Politics, it has been said, is merely the talent for telling lies and kissing babies. During an election year, many campaigners practice artful exaggeration by gloating over small accomplishments or soft-selling their mistakes as learning experiences. At least, that’s how it happens in local elections. In a national election, public policy becomes the battle cry. Presidential elections typically see candidates taking on fads and trying to make them either evil or law, depending on whether their campaign managers decide to put a positive or negative spin on the issue.
This year, the fad is the Internet. The minor candidates—Browne, Perot, and Nader included—have seized upon the Internet as a direct-message medium. The two major candidates, meanwhile, have decided to make the Internet a campaign issue.
The Republican National Committee actually beat the Democrats to the punch with its Web site ( http://www.dolekemp96.org/ ). Speeches, video clips, and audio tidbits are scattered across the site, making it an excellent resource for research. The Republican Web effort faltered, however, during the first presidential debate in Connecticut.
In his closing statement, candidate Dole delivered a message to the “young people” of America, urging them to visit his Web site to learn more about him. The Web address he quoted was “www.dolekemp96org.” For the want of a period, this address will get users nowhere on the Web. Oops.
President Clinton seems to be taking a different approach as a campaigner. Instead of promoting himself as an Internet-aware president, he has tried to work the Internet into public policy as an educational resource for children. In a campaign stop in Knoxville last week, he revealed details of a $100 million plan to expand the internal workings of the Internet and help connect schools to the network. His proposal would connect educational institutions at no charge.
“It would lead to an explosion in learning,” Clinton told the crowd. “Let us reach for a goal in the 21st century of every home connected to the Internet and let us be brought closer together as a community through that connection.”
The initial $100 million would be included in the budget for fiscal year 1998. In fact, the money is only part of a five-year, $500 million program to upgrade the Internet to more advanced technologies. The White House says it plans to study where it will get the rest of the money. According to one White House official, public-private partnerships between technology companies and the federal government are one option.
In addition to boosting the Internet for educational use, the president has already signed a measure to punish computer crimes. The National Information Infrastructure Protection Act, signed on Monday, creates federal penalties for theft of computer information across state lines and outlaws the transmission of threats against computer networks across state or international boundaries. The new law would also make it a felony to trespass in a computer system and to use computer time worth more than $5,000 without permission.
The law has taken on a sense of urgency for President Clinton. In the past year, government Web sites have been frequent targets of intruders. Two months ago, the Department of Justice found its site replaced by another page protesting the Communications Decency Act, and last month, the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Wide Web page was defaced and renamed the “Central Stupidity Agency” home page.
Some civil rights groups are already crying foul over this law, claiming it doesn’t establish what “theft” of computer information really is. Critics charge that, in a world where issuing just one command can transfer thousands of pieces of information from one computer to another, this law leaves little room for error.
Whatever the case, it’s fine to make the Internet a campaign issue. In fact, with its growing importance throughout the world, it should be. Nevertheless, it’s ill-advised to propose a $500 million initiative that’s only 20 percent funded, it’s ignorant to sign a law that appears to be insufficiently researched, and it’s especially silly to tell people about your Web site if you don’t even know the right address.
But this is politics, and babies need kissing.
Bytes
The Cairo stock exchange came to a complete halt Sunday after the exchange’s computer system crashed; it was restored only five minutes before the end of the session. “The system was down most of the day,” said broker Sherief Khalifa of Hermes. “It slowed down to a point that orders took 30 minutes to be processed. Trading was very, very low.”
About 45 percent of the day’s turnover came from a single transaction worth $760,000 in dollar-denominated shares of Misr Gulf Oil Processing. Brokers said one of the firm’s shareholders was selling his equity to another. Exchange officials say they’re still trying to determine what went wrong. Luckily, there were no reports of depressed brokers throwing themselves out of windows.
Joel Moses can be reached via e-mail at joel@moses.com.
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