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Al Gore and information technology

None

Al Gore and information technology

Summary

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[[Al Gore]], 2007

Al Gore is a United States politician who served successively in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and as the Vice President from 1993 to 2001. In the 1980s and 1990s, he promoted legislation that funded an expansion of the ARPANET, allowing greater public access, and helping to develop the Internet.

Congressional work and Gore Bill

Prior to the late 1970s, data communication was primarily on time sharing services, such as those of General Electric. Gore had been involved with computers since the late 1970s, first as a Congressman (1977–1985) and later as senator and vice president. A 1998 article described him as a "genuine nerd, with a geek reputation running back to his day as a futurist 'Atari Democrat' in the House. Before computers were comprehensible ... Gore struggled to explain artificial intelligence and fiber-optic networks to sleepy colleagues." According to Campbell-Kelly and Aspray (Computer: A History of the Information Machine), up until the early 1990s public usage of the Internet was limited and the "problem of giving ordinary Americans network access had excited Senator Al Gore since the late 1970s."

Of Gore's involvement in the then-developing Internet while in Congress, Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn have also noted:

On June 24, 1986, Gore introduced S-2594, Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986.

As a senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as "The Gore Bill") after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by University of California, Los Angeles professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet).

Indeed, Kleinrock would later credit both Gore and the Gore Bill as a critical moment in Internet history:

The bill was passed on December 9, 1991, and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway". President George H. W. Bush predicted that the bill would help "unlock the secrets of DNA," open up foreign markets to free trade, and a promise of cooperation between government, academia, and industry.

Prior to its passage, Gore discussed the basics of the bill in an article for the September 1991 issue of Scientific American entitled Scientific American presents the September 1991 Single Copy Issue: Communications, Computers, and Networks. His essay, "Infrastructure for the Global Village", commented on the lack of network access described above and argued: "Rather than holding back, the U.S. should lead by building the information infrastructure, essential if all Americans are to gain access to this transforming technology""...high speed networks must be built that tie together millions of computers, providing capabilities that we cannot even imagine."

Mosaic

Perhaps one of the most important results of the Gore Bill was the development of Mosaic in 1993. This World Wide Web browser is credited by most scholars as beginning the Internet boom of the 1990s:

Gore's legislation also helped fund the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, where a team of programmers, including Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, created the Mosaic Web browser, the commercial Internet's technological springboard. 'If it had been left to private industry, it wouldn't have happened,' Andreessen says of Gore's bill, 'at least, not until years later.'

Gore and the Information Superhighway

As vice president, Gore promoted the development of what he referred to as the Information Superhighway. This was discussed in detail a few days after winning the election in November 1992 in The New York Times article "Clinton to Promote High Technology, With Gore in Charge." They planned to finance research "that will flood the economy with innovative goods and services, lifting the general level of prosperity and strengthening American industry." Specifically, they were aiming to fund the development of "robotics, smart roads, biotechnology, machine tools, magnetic-levitation trains, fiber-optic communications, and national computer networks. Also earmarked are a raft of basic technologies like digital imaging and data storage." These initiatives were met with some skepticism from critics who claimed that "the initiative is likely to backfire, bloating Congressional pork, and creating whole new categories of Federal waste." These initiatives were outlined in the report Technology for America's Economic Growth.{{Cite web |access-date = 2007-06-01 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070619205603/http://www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov/JPODOCS/BRIEFING/7423.pdf |archive-date = 2007-06-19 |url-status = dead |display-authors = etal | access-date = 2007-06-11 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080317034500/http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=83F1AFDF-DFDF-429F-B420-10D25322587 | archive-date = 2008-03-17 | url-status = dead | url-access = subscription

In the early 1990s the Internet was big news ... In the fall of 1990, there were just 313,000 computers on the Internet; by 1996, there were close to 10 million. The networking idea became politicized during the 1992 Clinton–Gore election campaign, where the rhetoric of the information highway captured the public imagination. On taking office in 1993, the new administration set in place a range of government initiatives for a National Information Infrastructure aimed at ensuring that all American citizens ultimately gain access to the new networks.

