[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[February 8, 1996]
[Pages 185-188]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996
February 8, 1996

    Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of 
Congress, and ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to begin by thanking the 
Library of Congress for hosting us here. It's my understanding this may 
be the only time in American history a piece of legislation has

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been signed here and perhaps the first time in three decades when one 
has been signed on Capitol Hill. If that is so, then this is certainly a 
worthy occasion.
    I thank Lily Tomlin for reminding us that the Internet can be fun--
[laughter]--and the students at Calvin Coolidge for reminding us that 
the Internet can do a world of good. I thank the Vice President, who 
fought for this bill for so long on behalf of the American people. And I 
thank the Members of Congress in both parties, starting with the 
leadership, who believed in the promise and the possibility of 
telecommunications reform. I thank the vast array of interest groups who 
had sometimes conflicting concerns about this bill who were able to work 
together and work through them so that we could move this together.
    This law is truly revolutionary legislation that will bring the 
future to our doorstep. In the State of the Union just a few days ago, I 
asked the Congress to pass this law, and they did with remarkable speed 
and dispatch. Even the years that were spent working on it were a 
relatively short time given the tradition of congressional 
decisionmaking over major matters.
    This historic legislation in my way of thinking really embodies what 
we ought to be about as a country and what we ought to be about in this 
city. It clearly enables the age of possibility in America to expand to 
include more Americans. It will create many, many high-wage jobs. It 
will provide for more information and more entertainment to virtually 
every American home. It embodies our best values by supporting the kind 
of market reforms that the Vice President mentioned, as well as the V-
chip. And it brings us together, and it was passed by people coming 
together. This bill is an indication of what can be done when 
Republicans and Democrats work together in a spirit of genuine 
cooperation to advance the public interest and bring us to a brighter 
future.
    It is fitting that we mark this moment here in the Library of 
Congress. It is Thomas Jefferson's building. Most of you know President 
Jefferson deeded his books to our young Nation after our first library 
was burned to the ground in the War of 1812. The volumes that line these 
walls grew out of Jefferson's legacy. He understood that democracy 
depends upon the free flow of information. He said, ``He who receives an 
idea from me receives instruction himself without lessening mine. And he 
who lights his paper at mine receives light without darkening me.''
    Today, the information revolution is spreading light, the light 
Jefferson spoke about, all across our land and all across the world. It 
will allow every American child to bring the ideas stored in this 
reading room into his or her own living room or schoolroom.
    Americans have always had a genius for communications. The power of 
our Founding Fathers' words reverberated across the world from the 
moment they were said down to the present day. From the Pony Express to 
the miracle of a human voice over the phone line, American innovation 
and communications have broken the barriers of time and space to make it 
easier for us to stay in touch, to learn from each other, to reach for 
our highest aspirations.
    Today our world is being remade yet again by an information 
revolution, changing the way we work, the way we live, the way we relate 
to each other. Already the revolution is so profound that it is changing 
the dominant economic model of the age. And already, thanks to the 
scientific and entrepreneurial genius of American workers in this 
country, it has created vast, vast opportunities for us to grow and 
learn and enrich ourselves in body and in spirit.
    But this revolution has been held back by outdated laws designed for 
a time when there was one phone company, three TV networks, no such 
thing as a personal computer. Today, with the stroke of a pen, our laws 
will catch up with our future. We will help to create an open 
marketplace where competition and innovation can move as quick as light. 
An industry that is already one-sixth of our entire economy will thrive. 
It will create opportunity, many more high-wage jobs, and better lives 
for all Americans. Soon, working parents will be able to check up on 
their children in class via computer. Families heading off on vacation 
trips will be able to program the fastest route in their car computers, 
thanks to the work the Department of Transportation is now doing. On a 
rainy Saturday night, you'll be able to order up every movie ever 
produced or every symphony ever created in a minute's time. For those of 
us who like to watch too many movies and listen to too much music in a 
single sitting, that may be a mixed blessing.
    This law also recognizes that with freedom comes responsibility. Any 
truly competitive market requires rules. This bill protects consumers

