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From: bob@islenet.UUCP (Robert P. Cunningham)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Lets get 1600 Penn. Ave on the net.
Message-ID: <803@islenet.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Dec-84 11:20:47 EST
Article-I.D.: islenet.803
Posted: Sun Dec  2 11:20:47 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Dec-84 00:44:02 EST
References: <330@stcvax.UUCP> <6133@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: Hawaii Institute of Geophysics
Lines: 34

White House and other executive branch staffers already use an
"executive electronic mail service" to exchange electronic mail between
themselves, supplied by Compuserve Information Services.  There is also
limited use of ARPANET/MILNET for similar purposes.  About half of the offices
and staffs of the House of Representatives use Dialcom, and probably some
Senators' staffs.  I'll conjecture that there may also be some limited use
MCI Mail and other similar services.

I think that's a remarkably good beginning towards an involvement in "Worldnet"
(the concept of a universally useful world-wide inter-connecting collection of
computer networks, see the last few years back issues of Human-Nets for
further information and extensive discussions).  And I'll venture to
predict we'll see considerably more interest in, and use of various
computer networks by portions of the U.S. government during the next decade
or so.

Meanwhile the White House and Congress get almost more citizen feedback
than they can handle through traditional media:  U.S. mail, telegrams,
telexes, etc. plus news and views published in major U.S. and foreign
newspapers and on the various television networks.  Those are precisely
those channels of communication open to most U.S. citizens and the media
watched by most people.

Pragmatically, I wouldn't expect to see publically-known electronic mailbox(es)
for the White House until there is considerably more use of the various
electronic mail networks by a larger number of people and recognition of
that fact at the White House.

(Perhaps around the turn of the century key U.S. government officials just
might sit down and review mod.worldshaking.developments in preference to
viewing the nightly network TV news or scanning the New York Times :-)
-- 
Bob Cunningham   ..{dual,ihnp4,vortex}!islenet!bob
Honolulu, Hawaii