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Magaziner and Dyson tell government "hands off the Net"

Magaziner

June 12, 1998
Web posted at: 5:00 p.m. EDT

by Tom Watson

(IDG) -- What role, if any, should the government play in regulating the Internet? On a stage where Abraham Lincoln once spoke in support of the Union, Clinton administration Net czar Ira Magaziner and technocapitalist Esther Dyson answered swiftly: precious little.

In a panel discussion at New York's Cooper Union sponsored by the New York New Media Association last night, Dyson and Magaziner differed only on how little the government should intervene in the fast-developing Internet economy. Magaziner argued that because development in the digital world is so swift, it's nearly impossible for the slow processes of government to keep pace. And Dyson argued strongly against regulation, at one point scoffing at the notion that the key decisions of the digital age should be left up to "a bunch of voters."

They suggested that the government's antitrust powers were sufficient - the equivalent of a constitutional check against self-regulated industry. Besides, said Magaziner, "we've tried to be as consultative as possible."

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That left the third panelist, Harvard Law School's Larry Lessig, special master in the Microsoft case, to argue that the Clinton administration's policy of industry self-regulation effectively placed cyberspace outside the Constitution - and thus beyond the purview of ordinary Americans. He said the administration's cyber policy is a product of people's "pathetic resignation" to the foibles of elected government, deflecting the slavish devotion to free markets and "economic growth" exhibited by Dyson and Magaziner. Moreover, he argued that it was too soon for the government to simply step aside in cyberspace. That kind of talk can get you lynched in Silicon Valley, but this was New York; Lessig got the night's loudest applause.