Hello, Algore? Your Clipper Chip is Calling

PittsburghAfterDark

PittsburghAfterDark

CAGiversary!
Hello, Mr. Gore? Your Clipper Chip Is Calling

“A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government”, declared an outraged Algore on Monday in regards to the liberal media and punditry driven story of President Bush ordering the NSA to “connect the dots” of terrorists and their handlers. So why the outrage over the breaking of law Algore? Certainly didn’t bother you much when your disgraced boss was undergoing impeachment for Nixonian charges.

Easy cheap shot though and not the point of this article.

It seems Algore’s memory on privacy and government interception of private communications is conveniently short and shall we say, incomplete.

In 1993 the Clinton Administration had decided that there was just too much communicating going out there that may or may not be susceptible to government interception. Their solution? Endorsing the mandatory installation of a little gadget known as the Clipper Chip.

Many listeners of G Gordon Liddy’s radio show will remember this little fiasco. The Clipper Chip was designed to provide secure methods of private and business conversations. Unless of course the people that wanted to listen were perceived as enemies of the state and one may wonder the administration itself.

You see, the Clipper Chip was designed by the government, the NSA in particular, and was widely expected to be adopted by all consumer electronics manufacturers. Who had the key? Why the NSA of course and their political masters.

Of course this wasn’t how it was advertised at the time. Keys to Clipper Chips would be “escrowed” or in layman’s terms, put away until needed to crack the device they needed to crack. This device would presumably go in all consumer electronics; computers, phones, fax machines, radio transmitters. In short, every single device used for electronic communications.

Just try and imagine the outrage if it was John Ashcroft and not Janet Reno’s Justice Department that released the following statement, “The Attorney General of the United States, or her representative, shall request manufacturers of communications hardware which incorporates encryption to install the U.S. government-developed key-escrow microcircuits in their products. The fact of law enforcement access to the escrowed keys will not be concealed from the American public.”

You think there was MSM outrage over this release? Hardly. In fact many talk radio shows of the day didn’t even touch the issue, the internet and bloggers were non-existent and it was left to electronics makers to tell the government where to step off.

On February 4, 1994 the following statement was released from Algore’s office on White House stationary; “Our policy is designed to provide better encryption to individuals and businesses while ensuring that the needs of law enforcement and national security are met.” It seems that privacy fears and questions about government overreaching in common carrier interception had no place in the Clinton White House.

This of course should come as no surprise. I just have to wonder if Algore is running around with a Clipper Chip in his cell phone, laptop or on his home or office fax machines and land line telephones.

I’m sure he’d like to be as law and order as he wanted the rest of us to be. So while Algore is out there railing about government privacy threats? Just remember it was his initiative in the Clinton Administration that would have left every single one of us at the whim of government intrusion and made electronic privacy impossible for all but the most technically adept in the population.

False outrage? You decide.

Clinton White House Factsheet on Clipper
Gore Crypto Statement 2/4/94
 
The Clipper chip was not embraced by consumers or manufacturers, and the chip itself was a dead issue by 1996.
Is that the best response you can find to Gore's speech yesterday? A flawed idea from the Clinton administration regarding encryption? Do you really want to compare Clinton's and Bush's plans? At least the Clipper Chip was proposed in the open, debated and defeated vs. Bush's illegal, secretive, warrantless wiretaps.

Bush forgot the cardinal rule of a crooked politician - deny everything. He admitted to the warratless wiretaps and now he'll have to answer for it no matter how much Republicans try to muddy the water with attacks on Clinton. Unlike all the other questionable things Bush has gotten away with, this one is gonna hurt.
 
I love how the author in PAD's article equates Clinton's impeachment to "Nixonian" charges, like somehow a BJ is just as bad as Nixon's criminal activities, but yet dissent about an illegal war plus violation the Bill of Rights is considered treasonous.
 
Clintoon's impeachment charges...

(1) the nature and details of his relationship with a subordinate Government employee;(2) prior perjurious, false and misleading testimony he gave in a Federal civil rights action brought against him; (3) prior false and misleading statements he allowed his attorney to make to a Federal judge in that civil rights action; and (4) his corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to impede the discovery of evidence in that civil rights action."

