Transcripts For CSPAN The Communicators 20140726 : vimarsana

Congress is confronting. Zoe lofgren, the democrat of california who represents a lot of hightech companies in the Silicon Valley area she serves on the judiciary committee. She will talk about some of the issues they are facing. John shimkus is a republican from illinois. He is on the energy and commerce committee. That committee covers a lot of telecommunications issues, as well. Whenever we talk about the issue of privacy on the communicators, we often turn to zoe lofgren, the democrat from california. What is your particular interest in all the privacy issues . It really is rooted in the constitution. Areou arent committed intimidated that the government is tracking everything you do, not only does it deal with the Fourth Amendment, but it also has an impact on the first amendment. Under our constitution, citizens have a right to speak their mind, to say what they think is right, if they feel they are being watched or intimidated. It is a very serious assault on our structure of government. Obviously, there are Technology Issues that i care about. Rooted inssue is american freedom. The defense bill you recently had an amendment passed. It was huge. One of the things the usa freedom act ended up probably increasing the amount of that is legally possible, rather than decreasing it, which was a great disappointment to me and very to representative sensenbrenner. He might disagree with me on that. He worked very hard to improve the situation. What happened was it was weakened. But we worked through the bill in committee. I still supported it because at that time, it at least improved the situation. After the markup, it was way to theanged worse. Of course, it was rushed to the floor. I added up how much time opponents of the changes had to speak. 3. 5 minutes. The members, i know from subsequent discussions, were not fully aware of the changes that have been made, which was a disservice to the house, and of course, it passed. It seems to me that we needed an opportunity to discuss the Fourth Amendment as it relates to the nsa and to give the hoe an opportunity to weigh in on that. Since we didnt have any amendments allowed under the usa freedom act, we looked at what we could do under the defense appropriations bill. We crafted an amendment that said this under 702 of the act, you can collect data. We now know from the snowden disclosures that its a lot of data. Also include the information of americans, even though that cant be the purpose of the collection of the data. What the amendment said, if you want to search that lawfully acquired database for americans, you should get a warrant. Not that you cant get the information. Get a warrant. That is the standard with the Fourth Amendment. When faced with that question, the house voted overwhelmingly 293123 to stand for the Fourth Amendment. I thought it was quite a thrilling moment for the house on a bipartisan basis to stand for the constitution. Representative lofgren, what are the chances of the amendment making it through on the senate side . I dont know. When i tryonfident to predict what the u. S. Senate will do. I think it will help those in the senate trying to make sure that we have a constitutional structure when dealing with nsa surveillance. Prevail,elp them to knowing that the house overwhelmingly 31 believes in the constitution. Whether it is in the appropriations process, whether it is in the usa freedom act, they have to figure that out, but im hopeful that we will have a constitutional structure. I recently did an email to my email list asking them, what you think about this . Yes, this is the right thing to do because its unconstitutional to search americans data without a warrant, or know, doesnt bother me. It was huge. 87 said, yeah, you need a warrant. The American People think the constitution matters. I hope senators do, too. Issue oftenacy seems to work on a bipartisan basis. Is, if you dont agree with somebody 100 of the time, that is no excuse for working with them on something you do agree on. If you take a look at congressman massey and i we dont agree on many things, but we worked together. Sh, mr. Sman a mosh ama sensenbrenner. It is people who could agree on the need for the constitution. I think people in the country should take comfort in that, as well, that people can Work Together on common causes of for common good. How active is your judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property on these types of telecom issues . Not as much as we should be, honestly. I do think there is a review of copyright law under way. Certainly, there are some issues relative to how artists who are compensated. Artists have a legitimate complaint about their compensation. I think it has really failed to include how to make that happen with the Technology Industry as much as it could have. We will see where that ends up. Your district in northern california, a lot of tech companies. Youve got Southern California with a lot of artists. Hearing onou held a music licenses. Arent there competing forces in your own state . Talking to some of the music folks, they now see the Technology Sector as their delivery platform. There is more music streamed today than there is bottle by downloads or cds. That is only going to continue. The Tech Industry and the Artist Community need to talk together about how to make this work for the country. I think