Thinking Ahead

The Microsoft Case

Joel Klein, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, handled the case against Microsoft Corp. He spoke recently to National Journal Group reporters about the impact of the case and the issues it raised for the Justice Department and for government.

On how the Microsoft case affected the Justice Department: In terms of the overall department resources, [not much]. I forget the numbers, but we have a budget of around $100 million, so over three years it's $300 million. I would expect Microsoft, certainly, in that three years would be $5 [million] to $6 million. My own time, I would say, probably in the past three years, [was a] maximum of 10 percent.

On whether winning will reduce the division's workload: I don't expect we'll be able to cut our budget for two principal reasons: Whatever happens in the market, I don't see a significant abatement of merger activity and at least for the next several years, I expect our criminal cartel enforcement program, which is extraordinary, is going to have to go forward. We have a budget of $110 million, and last year we brought in to the Treasury just in criminal fines somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.1 billion.

On how the 2000 election will affect antitrust enforcement: You never know what is going to happen in a new administration, but I believe pretty strongly in the kind of continuity and commitment to law enforcement in the Department of Justice. I am quick to point out that the original AT&T case was brought by the Nixon administration. It was prosecuted strongly by the Carter administration. It was settled with insistence on the structural remedy by the Reagan administration over great political objection inside that administration. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce were publicly identified as going out and opposing the suit and trying to insist that it be dropped. So I have a pretty strong conviction that the roots of law enforcement are remarkably well planted in the Justice Department, and we'll see continuity of law enforcement.

On public opposition to prosecuting Microsoft: The one thing I'm absolutely certain of is if you polled all Americans, they wouldn't want law enforcement to be done on the basis of polls. It's not a business that we can be in. I do think it wouldn't surprise anybody if you looked back at the polls during the time of the AT&T [divestiture]; I think the numbers were probably much stronger negatively.

On cynicism about government: Let me tell you one story. I am up at MIT teaching a whole bunch of computer science students on the role of government and technology . . . and 40 minutes into it, a student raises his hand and says, "I don't get it," and I said, "What's that?" He said, "You seem to be bright. How can you be with the government?"

I really worry about people not understanding that as important as dot.coms are and the excitement of the private sector right now, there used to be a time when government service fit into a higher calling. Students [often say] that government is corrupt, government doesn't do anything. That can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you have a great market-based economy, deciding some of the [technology] issues-the digital divide issues worry me enormously-[is] going to require the best and the brightest.