Nixon was threatened, never impeached, but threatened with impeachment for false and misleading testimony, efforts to influence witness testimony and obstructing justice.

Yep, Nixonian is indeed the right adjective. Clintoon was impeached with nearly identical charges.
 
And yet Nixon left office in disgrace while Clinton finished his second term with great popular approval. Odd...

Pretty soon we won't have Nixon to kick around anymore. Bush's impeachment charges will easily dwarf Nixon's.
 
You can add Dubya's "misleading and false statements" to Fitzgerald on his insistance that no one from his staff was responsible for the CIA leak.
 
[quote name='The Wizard of Oz']Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain![/quote]

Can we go back to denying that Bush's wiretaps were perfectly legal in a post 9/11 world, instead of playing a game of "they did it too"?

After all, it's difficult to point the finger at someone for acting similarly if what Bush did was legal in the first place, right? So, is what Bush did legal or not?
 
Wow, all of these changes of topic! What a shocker.

None of you can even bring yourself to admit that the Clintoon Administration made the biggest attempted power grab in regards to eroding electronic privacy in the history of the Republic despite unquestionable historical evidence.

Why, oh why, am I not at all shocked.
 
Great response from Gore concerning the administration's response to his speech:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Gore_responds_to_White_House_hypocrisy_0117.html

The Administration's response to my speech illustrates perfectly the need for a special counsel to review the legality of the NSA wiretapping program.

The Attorney General is making a political defense of the President without even addressing the substantive legal questions that have so troubled millions of Americans in both political parties.


There are two problems with the Attorney General's effort to focus attention on the past instead of the present Administration's behavior. First, as others have thoroughly documented, his charges are factually wrong. Both before and after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 1995, the Clinton/Gore Administration complied fully and completely with the terms of the law.

Second, the Attorney General's attempt to cite a previous administration's activity as precedent for theirs - even though factually wrong - ironically demonstrates another reason why we must be so vigilant about their brazen disregard for the law. If unchecked, their behavior would serve as a precedent to encourage future presidents to claim these same powers, which many legal experts in both parties believe are clearly illegal.

The issue, simply put, is that for more than four years, the executive branch has been wiretapping many thousands of American citizens without warrants in direct contradiction of American law. It is clearly wrong and disrespectful to the American people to allow a close political associate of the president to be in charge of reviewing serious charges against him.

The country needs a full and independent investigation into the facts and legality of the present Administration's program.
 
What if they were wiretapping people who were known racists in an attempt to thwart a terrosist attack on a black church ? The ironic thing is that if an attack happened and they weren't able to get a wiretap fast enough or follow the right person quickly enough, we'd all be hearing about how inept this administration is in preventing terrorism.


And, as far as comparisons are concerned, wiretapping an individual's phone call doesn't seem as intrusinve of privacy as entering a home to conduct a warrantless search. When you pick up a phone, it's a choice, and there's always an expectation that someone may intercept that conversation between your receiver and the handset, the cell tower, the microwave tower, or the satelite that's relaying the signal, regardless if there's an actual tap on the hardline.

Since Al Gore is claiming Clinton complied fully with the law, I claim it immediately suspect. Nothing that comes out of that man's mouth has ever resembled the truth so maybe a prosecutor should be hired to investigate his claims at the same time they are investigating Bush. Not to exonerate Bush, I think an investigation is warranted, but without a victim or proof that any particular citizen's civil rights were violated, I don't see how this get's to the courts at all. Remember, this is Al Gore claiming to know the law. He also thought he invented the internet and Social Security is in a lock box, and raising campaign money from his white house office was okay.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']What if they were wiretapping people who were known racists in an attempt to thwart a terrosist attack on a black church ? The ironic thing is that if an attack happened and they weren't able to get a wiretap fast enough or follow the right person quickly enough, we'd all be hearing about how inept this administration is in preventing terrorism. [/QUOTE]

This is a moot point because they can initiate the wiretaps and then ask for the warrant up to 72 hours after the wiretap. If immediately isn't fast enough, our intelligence agencies are in more trouble than anyone imagined.

