NEW YORK -- Two of the United States' big thinkers on government Internet policy -- Mr. Inside, Ira Magaziner, and would-be Microsoft-case fact-finder Lawrence Lessig -- collided Wednesday night over the Clinton administration's approach to handling issues crucial to the future of the global network.
In a session sponsored by the New York New Media Association and titled "Internet and Public Policy: Who's in Control?" Lessig put Magaziner on the defensive by accusing the White House of moving too quickly with sweeping solutions on issues such as digital-age copyrights and revamping the domain name system.
A crowd of several hundred applauded and jeered during the exchange in the Great Hall at Cooper Union. The panel also included cyberseer/entrepreneur Esther Dyson.
Lessig, a Harvard law professor who became something of a Net policy celebrity when a federal court appointed him as special master in the Microsoft antitrust case, blasted the Clinton administration's new policy on domain names.
Lessig focused his criticism on a plan to form a private, nonprofit agency to set Internet addressing policy and run the domain system. Although he acknowledged that Americans have many reasons to be skeptical of government involvement in such an operation, he argued that delegating the job to a private agency raised serious legal and constitutional issues.
He noted that the agency, charged with regulating crucial activity in "the biggest new territory since the Louisiana Purchase," would operate beyond any judicial, legislative, or other public accountability.
"A nonprofit devoted to the public interest -- isn't that what government is supposed to be?" Lessig asked. "We have to recognize how bizarre this is for a democracy." He also opined that the agency, because it will be created by and based in the United States, is unlikely to ease international concern over US domination of Net policy.
Lessig also accused the Clinton administration of acting too quickly to set technology-related laws and policies and of acting at the prompting of special interests and before the general public has an opportunity to understand how these sweeping actions will affect their own use of the Net. He expressed particular concern over the implications of the administration-backed copyright bill, currently before Congress, that includes sweeping controls on videocassette recorders and other everyday devices used to reproduce media.
Visibly ruffled, Magaziner defended the need for swift federal action supporting copyright protection in the global marketplace and on other pressing matters in the ever-changing technology landscape. He also insisted that with proper bylaws, private boards made up of major stakeholders can continue to administer important Internet functions without excluding smaller businesses and the public.
"Government is too slow to keep up with the digital environment," he said. "The industry should remain unregulated. Our role in government is to provide a consistent environment for buyers and sellers."
Magaziner reminded the audience that the Clinton administration plans to continue delegating Net policy to independent, self-governing boards and expressed hope that another such panel, addressing privacy issues, will form in light of a recent Federal Trade Commission finding that commercial interests are not doing enough to protest consumers' online privacy.
Dyson expressed doubt that any official body, public or private, will effectively protect what she called consumers' right to control their own data. Pointing to the coalition effort TrustE as a model, she contended that industry self-regulation will let the public freely decide whom to trust -- but only on the condition that businesses are required to disclose how they plan to use personal information provided over the Net and give users effective ways to decide what will become of their data.
Wired News correspondent Heidi Kriz contributed to this report.
