Time to Reboot

By DiNovella, Elizabeth

Our energy crisis is getting a lot of press these days, for good reason. But another tiny cartel has set prices high, and created false scarcity around another vital resource: bandwidth. Yes, bandwidth, as in high-speed Internet, also known as broadband. The telecom industry is strangling us with high prices, limited availability, and slow connections. In the industrialized world, Americans pay the eighth-highest monthly rates for broadband service. And the service we get is pokier than what’s available in France or Japan.

Under the Bush Administration, we’ve fallen behind on broadband distribution compared to other nations. We’ve gone from being fourth in 2001 to fifteenth in 2007, lagging behind Iceland and South Korea. The U.S. ranks twenty-second when it comes to cost-it’s cheaper in Portugal and Turkey.

This is the direct result of living under an Administration that philosophically believes government does not have a responsibility for the common good. The Internet is a common good. Roads are a common good. Bridges are a common good. Education is a common good. All are crumbling.

We need a national tech policy that reflects the emancipatory possibilities of the Internet in the twenty-first century, rather then the profit motives of large corporations.

The digital divide has gotten worse under Bush. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 35 percent of households with annual incomes under $50,000-about half the country-had broadband in 2007. (In 2001, when cheap dial-up service dominated the industry, it was slightly better.) Meanwhile, the vast majority of the rich surf at high speeds: 82 percent of households with incomes $75,000 and higher subscribed to broadband in 2007.

The disparity between racial groups regarding broadband has not improved since Bush took office. In 2007, 55 percent of white, non- Hispanic Americans had high-speed Internet; for black households, 36 percent; Latinos, 35 percent; Native Americans, a dismal 30 percent, down from 38 percent in 2001.

There’s also a geographic dimension to the digital divide: Less than 40 percent of rural households subscribe to broadband. Ten million rural families could not even get broadband if they wanted.

In June, academics, activists, and computer industry leaders launched the “Internet for Everyone” initiative to organize public support for improving broadband accessibility.

David All, a Republican technology consultant and member of the Internet for Everyone coalition, does not see broadband accessibility as a partisan issue.

“It’s common sense to me why Republicans would want to support” this effort, All says. Rural Americans often don’t have access to high-speed Internet connections. “Bush got this vote by 64 percent,” All says. “We’ve been losing elections by 1, 2, 10 percent. So it concerns me. I want to start winning again.”

Americans spend $100 billion on bandwidth for phones alone, according to Tim Wu, Columbia Law School professor and member of the coalition. The average household cost of cable, cellphones, and broadband comes close to the same amount spent on energy costs.

But the lack of a comprehensive national tech policy isn’t just about money; it’s about democracy, too. Digital technology is creating opportunities for a more robust and participatory democracy.

We could update open meeting laws and require federal, state, and local governments to post agendas and meeting minutes, and even broadcast hearings online.

The public could comment on pending legislation. In Utah, Republican Steve Urquhart founded Politicopia.com, a website that allows citizens to discuss bills. “One week into the experiment, Politicopia was working. Citizens were participating and being heard. Legislators were talking to me about things they’ve read on Politicopia,” Urquhart writes on his website. “Because of input I received, I changed a position I’ve held for years. In just one week, citizens were using Politicopia to shape the debate.”

Watchdog groups modeled after Wikipedia-an online encyclopedia that people can edit and collaborate on-could help keep politicians accountable. The Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Media and Democracy are trying to do that with Congresspedia.com (“The citizens’ encyclopedia on Congress that you can edit”). And that’s just the start.

A recent Pew Study shows that 40 percent of all Americans get their information about politics online. We risk leaving behind whole segments of the population from the political debate if the Internet is too expensive. As civil rights organizer Van Jones puts it, “The right to vote will diminish if people do not have access to blogs and political information online.”

Digital technology is proving to be a wild card in this year’s elections. It’s democratizing the debate. People are no longer passive consumers but media makers in their own right. Just look at all the video mashups on the Web about die Presidential election. Online political videos often drove the mainstream news coverage during the primaries. The Reverend Wright, John Hagee, and sniper fire in Bosnia would not have dogged the leading contenders if it weren’t for YouTube. And who can forget die snowman that asked about global warming during CNN’s primary debate?