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against monopolies. It guarantees the diversity of voices our democracy 
depends upon. Perhaps most of all, it enhances the common good. Under 
this law, our schools, our libraries, our hospitals will receive 
telecommunication services at reduced cost. This simple act will move us 
one giant step closer to realizing a challenge I put forward in the 
State of the Union to connect all our classrooms and libraries to the 
information superhighway by the year 2000, not through a big Government 
program but through a creative, ever-unfolding partnership led by 
scientists and entrepreneurs, supported by business and government and 
communities working together.
    We know the information age will bring blessings for our people and 
our country. But like most human blessings, we know the blessings will 
be mixed. We also know that the programming beamed into our homes can 
undercut our values and make it more difficult for parents to raise 
their children.
    Children sometimes are exposed to images parents don't want them to 
see because they shouldn't. A comprehensive study released just 
yesterday confirms what every parent knows: Televised violence is 
pervasive and numbing, and if exposed constantly to it, young people can 
develop a numbing, lasting, corrosive reaction to it. Televised violence 
in too much volume and intensity over too long a period of time may 
teach our children that such violence has no consequences and is an 
unavoidable part of modern life. Neither is true.
    In my State of the Union Address, when I asked Congress to pass the 
telecommunications law, I mentioned in particular the V-chip designed to 
strengthen families and their ability to protect their children from 
television violence and other inappropriate programs as they determine. 
I am very proud that this new legislation includes the V-chip. It's not 
such a big requirement, as you can see--here is one--but it can make a 
big difference in the lives of families all over America.
    I thank the Congress and the Members of both parties for giving 
parents who want to take more responsibility for their children's 
upbringing an important tool to do so. I thank the Congress for reducing 
the chances that the hours spent in church or synagogue or in discussion 
around the dinner table about right and wrong and what can and cannot 
happen in the world will not be undone by unthinking hours in front of a 
television set.
    Of course, parents now have to do their end of the job and decide 
what they do or don't want their young children to see. But if every 
parent uses this chip wisely, it can become a powerful voice against 
teen violence, teen pregnancy, teen drug use, and for both learning and 
entertainment. The responsibility of parents to do this is something 
they deserve and something they plainly need. Now that they have it, 
they must use it.
    I want to acknowledge in this audience the activists, the parents 
who pushed for the V-chip and thank you very much for making it 
possible.
    To make the V-chip as effective as it can be, I have challenged the 
broadcast industries to do what the movies have done, to rate 
programming in a way that will help the parents to make these decisions. 
I invited the entertainment industry leaders to come to the White House 
to work with me to improve what our children see on television, and I'm 
pleased to announce that exactly 3 weeks from today, on February 29th, 
we will convene our meeting and get to work. I thank the leaders of the 
entertainment industry for coming, and I will look forward to working 
with them.
    In 1957, President Eisenhower signed another important bill into 
law, another bill that was like this. It seized the opportunities of the 
moment. It made them more broadly available to all Americans. It met the 
challenge of change. It reinforced our fundamental values and 
aspirations. And it was done in a harmonious, bipartisan spirit. The 
interstate highway act literally brought Americans closer together. We 
were connected city to city, town to town, family to family, as we had 
never been before. That law did more to bring Americans together than 
any other law this century, and that same spirit of connection and 
communication is the driving force behind the Telecommunications Act of 
1996.
    When President Eisenhower signed the highway bill, he gave one of 
his pens to the father of that legislation, Senator Albert Gore, Sr., of 
Tennessee. His son, the Vice President, in many ways is the father of 
this legislation because he's worked on it for more than 20 years, since 
he first began to promote what he called, in the phrase he coined, the 
information superhighway.

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    You heard him say today that he always dreamed that a child from his 
little hometown of Carthage could come home from school and be able to 
connect to the Library of Congress. I'm proud that the Vice President is 
able to be here today and to play the role he deserves to play in this. 
And I thank all the others who have done this. But 2 days ago, I asked 
him if he would give me the pen that his father got from President 
Eisenhower to begin the signing of this legislation. And so, that is the 
very nice pen you see.
    Mr. Speaker, I don't know what we can do about this in a bipartisan 
manner, but I'm afraid that people would say that in the fifties, that's 
the time when people in Washington were real leaders and pens were real 
pens. [Laughter]
    At any rate, I'm going to begin, in honor of Senator Gore, Sr., and 
Vice President Gore, the signing with that pen that President Eisenhower 
used to sign the interstate highway act, and then go on with the 
signing. And again, let me say to all of you, I wish every person here 
who has played a role in this could have one of these pens. I am very, 
very grateful to you.
    And then after I sign the actual bill, we're going to sign a copy of 
the bill over here and send it into cyberspace. I believe that this is 
the first bill that ever made that journey, and that will make me 
whatever it was Ernestine said, a cybernaut, or whatever she said. 
[Laughter]
    Again, let me thank you from the bottom of my heart, every one of 
you, for making this great day for America possible.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:34 a.m. in the Thomas Jefferson Building 
of the Library of Congress. In his remarks, he referred to comedian Lily 
Tomlin, who portrayed her character Ernestine the telephone operator in 
a dialog with the Vice President. S. 652, approved February 8, was 
assigned Public Law No. 104-104.