[quote name='bmulligan']Since Al Gore is claiming Clinton complied fully with the law, I claim it immediately suspect. Nothing that comes out of that man's mouth has ever resembled the truth so maybe a prosecutor should be hired to investigate his claims at the same time they are investigating Bush. Not to exonerate Bush, I think an investigation is warranted, but without a victim or proof that any particular citizen's civil rights were violated, I don't see how this get's to the courts at all. Remember, this is Al Gore claiming to know the law. He also thought he invented the internet and Social Security is in a lock box, and raising campaign money from his white house office was okay.[/QUOTE]

Al Gore is full of shit, although I can't say nothing ever came out of his mouth that was true.

As for the clipper chip fiasco, PAD, probably lots of folks on here are too young to remember that. But yes, that was an attempt at even more intrusive monitoring than Bush has ever authorized. Thank goodness it went down in flames (as did Clinton's socialized health care proposal, although unfortunately he did get his way on the tax increase).
 
Most important words out of Algore's mouth that will put an end to any alleged illegality or impropriety on his part or the Clinton Administration...

"There is no controlling legal authority that says this was in violation of law." -- Al Gore, seven times (in one form or another), White House news conference, March 3, 1997

See how well that one flies in this day and age with the MSM and the lunatic left. I'd laugh my fucking ass off to see some of the Clinton denial/obfuscation/non-answers the press gobbled up like sycophantic groupies used word for word and see how they react to the same words from a different source.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Nixon was threatened, never impeached, but threatened with impeachment for false and misleading testimony, efforts to influence witness testimony and obstructing justice.[/QUOTE]

Thats because he resigned beforehand you dolt.
 
No kidding!

One President had shame, the other couldn't define shame if his life depended on it. We'd ask Clinton if he knew what shame is but he'd reply "It depends on what the definition of is is.".
 
[quote name='bmulligan']

Remember, this is Al Gore claiming to know the law. He also thought he invented the internet and Social Security is in a lock box, and raising campaign money from his white house office was okay.[/QUOTE]

Ironic, that when calling Gore on his "lies", the only thing you do is further the lies about Gore. Quit reguritating GOP talking points from 2000 and do a little fact checking.

Regardless, I am quite sure Gore knows the law better than your (or PAD) for that matter.

PAD, you're a fucking moron if you think that shit will fly here. Save it Hannity.com. Nice you see you don't have to balls to post what that exchange was actually about. For others (and why PAD is hiding); it was about alledged suspicious campaigning during the '96 election. Reallllll relevant there. And, dipshit. Gore stopped what he was doing!!!


p.s. I hoped you enjoyed your steelers "cute" little run. It ends sunday.
 
The typical response from PAD and other Rupukes:

But it's all Clinton's fault!

How about some personal accountability. Bush broke the law. He'll pay for it if the Democrats can retake the House (a very real possiblity this year with the Abramoff scandal). I'm surprised you didn't bash Senator Clinton's remarks about the Bush administration that she made on Monday.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']One President had shame, the other couldn't define shame if his life depended on it. [/QUOTE]

One President fucked up and lied about his personal life, the other was a huge fan of KGB style political attacks.

Think for yourself once in a while PUD.
 
Y'know, I'm unfamiliar with the context of the oft-repeated phrase "it depends on what your definition of 'is' is."

Could one of you blowhards 'ssplain that to me? I know it has to do with Clinton getting a hummer, so spare me that much.
 
Years from now, when we look back on Bill Clinton's presidency, its defining moment may well be Clinton's rationalization to the grand jury about why he wasn't lying when he said to his top aides that with respect to Monica Lewinsky, "there's nothing going on between us." How can this be? Here's what Clinton told the grand jury (according to footnote 1,128 in Starr's report):

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
Click to expand...



