Leadership for the New Millennium: Delivering on Digital Progress and Prosperity is the third and final annual report from the U.S. Government Working Group on Electronic Commerce. The report is the Clinton-Gore Administration's compendium of its accomplishments towards moving from a National Information Infrastructure to a Framework for Global Electronic Commerce. The listing of initiatives and successes is impressive, but also telling with respect to gaps that continue to need addressing. It is encouraging that the report early on addresses Administration efforts to narrow the digital divide. Attention is focused on the e-rate program, the Department of Education's Community Technology Centers and attendant America Connects Consortium linking technology access to workforce and literacy development for adults, and the Department of Commerce's technology demonstration efforts under the Technology Opportunities Program. No mention is made, however, of efforts such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Neighborhood Networks program to provide community Internet access in housing developments; the Department of Labor's One Stop online job information centers; or other programs involving government and nonprofit collaboration in the delivery of services through the use of technology. Additionally, the digital divide is again addressed as one solved by access to technology, instead of one including access to content, and access to knowledge and tools that ensure public participation in an online society and economy. A number of steps were taken to encourage the deployment of high-speed Internet access, most of them centered on fostering competition in telecommunications markets. The Administration's record of encouraging the deployment of high-speed Internet access is addressed in the report - especially to underserved markets, such as those with high concentrations of rural, minority, low-income, Native American, and disability populations. The discussion, however, actively emphasizes active Administration support for high-speed Internet services using wireless, cable, digital subscriber line, and existing telephone technologies, without a subsequent discussion of efforts to explore satellite and other competing high-speed technologies. This seems to suggest a preference for policies favorable to particular segments of the Internet industry, at a time when widespread innovation and research are needed to provide all Americans with access to technology with as few barriers as possible. The report identifies a number of areas where government and private sector investments have helped create a framework that can support, sustain, and grow more commercial content and services. No mention is made, however, of the steps which were undertaken to ensure the protection and growth of content that addresses community needs and public interest concerns. This is particular relevant with the growing importance of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAN). In addition to shaping international Internet governance issues, ICANN, with the guidance of the Department of Commerce, has helped to move leadership of the management structure of the Internet to the private sector. No mention is made in the report, however, of the need to protect public interest space with respect to the expansion of domain names, market competition, or even content that will be easily visible, accessible, and promoted through an increasingly commercialized, yet vital, medium of information exchange and transactions. In a section devoted to the Internet's intellectual property protection efforts, there is no statement addressing an interest in support of the long-standing concept of "fair use" of copyrighted information by libraries, educators, and for the public interest. Instead, there a lengthy discussion of expansion of policies favoring commercial protection of content, at the expense of comparable balance with the public's rights to utilize that information. In addition, there is no discussion of policies that ensure that content developed in the public interest or by nonprofits enjoys similar protections against private sector entities seeking to impose barriers to free public use and access. The report suggests an Administration reliance on the private sector to ensure the continued growth of the Internet. Missing, however, is the role of the nonprofit sector as a partner in the policy deliberations as to the structure of the Internet itself, as opposed to recipients of federal money, or secondary beneficiaries of private sector investments in the national information infrastructure. Nonprofits can, and do, play a part in the issues raised in the report, yet little mention of the public interest perspective they bring to policy discussions is addressed. In the area of E-Government, the Administration is to be credited with moving the executive branch aggressively into the looking at the provision of transactions and services online, and for encouraging agencies to put its "customer"-oriented information online. Equally impressive are efforts that directly connect the public with contact information for agency and program employees, forms and streamlined application procedures, and accessibility methods that speak to the widest possible audience needs. This includes online versions of federal directories, and specialized information portals for students, seniors, workers, and business, established as collaborative efforts across agencies and departments. The bulk of the listed accomplishments in report, however, are transaction- and services-oriented, without a discussion of how these services are moving towards better interaction with one another. In one instance, the government created a service that competes with an existing federal service through the Government Printing Office. Of the 12 "Other Government Services and Information Available Online" cited:

• six only address the needs of businesses
• one serves employers and employees
• three fall under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• one provides the public the ability to make reservations at Forest Service campsites
• one provides access to information about ATMs in a number of inner-city communities

The only item in this section having to do with improving public access to government information from disparate sources in a "one-stop" format is the establishment of the FirstGov government-wide portal. FirstGov, though, highlights some of the significant failures of the Administration in the area of e-government, most notably the inability to implement a statutory requirement for an online "catalog" of government information resources. This means that the FirstGov search engine will not find web page any government information not on an agency. While the Clinton-Gore Administration's accomplishments in the area of e-government are not inconsiderable, they also betray a bias toward seeing the government's relationship with the public in a business frame of reference, rather than as citizens engaging with their government and holding it accountable. Privacy issues merit significant attention in the report, especially the efforts by OMB to institute consistent privacy policy development and articulation, and the limited use of "cookies," on all federal websites. Missing from the discussion is information on those agencies which violated federal laws regarding online privacy-- including the violation of the Child Online Privacy Protection Act by a number of federal websites that collected personal information from children. More significantly, however, is the Administration's reliance on the private sector to police themselves with respect to the establishment of privacy standards and practices. It is troubling to see government leaving the responsibility for the industry most responsible for a number of privacy abuses, to develop the rules by which it and government websites will operate. Much is also said of efforts to ensure increased security on the Internet for businesses and individual consumers. No discussion is given to the balance between providing standards that promote efficient transaction mechanism, while protecting public's right to know and access to information. This is a prime example of the divergent impulses in the Administration. They wanted to promote distance education, they wanted to improve public health (which is premised on access to information), they worked to realize the potential of geospatial information systems - but all these desires at some point come smack up against corporate interests in "protecting" intellectual property and commercial infrastructure. And the bulk of the Administration's attention went to smoothing the way for global corporate e-commerce. It is a shame that the better impulses and intentions of this, the first Internet Administration, did not get more attention and resources.