Misconceptions in the media
Both as a Senator and Vice-President, Al Gore has been involved in the mainstreaming of the Internet since the 1970s (see Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 1996:298). This involvement led to legislation during the late 1980s known informally as the 'Gore Bill'.[5] It was passed, however, as the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 [6] on December 9 1991 and led to the NII or National Information Infrastructure [7] which Gore referred to as the Information superhighway.
As a result of the publication of three articles in Wired News[8], Gore's 1999-03-09 interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer became the subject of heavy satire. [9] During this interview, Gore stated:
During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. [10]
Media reports surrounding this statement sometimes re-wrote it, stating that Gore claimed he "invented the internet".[11] However, Gore received support from members of the computer industry, notably Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Robert E. Kahn. Cerf and Kahn issued the following statement on 2000-09-28 in response to the controversy:
[A]s the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.[12]
Gore, himself, poked fun at the controversy. In September 2000, as a guest on the The Late Show with David Letterman, he read a list of the "Top Ten Rejected Gore - Lieberman Campaign Slogans." Number nine on the list was: "Remember, America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away!" [13]
Info. from Al Gore controversies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
