ASPEN, Colorado -- The topic was "Politics, Congress and the Web," and the reaction from the panel of Washington insiders was that of pure, unbridled fear.
This Cyberspace and the American Dream VI panel consisted of current and ex-Congressmen as well as those who work the halls of Congress. Their conclusion was that the government is trying to tame a beast it simply does not know, much less understand.
So the trick, a former Congressman said, is for Internet insiders to tame the government beast by convincing legislators they have an active hand in determining policy ... without letting them actually do so.
"People are talking about how The Blair Witch Project is the scariest movie since Psycho. I really think the scarier prospect is the US Congress right now making decisions in this industry," said Representative Jay Inslee (D-Washington).
"The danger is making decisions about the Internet, yet not understanding the faintest notions of it. I'm still stunned at institutional lack of familiarity.... Not half the people in Congress could tell you the basics of this issue," he said.
"Education about the Net -- that is a job we have not done very well -- it is largely undone," added Jerry Berman, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology. Berman also chairs the advisory committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus.
"The Internet is directly in their [Congress'] sights," he said.
And when it comes to hot-button issues like pornography, "they'll pull the trigger real quick," he added.
"The only thing growing faster than the Internet is the number of bills in Congress dealing with the Internet," said Jeffrey A. Eisenach, president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, the group sponsoring the Aspen Summit.
But Eisenach added that some Congressional attention is necessary, especially when the issues are aspects of personal privacy and removing controls on export of strong encryption.
"But at the same time, not all of Congress' interventions with respect to the Internet are well informed," he said.
Inslee cited Congress' behavior upon learning that some national banks were selling customers' financial information to telemarketers. Lawmakers didn't hesitate to act against the banks, noted Inslee, which should be instructive to the technology industry.
