The Internet has grown without a clear plan or organization. There’s no government for the Internet. One of the great challenges is to establish some means of providing order and giving markers along the way.
Predictor: Boucher, Rick
Prediction, in context:Congressman Rick Boucher is quoted in a 1993 The Nation article that covers the Internet and its implications. The article says: ”Right now a debate is raging in Washington on how to transform the Internet into a faster, bigger network, called NREN, the National Research and Education Network. Funding for NREN began with then-Senator Al Gore in 1991. This year, Congressman Rick Boucher is sponsoring legislation to add on to Gore’s brainchild, providing $1.5 billion in fudning to hook libraries, schools and medical facilities to new high-speed computers. Telecommunications and computer companies, including NYNEX and Cray Research, have lined up in favor and a Clinton Administration spokesman has said that the president is prepared to sign the legislation, which is expected to pass through both houses of Congress this summer. But one of the main aims of Boucher’s bill has alarmed many longtime Net users. It also encourages the NREN computers to use private networks instead of publicly subsidized ones. Boucher, chairman of the House Science Subcommittee, has suggested that the government should turn all areas of the Internet to private corporations whenever possible. He says, ‘The Internet has grown without a clear plan or organization. There’s no government for the Internet. One of the great challenges is to establish some means of providing order and giving markers along the way.’ … Another Boucher-sponsored bill would grand antitrust exemptions for telephone companies, allowing a single company to own both phone and cable lines. Boucher thinks this will provide the financial incentive for the private sector to upgrade the communications links between the Internet and private homes. But critics fear the end result could be the expansion of local cable and telephone monopolies into monopolies controlling all electronic access into the home.”
Biography:Rick Boucher was a U.S. Congressman who backed the amendment that allowed the National Science Foundation to support computer networks and opened the floodgates of digital commerce in the early 1990s. (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Government
Name of publication: The Nation
Title, headline, chapter name: The Whole World is Talking
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Vol. 257, Issue 2, Page 60 ISSN: 00278378
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney