Subject: NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR CIVIC NETWORKING (fwd)

From: Miles R Fidelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1993 14:16:06 -0700

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 13:18:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Miles R Fidelman <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked],
     [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Subject: NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR CIVIC NETWORKING

Hi Folks,

Last week we issued a major vision paper titled "A National Strategy for
Civic Networking: A Vision of Change."  We distributed about a hundred
copies at the ACE meeting on 10/4, and have been receiving pretty positive
response.

With the announcement of the impending Bell Atlantic / TCI merger, a lot
of this becomes quite timely.

Here is a copy of our press release and the executive summary of the
document.  The full document is available on our gopher server in both
text and Microsoft Word formats -- the gopher is "CCN - The Center for
Civic Networking" on the list of all gophers in the world. You can also
ftp to world.std.com and look in the directory /ftp/amo/civicnet.

Miles Fidelman
Executive Director
The Center for Civic Networking

-------------
PRESS RELEASE

CONTACT:
Richard Civille
202-362-3831
[email-masked]

THE CENTER FOR CIVIC NETWORKING ANSWERS PRESIDENT'S CALL,
RELEASES NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR CIVIC NETWORKING

Washington,  D.C.,  October  6,  1993   The  Center   for   Civic
Networking  today released a blueprint for applying the  National
Information Infrastructure to achieving broad public  benefit  in
the   areas   of   civic  revitalization,  economic  development,
community development, and delivery of government services.

The  Clinton  Administration, in it's recently released  National
Information  Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, identifies  Civic
Networking  as  a  high  priority  application  of  the  National
Information  Infrastructure - on the  same  level  as  electronic
commerce,  agile  manufacturing, life-long learning,  and  health
care.   In  an  accompanying Executive Order,  President  Clinton
established  the United States Advisory Council on  the  National
Information  Infrastructure  and charged  it  with,  among  other
tasks,  advising  the Secretary of Commerce  on  "strategies  for
developing  and  demonstrating  applications  in  areas  such  as
electronic  commerce,  agile manufacturing,  life-long  learning,
health care, government services, and civic networking."

The Center for Civic Networking answers the President's call with
A  Vision  of  Change:  A National Strategy for Civic Networking,
saying:

"A   National  Information  Infrastructure  (NII),  designed  for
democracy,  will help our country work smarter with  an  informed
citizenry more fully engaged in life, liberty and the pursuit  of
happiness.   Americans  will enjoy more  efficient,  less  costly
government.   The  NII  can help produce high  quality  jobs  and
educated  citizens to fill them.  We will pave a road  away  from
poverty and promote life-long learning.  Such a promise fulfilled
will  improve  the  public  health,  and  cultural  life  of  our
communities and revitalize our civic institutions.  This  is  the
civic promise of information infrastructure - not simply a "video
dial-tone," 500 channels of movies, home shopping, or interactive
video games."

Miles  Fidelman,  Executive Director  of  The  Center  for  Civic
Networking, says "The NII is not about technology nor is it about
entertainment.  It is about recreating civic and commercial  life
for  the  21st  century.  It is about health care  and  education
reform,  improving  the  delivery of  government  services  while
reducing    the   national   debt,   it   is   about   industrial
competitiveness."

The  Center  for  Civic Networking is a non-profit  organization,
based  in Boston and Washington, D.C., that promotes broad public
benefits  of  the  emerging national information  infrastructure.
The  Center brings together expertise in large-scale computer and
network systems, community-based applications of computing,  non-
profit  management,  community development, architecture,  public
policy,  and  democratic participation.   The  Center's  Programs
focus   on  framing  a  national  vision  for  civic  networking,
developing  a  policy framework that supports  civic  networking,
developing  and supporting model civic networking  projects,  and
assisting in the technology transfer needed to achieve the broad-
based benefits of civic networking.

