This past week, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced her candidacy for the presidency. As with every election in living memory, we can probably expect her and her fellow candidates to attack one another mercilessly on virtually every issue imaginable. In Secretary Clinton’s case, it’s more than likely that her opponents will raise her private email server as a campaign issue like they did again today.

It’s a “nerd” issue if there ever was one – but it’s still worthy of discussion. Clinton’s use of the private Clinton.com email server to send and receive official messages while still a government official raises questions of security and secrecy, and the possible vulnerability of any private network to hacking creates the possibility of espionage or blackmail.

It can be said that the decision to use the Clinton.com email server for official correspondence was probably not Secretary Clinton’s most inspired decision. But it is equally true that much of her political opponents’ responses haven’t been that inspired either: For instance, one politician’s suggestion that the server be surrendered to a third party for forensic analysis would put any official secrets at even greater risk.

Seen broadly, the entire issue suggests that many government officials don’t understand technology very well, but that they are still inclined to take actions and make statements about it. As we’ve seen before, the results can be both laughable and tragic. Consider these examples:

• The extremely troubled rollout of the healthcare.gov website and state medical exchanges;
• A former senator’s description of the Internet as “a series of tubes” on the senate floor;
• A current senator’s earnest suggestion last week that The Anarchist Cookbook “should be deleted from the Internet”;
• Contradictory FCC and FBI advice regarding the private use of unbreakable encryption for online communications, with the former agency advocating for its use while the latter suggests that it be banned.

Government leaders must understand the basic concepts about the technologies that many of us depend on every day. There are many important regulatory and policy decisions that will need to be made – about privacy, security, intellectual property, standardization, and more.

Here’s hoping that all our current and future leaders’ knowledge will be up to the task; if they’re not, they are likely to establish official policies that are counterproductive, ineffectual, or actively harmful to companies and citizens alike. I think we all deserve better than that.