The politics of technology and the technology of politics: Issues for the U.S. Congress third century

To assist the Congressional Research Service’s study of the U.S. Congress in the Year 2000, this paper has been drafted with two goals: (1) to establish a perspective on the critical role of technology during the next 12 years in affecting U.S. society, and (2) to identify technology-related policy issues of critical concern to Congress. Because of the assignment’s breadth and the lengthy queue of issues warranting attention, the author has chosen to strain out the most crucial questions by exercise of the most strenuous of life’s motivations. That test of relevance is survival in the sense of being both alive and free, of meeting threats to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.