Some people think that the coming congressional session will perhaps not be productive because 2000 is an election year and political gridlock will take over. But that has not been our recent history.
Take welfare reform: It was not until an election year, 1996, that the president, who had twice before vetoed welfare reform, finally signed it. And the law’s been a demonstrable success, helping millions of Americans move into self-sufficiency, cutting welfare rolls by almost half and saving taxpayers billions of dollars. The same dynamic that forced the president to sign welfare reform, I predict, will produce extraordinary legislation this year.
Nowhere is the focus of the 106th Congress more intense and our ambition higher than in our high-tech agenda, which has also been called our “e-genda” for the new economy. Early on in the 2000 session, we intend to finish work on legislation to stop the government and lawyers from blocking the use of digital signatures in lieu of hand-signed documents. In the last millennium, there was a similar argument about whether or not we could forego the use of wax stamps on contracts. We don’t have that debate any longer. A digital signature uses computer encryption technology to verify the identity of the sender and assure that a document isn’t altered after it is sent. Digital signatures offer convenience and far greater security than could ever be imagined with old paper and ink.
As more Americans rely on the Internet to conduct business, buyers and sellers don’t know if governments will treat digital signatures the same as pen-and-ink signatures. This uncertainty on the government’s part hurts commerce. Certainly, the new economy moves at a much faster pace than Washington when it comes to such issues.
The President of the United States and Vice President Al Gore should be leading champions in America for ensuring that government does not interfere with the use of digital signatures, but they are not. Congress, however, will push this legislation across the finish line.
Congress is also going to continue to ensure, as we did with the Internet Tax Freedom Act, that the Internet and the technologies attendant to it do not fall victim to tax collectors; that we do not have new, predatory, discriminatory, or multiple taxes on the Internet, or on any technology associated with it. We have plenty enough taxes in America already, and we do not wish to single out an engine of productivity for discriminatory tax treatment.
Congress has also targeted for elimination the federal excise tax on telecommunications, which was put in place during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Back then, telephones were a luxury that only the wealthiest households could afford. But even though phone service has long since become an everyday necessity, this 100-year-old luxury tax remains on the books and costs Americans $5 billion annually.
Congress has also made it a priority to get rid of the “Gore Tax,” so-called by Time magazine and other news media because it is the pet project of the vice president. The tax, which is imposed on long-distance phone bills, will cost Americans $2.25 billion this year.
Improvements in computing power and the proliferation of computer networks are greatly expanding the opportunities for telecommuting,moving work to the worker, instead of moving the worker to work. Today, 20 million Americans telecommute, permitting them more family time and additional control over their working hours. Telecommuting also helps the environment. It means less traffic congestion, less air pollution and less urban sprawl.
Despite such benefits, some government bureaucrats are discouraging telecommuting. The most recent example was the Jan. 4 report that OSHA, whose signature enforcement technique is unannounced searches, would apply commercial workplace standards to private homes. The next day, after the congressional leadership made its objections known, OSHA withdrew its policy. The Washington Post’s top headline exclaimed, “Labor Chief Retreats on Home Offices.” So even before Congress returned to session, we won a signal victory in this area.
Congress can protect telecommuters not only by keeping OSHA out of our homes, but by removing other obsolete laws and government policies in order to increase family time, boost productivity and protect the environment.
Last year, Congress included important privacy provisions in the Financial Services Modernization Act. This law was a first step to give Americans confidence that personal information they share with their financial institutions, often over the Internet, will be protected.
This year, we will take privacy protection further. It is well known that we have pretty sound laws in America protecting you as an individual, and all of us as consumers, from predatory taping of our voices. But we do not have similar protections when it comes to video, even though very miniaturized, wireless video is becoming ubiquitous. The Policy Committee, which I chair, will be examining ways to ensure that consumer privacy laws are brought up to date to reflect the Internet and other changes in technology.
Another element to protecting consumer privacy is passage of our encryption legislation, to ensure that Americans will have access to the best available technology to protect their privacy. Our encryption legislation makes it possible for people in the United States and around the world to have secure communications without fear that their personal financial data, business and personal correspondence, medical records, and other private information could be intercepted,by the government or by anyone who might wish you ill.
While the Clinton administration ought to be leading in this area, once again it has not. In fact, it attempted to slow down our legislation by introducing a proposal that turned out to be what in software circles we would call “vaporware”,a lot of hype, but no substance. Because we feel so strongly about it, Congress will move our legislation.
Encryption is also important to our national security and to our foreign policy of promoting freedom around the world. Strong encryption is a massive threat to totalitarian regimes and their government-maintained monopolies on information because it permits individuals to communicate privately without fear of government eavesdropping or interception.
Lin Hai, a web page designer in the People’s Republic of China, is in jail today because the Ministry of State Security could read his e-mail. He was trying to communicate democratic messages with people here in the United States. If he’d had our commercially available strong encryption, he’d be a free man today.
This is an agenda for America and for America’s people, and also for freedom in the world. Nothing can claim any greater share of success in this enormous economy we are continuing to grow than the high-tech entrepreneurial climate we are nurturing here in America.
This Congress, many Democrats as well as the Republican leadership, intend to see to it that the first year of the 21st century is a banner year for technology and for our economy.
Cox is the Republican U.S. representative from central Orange County. He is the House Policy Chairman and the author of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which imposed a moratorium on Internet taxes. This article is adapted from his remarks at a news conference with House Speaker Dennis Hastert in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6.
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