Re: US Navy rules of engagement.

Posted by Bill Gann on 18:54:28 03/03/06

In Reply to: Re: US Navy rules of engagement. posted by usmcjim

Actually the Internet was originally just for military use. Al Gore in the Senate pushed the laws that eventually opened the Internet to education. Then he pushed for opening the Internet to all of us. Had he not done this, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

In 1989 when I was teaching in Brazil, I helped connect our American school to the local university server and we were one of the first schools in the world to become connected. This was because I had some very unique military experience.

There was no WWW in the early days. Ironically I was there, actually even before Gore, and even before the military's Arpanet.

I've said I was a Navy Photographer, and I was. But when I first went in 1966, the Navy had other ideas. They wanted me first to be a Radioman. They trained me to send and receive messages a number of interesting ways.

I had to have a secret, and eventually a top-secret clearance, when the Navy assigned me to the Defense Intelligence Agency. I learned to communicate on a classified worldwide network using Teletype machines.

It was way cool and not much different than what we are doing this moment just no screen and the type came up on a roll of paper, and it was 1966. By the time I went through Navy photography school, we even had the ability to send photographs.

I worked in a special photographic laboratory in Washington D.C. for two years. Scanners, much like those everyone has on their desks today, were highly classified machines. Information and ways to store and send it too was classified.

Al Gore was an Army journalist in the war and probably was exposed to this same technology. He saw two things in this wonderful military system, communications and information. He alone, in a position of power, helped bring the Internet to all of us.

Did Al Gore invent the Internet? No. Would you ever know about and be able to use this network without his hard work? Probably not. The Internet, one more reason to thank a Liberal.

Follow Ups:

Re: US Navy rules of engagement. - usmcjim 19:03:58 03/03/06 (1)
- Re: US Navy rules of engagement. - Bill Gann 21:01:46 03/03/06 (0)

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