Congressional policies that allow both non-commercial and commercial information providers to offer their services over the NREN will enhance the productivity and creativity of researchers, educators, students, and other NREN users.
Congress should adopt policies which help make Internet resources accessible to an ever-broadening community of users. In the 1960s, the average fifth grader had no need to use the ARPANET to access remote computing power. But in the 1990s, students down to the elementary school level can benefit from having access to libraries and other online educational resources from all around the country.
People won’t use the new technology unless they feel that their privacy is protected. Technical means, such as recently developed encryption techniques, must be made available to all users. And clear legal guidelines for individual control over access to and reuse of personal information must be established. Companies that sell entertainment services will have a record of what their customers’ interests are; these records must remain confidential.
Even an open, competitive market will leave out organizations with limited resources such as schools and libraries. To compensate for market oversights, we must ensure that money – whether through Federal support or a tax on the companies that will control the superhighway – is made available to these institutions.
Because several companies will operate the highway, each must be required to interconnect with the others. Likewise, the new computers that will give us access to the superhighway should be built according to commonly accepted standards.
Americans will come to depend on the superhighway even more than they need the telephone. The guarantee of universal telephone service must be expanded to include universal access to the superhighway. Although market forces will help keep the new technology affordable, we need laws to protect consumers when competition fails.
To prevent abuses by media giants that because of recent Federal court decisions will control the pipeline into the home and much of the content delivered over it, we need new laws. Like today’s phone companies, the companies controlling the superhighway must be required to carry other programmers’ content, just as phone companies must provide service to anyone who is willing to pay for it. We must guarantee that anyone who, say, wants to start an alternative news network or a forum for political discussion is given an outlet to do so.
The superhighway should be required to provide so-called open-platform services. In today’s channel-based cable TV system, program producers must negotiate for channel space with cable companies around the country. In an open-platform network, we would avoid that bottleneck. Every person would have access to the entire superhighway, so programmers could distribute information directly to consumers. Consumers would become producers: individuals and small organizations could create and distribute programs to anyone on the highway who wants them. Open-platform services will spur diversity in the electronic media.
Telecommunications and cable TV executives, seeking to allay concerns over their proposed megamergers, insist that the coming electronic superhighway will be an educational and informational tool as well as a cornucopia of interactive entertainment … Both broadcast and cable TV were introduced with similar fanfare. The results have been disappointing … For the government to break this cycle of promise and disappointment, communications mergers should be approved or barred based on detailed, enforceable commitments that the electronic superhighway will meet public goals.
Those parts of a system where damage would do the greatest harm – financial records, electronic mail, military data – should be protected. This involves installing more effective computer security measures, but it also means redefining the legal interpretations of copyright, intellectual property, computer crime and privacy so that system users are protected against individual criminals and abuses by large institutions. These policies should balance the need for civil liberties against the need for a secure, orderly, protected electronic society.