The   Center   seeks  out  and  helps  develop  civic  networking
initiatives.    These  are  both  public  and  private   efforts,
sometimes  in  partnership, that seek to apply telecommunications
and   information  technology  in  some  form  to  further  local
community  and  economic development goals, government  and  non-
profit   service   delivery,  citizen  participation,   and   the
revitalization of civic institutions.  The Center  believes  that
these  grass-roots initiatives can help shape State  and  Federal
policies that will help achieve good social and economic outcomes
for   our  communities.   The  Center's  Sustainable  Development
Information  Network (SDIN), supported in part by  a  grant  from
Apple  Computer's  Library  of  Tomorrow  program,  will  provide
library-based  public  access  to  large  databases  of   visual,
geographic   and   statistical  data  that  can  broaden   public
participation  in  regional  planning  across  New  England.   In
Cambridge, The Center co-organizes the Cambridge Civic Forum,  an
on-going   city-wide  citizen  dialogue  to  develop   innovative
solutions  for a vibrant and healthy 21st century, in partnership
with community and business groups and individual citizens.   The
Civic  Forum  will use diverse media, including cable television,
radio,  newspapers, and electronic networks to sustain broad  and
ongoing civic participation in shaping the future of Cambridge.

      At its April 1993 conference, >From Townhalls to Local Civic
Networks:  Democratic  Participation for the  21st  Centery,  The
Center  for Civic Networking was the first organization to  bring
citizens  and  the  public interest community together  with  the
Clinton  Administration to discuss communication  policy  issues.
As  a  direct result of this watershed conference, Administration
and   agency   staff   organized  the   Americans   Communicating
Electronically (ACE) initiative in June.  The members of ACE come
from  the White House, government agencies, the House and  Senate
and  citizens  at large.  ACE is dedicated to the development  of
thousands of Interactive Citizen Participation Centers around the
country.
                                
            A National Strategy For Civic Networking

In  A Vision for Change, The Center for Civic Networking provides
specific   strategies   for:   leveraging  existing   information
infrastructure  as  a way to deliver broad-based  civic  benefits
today;  applying  information infrastructure  to  improve  public
access to government and to reduce the Federal deficit; for using
information    infrastructure   to   move   toward    sustainable
communities;  and,  for  bringing  the  benefits  of  information
infrastructure to the poor.

A  Vision  for  Change  calls  for establishing  explicit  public
interest   benchmarks   to   insure  that   Federal   information
infrastructure  programs achieve measurable  public  benefit.   A
Vision for Change provides a specific agenda for policy research,
legislation,  regulatory reform, and funding that  will  maximize
the   broad   public   benefit   of  the   National   Information
Infrastructure.

A  Vision  for  Change notes that as the television,  cable,  and
computer industries converge, "many regulations once effective in
protecting  the public interest are either no longer  working  or
are  seriously impeding new market and service innovations,"  and
goes  on to recommend that the anticipated restructuring  of  the
Communications  Act  of  1934  must  "map  important   principles
embodied  as  common carriage, public, education  and  government
(PEG)  access, municipal sovereign police powers over  rights-of-
ways,    intellectual   property,   interoperability,    spectrum
reservations  and  prior  restraint  prohibitions  into   a   new
convergent  media  regime."   A  Vision  of  Change  goes  on  to
recommend  that "the Administration should propose  and  Congress
pass  a  non-binding Resolution for Symmetrical Regulation  (that
would)  recognize that the segmentation of regulatory  models  is
breaking  down  in  an  era of converging  media  industries  and
digitized  content and endorse a general finding that all  public
and  private  sectors  be  treated  fairly  and  equitably  while
preserving  key regulatory features that flow from Constitutional
first principles that benefit all people."

