In a 105-page report released Tuesday, an e-commerce task force set up by the president claimed that the administration played a large role in shaping the nascent medium from 1993 to the present and set a strong example for the incoming Bush administration to follow.
"The Clinton-Gore administration entered office at the dawn of the Digital Era and has guided one of the most fundamental transformations in our nation's history," said the report, written by the White House Electronic Commerce Task Force.
By encouraging private-sector innovation and competition, taking a flexible regulatory approach, reforming telecommunications laws, and enacting a ban on new Internet taxes, the Clinton administration encouraged businesses to invest in information technology infrastructure and sell more than US$245 billion in goods and services last year, the report said.
At the same time, the federal government under Clinton made the Internet a more hospitable and inclusive place by extending online access to schools and libraries, protecting sensitive medical and financial data, bringing government services online and narrowing the "digital divide" between the technological haves and have-nots, it said.
"During my administration, America's economy and society has been transformed by new information and communications technologies," President Clinton said in a statement. "Vice President Gore and I have worked hard to help Americans make the most of these new possibilities."
Gore, who endured ridicule during his presidential campaign for allegedly claiming to have invented the Internet, said in the report's introduction that much of today's online environment was shaped by decisions he and Clinton made in 1993, when they realized the extent of the communications revolution beginning to take shape.
"We were faced with a stark choice," Gore said. "We could either push into new frontiers or allow opportunities to slip away. The choices we have made since then have left us substantially better off than we were eight years ago."
Gore said that the administration, through cooperation with private businesses, Congress and foreign governments, set a good example for subsequent administrations.
"We have blazed a trail that others can follow with confidence and conviction," Gore said.
A spokesman for House Majority Leader Richard Armey said the administration was trying to take credit for an economic event that it had little to do with.
"The tech explosion happened because the administration wasn't quick enough to notice it and regulate it before it could develop, because the bureaucracy moves too slowly," said Richard Diamond, spokesman for the Texas Republican.
Diamond said the administration supported many policies, such as limits on encryption capabilities and the FBI's controversial Carnivore email wiretap system, that were opposed by the high-tech community.
Although Bush may do well to continue many policies of the Clinton administration, those policies were developed at agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission that are run by a bipartisan panel, he said.
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