there is more of that dialogue going on now, which is good. If we could get the business interests on board and working out the Technical Details so it is fair, that is likely going to be better than the congress legislating. What is the status of any copyright legislation . Doesnt stand a chance in this conference in this congress . I dont know. I had a bill to actually fix the cell phone unlocking situation. That is another example where we had a bill that i agreed to cosponsor, even though it wasnt necessary. Whatsically just codified the library of congress had already done, but to be a good guy, i supported it. The real fix is in changing so that1201 of the act you protect copyright instead of to make on technology, an overbroad simplification. That has not been heard. After the bill was passed, we marked it up out of committee. It was secretly changed so that it was a diminution of technology protection. Of course, it was brought to the floor on suspension. Most members do not realize that these changes had been included. I was at the airport. I didnt even get a chance to speak on it. Spoke briefly about it, but its not the way we should legislate, in my judgment. To doody was not setup these secret deals and jam them through the house. What happens when you are at the airport and you learn about this . I had actually heard about it on a saturday from an email and did have an opportunity to ask the chairman about it. He didnt really know about it at that point, but they proceeded anyway. Unfortunately, the plane did not have wifi. [laughter] zoe lofgren, i wanted to ask about immigration, a big issue for your tech annuity com munity. The speakers announcement that we are not going to do Immigration Reform i think that is a great disappointment. Anybody, out and ask is your first choice a nothing . G do that isnt going to be the first answer. People might have disagreements over how to fix it broken system, but to do nothing, that is not what people sent us here today. Apparently, that is the speakers decision. Im going to urge the president that he should do everything that he legally can within current law to make the system better. There are some tools in the toolbox that are provided under law that he should make use of. Some of them will help separated families. Some of them will help the Technology Industry. In some cases, he cant really do what needs to be done because the law itself needs to be changed. On permittedax out regulations. Year, we havest seen several articles and reports about the Technology Community increasing its presence in washington, d. C. Are they starting to is washington starting to understand these things more than it did in the past . Not really, not for the most part. When they increase their presence 300 , there is still a toll percentage compared industries who have been here for a long time. Unless you have some basic understanding the technology itself, which unfortunately not everyone does, youre going to make mistakes here. The fcc, Net Neutrality, wrapping up this Comment Period. I havent read all the comments. Some of them were profanitylaced. One of the big issues in the valley and for the country is Net Neutrality, which is a term a lot of people dont understand. You want to decide what you get to see of the internet. Do you want some company to decide what you see on the internet . The answer is overwhelming. It is up to me. People dont want to turn the internet into cable tv. That is really what the Net Neutrality fight is about. The solutions are not as obvious, as one might suggest. It may be that we need to reclassify the internet. If so, we dont want a heavy regulatory hand on the internet. Forink it is appropriate the fcc to be getting these comments. There are a number of creative suggestions coming in by tech savvy people. In the end, you just need to , liken mind, the internet cable tv, or internet like the internet . Would you be supportive of reclassification . Was might, provided that it coupled with provisions that you couldnt get into a heavy regulatory mode on the internet. We are at risk from monopolistic foranies that might decide users what they can access, but we also dont want the government to be regulating content or access either. As i say, its not an easy solution, but the need for the right solution to keep the internet free is obvious. Some of my colleagues say, we dont want to start regulating. , thee have to recall principle of Net Neutrality is what allowed the internet to grow. Until recently, that was the rule of block. We need to get back there. Zoe lofgren, democrat of california, thank you for your time. Representative john shimkus serves on the energy and commerce committee. He is a republican from illinois. He has introduced a bill called the dot com bill. What is that . The basic premise of the act is to make sure that when the the last control oversight over the domain name system, we know what we are getting ourselves into. There is this talk of what is called a multistakeholder approach. The industry is very supportive of it. Some governments are. In our hearings, i found it difficult for people to really define what that means. To some people, it means, great, the Tech Community and nongovernment organizations and everyone is going to be involved. They are just going to work for the good of the whole and move forward. You hear some governments saying, multistakeholder, that is great. We