Richard  Civille,  Director of The Center for Civic  Networking's
Washington,  DC  office,  says, "We voted  for  change.   Is  the
country  being taken for a ride down a dead-end data superhighway
or   will   our  democracy  be  revitalized  through  a  National
Information     Infrastructure?     The     Administration     is
preparing legislation that may make the difference - and overhaul
the  antiquated Communications Act of 1934..  Yet, before any new
bills  are  introduced, the Administration and  Congress  have  a
solemn  obligation to stand and deliver to the American people  a
Resolution  clearly proclaiming the need to reform communications
policies,  and  a  commitment  to  protect  Constitutional  first
principles and our traditions of equal opportunity and fair play.
We  call  for a Resolution for Symmetrical Regulation  -  because
democracy is shaped by communications and information.

A  Vision  for  Change  concludes: "A true  National  Information
Infrastructure has the potential to save our society hundreds  of
billions of dollars through fundamental change in our conduct  of
day-to-day  business and our relationships with  government.   If
the   NII  is  built  for  everyone,  it  can  help  reverse  the
disintegration of our cities, our economy and our  society.   The
manner  in  which  the NII is developed will have  a  long  range
effect  on  the  distribution of opportunity and  wealth  in  the
United States.  The value of activities in the United States that
could  be  affected  by networked information  to  the  home  for
health,  governance  and  citizenship, informal   education,  job
training,  literacy, numeracy, and English as a  second  language
could  be in the range of several hundreds of billions of dollars
annually," and asks the question "can we afford the costs of  not
putting in place visionary public interest policies today."
                                
                            -- END --

-----------
A NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR CIVIC NETWORKING: A VISION OF CHANGE
The Center for Civic Networking
October, 1993

Table of Contents

Executive Summary                                        i

1.0 A Civic Vision of the National Information
Infrastructure                                           1
     1.1 Revitalizing Local Economies                    1
     1.2 Improving Services, and Reducing Costs of
     Government                                          2
     1.3 Revitalizing Civic Institutions and Public
     Debate                                              2
     1.4 Reducing Poverty and Changing Welfare As We
     Know It                                             4
     1.5 Reducing Health Care Costs, Improving
     Prevention and Detection of Disease                 5
     1.6 Bringing All Our Children's Education into the
     21st Century                                        6
     1.7 Reducing Social Costs of Defense Cutbacks,
     Layoffs, and Plant Closings                         7
     1.8 Reducing Costs of Pollution, Road Maintenance
     and Child Care                                      8

2.0 Grand Challenges                                     11
     2.1 Leveraging Investments in Existing
     Infrastructure                                      11
     2.2 Public Access and Deficit Reduction             12
     2.3 Public Participation in Sustainable
     Development                                         13
     2.4 Information Infrastructure and Benefits to the
     Poor                                                15

3.0 Civic Networking Policy Agenda                       17
     3.1 Research                                        18
          3.1.1 Survey Individual Use of Networked
          Information                                    19
          3.1.2 Use Pilot Projects to Collect Data       19
          3.1.3 Fund NII Economics, Equity and Literacy
          Research                                       20
          3.1.4 Symmetrical Regulation Research          20
          3.1.5 Economic Modeling of the Internet        21
          3.1.6 Benchmarking Public Interest Outcomes    21
     3.2 Legislation and Regulation                      22
          3.2.1 Broad-Based Public Hearings              22
          3.2.2 Resolution for Symmetrical Regulation    23
          3.2.3 Communication Policy Must Support
          Sustainable Development Goals                  23
          3.2.4 Redirect Open Source Intelligence
          Assessments                                    23
          3.2.5 Assess Environmental, Social and
          Economic Impacts                               24
          3.2.6 Determine Universal Access and
          Federal/State Preemption                       24
          3.2.7 Collocation Tariff for Flat-rate Data
          Service                                        25
          3.2.6 Public Participation in State
          Telecommunications Strategic Planning          25

Conclusion                                               27

                      Executive Summary

  In an Executive Order issued on Sept. 15th, 1993,
  President Clinton established a United States Advisory
  Council on the National Information Infrastructure (NII)
  to assist the Secretary of Commerce on national
  strategies including "developing and demonstrating
  applications in areas such as electronic commerce, agile
  manufacturing, life-long learning, health care,
  government services and civic networking."  The President
  defines the NII as "the integration of hardware, software
  and skills that will make it easy and affordable to
  connect people with each other, with computers, and with
  a vast array of services and information resources."

