On February 8, 1996, in an event broadcast live and over the Internet, Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act in the reading room of the Library of Congress; he signed on paper and he also signed online, at a computer terminal.47 If little noticed at the time, Clinton’s approval of this startling piece of legislation would prove a lasting and terrible legacy of his presidency: it deregulated the communications industry, lifting virtually all of its New Deal antimonopoly provisions, allowing for the subsequent consolidation of media companies and prohibiting regulation of the Internet
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