    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [July 1, 1997]
    [Pages 895-898]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 895]]

    Remarks Announcing the Electronic Commerce Initiative
    July 1, 1997

        Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. For those of you who did
    not know what he was talking about, we went to a Broadway show last
    night, and there were three guys in the show who did the macarena in the
    show. So after it was over, I thought it only fair when the Vice
    President spoke they come up and do the macarena while--it was sort of
    background music, you know. [Laughter]
        Lou Gerstner, thank you for being here. That was a remarkable
    statement, and the Vice President gave you a remarkable introduction. I
    never before thought of you as a gazelle, but I always will now.
    [Laughter]
        Thank you, Macdara MacColl, for the work you do and for the fine
    words you spoke. To the members of the Cabinet and the administration
    and people here from industry and consumer groups, I thank all of you. I
    especially want to thank for this remarkable report all the agencies who
    worked on it and in particular Ira Magaziner, who did a brilliant job in
    bringing everybody together and working this out over a very long period
    of time. And we thank you for what you did on that. Thank you all. I
    thank the Members of Congress for being here, Congressmen Gejdenson,
    Gordon, Markey, and Flake, and for their interest in these issues.
        I had two disparate experiences in the last few days that would
    convince a person of limited technological proficiency, like myself,
    that the world is changing rather dramatically. You have to remember
    now, the Vice President coined the term ``information superhighway'' 20
    years ago, back when I didn't even have an electric typewriter.
    [Laughter] But anyway, I had these two experiences which were very
    interesting to me. It's sort of a mark of how our world is changing.
        As you may have seen in the press, the oldest living member of my
    family, my great-uncle, passed away a few days ago, and so I went back
    to this little town in Arkansas where I was born. And when I got there
    late at night, I drove out in the country for a few miles to my cousin's
    house where the family was gathering. And she has a son who is in his
    mid-thirties now who lives in another small town in Arkansas, who, after
    we talked for 5 minutes, proceeded to tell me that he played golf on the
    Internet several times a month from his small town in Arkansas with an
    elderly man in Australia who unfailingly beat him. [Laughter] An unheard
    of experience just a few years ago. He knows this guy. He's explaining
    to me how he finds this man.
        Then he says, ``My brother likes to play backgammon on the Internet,
    and it got so I couldn't talk to him. But now I know how I can go get
    him out of his game, and he can go find a place to come have a visit
    with me, and they can hold the game while we have an emergency talk.'' I
    mean, these whole conversations, the way people--it was just totally
    unthinkable a few years ago.
        And then Sunday, the New York Times crossword puzzle--I don't know
    if you saw it, but it was for people like me. It was entitled
    ``Technophobes.'' [Laughter] And I'm really trying to overcome my
    limitations. I'm technologically challenged, and I'm learning how to do
    all kinds of things on the computer because Chelsea is going off to
    school, and I need to be more literate. But you ought to go back and
    pull this, all of you who are now into cyberspace, and see if you can
    work your way back to another world because they had high-tech clues
    with common answers. Like ``floppy disk'' was a clue; the answer was
    ``frisbee.'' [Laughter] ``Hard drive'' was a clue; the answer was
    ``Tiger's tee shot.'' [Laughter] ``Digital monitor'' was the clue; the
    answer was ``manicurist.'' [Laughter]
        So, anyway, we've come a long way. And I'd like to give you some
    sense of history about this, because interestingly enough, this
    gathering at the White House, which I think is truly historic, is in a
    line of such developments in this house that has shaped our country's
    history of communications and networking. One hundred and thirty-nine
    years ago, here at the White

    [[Page 896]]