     * This paper establishes a vision and national
       strategy for civic networking.  The vision of civic
       networking shows citizen groups, non-profit
       organizations and local government using information
       infrastructure for broad public benefit.
     
     * This strategy outlines four Grand Challenges that
       public interest communication policy must address, a
       set of policy goals and a detailed agenda for
       action.

The Administration will develop major legislation during
1994 that will lead to the overhaul of the Communications
Act of 1934, possibly as early as 1995.  This legislation
may also redefine Universal Service for the information age,
an unparalleled opportunity to guarantee that the essential
information needed to participate as an informed citizen in
a democracy will be available to anyone, regardless of
background or ability to pay.

If organized swiftly,  grassroots civic networking
initiatives will shape public interest communication policy
at the State level, establishing precedents for Federal
policy during a narrow window of opportunity that will
likely close by 1996.  The window is open now because the
communications industry is restructuring, a broad bipartisan
consensus to reform national communications policy is
emerging, and the Administration is favorable to the input
of public interest groups in this arena.  The window will
likely close by 1996 because the communications industry
"shake-out" will have completed and agendas to reshape
antiquated communication policies will have been set.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the present
Administration will be reelected.

The time to act is now.   The Administration, Congress,
State legislatures, and municipal officials have a solemn
obligation to fully understand the civic promise of the
National Information Infrastructure, and to swiftly reframe
the debate which is currently being driven by the
communications and media industries.

The national strategy for civic networking , presented here,
is based on this premise:

     * The value of activities in the United States that
       could be affected by the individual use of and
       public access to networked, imaged information -- in
       areas such as public health, formal and non-formal
       education, arts and recreation, civic and community
       participation, emergency services, sustainable
       development, small business opportunity, individual
       privacy, poverty, literacy, numeracy, job training,
       and access to employment markets -- could be in the
       range of hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

This paper will present evidence that such socioeconomic
benefits are not only a reasonable assumption, but
measurable.  Quantified, such socioeconomic benefits can
form a basis to benchmark positive public interest outcomes
of policies that establish the framework for the National
Information Infrastructure.  Congress, in particular, must
understand and respond to the economic and social costs to
our society if ubiquitous access to this national multimedia
nervous system is impeded by limited visions of telephone
and cable companies motivated to maintain entrenched
positions in a rapidly evolving  marketplace.  The
implications for deficit and long-term debt reduction cannot
be overemphasized.

The Center for Civic Networking is a non-profit organization
serving civic networking practitioners and promoting
policies, products and services that can support the
sustainable development of local economies and communities
in the 21st century.  This policy paper is an outgrowth of a
conference produced by the Center in April, 1993 entitled
">From Townhalls to Civic Networks."  This meeting brought
Administration officials and agency staff together for the
first time with citizen practitioners from around the
country and with the non-profit communications policy
community.  Participants from this conference, and many
others, have contributed, commented, assisted in writing and
supported the development of this paper from earlier drafts
to this present form.   Many of the projects described and
policy proposals contained in this paper reflect the most
current thinking in the rapidly growing arena of civic
networking and public interest communications policy.  As
such, this paper represents a growing consensus.

What is Civic Networking?

Grassroots initiatives using information infrastructure to
provide civic and community services are influencing new
State policies which can in turn shape Federal communication
policy for the 21st Century.   With accelerating social
mobility, political representatives serving millions rather
than thousands, long commutes to jobs not connected to local
communities and increased cultural diversity, traditional
community forums for public deliberation have eroded.  Civic
networking can revitalize them.  A definition of civic
networking encompasses:

     * The transformational power of information
       infrastructure to create opportunities, new public
       works and new public spaces for the 21st century.

