    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [April 30, 2000]
    [Pages 794-798]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Commencement Address at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti,
    Michigan
    April 30, 2000

        Thank you very much. I must say I was very moved by Secretary
    Slater's remarks. But I realize he was
    lifted to new heights of eloquence by being back at his alma mater. And
    I also realize he was once again proving the adage of Clinton's third
    law of politics: Whenever possible, be introduced by someone you have
    appointed to high office. [Laughter] They will praise you to the skies,
    true or false. [Laughter]
        I must say, I was afraid, though, Rodney was about to commit--we have been friends for many years--
    I've never heard him say anything politically incorrect. I've never
    heard him utter a curse word. I've never heard him betray a character
    flaw. But I almost heard an ethnic slur today when he said he got me
    because I look like President Shelton.
    [Laughter] All gray-haired, middle-aged Scotch-Irish guys look alike,
    you know. [Laughter]
        I'm very proud of Secretary Slater, and
    you should be, too. And I'm proud of General Coburn and his leadership in the Army, and Gene Conti, who is the Assistant Secretary for Policy at
    our Transportation Department with Secretary Slater. We have been richly
    blessed by this university. And President Shelton, I am grateful for your years of service here and for our
    friendship in our early years in Arkansas, when we both had less gray
    hair and didn't look so much alike.
        I thank Mayor Archer and former
    Governor and Ambassador Blanchard and
    Representative Kilpatrick and the
    other Michigan officials who are here with me today. I thank my longtime
    friend Jim Comer. I didn't know he was here at
    EMU this year until I saw him right before I came in. No American has
    proven so clearly as Professor Comer that all children can learn if
    given the right learning environment, and I am very grateful to him.
        I thank all the distinguished board of regents and faculty and staff
    who are here. But most of all, I want to recognize the students and
    their parents of this, your first graduating class of the 21st century.
        On the way in, Rodney was telling me that I would identify with a
    lot of you. A lot of you are first-generation college graduates. A lot
    of you had to work your way through school. A lot of you needed help in
    the form of loans and grants and work-study positions. And every one of
    you should be very proud of what you have achieved.
        I also identify with your class because I may be the only President
    of the United States who ever studied here. I came here to prepare for
    my debates in 1992. And like you, I passed, and I thank you very much
    for the contribution you made to my education and to my years here.
        You are graduating into a strong economy, the strongest in our
    Nation's history. You are also graduating into a time of immense
    possibility, here in Michigan and throughout the United States and,
    indeed, throughout the world.
        One of my speechwriters wrote me a line that said, ``Our economy is
    soaring higher than Swoop, the eagle.'' [Laughter] He said you would
    know what that means. All I know is that I am grateful for the chance
    that the Vice President and First Lady and our administration

    [[Page 795]]

