Election 2K Presidential Profile

John McCain - Republican

An active shaper of U.S. Internet policy, Senator McCain has sponsored legislation in the following areas.

•  Streamlining telecom bureaucracy
•  Moderating merger activity
•  Protecting children
•  Promoting e-commerce
•  Promoting broadband
•  Banning Net taxes
•  Protecting personal privacy

by Patricia Fusco ISP-Planet Managing Editor [January 13, 2000]

Vital statistics
The son and grandson of Navy admirals, John Sidney McCain was born in a naval hospital on August 29, 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone.

At 17, McCain entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. After graduating in 1958, McCain served in the Navy until 1981. During his service, McCain survived the USS Forrestal disaster—one of the worst non-combat catastrophes in naval history—as well as being shot down by a Soviet-made surface-to-air missile on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam. The latter resulted in his five-year stay at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" as a prisoner of war.

Pilot, Captain, and, Virgo, McCain received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and Distinguished Flying Cross before entering the National War College in 1973.

McCain married his second wife, the former Cindy Lou Hensley in 1980; he is the father of four sons and three daughters.

In 1982, an Arizona House seat opened up and McCain captured it. He was re-elected to the House of Representatives two years later. In 1986 McCain was elected to the U.S. Senate, to succeed retiring Senator Barry Goldwater, and he was re-elected in 1992 and again in 1998.

The best way to determine what Internet-related actions McCain might take as a chief executive is to review his record as a legislator. As the current Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, McCain is directly involved in formulating U.S. policies concerning the telecommunications industry.

Streamlining telecom bureaucracy
Late in May 1999, Senator McCain sponsored legislation—the Telecommunications Merger Review Act of 1999—designed to streamline the federal review process of telecom mergers.

McCain said the problem of bureaucratic mismanagement in the current merger approval process translates into higher costs for consumers. "This bill streamlines the way the federal government reviews telecom mergers and still safeguards the public interest, " McCain said. "We need to restore integrity [to this review process] by setting up an efficient system without needless duplication."

Typically, the Federal Communications Commission re-reviews proposed telecom mergers, even after Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission has already approved them. According to McCain, separate FCC merger reviews delays the process and costs millions of dollars to all parties involved. [back to Contents]

Moderating merger mania
McCain has expressed concern about the current "urge to merge," because the more companies consolidate, the harder it is for new companies to enter the marketplace and for small companies to survive. McCain said Congress has valid concerns over telecom convergence and consolidation but that its apprehensions sometimes prompt the wrong response.

"Government sometimes confuses the notion of leveling the playing field, with restructuring the stadium," McCain said. "Instead of making sure that incumbent firms can't exercise the power to eliminate competition, government sometimes tries to deprive incumbent firms virtually of any advantage of incumbency."

Streamlining telecom merger reviews and limiting FCC authority are not McCain's only forays into legislation that directly impacts the Internet industry. McCain has blazed a wide legislative trail through the Internet. [back to Contents]

Net nurture
In January 1999, McCain sponsored the Childrens' Internet Protection Act (S.97). The bill is designed to protect children from exposure to sexually explicit or harmful material when they access the Internet at schools or libraries.

McCain figured that parents can protect their children from exposure to harmful material and monitor their Internet use at home, but parents can't exercise such supervision in schools and libraries.

"As Internet use in our schools and libraries continues to grow, children's potential exposure to harmful online will only increase," McCain said. "Perhaps most important, this legislation will not censor what goes onto the Internet, nor what adults may see, but rather it filters what comes out of it onto the computers our children use outside the home."

The bill encourages schools and libraries to use a filtering system on their computers by making them eligible to receive universal service fund subsidies for Internet access if they certify with the FCC that they will use a filtering system. Schools and libraries that don't certify, won't be eligible for the subsidies. [back to Contents]

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