     * The "loadbearing" power of information
       infrastructure to support and even revitalize civic
       institutions and Local economies in sustainable ways
       that replace layers of bureaucratic hierarchy and
       deplete fewer natural resources.

     * The public's power to use information infrastructure
       to recapture the nearly lost art of democratic
       decision-making and community building -- the
       essential discourse and debate around important
       issues that informs before the vote, where the
       public shares views, and learns tolerance.

     * A new interdisciplinary ethic among information
       architects, community activists, organizers and
       planners, public policy analysts, facilitators and
       engineers who, with the public, can reforge the
       democratic partnership between citizens and the
       government they own.

A Vision of Civic Networking

A National Information Infrastructure (NII), designed for
democracy, will help our country work smarter with an
informed citizenry more fully engaged in life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness.  Americans will enjoy more
efficient, less costly government.  The NII can help produce
high quality jobs and educated citizens to fill them.  We
will pave a road away from poverty and promote life-long
learning.  Such a promise fulfilled will improve the public
health and cultural life of our communities and revitalize
our civic institutions.  This is the civic promise of
information infrastructure -- not simply a "video dial-
tone," 500 channels of movies, home shopping, or interactive
video games.

A National Information Infrastructure can revitalize the
American economy and civic culture; it can become an
aqueduct irrigating arid new land from which new enterprise
and community life blossom and flourish, by:

     * Revitalizing Local economies,
     * Improving the delivery of government services, and
       reducing costs of government,
     * Revitalizing civic institutions and public debate,
     * Reducing poverty and changing welfare as we know it,
     * Saving billions of health care dollars through
       prevention and early detection of disease and by
       streamlining health care administration,
     * Bringing all of our children's education into the
       21st century regardless of income, location or
       background,
     * Reducing social costs of defense cutbacks, layoffs,
       and plant closings, and,
     * Reducing costs of pollution, road maintenance and
       child care.

Public Interest Grand Challenges

Public interest communication policy for the National
Information Infrastructure must face four Grand Challenges:

     * We must leverage our investments in existing
       infrastructure.  The public Internet is the model
       for a National Information Infrastructure.  It is
       already in place and serving over 30 million people.
       It is a robust and dramatically expanding model of
       what the NII can and should be and a base to build
       upon.

     * We must look at public access to the National
       Information Infrastructure as an extremely powerful
       economic weapon to reduce the Federal debt -- a
       bedrock notion as fundamental as free expression and
       the open marketplace of ideas.
       
     * We must use the National Information Infrastructure
       as a critical tool that helps provide for the
       sustainable development of local economies and
       communities.

     * We must recognize the choice we have as a society,
       to design the National Information Infrastructure as
       a road away from poverty to increased opportunity
       for all.  The greatest  benefits of the National
       Information Infrastructure may flow, if correctly
       designed, to those who are poor, to the information
       have-nots.

These four grand challenges lay the foundation for a
specific public interest policy agenda that must work to
lock-in budget, policy and regulatory frameworks, by the mid-
term election in 1996, to promote broad public benefits at
the regional, State and Local level.

Public Interest Communication Policy

The Center for Civic Networking's approach to achieving
public interest communications policy goals is four-fold:

     * We will gather new socioeconomic research data on
       how Americans use networked information at home and
       at work by promoting U.S. Census and other
       significant surveys of individual use of networked
       information.

     * We will establish public interest communications
       policy benchmarks to assess the data, guide policy
       formulation and measure outcomes.

     * We will identify, develop and support civic
       networking projects at the state and local level
       that show promise of influencing public interest
       goals nationally.

     * We will promote progressive state and local policy
       models that could influence Federal policy.   We
       will actively promote such policies state-to-state
       in a way that shapes Federal communication policy to
       ensure positive social outcomes in areas such as
       civic participation, public health, sustainable
       development, education, job training, program
       diversity, and the arts.