This is the perfect moment for a national dialog on tech policy. The Personal Democracy Forum, a gathering of political bloggers and online types of all stripes, has been trying to get a national conversation started.

Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry, founder and editor, respectively, of the Personal Democracy Forum, issue this challenge to the leading Presidential candidates: Who will be our first Tech President? They urge the candidates to declare the Internet a public good in the same way we think of water, electricity, highways, or public education.

They want the leading candidates to support net neutrality, the principle that would prevent Internet service providers from speeding up or slowing down the delivery of content based on its source or substance. And they want to build a national “NetGuard” of technologists to be deployed in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Sifry compares the Internet to the telephone. “In the 1930s, as the telephone system was being built out, our country made a commitment to ensure that everybody would at least have dial tone service,” he says. “It’s the universal service provision. We recognized how important it was. And it’s the same thing today.”

“Our economy is making a conversion from twentieth to twenty- first century and our industrial base is no longer sustaining us long term,” says Rasiej. “And many people, whether it’s in Akron, Ohio, or any of the industrialized centers of our history, are trying to figure out how to make a living, produce services, connect with the global economy. And if there isn’t low cost access to the Internet, they won’t be able to participate in that.”

Craig Newmark, creator of the online community network Craigslist.org, says a national tech policy is about shared values. “The Internet gives any individual political or economic advantage,” says Newmark. “We want everyone to be on a level playing field. We want to give a guy a break. And that means everyone needs some sort of access.”

If you don’t use a computer, should you even run the country? John McCain is particularly vulnerable on this issue, since he has admitted he is computer “illiterate.” Campaign adviser Mark Soohoo defends McCain by saying, “You don’t need to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country.”

But Tracy Russo, former deputy director of online communications for the John Edwards campaign, says that isn’t enough. An everyday understanding of e-mail, she says, is as necessary as knowing the price of a gallon of milk.

McCain has served on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over many tech issues, including the Internet. He sometimes supports decent legislation but ultimately has a spotty record. And his campaign website does not even have a technology section listed under issues.

Barack Obama has benefited the most from the Web, and, perhaps not surprisingly, his cyberspace policy is the most comprehensive.

Obama supporters were more likely to be Internet users than Hillary Clinton supporters, according to a June study released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And Obama partisans use the Internet in greater numbers to donate money.

Obama has amassed huge e-mail lists during this campaign. Elizabedi Edwards wonders if he will ever use these lists for action. “There’s no point is collecting political capital if you aren’t going to use it for. what you care about,” she says.

One of the most innovative government programs regarding cyberspace comes from Brazil. The Latin American country has been at the forefront of integrating digital technology into civil society. Its culture ministry, led by Gilberto Gil, the musician and political prisoner turned cabinet member, has wired up nearly 700 cultural “hotspots” all over Brazil.

A creative society is emerging, Gil says. The Brazilian government is supporting “new culture media makers and hopefully creating new authors and artists.” Kids are learning to create media and upload it to the Web, before learning how to download. This is the sort of inventiveness that we need in this country.

Brazil, too, faces a daunting digital divide, falling along racial, economic, and educational disparities. As Gil said in an interview on Democracy Now, “We have to fight for inclusion in a broad sense, not just digital inclusion.” Digital technology can be used against society’s interest, too, Gil warns. The Bush Administration’s massive warrantless domestic wiretapping program, done with the complicity of the major telecommunications companies, is but one example.

The lack of a national cohesive cyberspace policy needs to be part of the election debates. We need real leadership on the issue. The Internet is for everyone.

-Elizabeth DiNovella

“It is outrageous that the country that invented the Internet cannot ensure fast affordable Internet access to all businesses, all hospitals, all schools, all libraries, all churches, all public safety officials, all community organizations.”

-Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver

“The Internet is proving to be one of the most powerful amplifiers of speech ever invented.”

-Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

“Maybe it’s not as basic as water, but it’s definitely as basic as hot water.”

-ZipCar founder Robin Chase

Copyright Progressive Incorporated Aug 2008

(c) 2008 Progressive, The. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.