Rob Atkinson writes in RealClearFuture that through the late 1990s, the tech industry was the toast of Washington. Two decades later, things have changed, as evidenced in recent months by the tense standoff between policymakers and the tech community over thorny questions about encryption and the whys and hows of government access to private data for law enforcement and national security purposes. So what’s behind tech’s fall from grace? The short answer is that as tech grew to be a major part of the global economy, a large target also appeared on its back. Of course, the tech industry is not blameless in its fall from grace, but the mainstreaming of tech criticism has been deeply troubling, because the truth is tech innovation is and will remain the single most important driver of human progress.