    and I have had to work to create opportunity in America and to bring us
    closer together in one community.
        I know that a great deal of this is because we are in the midst of a
    profound revolution, the most sweeping since the industrial revolution a
    century ago. Information technology alone now gives us about a third of
    our growth, though only 8 percent of our work force is directly involved
    in it. It is bringing growth to every sector of our economy in a way we
    haven't seen since Henry Ford's first assembly line.
        And I wanted to come here today to try to give you, this graduating
    class, some sense of the world into which you're going. You understand
    the opportunities, doubtless, better than I. I want you to understand
    the challenges, too. For economic opportunity is not an end in itself;
    it is a means to an end, to further liberty, to strengthen the bonds of
    community, to enable you to build families and have children and enrich
    your lives.
        Before you lies a future of unparalleled possibility. But I want you
    to understand today that, just as at the dawn of the industrial age 100
    years ago, which was symbolized by Michigan, by Mr. Ford's assembly line
    and the factories of Detroit, there are new challenges presented by this
    new era to our oldest values of freedom and opportunity and community.
        Theodore Roosevelt came to this campus more than 100 years ago, at
    the beginning of the industrial era, when new rules were required to
    make sure that the industrial revolution worked for all our people.
    Without those rules, there would have been a terrible industrial divide
    between rich and poor, strong and weak. With those rules--with the wage
    and hour laws, the child labor laws, the antitrust laws, the Federal
    Reserve, and later the minimum wage, workman's compensation,
    unemployment insurance, Social Security--with those new rules, we built
    an opportunity society that produced the greatest middle class in human
    history, one that became even more successful and more inclusive
    throughout this last century with the progress of civil rights, women's
    rights, environmental and worker protection.
        I want to say to you today that you are well-equipped for the
    possibilities of this new era, but we also need new rules for the
    information age to protect those old values, just as we did for the
    industrial age. For all the possibilities must be measured also against
    the challenges presented by this new era, challenges to our privacy as
    individuals, to our pledge of equal opportunity for every member of our
    community, to our stewardship of the environment as citizens of the
    planet.
        From our earliest days, part of what has made America unique has
    been our dedication to freedom and the clear understanding that real
    freedom requires a certain space of personal privacy.
        Today, as information technology opens new worlds of possibilities,
    it also challenges privacy in ways we might never have imagined just a
    few years ago. For example, the same genetic code that offers hope for
    millions can also be used to deny health insurance. The same technology
    that links distant places can also be used to track our every move on-
    line.
        In this information age, we can't let new opportunities erode old
    fundamental rights. We can't let breakthroughs in technology break down
    walls of privacy. Our response to this challenge will affect the lives
    of every single member of this graduating class and the lives of your
    children.
        We are working with the Internet industry to raise privacy
    standards. In the last year alone, the share of commercial websites with
    privacy policies has risen a lot, and we will do more. But as my wife
    has said many times, some of these privacy issues presented by
    information technology are so sensitive they must have the protection of
    law.
        We have taken steps to protect the privacy of children on-line,
    preventing websites from collecting information from children without a
    parent's permission. I proposed the first set of national standards to
    protect the privacy of on-line medical records, to ensure that your
    personal health information doesn't fall into the wrong hands. You
    shouldn't have to worry that your employer is looking at the medications
    you take or the ailments you have.
        Today I'd like to ask you to think about the challenge to our
    financial privacy coming out of the information revolution. We are
    moving from cash to electronic transactions. A bank is no longer just a
    bank; it's often linked with an insurance firm, a broker, a travel
    agency. All this helps to give us added convenience, lower prices, and
    more choices. But it's also forcing us to redefine financial privacy for
    the information age and to rewrite the rules that go with it.

    [[Page 796]]

