Bill Clinton: “I want to get to the genes, but I think we should answer that question, too. The whole question of whether we're going…”

“I want to get to the genes, but I think we should answer that question, too. The whole question of whether we're going to develop a digital divide in our country, I think, is a very, very serious one. Our administration, especially the Vice President, when we rewrote the Telecommunications Act, we fought very hard not only to get people to participate in NetDay to hookup every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000--I think we'll get there by the end of the year; functionally, we'll be just about there--but also, to get the Federal Communications Commission to adopt an E-rate which would subsidize the cost to poor schools and poorer hospitals and poor areas and isolated rural areas, so that everyone could have access in the schools. Now, but the divide won't be bridged until the parents of those children have that in their home. So I think we ought to have as a goal at least to make access to computer technology and to the Internet as universal as telephone access is. And I think until we achieve that, there will be a digital divide, so we ought to try to hasten that day and promote whatever policies we can afford or we can achieve to hasten that day, because until we do, there will be a digital divide. Dr. Cerf. I agree with that. In fact, it's a goal. A personal goal of mine is to see, literally, Internet everywhere.”