Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 09:30:17 CDT
From:         Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      Conference Report, Part 1 of 4

From: Steve Cisler <sac@apple.com>
Subject:  Conference Report, Part 1 of 4

Computers, Freedom, and Privacy-2: A Report
Steve Cisler

The opinions and views expressed are those of the author, Steve
Cisler, and not necessarily those of  Apple Computer, Inc. Misquotes
of people's statements are my responsibility. Permission is granted
for re-posting in electronic form or printing in whole or in part by
non-profit organizations or individuals. Transformations or
mutations into musicals, docudramas, morality plays, or wacky
sitcoms remain the right of the author. This file may be found on the
Internet in ftp.apple.com in the alug directory.

-Steve Cisler, Apple Computer Library. Internet address:
sac@apple.com

The Second Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy,
March 18-20, 1992. Washington,D.C.was sponsored by the
Association for Computing Machinery and thirteen co-sponsors
including the American Library Association and a wide variety of
advocacy groups.

The diversity of the attendees, the scope of the topics covered, and
the dynamism of the organized and informal sessions brought a
perspective I had lost in endless conferences devoted only to library,
information, and network issues. I can now view the narrower topics
of concern to me as a librarian in new ways, and for that it was one
of the best conferences I have attended. There does exist a danger of
these issues being re-hashed each year with the usual suspects
invited each time to be panelists, so I urge you, the readers, to
become involved and bring your own experiences to the next
conference in 1993 in the San Franciso Bay Area.

Wednesday, March 18

The day began with concurrent tutorials on the following topics:
Getting on the Net (Mitchell Kapor, Electronic Frontier Foundation);
Making Information Law and Policy (Jane Bortnick, Congressional
Research Service); Communications and Network Evolution (Sergio
Heker, JVNCNet), Private Sector Privacy (Jeff Smith, Georgetown
University); Constitutional Law for Non-lawyers (Mike Godwin,
EFF); Computer Crime (Don Ingraham, Alameda County (CA)
District Attorney); Modern Telecommunications: Life After Humpty-
Dumpty (Richard Wolff, Bellcore); International Privacy
Developments (David Flaherty, Univ. of Western Ontario);

Information Law and Policy: Jane Bortnick, Congressional Research
Service (CRS)

Setting information policy is not a linear process, and it's not clear
how or when it is made because of many inputs to the process. Many
policies sit on the shelf until a crisis, the right technology is in place,
or certain people grab it.  Events create renewed interest. Industry,
academic, or non-governmental groups play an important role by
testimony and by lobbying. CRS is the institutional memory for
Congress because of the rapid turnover in the staff on the Hill.  The
challenge is to develop policy that does not hinder or hold things up,
but there is a high degree of uncertainty, change, and lack of data.
The idea is to keep things as open as possible.

Bortnick said that the  laws were written in an era of paper; now
electronic access is being added, and Congress is trying to identify
fundamental principles, not specific changes.  Now, with greater
economic  factors, members of Congress don't want to anger local
cable, phone, or newspaper firms.  In a sense you want to slow down
processes to avoid making bad laws, but sometimes, in a crisis,
Congress can work very quickly.  Congress can't be long term
because of annual budget cycles and because of the hard lobbying by
local interests. Building consensus is the key.

Scope of information policy

-spans broad range of topics dealing with info collection, use, access,
and dissemination

-global warming has a component because new satellites will dump
a terabyte a day: who is responsible for storage, access, adding value
to all of this data?
-many bills have the phrase: "and they will establish a clearinghouse
of information on this topic"
-information policy has increasingly become an element within
agency programs
-impact of info technologies further complicates debate
-result=more interested players from diverse areas.


Congress has many committees that deals with these issues. CRS
gets 500,000 requests for info a year: 1700 in one day.   After "60
minutes" is broadcast CRS gets many requests for info. from
Congress.

Jim Warren asked several questions about access to government
information. There was a general discussion about how the Library of
Congress would be digitized (size, cost, copyright barriers).  It was
noted that state level experiments affected federal activity, especially
the states that are copyrighting their information (unlike the federal
government).

The discussion about Congressional reluctance to communicate via
electronic mail with constituents: a new directory does not even list
some fax numbers that had been quasi-public before some offices felt
inundated with fax communications.

Richard Wolff: Modern Telecom: Life after humpty-dumpty
Bellcore, 445 South st., Morristown, NJ 97962  (201) 829 4537
Wolff gave presented the broad technical changes in the telephone
networks and resisted attempts by the audience to guess at policy
shifts and how they would impede implementation.  Phone lines are
growing at 3% per year, but data terminals and pcs are growing
rapidly, especially networked ones. Data services 15-25% growth
rate per year vs. voice at 3%/year. There are 7.5 million cellular sets,
a 40 % increase in one year!

