I hope that this will help the group formulate a set of policies relating to technology and make technology in general and the net in particular an issue during the presidential campaign. I suspect that other groups will follow suit. During the last elections, I put together a list of technology issues and where the candidates stood. I was surprised at the time that no news organization had gone through the trouble of compiling such list. I was also surprised by how little data there was at the time. With the announcement from the Dean campaign, it is now becoming clear that the business of technology is gaining the limelight it should have had then.
Reading the statement of Internet principles, it appears the Dean campaign is for open Internet access, and is looking to foster more freedom online. At the current time, it’s very hazy and I hope that more details will emerge in the future as to where this campaign stands on critical issues like cryptography exports, H1B visas, Internet taxations, peer to peer networks, etc…
This announcement is a good first step and shows, once again, why the Dean campaign is closely associated with the Internet. The question now is how they are planning to move forward on this.