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Want to drop Bill Clinton a line? Forget the pen and paper, the President
now has an electronic address on the worldwide Internet computer network:
whitehouse. gov.

Since taking office in January, the Clinton administration has provided wide
electronic access to White House press releases and other materials. But the
new announcement marks the first time the President’s office has had a
direct link to Internet, which connects computers around the world. Millions
of individual users – no one really knows how many – have access to Internet
for a variety of purposes, including swapping messages.

Clinton, who has championed the idea of information superhighways based on
Internet, says his debut on the network is a ‘historic moment’.
Vice-President Al Gore also has an electronic address. ‘Electronic mail will
bring the presidency and this administration closer and make it more
accessible to the people,’ Clinton and Gore said last week.

Well, not that much closer. A reporter’s electronic mail message to Clinton
got a standard response, albeit a rapid one, by electronic mail. ‘Your
message has been read, and we are keeping careful track of all the mail we
are receiving electronically,’ said the letter, signed by Marsha Scott,
Clinton’s director of correspondence.

At present, staff members are only counting the numbers of messages on
various subjects. ‘The White House is not yet capable of sending back a
tailored response via electronic mail. We are hoping that this will happen
by the end of the year.’