U.S. Government Plans and
                        Proposals on NSF backbone
                             to the Internet

   [In April 1993, the Inspector General overseeing the NSFNet (the
U.S. backbone to the Internet), issued a report describing many of
the ways there have been changes in the structure and oversight of
the NSFNet since 1990 by MERIT, (Michigan Education Research
Instruction Triad, Inc., a non profit corporation owned and managed
by nine of Michigan's four-year publicly supported universities),
the contractor charged with administering the NSF backbone. In
September 1993 the U.S. Department of Commerce issued the National
Information Infrastructure - Agenda for Action, a plan for changing
the fundamental basis of the NSFNet. That was followed by an
Executive Order from U.S. President Clinton to set up a private
sector committee to guide the process of transition from a
government sponsored and funded backbone to a purely commercial
venture. These documents demonstrate that the U.S. government is
trying to change the course of development of the U.S. portion of
the Internet.

   It is important that those who care about the Net and its
continued expansion and development examine these proposed changes
and find a way to have a voice in influencing U.S. government
policy. The following article begins a survey of the important
documents describing these planned changes so as to encourage
discussion and study of the changes being set in motion and carried
out by the U.S. government.]

   The document "Commercialization of the Internet: Summary Report"
purports to describe a workshop held March 1-3, 1990 at Harvard
University in Cambridge, MA by the "Science, Technology, and Public
Policy Program" of the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Attendance at the Workshop was by invitation only. Listed
participants included representatives from the U.S. Congress Office
of Technology Assessment, the RAND Corporation, Brookings
Institute, DARPA, MERIT, AT&T, MCI, AMERITECH, EDUCOM, Sprint
International, Research Libraries Group, U.S. Department of
Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information
Administration, State of Ohio, IBM, Litel Telecommunications,
Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Performance Systems
International, UUNET, Digital Equipment Corporation, and the
National Science Foundation.

   The workshop took as its mandate to change the role of the U.S.
government in network development. The Summary Report quotes the
Program Plan of the NREN proposing that "the networks of Stages 2
and 3 will be implemented and operated so that they can become
commercialized.... " (from Federal Research Internet Coordinating
Committee, "Program Plan for the National Research and Education
Network," May 23, 1989, p. 4-5) It proposes that "a specific,
structured process" be set in place "resulting in transition of the
network from a government operation to a commercial service." (From
Office of Science and Technology Policy, "The Federal High
Performance Computing Program," September 8, 1989, p. 32 & 35.)

   The Summary Report says that Stephen Wolff of the NSF outlined
the acceptable use policy that had been governing the NSFNet:

"Under the draft acceptable use policy in effect from 1988 to
mid-1990, use of the NSFNet backbone had to support the purpose of
`scientific research and other scholarly activities.' The interim
policy promulgated in June 1990 is the same, except that the
purpose of the NSFNET is now `to support research and education in
and among academic institutions in the U.S. by access to unique re-
sources and the opportunity for collaborative work'."

   He outlines the distinction between commercialization and
privatization of the NSFNet. The distinction we are told is that
"commercialization" is "permitting commercial users and providers
to access and use Internet facilities and services," while
"privatization" is "the elimination of the federal role in
providing or subsidizing network services."

   The Report claimed that despite the restrictions on commercial
usage of the NSFNet, commercial usage was increasing 15-20% a
month. The problem Wolff explained was that such commercial use of
the NSF backbone might be offering unfair competition from the U.S.
government to "private providers of network services (notably the
public X.25 packet-switched networks, such as SprintNet and Tym-
net)."

   Wolff gave no legal basis for his concern to avoid such so
called 'government competition with commercial providers.' However
such an argument would effectively eliminate all government
services since each might be then attacked as competing with their
commercial counterparts, e.g., no social security as that might
compete with commercial insurance, no public schools as they
compete with private schools, no post office as that competes with
commercial mail or package delivery, etc. Such an argument
eliminates the historic obligation of the U.S. government to
provide for the health and welfare of the people.

   There is no other reason offered in this Summary Report for
abolishing the government role in the sponsoring and supporting of
the NSFNet backbone to the Internet. To the contrary, the Summary
claims that the participants recognized that it is cheaper and more
efficient for the U.S. government to fund the backbone than to have
to figure out other means of funding government supported users as
"it is easier for NSF to simply provide one free backbone to all
comers rather than deal with 25 mid-level networks, 500
universities, or perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of
individual researchers."

   Also, the Summary Report acknowledges that privately owned and
funded TCP/IC companies will not be concerned with network
development but with their bottom line profits. The Report
explains: "The market-driven suppliers of TCP/IP-based Internet
connectivity are naturally going after those markets that can be
wired at a low cost per institution, i.e., large metropolitan
areas, especially those with a high concentration of R&D
facilities, such as Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. And
that in the voice environment, this kind of targeted marketing by
unregulated companies is widely recognized as cream-skimming." In
the development of a network, all areas need to be connected, or
the whole net is harmed.

   The Summary Report also acknowledged that since there was
unmetered access to the NSFNet, academic institutions would make
access available across disciplines, but once the network was
metered, who could have access would be restricted.

   The Summary Report explained that in an academic network, all
benefit from each other's contributions as "all networks benefit
from access to each other's users and resources," while commercial
entities often use the network's resources, but contribute much
less to the network: "for example, because of the mailing lists
available without charge on the Internet, three times as much
traffic runs over the mail gateway from the Internet to MCI MAIL
than to the Internet. This pattern is reinforced by the send-pays
fee structure of MCI MAIL, which discourages mailing list
distribution from within MCI MAIL."

