Ok I haven't seen boo about this in the past month and I don't understand it.
The Democrats have a golden opportunity to have a pro-business talking point but I haven't seen anyone pose it. Maybe no one really understand what's at stake?
My explanation below:
As a consultant to big business, I understand how corporate America and business (in general) function. One thing which has become vital in the past few years (it has always been critical) is that protection of data and privacy is absolutely critical to the free market.
Wire Tapping of both phones and of email should absolutely scare the shit out of business. Why?
First - it's already difficult for business to protect assets - including and not limited to patents, source code, research, personnel, ideas - business spend billions each year trying to do just this. Protection of these assets is critical in the free market - the ability for a government agency to have access to this information and have it shared with a competitor should be an issue that moves a CIO or a CEO into action. There should be no business CEO's who are for wire tapping individuals - because there is no way to safeguard corporate communications.
Secondly, and probably far more critical, is that CIO/CEO/CFO types do not want their dirty laundry exposed. Failures with major projects, internal personnel issues, actual investment costs - these are commonly shared across broadband channels in the form of e-mail, 800 conference call setups, web-x presentations - and they are strictly confidential. If the government wire tapping program is able to converge on these channels, then corporations can easily be blackmailed by government agencies or by those with this type of information. Exposure of these types of corporate problems to shareholders would be absolutely devastating. Top management personnel could decrypt and implement better security measures but the cost to protect the corporation's information will be enormous.
Third - the greatest asset in a corporation is the personnel. An effective wire-tapping program could easily identify the sources of knowledge and expertise. These personnel could be recruited from competitor companies and the result would be very harmful in terms of succession and business continuity planning. The ability to identify personnel having life issues - affairs, mental issues, etc is a reality and the leverage of this information should not be underestimated. Convincing a programmer to give up source code or face being exposed as a homosexual is not outside the bounds of possibility.
Finally - and this is the main point. The power of having confidential information from business will lead to massive corruption. Politicians and government employees will have access to an unprecedented amount of deep internal knowledge which could seriously disrupt business operations, allow the blackmailing of corporate and business leaders, allow for insider trading and profiteering, provide intelligence to foreign companies, allow for selling of defense contracting secrets to foreign countries, drive competitors to bankruptcy, and significantly impact the mom/pop shareholder. There will be an increased capability to persuade and influence media companies, to force companies to support legislative activities, to fund risky and politically motivated projects.
Moreover, there is a real threat to small and medium businesses who are way more vulnerable to these types of threats. They can't as easily protect voice and email channels.
The Democrats have a real issue here - which is that the wire tapping program is a threat not only to our civil liberties but to the small business and to business in general.
The platform is clear - wire tapping is not good for business and the business community will realize this immediately - we all have secrets. Business is the 900 pound gorilla with tremendous influence and we have the ability to bring them on board. Now.
We believe in protection for everyone - including business. How can anyone actually be against this unless they are benefiting from the information from this program?