INTERACTIVE AGE REVEALS THE INNER WORKINGS OF NEWT GINGRICH'S

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: "W. Curtiss Priest" <BMSLIB () mitvma mit edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <roundtable () cni org>


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INTERACTIVE AGE REVEALS THE INNER WORKINGS OF NEWT GINGRICH'S CYBERSPACE "MAGNA
CARTA"


MANHASSET.    N.Y.--{BUSINESS WIRE) 12/12/94


CMP's Interactive Age released the following article today from its December 12
issue.




Blueprint for America


Think tank readies cyberspace "Magna Carta" for Gingrich By Robert SilvermaIl


WASHINGTON--House Speaker Neut Gingrich is looking to a new
think tank to map out
a Vision of America's higl-tech future should point the nation toward sweeping
deregulatioln The Progress and Freedom Foundation. which has various links to
both the Gingrich caunp and the Speaker himself, has retained top technocrats
Dr. Alvin Toffler, Dr. Jay Keyworth. George Gilder and Esther Dyson to draft
the document, which ultimately will be passed to Ginnrich and his aides. As it
stands now. that plan. the "Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age" issues a general
call for the deregulation of every aspect of telecommunications. The Foundation
stresses. however, that the "Magna Carta" isIllt a guide
for specific legislation
so much as it is a general vision of the coming bio-electronic frontier.


In the meantime, even before the Magna Carta is completed, Gingrich insists some
form of immediate telecommunications legislation shortly, will be passed in the
House of Representatives.


"Im actively. strongly in favor (of telecom legislation) and both (U.S. Reps.
Jack Fields and Mike Oxley promise me there will be something passed out (of
committee) very early," Gingrich told lnteractive Age last week. High on the
agenda of Gingrich's think tank and its "Magna Carta" plan -which is still un-
dergoing revision -is the splintering of monopolies in the electric utility and
local telephone industries. "There's been an exploding evolution of new
technology. new mediums," Gingrich said. "You're getting into a process of
demassification where each segment has its own intense market and new media
application." This anti-monopolistic desire jibes well with
Toffler's call in the
document to "shift holll a mass production. mass media, mass culture,
civilization to a demassified civilization." as well as with the. plan's
overall anti-regulatory theme.


The think tank document calls for "removing barriers to
competition and massively
deregulating the fastest-grow tele-communicatiolls and computing industries''
and for the "liberation" from 'rules, regulations, taxes and laws laid in place
to serve the smokestack barons and bureaucrats of the past." Born in April 1993,
the Progress and Freedom Foundation says it is charged with developing plans
aind working papers focusing on four key policy areas; telecommunications and
cyberspace: the Food and Drug Administration; regulations and Monopolies; and
housing. The relationship between Gingrich and the foundation is somewhat hazy,
with direct and indirect connections stretching between the think tank and the
new Congressional leaderShip.


"Neut doesn't have a position at the think tank." said Kent Lassman, the founda-
tion's special assistant for information. Lassman conceded,
however, that the or-
ganization produces Gingrich's cable TV show'The Progress Report," which airs on
the National Empowerment Television Netvwork, and manages Gingrich's "Renewing
American Civilization" TV college lecture series, shown at universities
nationwide, as well as On NET.


Moreover. the foundation's president, Jeffrey Eisenach, formerlt was executive
director of GOPAC, Gingrich's Political Action Committee. But added Bill My-
ers, the foundation's policy vice president. "There's no connection between
GOPAC and the Progress and Freedom Foundation." The foundation also boasts other
administrators with significant ties to the Republican party and its leader-
ship. Indeed, the think tank's chairman, Dr. George Keyworth (who co-wrote the
Magna Carta document), served as the director of the Office of Science and
Technology Policy for the Reagan administration.


Key to both the Magna Carta and Gingrich's vision of the future is the
rejection of the term 'information superhighway," with, an emphasis instead on
the word "cyberspace." "We talk a lot about the information superhighway; the
information superhighway is too narrow and limiting," Gingrich said. adding
that the converging industries "encompass everything from audio tape to video
tape to computers . "


-Kate Gerwig contributed to this story.


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