Al
Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet
To: Nettime <nettime-l {AT} bbs.thing.net>
Subject: <nettime> Al Gore and the
Internet
From: "vinton g. cerf" <vcerf {AT}
MCI.NET>
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 13:57:28 +1000
Reply-To: "vinton g. cerf" <vcerf
{AT} MCI.NET>
Sender: nettime-l-request {AT} bbs.thing.net
[Originally To: Declan McCullaugh <declan
{AT} well.com>, farber {AT} cis.upenn.edu Cc: rkahn {AT} cnri.reston.va.us]
Dave and Declan,
I
am taking the liberty of sending to you both a brief summary of Al Gore's Internet involvement, prepared
by Bob Kahn and me. As you know,
there have been a seemingly unending series of jokes chiding the
vice president for his assertion
that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet."
Bob and I believe that the vice president
deserves significant credit for his early recognition of the importance of what
has become the Internet. I thought
you might find this short summary of sufficient interest to share it with Politech and the IP
lists, respectively.
==============================================================
Al
Gore and the Internet By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf
Al
Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet
and to promote and support its development. No one person or even small group
of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of
many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the
university community. But as the
two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make
the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a
Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a
greater contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a
straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the
United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the
Internet." We don't think, as
some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented"
the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as
Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the
still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about
and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our
perspective.
As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore
promoted the idea of high speed
telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the
improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to
grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than
just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten,
now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on
the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place
in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed
until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment,
Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision
of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on
how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the
response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.
As
a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at
the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an
"Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials
in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of
the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 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.
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 continued investment
in advanced computing and networking and private sector initiatives such as Net
Day. He was and is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to
schools and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are on
the Internet. 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.
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.
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 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.
=================================================================
WorldCom / 22001 Loudoun County Parkway
Building F2, Room 4115, ATTN: Vint Cerf
Ashburn, VA 20147
Telephone (703) 886-1690 FAX (703) 886-0047
Al Gore probably did more to promote the
development of the Internet than any politician at the time. If you watch the
original interview, it's clear that he's not claiming he literally created the
Internet. The smear that he walked around making incredibly arrogant claims was
baseless; at worst he misspoke a single time in an offhand comment in a single
interview. Declan McCullogh took
that one quote out of context in an article and it was immediately fax-blasted
to every journalist in DC.
In 1994 we were still BBSing. Hardly a "thriving" internet. Al
Gore was a backer of the Internet long before the '91 bill. The significance of the '91 bill
was that it changed the Internet from being a purely academic network where
commercial use was prohibited to being an open infrastructure. There were no shops on the
Internet until 1993 when shop.com appeared. And you could not actually complete
an Internet transaction online until much later. The claim that Gore stated he invented the Internet was an intentional
fabrication by Declan McCullogh with assistance from the Cato institute and
Newt Gingrich's office. Nobody else who saw the CNN interview interpreted it in
the way that Declan did in his Wired article. For more: http://www.dailyhowler.com/h032999_1.shtml