[gnu at toad.com: Re: Technology Policy and Information Infrastructure ]

[John Gilmore]

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To: "Vinton G. Cerf" <vcerf at CNRI.Reston.VA.US>, gnu at toad.com
Subject: Re: Technology Policy and Information Infrastructure 
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 93 01:43:31 -0800
From: gnu at toad.com

Sound bites for Congress re technology policy and information infrastructure:

  *  Government investment invariably brings government control, which
     is harmful to the development of a communications medium in a free
     and open society.

  *  The Government seized control of telegraphy, radio, and television
     early in their development, and they have never had full First Amendment
     protection.

  *  Private, interactive electronic media involve Fourth and Fifth Amendment
     issues as well.

  *  The Executive Branch is already advocating broad wiretapping, and 
     banning of privacy technologies, and they don't even own the network.
     If the government owned the network, there'd be no stopping them.

  *  The risk of moving society into media where individual rights are
     regularly abridged is too great.  Economics is pushing us into
     individual electronic communication, regardless.

  *  If Congress truly believes in the Bill of Rights, it should get the
     hell out of the networking business and stay out of it.

	John Gilmore
	(not speaking for) Electronic Frontier Foundation
	(but ask EFF if they want to say something like this...)

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