Keynote: Al Neuharth, The Freedom Forum and founder of USA
Today
"Freedom in cyberspace: new wine in old flasks"

1. First amendment freedoms are for everyone. Newspaper
publishers should not relegate anyone to 2d class citizens to the back
of the bus. 2. The passion for privacy may make our democracy falter.
3. Publishing of disinformation is the biggest danger, not info-glut.

Comments on American Newspaper Publishers Assn to keep RBOCs
out of information business: Free press clause does not only apply to
newspapers. Telcos have first amendment rights too. "ANPA is
spitting into the winds of change", and some newspaper publishers
are not happy with this stance, so there is a lot of turmoil.  People
should get their news when, how and where they want it: on screen
or tossed on the front porch. Telcos have yet to demonstrate
expertise in information gathering and dissemination; they have an
outmoded allegiance to regulation .

2. The passion for privacy may make our democracy falter.  3.
Publishing of disinformation is the biggest danger, not info-glut.

He strongly criticized the use of anonymous sources by newspapers.
Anon. sources provide misinformation that does irreparable harm.
The Washington Post is the biggest user of confidential sources.
Withholding of names encourages fabricating and misinformation.
Opinions and style should not be hidden in news pages but kept on
the editorial page.

Session: Who Logs On?

Robert Lucky of Bell Labs:

<his personal statement> If I had your ear, here's what I'd talk
about:

1. fiber to the home: who pays for it? the consumers will pay and the
consumer will benefit.  The how much is what matters.  You have to
install wideband switching.  The drama is mainly economic and
policy, not technical. It will happen in 40 years. Asking what fiber will
bring that copper will not, he took the Field of Dreams approach:
supply of bandwidth will create demand.

2. Access and privacy is a personal quandary for him. Intimate
communications will be coming-- individual cells on each pole and an
individual number for each person. "I like to call anybody from my
wrist, but I hate having people calling me."  If you have access, you
can't have privacy. The right to be left alone takes away from the
'right' from other people.  Lucky was the first of many to raise the
problems of the  FBI recommend legislation, the Digital Telephony
Amendment, that would require re-design of present network so that
surveillance could take place, and that the cost of doing this would be
20 cents a month per subscriber.  It will be hard to find conversations,
but you will pay for this.  He viewed this with grave concern; it's a
bad idea. He is all for getting drug kings but he wants his privacy.

3. Lucky's observations on the Internet/NREN: One of the wonderful
things is the sense of freedom on the Internet. Anonymous ftp. There
are programs and bulletin boards.  Sense of freedom of information
and freedom of communication, but nobody seems to pay for it. It just
comes. As a member of AT&T, this needs to be transitioned to a
commercial enterprise. Government is not good at this; intellectual
property  lawyers will build walls, and hackers may screw it up too.
"I still want all the freedom in the commercial enterprise."

Linda Garcia of the OTA spoke about access issues and said it was a
cost/benefit problem.  Rural areas should be able construct a rural
area network (RAN). Take small businesses, educators, hospitals and
pool their demand for a broadband network. Government could act
as a broker or community organizer and transfer the technology.
Rural communities should not be treated the same way as urban
areas. The regulatory structure should be different for rural Maine
than for lower Manhattan. See her OTA reports Critical
Connections and Rural America at the Crossroad  for  in-depth
treatments of these issues.

Al Koeppe of New Jersey Bell outlined the many new services being
rolled out in NJ at the same time they are maintaining low basic
rates. In 1992 there will be narrowband digital service for low quality
video conferencing. 1994 wideband digital service. video on demand,
entertainment libraries and distance learning applications. He
predicted a 99% penetration by 1999.  with  complete fiber by 2010.
This will be a public network not a private one. It will still be a
common carrier. This is a very aggressive and optimistic plan, an
important one for all of us to watch. Lucky said he had never seen a
study that shows video on demand services can be competitive with
video store prices. The big question remains: how does a business
based on low-bandwidth voice services charge for broadband
services? It remains a paradox.

Brian Kahin, Kennedy School of Government, discussed the growth
of the Internet and policy issues:

-points of access for different users

-network structure and current NSFNet controversy

He said the NREN debate is one between capacity (enabling high end
applications)   and connectivity (number of resources and users
online).

Discussion during Q&A:

"A lot of the last hour has been discussing how to make the services
better for the elite, but it does not seem very democratic. people don't
even have touch tone, let alone computers or ISDN." NREN was
characterized as gigabits to the elite to kilobits to the masses.

"Don't expect anything for the next three years on telecomms issues
from Congress. "

Block grants should be directed to multi-state resource sharing
competitive grants.(Kahin)

Part 1 of 4
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU