The 1996 Telecommunications Act “was completely outdated” within...

The 1996 Telecommunications Act “was completely outdated” within “six months” of its original passage, said Secretary of State John Kerry at the Freedom Online Coalition conference in Tallinn, Estonia. As a senator at the time, “I helped write the law,” he said. “I actually remember distinctly when we wrote that law,” lawmakers were focusing on “telephony,” he said. That makes the law “inadequate” for today’s landscape, he said, without giving specifics. An update to that law is needed to help establish the “open, interoperable and inclusive Internet” that the U.S. and many countries desire. “Now we face a choice about how we organize ourselves as societies,” he said. “The choice is a choice between those who demand dignity and respect for rights and those who are prepared to deny it.”