The distinction between "is" and "was" was seized on by the commentariat when Clinton told Jim Lehrer of PBS right after the Lewinsky story broke, "There is no improper relationship." Chatterbox confesses that at the time he thought all these beltway domes were hyperanalyzing, and in need of a little fresh air. But it turns out they were right: Bill Clinton really is a guy who's willing to think carefully about "what the meaning of the word 'is' is." This is way beyond slick. Perhaps we should start calling him, "Existential Willie."

http://www.slate.com/id/1000162
 
[quote name='Msut77']One President fucked up and lied about his personal life, the other was a huge fan of KGB style political attacks.

Think for yourself once in a while PUD.[/QUOTE]

Rephrase that a little bit. How about Edgar Hoover style political attacks? Which were, you know, the norm for 30 years?

Who wiretapped Dr. Martin Luther King? Why the FBI and those wascalwy Kennedys carried on by the worst President of the 20th Century LBJ. Who kept secret files on Marilyn Monroe, Charlie F'ing Chaplin, John Lennon and countless other celebs? Why it's Mr. Edgar Hoover. Who kept tabs on communists, socialists and anti-war activists? The Hoover FBI.

Before you start comparing any President to the KGB you should at least know what the KGB was. It was the overseas intelligence branch of the USSR. They didn't engage in internal politics. They were the Soviet equivilent of the CIA or MI6. The NKVD was the equivilent of MI 5 or the FBI.

If you're going to make distinctions of such an erroneous nature at least try and be somewhat historically accurate. Oh wait, there it is again.... instead of looking like a short bus riding, hockey helmet wearing, chronically masturbating wonder tard.

DEEEEDEEEEDEEEEDEEEEDEEEE!
 
PAD the KGB handled many tasks the FBI over here would handle and the NKVD was where the Rosenbergs fed their intel to.

But I digress you more or less admitted to having no argument and to what a pack of lying law breaking scumbags W and his administration is.
 
You weren't even talking about Bush. You were talking about Nixon.

Damn, you can't even remember what it is you were discussing.

Take your ritalin and get back to us mmmmkay?
 
Gore Planned to Bug America

Charles R. Smith

Friday, Nov. 16, 2001

Secret documents show Gore rejected 'due process.'

During the 2000 presidential elections, Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. Gore's dubious claim of techno-savvy came within days of his admission that he managed to delete all of his e-mail concerning meetings with large DNC money donors.

Yet recently declassified secret documents show that Al Gore did help invent new ways to violate the privacy of every U.S. citizen using the Internet. The secret documents, obtained from the U.S. State Department through the Freedom of Information Act, show that Gore rejected "due process" in an effort to force America to give up the Fourth Amendment.

The Gore-led effort included classified memos describing ways to obtain access to all private computer information using "key escrow," or key recovery. The key escrow system was designed to force U.S. citizens to give computer code keys in order to meet required "law enforcement and intelligence" access.

In 1996, Gore proposed the legislation in order to restrict the use of "encryption," a technique of scrambling private information on personal computers with secret code keys.

According to a secret 1996 paper, "in August 1995, Vice President Gore approved a decision memo to introduce 'soft' legislation to regulate key escrowers."

The official reason for the Gore proposal was to stop criminals and terrorists from using advanced scrambling technology and preventing legal wiretaps. However, the secret documents show that Gore knew that it was impossible to stop criminals from scrambling their information.

"Drug distributors, organized crime and terrorists are beginning to acquire and use strong encryption. While U.S. policy can only have limited impact on such use, the urgency of supporting general use of escrowed products is increasing," states a secret 1996 document.

Prime targets for key escrow monitoring would be honest citizens, foreign governments, banks, corporations and dissidents unpopular with the then Clinton administration. The escrow keys were to be held by "key recovery agents" licensed by the Commerce Department under Secretary Ron Brown.

According to the 1996 report to V.P. Gore by CIA Director Deutch, the Justice Department proposed an all-out federal takeover of the computer industry. The Justice Department, proposed "legislation that would ... ban the import and domestic manufacture, sale or distribution of encryption that does not have key recovery."