    House, America celebrated our first technological revolution here in
    communications. That was the year Queen Victoria sent the very first
    transatlantic telegraph transmission to President Buchanan, right here.
    And later, the first telephone in Washington, DC, was located in a room
    upstairs, the same room in which Woodrow Wilson managed the conduct of
    America's involvement in World War I. So we've seen a lot of interesting
    technological developments over time in the White House.
        Now we celebrate the incredible potential of the Internet and the
    World Wide Web. When I first became President, which wasn't so long ago,
    only physicists were using the World Wide Web. Today, as Lou said, there
    are about 50 million people in 150 countries connected to the
    information superhighway. There will be 5 times as many by the year
    2000, perhaps more, doing everything conceivable. We cannot imagine
    exactly what the 21st century will look like, but we know that its
    science and technology and its unprecedented fusions of cultures and
    economies will be shaped in large measure by the Internet.
        We are very fortunate to have with us today, together for the very
    first time at the White House, the four individuals who gave birth to
    the Internet: Vincent Cerf and Bob Kahn, who were critical to the
    development of the Internet in the 1970's; Tim Berners-Lee, who invented
    the World Wide Web, which brought the Internet into our homes, offices,
    and schools; and David Duke, who headed the team that invented the fiber
    optic cable which made high-speed Internet connections possible. Their
    groundbreaking work has done more to shape and create the world our
    children will inherit than virtually any invention since the printing
    press. And I would like to ask all four of them to stand and be
    recognized now. [Applause]
        The report which is being released and work that has been done is
    our effort to meet the challenge to make the Internet work for all of
    our people. Within a generation, we can make it so that every book ever
    written, every symphony ever composed, every movie ever made, every
    painting ever painted, is within reach of all of our children within
    seconds with the click of a mouse--which was ``black eye'' in the
    crossword puzzle yesterday. [Laughter]
        Now, this potential is nothing short of revolutionary. The Vice
    President and I are working to connect every classroom and school
    library to the Internet by the year 2000 so that for the first time, all
    the children, without regard to their personal circumstances, economic
    or geographical, can have access to the same knowledge in the same time
    at the same level of quality. It could revolutionize education in
    America. And many of you are helping on that, and we are grateful.
        We've also included $300 million in our new balanced budget plan to
    help build the next generation Internet so that leading universities and
    national labs can communicate in speeds 1,000 times faster than today,
    to develop new medical treatments, new sources of energy, new ways of
    working together.
        But as has already been said, one of the most revolutionary uses of
    the Internet is in the world of commerce. Already we can buy books and
    clothing, obtain business advice, purchase everything from garden tools
    to hot sauce to high-tech communications equipment over the Internet.
    But we know it is just the beginning. Trade on the Internet is doubling
    or tripling every single year. In just a few years, it will generate
    hundreds of billions of dollars in goods and services.
        If we establish an environment in which electronic commerce can grow
    and flourish, then every computer will be a window open to every
    business, large and small, everywhere in the world. Not only will
    industry leaders such as IBM be able to tap into new markets, but the
    smallest startup company will have an unlimited network of sales and
    distribution at its fingertips. It will literally be possible to start a
    company tomorrow and next week do business in Japan and Germany and
    Chile, all without leaving your home, something that used to take years
    and years and years to do. In this way, the Internet can be and should
    be a truly empowering force for large- and small-business people alike.
        But today, we know electronic commerce carries also a number of
    significant risks that could block the extraordinary growth and progress
    from taking place. There are almost no international agreements or
    understanding about electronic commerce. Many of the most basic consumer
    and copyright protections are missing from cyberspace. In many ways,
    electronic commerce is like the Wild West of the global economy. Our
    task is to make sure that it's safe and stable terrain for those who
    wish to trade on it. And we must do so by working with

    [[Page 897]]