These initiatives were discussed in a number of venues. Howard Rheingold argued in the 1994 afterword to his noted text, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, that these initiatives played a critical role in the development of digital technology, stating that, "Two powerful forces drove the rapid emergence of the superhighway notion in 1994 .... The second driving force behind the superhighway idea continued to be Vice President Gore."{{Cite journal |access-date=2008-01-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071201040602/http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/50/fe.pdf |archive-date=2007-12-01 |display-authors=etal |url-status=live

On January 13, 1994, Gore "became the first U.S. vice president to hold a live interactive news conference on an international computer network". Gore was also asked to write the foreword to the first edition of the 1993 internet guide, The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking by Tracy LaQuey. In the foreword, he stated the following:

Since I first became interested in high-speed networking almost seventeen years ago, there have been many major advances both in the technology and in public awareness. Articles on high-speed networks are commonplace in major newspapers and in news magazines. In contrast, when as a House member in the early 1980s, I called for creation of a national network of "information superhighways," the only people interested were the manufacturers of optical fiber. Back then, of course, high-speed meant 56,000 bits per second. Today we are building a national information infrastructure that will carry billions of bits of data per second, serve thousands of users simultaneously, and transmit not only electronic mail and data files but voice and video as well.

The Clinton–Gore administration launched the first official White House website on 21 October 1994. It would be followed by three more versions, resulting in the final edition launched in 2000. The White House website was part of a general movement by this administration towards web-based communication: "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system, and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On 17 July 1996. President Clinton issued Executive Order 13011 – Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to fully utilize information technology to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public."

The Clipper Chip, which "Clinton inherited from a multi-year National Security Agency effort,"{{Cite journal

Another initiative proposed a software-based key escrow system, in which keys to all encrypted data and communications would reside with a trusted third party. Since the government was seen as possibly having a need to access encrypted data originating in other countries, the pressure to establish such a system was worldwide.

These policies met with strong opposition from civil liberties groups, leading cryptographers, and the European Commission. All three encryption initiatives thus failed to gain widespread acceptance by consumers or support from the industry. The ability of a proposal such as the Clipper Chip to meet the stated goals, especially that of enabling better encryption to individuals, was disputed by a number of experts.

With this resistance and lack of industry support, the Clipper Chip and key escrow initiatives were abandoned by 1996.

President [[Bill Clinton]] installing computer cables with Vice President Al Gore on [[NetDay]] at [[Ygnacio Valley High School]] in Concord, CA. March 9, 1996

Gore had discussed his concerns with computer technology and levels of access in his 1994 article, "No More Information Have and Have Nots." He was particularly interested in implementing measures, which would grant all children access to the Internet, stating:

|access-date=2008-06-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929123655/http://192.211.16.13/curricular/Tacoma/info1.htm |archive-date=2007-09-29

Gore had a chance to fulfill this promise when he and President Clinton participated in John Gage's NetDay '96 on March 9, 1996. Clinton and Gore spent the day at Ygnacio Valley High School, as part of the drive to connect California public schools to the Internet.{{cite news |access-date= 2008-06-12 |access-date=2008-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609140821/http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/NetDay/Video/statement.html |archive-date=2011-06-09 |url-status=dead On April 28, 1998, Gore honored numerous volunteers who had been involved with NetDay and "who helped connect students to the Internet in 700 of the poorest schools in the country" via "an interactive online session with children across the country."{{cite news |access-date= 2008-06-12

He also reinforced the impact of the Internet on the environment, education, and increased communication between people through his involvement with "the largest one-day online event" for that time, 24 Hours in Cyberspace. The event took place on 8 February 1996, and Second Lady Tipper Gore also participated, acting as one of the event's 150 photographers. Gore contributed the introductory essay to the Earthwatch section of the website, arguing that:

Gore was involved in a number of other projects related to digital technology. He expressed his concerns for online privacy through his 1998 "Electronic Bill of Rights" speech in which he stated: "We need an electronic bill of rights for this electronic age ... You should have the right to choose whether your personal information is disclosed." He also began promoting a NASA satellite that would provide a constant view of Earth, marking the first time such an image would have been made since The Blue Marble photo from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. The "Triana" satellite would have been permanently mounted in the L1 Lagrangian Point, 1.5 million km away. Gore also became associated with Digital Earth. |access-date= 2008-07-03

{{anchor|1999 CNN interview}}Urban legend that Gore claims to have invented the Internet

1999 CNN interview controversyIn a March 9, 1999, interview with CNN's *Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, *Gore discussed the possibility of running for president in the 2000 election. In response to Wolf Blitzer's question: "Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley", Gore responded:

After this interview, Gore became the subject of controversy and ridicule when his statement, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet",{{cite news |access-date=2007-06-02}} was widely quoted out of context. It was often misquoted by comedians and figures in American popular media who framed this statement as a claim that Gore believed he had personally invented the Internet.{{cite web | access-date = 2007-06-02 |display-authors=etal}}