After 9/11

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, former FBI Director Louis Freeh suggested that domestic encryption software should be banned so that law enforcement could monitor all e-mail. Privacy and information security specialists contend that such a drastic restriction would simply deny legal users the tools to defend critical information from terrorist attacks.

Yet in 1996, the Clinton-Gore administration predicted that a future terrorist attack would lead to calls for a ban on domestic scrambling technology.

"Notorious criminal acts could have the effect of forcing Congress' hand, to pass 'hard' legislation restricting domestic use of encryption," warned the 1996 secret document.

Ironically, the secret papers drawn up for the Clinton-Gore team were a product of FBI Director Freeh, the same ex-director of the FBI calling for a ban on legal domestic encryption today.

Still, one cannot always take the word of former director Freeh as the best advice. The same Director Freeh also ignored Chinese generals roaming in and out of the White House and appointed a top KGB agent to be his counterintelligence director in New York.

Yet, the secret FBI documents approved by Al Gore clearly show the previous administration skipped whole sections of law in an overzealous attempt at absolute power.

"Without an effective 'voluntary' policy, encouraging the use of key escrow encryption, it will only be a matter of time before crime brings the issue up. If we wait for refined international agreements and due process, key escrow will not get off the ground soon, if ever," concluded the secret document.

Oppression, Not Law Enforcement

"Can Key Recovery be used against dissidents and political opponents?" questioned Adm. William McConnell, the former National Security Agency (NSA) director under Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton.

"In a word, YES," noted McConnell flatly.

Privacy advocates were shocked when they discovered that the former director of the NSA agreed with their analysis of the Gore idea to monitor America.

The director of the NSA may have greeted the Clinton/Gore-led key escrow project with dismay, but it was welcomed inside U.S. corporate boardrooms.

The newly declassified documents note that the CEOs of large U.S. computer firms gave their support to the Clinton-Gore proposals. The Computer Systems Policy Project, or CSPP, a lobby group composed of the largest U.S. computer makers, supported the idea as long as it did not interfere with profits and export sales. CSPP members include the CEOs of IBM, Apple, Silicon Graphics and AT&T.

According to a secret 1996 document, the CSPP agreed with the Gore proposal as long it would "protect the market share of U.S. encryption producers, as much as possible."

In return for their support, the corporate CEOs managed to obtain secret briefings inside the Clinton White House, starting in 1995. The secret meetings included detailed information about supercomputer and encryption exports.

Just by coincidence, the CSPP lobby group was led to these secret Clinton White House briefings by Ken Kay, an employee of Tony Podesta, the brother of then-Clinton adviser John Podesta.

Further documents show that John Podesta was also in charge of encryption export policy at that time for the White House. Immediately after the secret briefings in 1995, Podesta left the Clinton White House and went to work for his brother Tony.

When confronted by questions about possible conflicts of interest, attorney C. Boyden Gray and White House counsel Michael B. Waitzkin both denied that John and Tony Podesta engaged in any sort of dirty dealings.

In fact, the White House counsel noted that John Podesta had obtained a waiver from Clinton lawyers in 1997 for the activities that took place in 1995.

Please note that John Podesta obtained that Clinton waiver two years after the closed meetings were held inside the White House. Usually, a legal waiver is given before any conflict of interest takes place, not after. By definition, a legal waiver given after the fact should be called a pardon. Still, the waiver came from the same president who argued with a federal judge over the definition of 'is'.

Leadership 101

Are you surprised that the U.S. computer CEOs of IBM, Apple, Silicon Graphics and AT&T supported Al Gore and his crazy idea to bug America? The fact is that big business is not interested in civil rights or the Constitution, especially when it gets in the way of profits.

Yet the current Bush administration did not introduce a ban on encryption technology in the recent anti-terrorist legislation.

Why does President Bush want encryption to stay legal for all Americans? Perhaps George W. wishes to avoid the mess that Al Gore stepped in. Maybe, but I think not. I am certain that President Bush could teach some U.S. history to Al Gore along with how to be a leader.