        There was a time when protecting your financial privacy meant
    safeguarding your passbook. Today, a financial record isn't just about
    what you're worth; it can paint a picture of who you are. Every time you
    write a check, use an ATM, make a purchase with a credit or debit card,
    there is a record, a record that technology can sort and track--what
    dish you ordered at a restaurant, what clothes you bought at the mall--
    that makes it easier for others to mine all of that information for
    their own profit.
        We've taken some historic steps to stop information about your
    personal spending habits from being shared without your permission. But
    even today, the law doesn't prevent firms within a financial
    conglomerate from sharing information with each other. In other words,
    the life insurance company could share information about your medical
    history with the bank, without giving you any choice in the matter. The
    bank could share information from your student loans and your credit
    cards with its telemarketer or its broker, again without giving you any
    choice. I believe that is wrong.
        Today I present a plan to protect the privacy of Americans'
    financial records. I challenge Congress to act on it this year. Because
    your information doesn't belong to just anyone; every consumer and every
    family deserves choices about how their personal information is shared.
        First, before your financial information is shared between two
    affiliated companies, say, a credit card company and an insurance
    company, you would get notice, and you could say no.
        Second, for the most sensitive type of information, I think there
    should be an extra level of protection. As more banks and insurance
    companies merge, lenders could gain access to private medical
    information and many insurance records. But no one should have to worry
    that the results of their latest physical exam will be used to deny them
    a home mortgage or a credit card. Under my plan, you'd get to say no.
        Third, we would add that same safeguard to the information that
    makes up your personal spending identity, such as the list of every
    purchase you've ever made by check or debt or credit card, everything
    you buy. Again, that information could be shared only if you say yes.
        And finally, to make sure you have control over the comprehensive
    records that financial institutions may assemble about you, we'll make
    sure you have access to those records and the right to correct mistakes
    in them. We must be able to enjoy the benefits of technology without
    sacrificing our privacy, to maximize the promise of the information age
    and still protect our individual liberties.
        Our national character also requires new rules for the information
    age that recognize opportunity for all now means access to technology
    for all. Just as we closed the industrial divide in the 20th century, we
    must now close the digital divide in the 21st century.
        You know, if you're educated for the information age, who you are
    and where you are don't matter as much anymore. I have seen that with
    people in the poorest villages of the world logging onto the Internet
    and getting an education, getting information once available only in
    textbooks, learning how to take care of their children, learning how to
    start new businesses. But if who and where you are don't matter so much,
    what you know and what you can do matter more than ever. That's why this
    degree and what you learned here is so important. That's why technology
    education is so important.
        Technology in this new era will either erase lines that divide us or
    widen them. The Internet and computers make it possible for us to lift
    more people out of poverty faster than at any time in history, but it
    will not happen by accident. Many of you have learned this lesson in
    your own lives.
        Todd Pasquale, of the college of arts and
    sciences, wasn't going to let anything stop him from earning his degree
    today, not even navigating his wheelchair through the Michigan snows.
    Thanks to EMU Online, he took his winter courses at home. Now, he plans
    to give back to the community by working as a counselor to people in
    prisons, because he could access technology. Let's give him a hand.
    [Applause]
        Randy Short went back to school after her
    husband died, leaving her to raise three sons alone. Today she earns a
    master's degree with honors in website design. She hopes to start her
    own business, and she wants to help teach women to use computers. She
    has already given those women a lesson for all of us about the value of
    making sure technology education is accessible to every American. Give
    her a hand. [Applause]
        Today I ask all of you to join me in reaching out to all the others
    across America who need these tools to build their future. When Vice

    [[Page 797]]

