Internet Infrastructure Coalition Sends Letter to Congressional Leaders Urging Government Transparency, Emphasizing Economic Impact

Washington, DC – The Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) today sent letters to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers. The letters urge greater transparency in national security-related requests by the US government and emphasize the real economic impact that recent revelations about the NSA’s practices are having on the industry. The full text of the letters can be found by clicking here and here, and an excerpt can be found below.

“On July 18th of this year, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) joined a broad group of non-profit organizations, trade associations and private businesses in signing a letter to you and other leaders in government calling for greater transparency around national security-related requests.

That transparency has yet to reveal itself, and our industry is paying the price.

According to an article in the Washington Post, non-U.S. companies are cancelling contracts and cutting back their use of American cloud computing services – to the potential tune of $35 billion lost in revenue for the U.S. cloud computing industry over the next three years. These companies fear the seemingly unrestricted access to electronic data stored on third-party servers that law enforcement and other government agencies in our country have.

As Co-Founder and Chairman of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition), an organization that supports those who build the nuts and bolts of the Internet, I see this impact across the entire Internet infrastructure industry.

According to Cyberstates, the United States had 5.9 million tech workers in 2012, with over 67,400 net jobs added in the sector between 2011 and 2012.The software services sector itself added 63,900 jobs in 2012, a 3.5 percent increase. In that same year, the tech industry annualized payroll totaled $558 billion.

In a tough economy, these are real jobs that real Americans need. American tech workers earned an average wage of $93,800 in 2012, 98 percent more than the average private sector wage of $47,400.

i2Coalition has repeatedly called for greater transparency and appropriate privacy protection when it comes to our nation’s intelligence gathering, and we repeat that call today.”