After all, our nation started with a coded message when a lone rider looked anxiously toward a church tower: "One if by land, two if by sea ..."
Link
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']During the 2000 presidential elections, Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet.[/QUOTE]

You know, rarely is a news article so easily discredited as when the very first sentence is pure bullshit. This makes my life easier.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']You weren't even talking about Bush. You were talking about Nixon[/QUOTE]

No shit, but I was talking about your whole entire performance in this thread.

If you want me to edit it to all Republicans of the past 35 years I will.
 
Do you even read what you type?

Or do you just type out two sentences of complete Mad Libbed responses every time you post.

"I can't believe ***INSERT REPUBLICAN NAME HERE*** is so damn ***INSERT DEROGATORY ADJECTIVE HERE*** doesn't he/she know that ***INSERT HISTORICAL EVENT*** led to ***INSERT CURRENT EVENT HERE*** and that the whole ***INSERT BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT HERE*** is now ***INSERT 2nd DEROGATORY ADJECTIVE HERE*** for the next ***INSERT RANDOM TIME PERIOD HERE***!"

Are you capable of reasonable thought or do you just fill in the blanks for political flames.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Do you even read what you type?

Or do you just type out two sentences of complete Mad Libbed responses every time you post.
[/QUOTE]

Both rhetorical questions when refering to mslut. I'm suprised he only begrudges republicans for the last 35 years. as if democrats aren't guilty of simliar behavior and everything was peachy before 35 years ago. What a maroon.
 
PUD you post nothing but false right wing talking points and sad tired insults.
Click to expand...
And you post Ad Hominem attacks.... so you're no better. Before trying to remove the splinter from Pud's eye, why don't you try removing the log from your own eye *first*??? Clean up own act.



While Clinton & Gore *proposed* the idea, they allowed the *law* & congress to decide whether or not to accept the idea and/or reject it. Bush did not. He simply ignored the law, violated his oath to uphold that law, and committed illegal acts (so they claim).

I'm still not sure if Bush's acts were illegal? I thought the Patriot Act allowed wire-tapping & therefore 100% legal?
 
[quote name='MrBadExample']I keep seeing a lot of attempts to smear Clinton and Gore but no real defense of Dubya's illegal warrantless wiretaps. Curious...[/QUOTE]

Obviously because there is no good defense of Bush's actions while Clinton and Gore are easy targets due to their own corruption and hypocrisy.
 
[quote name='bmulligan'] Remember, this is Al Gore claiming to know the law. He also thought he invented the internet and Social Security is in a lock box, and raising campaign money from his white house office was okay.[/QUOTE]

You're a fucking asshole you know that? Like the other poster said, do a little fact checking first. Those lies about Al Gore has been fucking rebuted in ages. He never said he invented the internet. That's something you worthless shitheads made up because you couldn't find anything legitimate enough to slander him with. Al Gore even received a Webby award a couple years back for his contribution in the internet to set the record straight once and for all to you assholes that still like to spread that lie about him. Do us a favor and just shut the fuck up from now on
 
[quote name='mingglf']He never said he invented the internet. [/QUOTE] No, but what Al actually said is still pretty stupid: GORE: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Wrong. The "initiviate in creating the internet" was the Military circa 1969 & the black-spectacled engineers who slaved at their desks/labs trying to make the damn thing work. >>>All of which predates Gore's time in Congress
 
* sigh *

Why does every Republican believe this about Gore? Please read this, electritroy and bmulligan. And next time don't believe Republican talking points.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp


Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet.

Status: False.

Origins: Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
Clearly, although Gore's phrasing was clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the technology that we now know as the Internet. To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the "invention" of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign. Gore never used the word "invent," and the words "create" and "invent" have distinctly different meanings — the former is used in the sense of "to bring about" or "to bring into existence" while the latter is generally used to signify the first instance of someone's thinking up or implementing an idea. (To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean exactly the same thing, we have to ask why, then, the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet, even though he never used that word, and transcripts of what he actually said were readily available.)

If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while President, "created" the Interstate Highway System, we would not have seen dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with his Internet statement.