    President Gore and I started hooking up schools to the Internet, there
    were only about 16 percent of our schools who had a connection in 1994;
    today, 95 percent do. But I was on an Indian reservation in northern New
    Mexico the other day, introduced by a brilliant young girl of 13 who had just won a computer in a contest, who could not
    hook it up to the Internet because her home did not have a phone.
    Seventy percent of the homes on her Navajo reservation did not have a
    phone. We have to bring telephone service to everybody and then make the
    Internet as common as telephone usage is in every home, every business,
    and every school in the United States of America. We owe that to our
    future.
        We must create incentives for American business to invest in people
    and places in danger of being left behind--left behind in their
    economies and their education of their children, in information
    infrastructure and special technologies for people with special needs.
    That's what our efforts to build bipartisan support for opening
    America's new markets and closing the digital divide are all about.
        The third thing I want to mention is that the revolution in
    technology and communications means our lives are bound up more than
    ever with people far away from us with whom we now are in instant
    contact. Our community of values and interest spans the globe. Events
    half a world away can have an impact on us here, just as what we do has
    an impact on people who live thousands of miles from our borders, in
    ways large and small. I have a cousin in Arkansas who plays chess once a
    week on the Internet with a man in Australia. Doubtless, there are many
    stories like that in this room today.
        We need a new level of international cooperation and new rules that
    deal with the most significant challenge of our common humanity, the
    environmental challenge posed by global warming. Scientists tell us the
    temperature is now rising 4 degrees a century. To anyone who has lived
    through a Michigan winter, that might not sound so bad. [Laughter] But
    the scientists also say that a significant degree of this climate change
    is due to human activity, specifically to putting more greenhouse gases
    into the atmosphere from the burning of coal and oil. And if it goes
    unchecked, the consequences will be dramatic. Rising temperatures can
    melt polar icecaps, which lead to rising oceans that could swallow
    thousands of miles of our own coastlines and bury island nations.
    Changing weather would devastate our farmlands. We would have both more
    droughts and more violent storms and floods. Hotter weather could both
    cause more rapid evaporation of inland water systems and a drought which
    replenishes them less.
        Think about the Great Lakes, where water levels are falling faster
    than ever recorded. They have fallen almost 3 feet in just 2 years. They
    may fall much more in the next 30. That would be a disaster for industry
    and for all living things dependent upon the lakes. And that is why I've
    asked Congress to fund our efforts to find out why the water is falling,
    to restore the Great Lakes waterways, to improve our stewardship of this
    vital resource.
        Now, for most of the 20th century, economic growth did require
    burning more fossil fuels--more coal and more oil--which released the
    greenhouse gases, caused the pollution, and heated the atmosphere.
    Because of that, many people still believe that we must choose between
    two vital values, preserving our environment and making our economy
    grow. Thankfully, in the digital economy, that is simply not true
    anymore. It is now possible to grow an economy and improve the
    environment at the same time. New technologies make it possible to
    reduce harmful emissions as they make the economy more efficient and
    stronger.
        Scientists right here at EMU are making environmentally friendly
    paints out of soybeans. Michigan, the home of the automobile, is now the
    home of cutting-edge research into cars and trucks of the 21st century
    that will get much higher mileage. And soon, vehicles developed here in
    partnership with the Federal Government will use alternative and
    biofuels which could get the equivalent of 100 miles or more to a gallon
    of gasoline.
        These technologies are good for the planet and good for the bottom
    line, but we must embrace them. And I say this very seriously: It takes
    at least 50 years for greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere to
    dissipate. The class--this class, graduating today--it is your children
    and your grandchildren that will feel the harshest effects of our
    neglect in meeting this challenge. But if you don't do it, your children
    may not be able to do it for you because of the time delay. And it is no
    good saying that someone else should do it. We are the

    [[Page 798]]

    world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases because we're the richest
    country, but soon China and India will surpass us. We must show them
    that they can grow even faster by following a different path, but first
    we must set a good example.
        I have implored the Congress to adopt legislation to increase
    research and development in this area and to give significant tax
    incentives for people to produce products that emit less greenhouse
    gases and for people to buy them. It is a big challenge for you. You can
    have all the computers and all the money in the world, and if we
    squander God's environment, it won't be worth very much. I urge you to
    meet this challenge.
        Let me say in closing, I am very optimistic about the new century.
    It will bring us more advances and answer more questions than any period
    in human history. We'll be able to store all the information in the
    Halle Library in a device the size of a sugar cube. We'll have
    microchips that stimulate the spine in such a way that people now
    paralyzed will be able to stand up and walk. I believe we will even
    learn what's in the black holes in the universe. But we must not be so
    dazzled by the bright promise of technology that we lose sight of the
    fundamental lesson. We must bring to bear our basic values on each new
    development in human history in order to assure that it works for the
    public good and maintains America's values of liberty and community.
    That is the noble challenge that you face.
        Henry Ford once defined obstacles as those frightful things you see
    when you take your eyes off the goal. I hope your goal will be a 21st
    century American community that derives every benefit from technology
    while holding fast to our oldest values. I hope you will not take your
    eyes off of it. I hope you will embrace it and work for it. If you do,
    you will achieve it. And you will live in history's most exciting,
    prosperous, and humane era. That is what I wish for you.
        Congratulations, good luck, and Godspeed.

     Note:  The President spoke at 2:15 p.m. in the Convention Center. In
    his remarks, he referred to William E. Shelton, president, and James
    Comer, professor, Eastern Michigan University; Mayor Dennis W. Archer of
    Detroit, MI; former Gov. James J. Blanchard of Michigan; and Myra Jodie,
    student, Steamboat Navajo Nation. A portion of these remarks could not
    be verified because the tape was incomplete.