   The Summary Report claimed that MERIT, which is part of
Michigan's public higher education system, and the State of
Michigan Strategic Fund that provided $5 million to the NSFNet,
were essentially "private entrepreneurs in the national operation
of a backbone service." The problem with such an analysis is that
MERIT and the State of Michigan Strategic Fund are public entities
that cannot be private entrepreneurs.

   The Summary Report demonstrated that dissenting opinions were
not allowed.

   Instead, the Harvard meeting encouraged the participants, many
of whom are now on the com-priv@psi.com mailing list, to vigorously
promote this significant change of direction of the NSFNet, with no
public discussion or examination of the virtues or harm to come
from such a change of policy. And many on the com-priv@psi.com
mailing list ridicule or personally attack those whose posts oppose
commercialization and privatization of the NSF backbone.

   Shortly after the March 1990 Harvard workshop, there were abrupt
changes in the contracts between MERIT and the NSF. Reviewing these
changes, the Office of the Inspector General, (OIG) for the NSF in
a report issued on March 23, 1993, explains: "In April 1990 MERIT
submitted a revised statement of work `based on the input received
from the National Science Foundation, in particular the need for
adding nodes to and expanding the switching and transmission
capacity for the NSFNet backbone." (Page 11 from "Revised Statement
of Work/NSF Supplemental Proposal No 8944037", April 20, 1990.)

   Then on May 29, 1990 an amendment to the cooperative proposal
that MERIT had with the NSF provided MERIT with funding for the
revision. A significant change in the nature and oversight of the
NSFNet then followed, as documented by the Inspector General's
report, carrying out steps toward the transition to
commercialization and privatization of the NSFNet.

   The NSF transferred MERIT's responsibilities to the Advanced
Network & Services, Inc., (ANS, made up of MERIT, IBM and MCI) and
agreed that ANS should seek commercial users for what was
previously a network restricted to academic, government, or
industry research and scientific use as defined by the Acceptable
Use Policy of the NSF and the goals of the NSF.

   Despite the continuing obligation to have the Acceptable Use
Policy, (AUP) followed, a set of events was put into motion to
evade any U.S. government or NSF obligation to continue to adhere
to the AUP obligations. When the OIG Report examined how this
substantial change in policy had come about, it merely noted that
there was a lack of a "reasoned" documentation in NSF files
providing for such a significant change of policy. Though the OIG
admits that the U.S. government has an obligation to hear
discussion on such significant changes in policy, the OIG claims
that it is in the NSF's discretion as to whether it does so or not.

   The AUP governing the use of the NSFNet is still in effect, yet
U.S. government officials do not enforce it.

   The AUP is derived from the authority vested in the NSF under
the "National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended."
According to the OIG Report, under this act, the NSF was given the
authority "to foster and support the development and use of
computer and other scientific and engineering methods and
technologies, primarily for research and education in the sciences
and engineering."(42 U.S.C. S 1862(a)(4).)

   The report explains that in 1989, the NSF drafted an "Acceptable
Use Policy (AUP) to define research and education traffic that may
properly be conveyed under Section 4(a) of the NSF Act." And "in
March 1992, NSF's Office of General Council concluded that `some
form of acceptable use policy' will continue to be necessary to
ensure that NSF funds are used to further the objections of section
3(a)(4) of the Act."

   The AUP in force, according to the OIG Report, demonstrates some
of the prohibitions and encouragement that led to network
development. The AUP states:

"General Principle:

 (1) NSFNet Backbone services are provided to support open research
and education in and among U.S. research and instructional
institutions, plus research arms of for-profit firms when engaged
in open scholarly communication and research. Use for other
purposes is not acceptable.

SPECIFICALLY ACCEPTABLE USES:

 (2) Communication with foreign researchers and educators in
connection with research or instruction, as long as any network
that the foreign user employs for such communication provides
reciprocal access to U.S. researchers and educators.

 (3)Communication and exchange for professional development, to
maintain currency, or to debate issues in a field or subfield of
knowledge.

 (4) Use for disciplinary-society, university-association,
governmentadvisory, or standards activities related to the user's
research and instructional activities.

 (5) Use in applying for or administering grants or contracts for
research or instruction, but not for other fundraising or public
relations activities.

 (6) Any other administrative communications or activities in
direct support of research and instruction.

 (7) Announcements of new products or activities in direct support
of research and instruction, but not advertising of any kind.

 (8) Any traffic originating from a network of another member
agency of the Federal Networking Council if the traffic meets the
acceptable use policy of that agency.

 (9) Communication incidental to otherwise acceptable use, except
for illegal or specifically unacceptable use.

UNACCEPTABLE USES

 (10) Use for for-profit activities unless covered by the General
Principle or as a specifically acceptable use.

 (11) Extensive use for private or personal business.
   This statement applies to use of the NSFNet Backbone only. NSF
expects that connecting networks will formulate their own use
policies. The NSF Division of the Networking and Communications
Research and Infrastructure will resolve any questions about this
Policy or its interpretation."

    (from pp. 69-70 of Review of the
    NSFNet 23 March 1993 from the
    Office of Inspector General of
    the National Science Foundation)

   The National Information Infrastructure Agenda for Action, (NII
Agenda for Action) report issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce
on September 15, 1993 mentions nothing of the AUP governing the
NSFNet and mentions nothing of the NSFNet. Instead it claims that
private companies have already been developing the network that
will become the National Information Infrastructure. Thus this
report includes no history or background of the last 25 years of
network development, revising the historical development of the
current U.S. NSFNet in a way similar to Eastern European historical
"forgetting" documented by Milan Kundera in his book "Of Laughter
and Forgetting."

Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist vol. 5 no. 3/4
Summer/Fall 1993 Issue