One of my biggest issues with the current political system is that - with few exceptions - only lawyers go into politics.

This means that you have people who have never taken Econ 101 setting fiscal policy, who don't understand technology trying to regulate tech companies, etc.

I'm not sure what the solution here is, but I think we're asking for trouble when our elected representatives lack a basic comprehension of the domains in which they legislate.

>We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?

Carl Sagan

This is a good point. At the same time, some of the attorneys I've worked with in tech are wicked smart. It would definitely be good for a more representative set of people to represent citizens in congress (imagine that!), but I think the existing people are smart enough to learn what they need to about the areas that they legislate. The question is whether they take the time to learn, which it looks like they don't.

EDIT: I should clarify that I mean the attorneys I've worked with are smart enough and motivated enough to learn about technical / engineering issues, despite not being engineers.

> I'm not sure what the solution here is

The solution is obvious, stop tracking and building profiles on internet users who don't agree with FB terms or are not actively accessing the FB site.

Or maybe more engineers becoming aides or staff to these politicians?

I suspect the problem runs deeper than this. There is no shortage of clueful people willing to advise senators for free (I have personally offered to do so, for example). Also I spent 1/2 day in the company of a staffer for one of our senators last year. Based on that experience they are not really short of technology savvy. Somehow their business model depends on appearing to not understand technology.

Or maybe just spend more time with aides trying to grasp the technical issues?

I'm going to send some letters to my Senators and Representative asking them to work closely with the EFF, EPIC, etc. to formulate any regulation on this, rather than Facebook itself.

Or maybe just smarter politicians. Politicians aren't elected based on their ability to understand a wide range of technical issues. A lot of people in Congress campaigned on not understanding basic facts about reality.

Well yeah, engineers should participate; not only as senators.