Ronda Hauben on 2 Oct 2000 17:24:13 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Al Gore and the Internet (pt2) |
Part two of response to Vint Cerf's email about his and Bob Kahn's statement about Al Gore's role in building the Internet. They write: >1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education >Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the >spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science. The NREN initiative was being discussed in the early 1990's. It claimed it would be support for a research and education networking inititive. That initiative somehow disappeared, and instead the NSFNET (the backbone of the Internet in the US) was given to private interests. A major change in Internet policy was made without any public discussion of why this would be desirable. And it was done at a time when there was officially the claim there would be support for a research and education network. The only public discussion that seems to have been held about this happening was the online NTIA conference held by the U.S. Dept of Commerce in November 1994. During this conference there were many people explaining why it was not appropriate to privatize the public US backbone to the Internet. The official from the NTIA lauded the conference and the citizen participation in it. (See chapter 11 and 14 - http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/) Somehow any trace of the development of a national research and education network (NREN) disappeared in the US and the Internet development in the US was put in the hands of private entities. There was a mailing list that several Internet pioneers and NSF officials participated in called com-priv (commericalization and privatization) There were people on that list fighting over who would get the spoils of the Internet privatization. I later learned that ANS (a company which involved IBM and MCI which worked with the MERIT network in Michigan) sold their interest in the US NSF backbone to another company, The person mentioned that they got $300,000 for it. None of this was discussed openly before the privatization. And it basically hasn't been discussed openly since. But public property and public policy were privatized without any concern for the interests of the public, who indicated that many were opposed as they felt this would lead to a situation where access would be available to the wealthy and to the business world and not to the citizens. Also people at the NTIA online conference pointed out that the nature of the Internet would be changed if people are being encouraged to feel they are customers, rather than contributors to the Net. However, Licklider's vision was that people are users, are part of a human-computer symbiosis or dependency, and that each partner of this symbiosis benefits from the relationship. What happens when one begins to treat the humans as customers and claim the ttechnology belongs to commercial companies which they control. What happens to the scientific roots of the Internet. What happens to the notion of user as architecture of the developing network? >As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as >well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies >that spawned it. He served as the major administration proponent for One doesn't just "release" public property out of the "control of government agencies". There are supposedly safeguards for the protection of public property and of the public interest by government. Officials of the US government have an obligation to protect public property. The recent General Accounting Office (GAO) statement about the effort of the US Dept of Commerce to transfer public property from the US government to ICANN noted that it is unconstitutional for the US governmnent to transfer US public property without the proper statutory authority. "Un the Property Clause of the Constition disposal of government property requires statutory authority. U.S. Constitution, Art IV, S 3, cl. 2" . To have such a big change of policy with so little public awareness and public discussion, as the "releasing" of the public NSF backbone of the Internet to private entities, shows the constitutional crisis that exists in the US at the current time. >continued investment in advanced computing and networking and private >sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and is a strong proponent of In the early 1990's there were a series of free-nets developing around the US. These were a means of providing free access that would be available to all. There was discussion of the importance of some public policy that recognized and supported such initiatives at the NTIA online conference. It isn't that any US politician, to my knowledge, proposed the importance of supporting such initiatives. One wonders about the kind of scientific advice that politicans get in the US. And who the advisors are. Unfortunately, it seems the advisors are from the big communications or computer companies that will benefit from giving advice to support "private sector" Internet development. Shortly after the privatization of the Internet, there was a big governnment contract that went to an communications company, probably one of the companies that was very active having its officials lobby for privatization of the Internet. While scientists who get public funds seem to have a provision of the law that forbids them from lobbying in favor of funds for science, it seems that private corporate contractors have no such constraint. It would be good to understand better this aspect of US law, as it seems scientists and those who might provide public officials with advice that could serve the public interest, are constrained in their activities, while corporate entities don't seem to have such constraints. While public officials in the past seemed to recognize the need to hear from those who don't have a commercial self interest on an issue, it seems now that in the US only those with a commercial self interest are considered to be the "stakeholders" that need to be heard. This is what has become the privatization of public policy in the US in the recent past, particularly with regard to the development of the Internet in the US. >extending access to the network to schools and libraries. Today, >approximately 95% of our nation's schools are on the Internet. I recently went to a meeting (a "town meeting" about the Internet held by corporations - another example of the privatization of public policy in the US.) People there reported that there is a major campaign in NYC to have access to the net for children in schools in return for them reading ads. Up to now there has been an effort to keep the schools in NYC from having ads. The kind of access to the Internet that the US government has been promoting is to a "commercially driven" entity where users are put at the mercy of advertisers. This is very far from the kind of "intellectual public utility" that pioneers of the early time-sharing systems envisioned for the future of the Internet. Had the free-nets been developed, they were a non commercial means of providing access for students in schools. Similarly, the NSF backbone could have been extended to link the public schools to an education and research network. >Gore provided much-needed political support for the speedy >privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it >to become a commercially-driven operation. It would seem that there was a need for public discussion and consideration of the public property and the public interest and not "much-needed political support for the speedy privatization of the Interenet". And it seems that any "speedy privatization" is cause for serious questioning of what has happened to the public interest and public property. Who determined that the "time arrived for it to become a commercial-driven operation"? That wasn't the public assessment as demmonstrated by the NTIA online conference in November 1994 several months before the privatization in May 1995. If Al Gore was responsible for this, one wonders who was pressuring for such a development, and why there was no effort to get advice that would counter such