are going to be more involved. I would say, maybe some organizations and governments that may not be france to us, or Internet Freedom. Ist is why this bill, which i crafted it very carefully. For a lot of us, even cosponsors of the bill, we think we might be able to go in this direction someday. We are just trying to figure out what that means before we let the horse out of the barn and to get some definitions. Once we release it, we may not get it back. The rest part of the debating position is, we have more Internet Freedom today than we ever had. This system was birthed in the United States and grew up. Now, the whole world enjoys the for the most, part, open and transparent system of communication. We would say, where is the problem . We are concerned that there may be a problem if we dont know what we are getting ourselves into. We are talking about the Internet Corporation for assignment of names and numbers. , and who will now run it at some point . Icann is really run they are not a government underzation, but our ncia the department of commerce has the last oversight of icann. Icann is basically all on its own. There is a contractual agreement cann for themand i to be doing this job of assigning names and numbers in the domain space. What some people in the thereational community, is a fear on both sides what is interesting about this bill, there is the same fear on both sides. There is a fear from those who say, dont do this, because you are going to empower these governments to say, we dont trust the United States, and we are going to take it over for ourselves. Or there are people who say, like me, if we are not careful and we dont get a definition of who these multistakeholders are, who is to say they are not going to be able to, in this process of exerting more control or allowing the bill is really simple. All it asks us for a Government Accountability office report. This, report back to us so we can have as many facts as we can before we release icann. The administration seems to be in a big hurry. They haveann, ncia, made numerous statements that this is going to take a while. This transition is not going to happen overnight. We are saying, if it is good to take a while, what to take a while, lets do this report. It is really curious how ometroversial this has bec when i dont think there should be any controversy here. We are nearing august. Its an election year. What are the chances of this happening in this congress . It longbeen a member time. I love the job. I appreciate my constituents sending me back. Observers of the institution know that stuff like this may not get finished before we break for an election, but also, folks know that we come back. Things that are on the shelf and ready to go could move rapidly through the process. Raised byome concern senators in the other chamber, not to appoint where a bill has been dropped, but where letters have been submitted raising the same concerns. We dont really know where the senate would go. Reid,ss is with senator they will continue to protect the president and not do anything that they feel would harm him. After an election, all bets are off. You dont know what the makeup will be in the future congress. What deals can you strike . Will winners and losers get intransigent because they werent winners or losers . I cant predict. All i know is you never say never, because you never know what will pop up at the end. This is just a gao report. If they cant accept a gao report, what can they accept . If the process moves forward becomes a multistakeholder, who is going to be running the internet . I mean, is there such a thing . Is there an internet manager out there . Servers. Ave multiple most of them are in the United States. There are a couple overseas. Who is actually setting the rules for these servers to talk to each other . The fear is that if we dont have an International System in which everyone plays by the same rules, then youre going to have people break off and set up their own servers. That is where the Tech Community as a whole fear. Still a great nation, a major commerce, industry flows here. I still think that it would be tough for somebody to opt out of the system without having the United States as part of their access for jobs, information sharing, and the like. I just know the arguments on both sides. I have heard them. I appreciate my colleagues, but i kind of reject the premise. Guest we have seen examples where countries can really slow or even stop internet traffic. Egypt, iran. Becomesa fear if icann a multistakeholder corporation . Not if we know what multistakeholder means and is and it is defined. Who are these people on this board . Turkey slowed down the twitter feeds. In this world, in this environment, to say thats not happening, it is happening. Who is going to be the governing body . In france, i think, and they had a fight over the french representatives or a fight over wine. Com something to read they almost stopped the whole system over a regionalization of a product. They dont want the world to on they, champagne internet website, when there is a location in france where only that have the product is made. If we are going to have a battle and almost shut down this internet debate over champagne, what would happen in the process when youre doing stuff on Internet Freedom, the right to discourse . Act doesntt com pass, if the study is not done, what happens . I think the