Former UCLA professor of information studies, Philip E. Agre, as well as journalist Eric Boehlert argued that three articles in Wired News led to the creation of the widely spread urban legend that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet", which followed this interview.{{cite news |access-date=2008-08-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724051106/http://archive.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/10/05/gore_internet/print.html |archive-date=24 July 2008 |url-status=dead |access-date= 2008-08-22 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080919035821/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/10/02/net_builders_kahn_cerf_recognise/| archive-date= 19 September 2008 | url-status= live}} Cerf would also later state: "Al Gore had seen what happened with the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, which his father introduced as a military bill. It was very powerful. Housing went up, suburban boom happened, everybody became mobile. Al was attuned to the power of networking much more than any of his elective colleagues. His initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet. So he really does deserve credit."{{cite magazine |access-date= 2008-08-23 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080918194907/http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/vint-cerf-0508?click=pp| archive-date= 18 September 2008 | url-status= live}}

[[Al Gore]], [[Newt Gingrich]], and President [[Bill Clinton]] in 1997

In a speech to the American Political Science Association, Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, also stated: "In all fairness, it's something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is—and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a 'futures group'—the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the '80s began to actually happen." In 2008, Wolf Blitzer (who conducted the original 1999 interview) stated:

|access-date= 2008-07-06

Gore himself would later poke fun at the controversy. In 2000, while on the Late Show with David Letterman he read Letterman's Top 10 List (which for this show was called the "Top Ten Rejected Gore – Lieberman Campaign Slogans") to the audience. Number nine on the list was "Remember, America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away!" In 2005, when Gore was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award "for three decades of contributions to the Internet" at the Webby Awards,{{cite news |access-date=2008-06-15 |access-date=2008-06-15 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110513033608/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/arts/08webb.html| archive-date=May 13, 2011| url-status= live}} he joked in his acceptance speech (limited to five words according to Webby Awards rules): "Please don't recount this vote." He was introduced by Vint Cerf who used the same format to joke: "We all invented the Internet." Gore, who was then asked to add a few more words to his speech, stated: "It is time to reinvent the Internet for all of us to make it more robust and much more accessible and use it to reinvigorate our democracy."

Post-vice presidency

Gore continued his involvement with the computer industry and new technologies after he left the White House in 2001. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. and a senior advisor to Google.{{cite web |access-date= 2008-06-13 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080613182720/http://www.algore.com/about.html| archive-date= 13 June 2008 | url-status= live}}

Emmy and Current TV

On May 4, 2004, INdTV Holdings, a company co-founded by Gore and Joel Hyatt, purchased cable news channel NewsWorld International from Vivendi Universal. The new network would not "be a liberal network, a Democratic network or a political network", Gore said, but would serve as an "independent voice" for a target audience of people between 18 and 34 "who want to learn about the world in a voice they recognize and a view they recognize as their own."

The network was relaunched under the name Current TV on August 1, 2005. On September 16, 2007, Current TV won the Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television award at the 2007 Primetime Emmys for its use of online technologies with television. In his acceptance speech, Gore stated, "we are trying to open up the television medium so that viewers can help to make television and join the conversation of democracy and reclaim American democracy by talking about the choices we have to make. More to come. Current.com. Next month."

''The Assault on Reason''

Gore's 2007 book, The Assault on Reason, is an analysis of what he calls the "emptying out of the marketplace of ideas" in civic discourse due to the influence of electronic media (especially television), and which endangers American democracy. However, Gore also expresses the belief that the Internet can revitalize and ultimately "redeem the integrity of representative democracy."

Selected honors and awards

  • 1993 First Annual Cisco Systems Circle Award: "In recognition of his visionary leadership in building global awareness of computer networking through the National Information Highway Initiative."{{Cite web |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070224042732/http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/1993/corp_062393.html |archive-date=February 24, 2007
  • 1998 The Computerworld Honors Program Honoring Those Who Use Information Technology to Benefit Society: Toshiba America Leadership Award for Education
  • 2005 Webby Award: Lifetime Achievement Award (interactive technology)
  • 2007 Quill Awards: History/current events/politics, The Assault on Reason
  • 2007 International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences: Founders Award for Current TV and for work in the area of global warming
  • 2007 Primetime Emmy Award: Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television for Current TV (interactive technology)