    other nations now, while electronic commerce is still in its infancy.
        To meet this challenge, I'm pleased to announce the release of our
    new ``Framework for Global Electronic Commerce,'' a report that lays out
    principles we will advocate as we seek to establish basic rules for
    international electronic commerce with minimal regulations and no new
    discriminatory taxes. Because the Internet has such explosive potential
    for prosperity, it should be a global free-trade zone. It should be a
    place where Government makes every effort first, as the Vice President
    said, not to stand in the way, to do no harm. We want to encourage the
    private sector to regulate itself as much as possible. We want to
    encourage all nations to refrain from imposing discriminatory taxes,
    tariffs, unnecessary regulations, cumbersome bureaucracies on electronic
    commerce. Where Government involvement is necessary, its aim should be
    to support a predictable, consistent, legal environment for trade and
    commerce to flourish on fair and understandable terms. And we should do
    our best to revise any existing laws or rules that could inhibit
    electronic commerce. We want to put these principles into practice by
    January 1st of the year 2000.
        Today I am taking three specific actions toward that goal and asking
    the Vice President to oversee our progress in meeting it.
        First, I'm directing all Federal department and agency heads to
    review their policies that affect global electronic commerce and to make
    sure that they are consistent with the five core principles of this
    report.
        Second, I'm directing members of my Cabinet to work to achieve some
    of our key objectives within the next year. I'm directing the Treasury
    Secretary, Bob Rubin, to negotiate agreements where necessary to prevent
    new discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce. I'm directing our
    Ambassador of Trade, Charlene Barshefsky, to work within the WTO, the
    World Trade Organization, to turn the Internet into a free-trade zone
    within the next 12 months, building on the progress of our landmark
    information technology agreement and our global telecommunications
    agreement, which eliminated tariffs and reduced trade barriers on more
    than one trillion dollars in products and services. I'm directing
    Commerce Secretary Daley to work to establish basic consumer and
    copyright protections for the Internet, to help to create the
    predictable legal environment for electronic commerce that we need, and
    to coordinate our outreach to the private sector on a strategy to
    achieve this. I'm also directing the relevant agencies to work with
    Congress, industry, and law enforcement to make sure Americans can
    conduct their affairs in a secure electronic environment that will
    maintain their full trust and confidence. Next week, Secretary Daley and
    Ira Magaziner will lead a delegation to Europe to present our vision for
    electronic commerce to our European trading partners.
        Third, I call on the private sector to help us meet one of the
    greatest challenges of electronic commerce, ensuring that we develop
    effective methods of protecting the privacy of every American,
    especially children who use the Internet. Many of you have already begun
    working with Chairman Pitofsky and Commissioner Varney at the Federal
    Trade Commission on this issue. I urge you to continue that work and to
    find new ways to safeguard our most basic rights and liberties so that
    we can trade and learn and communicate in safety and security.
        Finally, it is especially important, as I said last week, to give
    parents and teachers the tools they need to make the Internet safe for
    children. A hands-off approach to electronic commerce must not mean
    indifference when it comes to raising and protecting children. I ask the
    industry leaders here today to join with us in developing a solution for
    the Internet as powerful for the computer as the V-chip will be for
    television, to protect children in ways that are consistent with the
    first amendment.
        Later this month, I will convene a meeting with industry leaders and
    groups representing Internet users, teachers, parents, and librarians to
    help parents protect their children from objectionable content in
    cyberspace. Today we act to ensure that international trade on the
    Internet remains free of new discriminatory taxes, free of tariffs, free
    from burdensome regulations, and safe from piracy.
        In the 21st century, we can build much of our prosperity on
    innovations in cyberspace in ways that most of us cannot even imagine.
    This vision contemplates an America in which every American, consumers,
    small-business people, corporate CEO's, will be able to extend our trade
    to the farthest reaches of the planet. If we do the right things now, in
    the right way, we can lead our economy into an area where our
    innovation, our flexibility, and our creativity

    [[Page 898]]

    yield tremendous benefits for all of our people, in which we can keep
    opportunity alive, bring our people closer to each other, and bring
    America closer to the world. I feel very hopeful about this, and I
    assure you that we will do our part to implement the principles we
    advocate today.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:08 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Louis Gerstner, chairman and chief
    executive officer, IBM; Macdara MacColl, managing director, Parent Soup;
    Vinton G. Cerf, senior vice president for Internet architecture and
    engineering, MCI; Robert E. Kahn, founder, Corporation for National
    Research Initiatives; Tim Berners-Lee, director, World Wide Web
    Consortium; and David A. Duke, retired senior vice president of
    research/development and engineering, Corning, Inc.