Whether Gore's statement that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" is justified is a subject of debate. Any statement about the "creation" or "beginning" of the Internet is difficult to evaluate, because the Internet is not a homogenous entity (it's a collection of computers, networks, protocols, standards, and application programs), nor did it all spring into being at once (the components that comprise the Internet were developed in various places at different times and are continuously being modified, improved, and expanded). Despite a spirited defense of Gore's claim by Vint Cerf (often referred to as the "father of the Internet") in which he stated "that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it," many of the components of today's Internet came into being well before Gore's first term in Congress began in 1977.

It is true, though, that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (although he did not, as is often claimed by others, coin the phrase himself) when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet, and he sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic).

In May 2005, the organizers of the Webby Awards for online achievements honored Al Gore with a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet. "He is indeed due some thanks and consideration for his early contributions," said Vint Cerf.
 
[quote name='E-Z-B']"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." [/QUOTE]


It's still a ridiculous statement. The Internet dates back to 1969 & predates Gore's time in office.

But that's okay. I know you hold a double-standard. You call Bush a "nuke-happy cowboy" so I really don't hold your opinion very highly.
 
It's not an opinion. It's a fact. You've been duped into believing Al Gore said he created the internet by the Republican party.
 
Keep in mind that this is the same party that said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that no one in the White House was responsible for the CIA leak, that Abramhoff gave money to democrats also, that Kerry was never wounded in Vietnam, that Clinton authorized wiretapping of American citizens too, and well, either you see where I'm going with this or you're blinded by your party.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Do you even read what you type?

Or do you just type out two sentences of complete Mad Libbed responses every time you post.


Are you capable of reasonable thought or do you just fill in the blanks for political flames.[/QUOTE]

oh the irony, Mr. Ctrl-V any Michael Savage article.
 
[quote name='E-Z-B']It's not an opinion. It's a fact. [/QUOTE]

No is is NOT a fact that Al Gore "initiated the internet". That's a false statement.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']No is is NOT a fact that Al Gore "initiated the internet". That's a false statement.[/QUOTE]

:dunce: #-o :wall:
 
Fine. Show me the proof. Back up Mr. Gore's claim. I don't see how it can be possible when the internet was invented in 1969.... and Gore was not elected until ~1976.



Also, most of the growth of the internet was through *private funding*. Like the Usenet which consisted of various hobbyists (like us) with computers, passing along data over the early network.

And privately-owned Electronic Bulletin Boards that offered connections to the Net during the 80s (do a search... you can find my posts in the ancient archives).

And the WWW was, again, a private initiative.... a spinoff of hyperlinks invented by Apple.... developed by private individual during his weekend holiday... and added on by Mosaic and Netscape during the early 90s.



The gov't was involved in 1969 with the Internet's birth. True. But by the time freshman senator Gore arrived, the net was already in the hands of private individuals & companies. He had *nothing* to do with it.

Nothing.

For him to make that claim is about as valid as me saying, "I helped initiate the growth of the internet when I was a 10-yr-old & built my first Commodore Pet computer." Silly, silly statement. Al Gore is no more responsible for the 'net than I was.
 
HAHA, it's hilarious that you're trying to back the president with stories about Al Gores "PLANS", or what Clinton "COULD HAVE DONE" The fact is the president misguided Americans and broke the law.

PAD the reason nobody likes you is not simply your out of whack views, lack of wit, or uninspired arguments, you're just plain mean! But besides that, I'm sure you'd support bush's crazy plans even if he killed your family and wiretapped your mouth.
 
Troy, your seem so interested about all the things gore has done. Why don't you tell us about the time he spent rescuing people from rooftops in new orleans?
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Why don't you tell us about the time he spent rescuing people from rooftops in new orleans?[/QUOTE]


...Meanwhile, the bush & cheney cabal was using the disaster as some kind of lackluster PR campaign that just made him look even more out of touch and idiotic than he had potrayed himself in the past.
 
[quote name='Metal Boss']PAD the reason nobody likes you is not simply your out of whack views, lack of wit, or uninspired arguments, you're just plain mean! [/QUOTE]

You're just plain dumb so why do I care?
 
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