pressure. Does Al Gore also support the privatization of the essential functions of the Internet infrastructure? At a meeting at the Berkman Center at the JFK School of Government at Harvard in January 2000, a staffer for Gore, Elaine Kamarck described the importance of government to protect the kinds of infrastructure where people's economic lives are at stake. That in a government there are penalties for officials who abuse their public obligations, while in a private corporate entity like ICANN, there no such penalties. Will Al Gore hear this kind of advice? Or are the pressures from those who advocate on behalf of the computer or communications corporations who benefit from "as much private as possible" too strong to resist? >There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's rapid >growth since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been political >support for its privatization and continued support for research in >advanced networking technology. In "The Net and the Netizens" written in 1992-1993, there is documentation of how the Internet was spreading. This was not becasue of its privatization, but to the contrary, because it was offering a general nature communications human-computer system that was welcomed by people around the world. And there was a continuing effort to spread it through academic and public and community means. Also the Acceptible Use Policy (AUP) of the NSFNet welcomed the links to networks to other countries as long as those countries reciprocated in providing access to their developing networks to those on the NSFNet. Also the free-nets had begun to spread to other countries. This was the kind of effort similar to that proposed by JCR Licklider who envisioned the challenge that the development of the network would pose to society. He warned against putting development in the hands of commercial entities who wouldn't understand the nature of what was being developed. If private entities are so capable, why didn't they develop their own networking infrastructure and spread it. But instead they campaigned vigorously to have the public networking infrastructure given to them. In the early development of the Internet, there was a desire by the US Department of Defense to have an operational network. And there was a research network. It wasn't that the US Department of Defense seized the research network. Instead they created a separate network and linked it to the research network. This is the kind of development that tcp/ip makes possible. So the early Internet was a linking of MILNET (the operational DoD network) with the ARPANET (the science and research network). Yet this isn't what was done with in the connection of private companies to the Internet. Instead the US NSF research and education network was turned over to the private companies. This is the kind of development that is contrary to the nature of an Internet, not development that scales and spreads the Internet. This is the kind of development that aims to replace the Internet with a corporate commercenet. >No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in >helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than >the Vice President. Gore has been a clear champion of this >effort, both in the councils of government and with the >public at large. The climate that would create a thriving Internet is a climate that recognized that the interests and voices of the citizens in the US and around the world need to be part of the decision making process regarding Internet development and policy. That the role of the government with regard to Internet development is a vital questions that needs to have resources and public discussion devoted to its determination. JCR Licklider recognized that there were socio-technical pioneers who were developing online who were creating the kinds of new developments that all users would benefit from. That these socio-technical pioneers were creative users who needed protection and support for their efforts. The privatization of US portion of the Internet has led to the abuse of all users. And the kind of new development that creative users can foster is hamstrung and left with little or no resources for its support, while get-rich-quick-schemes proliferate. The vision of fostering cooperative and creative computer facilitated human-to- human efforts to identify the important social and scientific questions, and extending the human-computer symbiosis to solve them, is lost or rarely mentioned. If Al Gore has any understanding of this pioneering vision, it would be good to see some indication of it. >The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of the value >of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term and >consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to American >citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world. But JCR Licklider's vision for the development of the Intergalactic Network that inspired computer pioneers to develop the Internet, was not primarly a vision for "high speed computing and communication". It was primarly a vision for fostering cooperative and collaborative human-to- human communication and human-computer partnership to solve the important social and scientific problems of our time. It recognized the need to create a new online scientific environment. Licklider's vision was that all have access to a network where "intellectual amplification" would be seen as a right not a privilege. Licklider's vision for the development of a network was for a general nature intellectual utility, not for a commercial shoping mart or 500 channel tv. Licklider recognized that industry would have its own agenda which would be for short term purposes and its own self interest, rather than the broader public interest. And Licklider urged that citizens not give up on government, but that they work to have government support the long term public interest in technical and scientific development. There seems, from the statement Vint Cerf has sent around online, little way for a presidential candidate to hear or be able to recognize what the public interest is in technical and scientific development. It doesn't seem that anyone with the ear of that candidate would tell him about the NTIA online meeting and the fact that there were many citizens opposed to the privatization of the NSF backbone to the Internet. And yet this is what the candidates need to know about. It doesn't seem that there are scientific advisors who would indicate that there was a support for basic research in the early development of interactive computing and networking in the US. (See for example: http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/arpa_ipto.txt http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/basicresearch.txt http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/centers-excellence.txt ) Don Price, in his book "Government and Science" explains the need for scientific advisors to the president who will provide government with the broad spectrum of views and information. Instead it seems that there are thosee who function as a scientific or technical advisor to government, to narrow down what the government officials will know about and what they will be encouraged to consider in determining public policy regarding science and technology and important public and scientific resources like the Internet. This doesn't bode well for the future for whoever gets into the presidency in the US. The statement that Vint Cerf sent around online shows the narrow set of information and views that a US presidential candidate has access to. Thus this presents a serious challenge for citizens around the world. The concept of netizen, of those users who would take up such challenges that the development and scaling of the Internet raise, is needed more than ever. >WorldCom >22001 Loudoun County Parkway >Building F2, Room 4115, ATTN: Vint Cerf Ronda ronda@ais.org ronda@panix.com http://www.ais.org/~ronda/ http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/internet.txt http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/birth_internet.txt _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold