Tech Isn't So High Inside the Beltway

Despite its dominance everywhere else, technology does not reign in Washington. Not a single one of its trade associations reached the Power 25. Why? Because the high-tech lobby is woefully divided against itself; factions are as common as keyboards. "High tech is not one thing," says Robert Holleyman, president of the Business Software Alliance.

Take the clash over copyright. Holleyman's trade association, which represents several large software makers, wants to hold computer makers liable if people use their machines to break the code that protects copyrighted material sent over the Internet. Some hardware companies, on the other hand, don't want software types telling them how their machines should be used. Then there's the collision over DVD, the next generation of CDs. The Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association favors a single standard, which would make DVDs easier to sell. But the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents computer makers, opposes it.

So many disputes have broken out over the years that 14 or so association leaders formed a lunch group called the Information Technology Policy Council to help keep peace. Its meetings usually are amicable, and have produced joint statements like a recent screed against the FBI's desire to break into the Internet the same way it taps phone lines. But when a would-be member wanted to start another trade group on Internet policy, he was so roundly hectored that he fled the room.