A Digital Gift to the Nation

Book excerpt: As the United States enters the new century, technological advances have the power to transform commerce, the public sector, and how citizens interact. This volume, part of the multiyear Digital Promise project administered by The Century Foundation, examines emerging technologies including wireless telephones, electronic data transmission, and Internet communications and how they impact educational, cultural, and other nonprofit organizations. The book features a report prepared by Lawrence K. Grossman, former president of NBC News and PBS, and Newton Minow, former chairman of the FCC and PBS, two of the leading intellectuals on public telecommunications matters. They offer specific policy recommendations for securing and protecting the public's interest in the ongoing technology revolution. Specifically, Grossman and Minow suggest creating a "Digital Information Trust," modeled after the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts of the nineteenth century. The trust fund would be financed by revenues from the federal government's sale or lease of electromagnetic spectrum and would be used to support the work of a range of educational and nonprofit groups.Other contributors include Les Brown (Fordham University), Marion R. Fremont-Smith (Harvard University), Richard Kimball (Project Vote Smart) and Mark Lloyd (Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy).