National Information Infrastructure

The National Information Infrastructure (NII) was a telecommunications policy buzzword, coined under the Clinton Administration in the United States. It was a proposed, advanced, seamless web of public and private communications networks, interactive services, interoperable hardware and software, computers, databases, and consumer electronics to put vast amounts of information at users' fingertips.

A side-effect of the Clinton Administration programs to build the NII was a push by cultural industries to expand the scope of copyright. This lead to the creation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Note: NII includes more than just the physical facilities (more than the cameras, scanners, keyboards, telephones, fax machines, computers, switches, compact disks, video and audio tape, cable, wire, satellites, optical fiber transmission lines, microwave nets, switches, televisions, monitors, and printers) used to transmit, store, process, and display voice, data, and images; it encompasses a wide range of interactive functions, user-tailored services, and multimedia databases that are interconnected in a technology-neutral manner that will favor no one industry over any other. Synonym information superhighway.

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C