Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is easily one of the most tech-savvy members of Congress. He has been the lead sponsor of Net-neutrality legislation and played a leading role in other efforts to represent the interests of technology in issues that intersect telecommunications, patent law and municipal wireless networks.
But in a congressional hearing Tuesday, Markey, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that considers telecommunications issues, took Congress where it’s never been before: Second Life.
The hearing was ostensibly about such issues as terrorism, consumer fraud and intellectual-property protection in virtual worlds, but the light-hearted nature of the debate and the lack of any real issues requiring congressional action suggested the hearing was more about Markey dragging his colleagues into the 21st century than legislative business.
The real-world hearing room featured a laptop running Second Life and projecting a virtual hearing room onto a screen. Markey’s Second Life avatar banged the gavel to open the hearing. And, according to press reports, while just a smattering of flesh-and-blood people showed up for the hearing, the virtual hearing room boasted about 65 avatars, including a man with an oversized top hat eating popcorn, a woman wearing wings who occasionally flew out of her seat, and a large bumblebee.
“My avatar actually looks like he’s been working out,” Markey said. His infatuation with the alternative Congress, in which people don’t all dress in blue suits and red ties, led ranking Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) to joke that Markey might prefer virtual Congress to the real thing.
“If you begin to enjoy the virtual world too much, you may not want to return to the real world,” he said. “While you’re at it, you may want to invite some of your Democratic colleagues as well.”
On a substantive note, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) dragged…