Since its creation in 1995, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) has worked "to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age." The homepage contains thematic headings that will guide visitors to much of the important material here, and includes such areas as the CDT's Legislative Center, its Resource Library, and several of its most recent policy briefs. Perhaps...

The Center For Democracy and Technology, a non-profit public interest organization, offers this Web site with information about the state of free speech and civil liberties on the Internet. Visitors to the site will find current headlines, updated every few days, as well as coverage of issues related to privacy, terrorism, cryptography, infrastructure, and digital telephony, among others. Back...

This report, FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Office of Plans and Policy (OPP) Working Paper No. 29, by OPP's Kevin Werbach, "represents the first comprehensive assessment of the questions the Internet poses for traditional communications policy." The paper addresses three major topics: "category difficulties," (Internet services "do not fit easily into the existing classifications for...

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently published this report commissioned by Vice President Al Gore. The report analyzes telephone and computer penetration rates in the US to determine who is connected, and who is not connected, to the information infrastructure. This report updates the conclusions of an earlier report, "Falling Through the Net: A Survey of...

The Federal Communications Commission offers this informative page "about the issues the FCC oversees." The site is divided into six sections including Wireless, Internet, Radio, Satellite, Telephone, and Television & Cable. At first glance little information is contained in each section -- only a few frequently asked questions and their answers are given. However, a link at the bottom of each...

The National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIIAC) produced this final report with respect to the KickStart Initiative for connecting America's communities to the Information Superhighway. KickStart Initiative contains sections on Connecting People and Communities to the Information Superhighway, A Leadership Guide to Getting There, A Resource on Intellectual Property, Privacy, and...

Losing Ground Bit by Bit: Low-Income Communities in the Information Age by Susan Goslee is a report on the effect of current telecommunication technologies on low-income economies; it was published as part of the ongoing collaborative series What's Going On by the Benton Foundation and the National Urban League. Report chapters cover defining the technology gap, gap barriers, the need for better...

The telecomm bill has passed and been signed into law. Full text of the Telecommunications Law is available via the Internet. The bill is available in sections (HTML): http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c104:S.652.ENR: or in its entirety (text): ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c104/s652.enr.txt or FTP to: ftp.loc.gov and change directories to pub/thomas/c104. get s652.enr.txt

This is a "proposed rule of the [US] Department of Commerce," in discussion draft format. It will appear shortly in its official form in the _Federal Register_. The draft is available in HTML, text, and WordPerfect .zipped format. Comments on the draft can be sent to the email address listed at the site and will be posted on the web. The draft calls for four main principles for a new domain name...

"Universal Access to E-Mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications" by Robert H. Anderson, Tora K. Bikson, Sally Ann Law, and Bridger M. Mitchell; 1995; Rand Corporation; 267 pages, 24 tables, 18 figures; bibliography, is available for downloading from Rand Corporation's Web site. "This is the final report of a two-year RAND study. It is designed as a sourcebook on key social, technical, economic,...