-protected devices like smartphones, tablet computers and even software systems in cars. President Obama, in announcing the pick in February 2016, said of Hayden: "Her understanding of the pivotal role that emerging technologies play in libraries will be essential in leading the Library of Congress as it continues to modernize its infrastructure and promote open access and full participation in today's digital world." She becomes the first woman and first African-American to fill the post.