Clinton Administration policies

Getting people online fast. Included:

1. privatization of the Internet, with the devolution of the Government-owned NSFnet to private operation in 1995
2. the Telecom Reform Act of 1996 aimed at

• increasing competition,
• spurring investment and
• reducing prices in telecommunications and eventually Internet access

 
• increased cross-ownership of different media
• public auctioning of public spectrum
• gradual deregulation of telephone tariffs, coupled with new rules permitting:
• penetration of long-distance telecom carriers into local service markets,
• of local service carriers’ into other local carriers’ markets, and
• eventually of local carriers into long-distance markets
• [Background: splitting of AT&T with 1982 consent decree, into long-distance carrier (AT&T) and seven regional local-service providers ("Baby Bells")]

 
• CONSEQUENCES:
1. mergers within industries

 
New England Telephone-->NYNEX-->Bell Atlantic-->Verizon
 
1. cross-industry mergers

 

 

AOL/Time Warner (AOL being by far the largest ISP; Time Warner reached approx. 20% of the US cable market, as well as being a large content provider)
 

• wiring all schools and public libraries to permit universal Internet access to all Americans,
with some assistance through the Telecom Reform Act’s "e-rate"

• the efforts of many private sector companies
• falling costs both of connection and of ever more powerful computers
• introduction of the World Wide Web and of user-friendly, graphical user interface software.

Expanding online resources

1. activist role played by Vice-President Al Gore, who pushed for maximum development of online government resources
2. the Electronic Freedom of Information Act (1996)
3. the Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996
4. various Executive Orders and memoranda from the President and the Office of Management and Budget

Writing the rules for the National Information Infrastructure

1. "translation" versus reasoning by analogy
2. Administration policies:
3. Security and Encryption:
• Legislation:
• Clipper Chip
• Key escrow
• export of encryption products
• massive and well-organized lobbying efforts against Administration attempts;

• Executive actions:
• Formation of Commission to investigate critical infrastructure protection (evaluation of status quo  and recommendations)

• creation of new bodies and positions to coordinate such protection:
• National Infrastructure Assurance Council (NIAC) within Department of Commerce, and
• National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) based at the FBI;

 
• created a position within the National Security Council for a National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-Terrorism.

 
• Congressional action:
• hearings
• report card

• Court decisions (e.g., encryption = speech protected under 1^st Amendment)

1. Privacy and Surveillance—major issues: (public concern about government and especially commercial infringements on privacy)

• Legislation:
• privacy of personal information (online or in internetworked databases)
• protection of children’s private information (Child Online Privacy Act)

 
• Executive branch actions: e.g., Carnivore
• Court decisions: e.g., email and other online privacy of employees

1. "First Amendment" rights

• Legislation:
• "Communications Decency Act" (CDA) attached as amendment to Telecom Reform Act 1996
• After Oklahoma City bombings: proposed legislation to prohibit bomb-making information online

 
• Courts:
• struck down CDA on constitutional grounds
• variation in findings about ISP responsibilities ("publisher" or not)

1. intellectual property

• Legislation: Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• Courts: Napster case

1. development of e-commerce

• online e-commerce experimentally a tax-free zone
• developing standards for digital signatures and other authentication technologies