administration keeps moving forward in this transition. If my friends who think it is they arebe ok, i hope right, but if they are wrong, they may have wished they had taken some more time and had a gao report. Can you as a member of congress ask for a gao report without an act of congress . You can. That is what senators orrin the process of doing. Good is ais, what report if it comes out bad and theyve already made the transition . There is a reason to tie it to the final approval. Again, what good is a report if its like shoot, we could have gotten this a week earlier. Its not like this administration wouldve moved previous to having a good analysis of what may happen. Kiss serves onon the energy and commerce committee. The sec has wrapped up its initial Comment Period on socalled Net Neutrality rules and potential actions. What are your thoughts about Net Neutrality . That is a great question. The chairman of the commission has gotten himself in hot water with both sides to some extent. Where i dont agree with chairman wheeler on a lot of this one, i kind of agree that if you want to be a major user of bandwidth, then you ought to pay. I do it from the market, capitalist model. What my liberal friends think is that it is a constraint. Words, we have to get involved, and we have to make sure everyones got free access. We are eventually going to have to regulate and have police on the beat and make sure that no especially for commercial products like movies, if you really want that product, sent in market signal, i. E. A fee or charge, so that you incentivize more buildout. That is what you want. You want more pipes, not less. Ive used this numerous times in tomittee hearings as a way segue into the debate. No one has come back and said, no, doesnt work for that, but a restricteddebate supply versus a more. Im always going to be on the side of more. Have a market signal. A buildout more pipes. Can everybody gets more. It is a great world and country. If you say, no, government has to be here and watch it at incentivize and make sure things, it wont work. The other half of what they are working on is a potential reclassification of the internet. Is that going to happen, and what are your thoughts . It is a terrible idea. Of usingng the debate a law passed in the 1930s to and with cable and internet classifying them as title ii and making it really a utility. Again, no one can look at me with a straight face and say communicationnet system over the past 18 years has moved exponentially. There is more choice. There are more capabilities. Why in the world would you want to bring it under a federal Regulatory Regime . Its crazy. Shimkus, republican of illinois. This is the communicators on cspan. On the next washington journal, toby harnden and discuss howst European Countries are responding to unrest in the ukraine. Then a look at Veterans Health care. A reporter talks about what remains on the legislative agenda before congress adjourned for the august resources recess. Plus, your calls, facebook comments, and tweets. Washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Newsmakers, customs and Border Protection ikowskeioner gil kerl talks about how the Obama Administration got caught offguard by the large number of children and families and what can be done to help while maintaining national security. There was no question that the numbers increased particularly last year. There were also there was also a huge amount of work and planning that was going on involving the department of heirland security and t colleagues at health and Human Services about what to do and how to do this. I think there was also great expectation that the government of mexico would actually be doing more along that border with guatemala to prevent and help some of this. Wasthat being said, i confirmed on march 7. I was in the office 40 minutes after the vote. I had been kind of doing my best to look forward. How are we going to deal with this situation . We are glad that there is a law right now, but there is no question we are concerned about, after the weather cools, what should we be doing in the future to make sure we have enough detention space and enough resources to treat people, not just humanely, but with compassion . You can watch the entire conversation with the commissioner of the customs and Border Protection agency tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. Flournoy is our guest on this weeks q a. If you are in government, you are dealing with the daily tyranny of the inbox. You are focused on the crisis of the day. Part of my responsibilities as undersecretary of defense was a representing the undersecretary of the secretary of defense on the socalled deputy committee, which is the senior level group working to the issues, developing options for the president. A lot of Crisis Management focus. When you are at a think tank, your real utility is not trying to secondguess the policymaker over the horizonok to see what those issues i am going to confront a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. How do i think more strategically about americas role in the world . Cofounder of the center for National American security, itsele flournoy on mission and current defense policy issues, sunday night at 8 p. M. Eastern. Director of the setters for us is the for centers for Disease Control on antibiotic resistance. 23,000 americans die each year from these infections