Selected publications

Books, forewords, and other publications

Articles, reports, and speeches

References

Notes

References

  1. Miles, Sarah. (30 January 1998). "A Man, a Plan, a Challenge".
  2. Campbell-Kelly and Aspray (1996).''[[Computer: A History of the Information Machine]]''. New York: [[Basic Books]], p. 298.
  3. Gromov, Gregory. "Roads and Crossroads of Internet History".
  4. "Computher History Museum Exhibits:1991". Computer History Museum.
  5. "Toward a National Research Network".
  6. (2003-12-10). "A Brief History of the Internet".
  7. Kleinrock, Leonard. "The Internet rules of engagement: then and now". lk.cs.ucla.edu.
  8. Bush, George H.W.. (1991-12-09). "Remarks on Signing the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991". [[George Bush Presidential Library]].
  9. Gore, Al (1991). "Infrastructure for the Global Village"''[[Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks. Scientific American presents the September 1991 Single Copy Issue: Communications, Computers, and Networks]]'', 150
  10. Gore, Al (1991). "Infrastructure for the Global Village" ''[[Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks. Scientific American presents the September 1991 Single Copy Issue: Communications, Computers, and Networks]]'', 152
  11. (1993-09-10). "NCSA Mosaic -- September 10, 1993 Demo". totic.org.
  12. "Mosaic -- The First Global Web Browser". livinginternet.com.
  13. Perine, Keith. (2000-10-23). "The Early Adopter - Al Gore and the Internet - Government Activity". The Industry Standard.
  14. Broad, William. (November 10, 1992). "Clinton to Promote High Technology, With Gore in Charge". The New York Times.
  15. Campbell-Kelly and Aspray (1996). ''[[Computer: A History of the Information Machine]]''. New York: BasicBooks, 283
  16. Gore, Al. (1994-01-11). "Remarks as Delivered by Vice President Al Gore to The Superhighway Summit, Royce Hall, UCLA".
  17. Gore, Al. (1994-03-21). "Remarks As Delivered by Vice President Al Gore at the International Telecommunication Union". clinton1.nara.gov.
  18. Gore, Al. (1994-01-13). "The CompuServe Information Service: Transcript of Vice President Al Gore in Convention Center". clintonfoundation.org.
  19. Gore, Al. (1993). "Foreword by Vice President Al Gore to The Internet Companion".
  20. "Welcome to the White House".
  21. "The Clinton White House Web Site:Part 2: Preserving the Clinton White House Web site".
  22. "Welcome to the White House".
  23. "The Clinton White House Web Site:Part 1: Perhaps the most important Web site in American history".
  24. "Gore Crypto Statement (2/4/94)".
  25. "Commercial Encryption Policy".
  26. "National Research Council Press Release".
  27. "The Risks of Key Recovery, Key Escrow, & Trusted Third Party Encryption".
  28. Andrews, Edmund L.. (October 9, 1997). "INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS; Europeans Reject U.S. Plan On Electronic Cryptography". The New York Times.
  29. "The Clipper Chip".
  30. "Crypto Experts' Letter on Clipper".
  31. Godwin, Mike. (May 1, 2000). "Rendering Unto CESA".
  32. Clinton, Bill. "Remarks by the President to the Concord Community on NetDay: Ygnacio Valley High School, Concord, California". Clinton Foundation.
  33. "Picture This:Tipper Gore, Photojournalist".
  34. "Earthwatch: 24 Hours in Cyberspace".
  35. "Vice President Al Gore's introduction to ''Earthwatch: 24 Hours In Cyberspace''".
  36. "Press Release: Vice President Al Gore: Privacy: July 31, 1998.".
  37. "Earth-Viewing Satellite Would Focus On Educational, Scientific Benefits". Science Daily.
  38. "Digital Earth History". The 5th International Symposium on Digital Earth.
  39. (1999-03-09). "Transcript: Vice President Gore on CNN's 'Late Edition'". CNN.
  40. Agre, Philip. (2000-10-17). "Who Invented 'Invented'?:Tracing the Real Story of the 'Al Gore Invented the Internet' Hoax". UCSD.
  41. Boehlert, Eric. (April 26, 2008). "Wired Owes Al Gore an Apology". huffingtonpost.com.
  42. Ben Smith. (27 October 2003). "Iraq Media Guy Rebuilds Qatar At the Garden". [[The New York Observer]].
  43. Harvey Rice. (21 March 2004). "A war story I wish I'd written". [[Oakland Tribune]].
  44. Catalina Camia. (30 May 1999). "Armey takes lead in criticizing Gore's potential campaign themes". [[Dallas Morning News]].
  45. (April 24, 2012). "Al Gore in 'Internet Hall of Fame'". Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
  46. (2000-09-14). "Gore Does Dave". cbsnews.com.
  47. Sayre, Alan. (May 4, 2005). "Al Gore Buying Int'l News Channel". CBS News.
  48. "ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS AND SCIENCES 59 TH PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS".
  49. "2007 Primetime Emmys Acceptance Speech".
  50. Gore, Al. ''[[The Assault on Reason]]'' (New York: [[Penguin Press]], 2007): 270
  51. "The Computerworld Honors Program: Honoring Those Who Use Information Technology to Benefit Society".
  52. "2007 Awards for the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences".
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