report. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. >> at a press conference without calling on you. >> you are a well-known face in the region, sir. one day you might end up to the mayor and one of those cities. ..

everyone in india always focuses on the other but please let's not throw a conclusion for which there was no proof. now, of the larger issue you know, let me just make a general comment about this. this is my own personal feeling about the three countries will get afghanistan, pakistan and india. the three countries are fast the different in the culture, socioeconomics and political development but they share a

common strategic space and in order to understand america's policy and america's policy dilemma one has to understand both india and pakistan have legitimate security interests in the region, and by not talking about a certain area between them i'm not going to mention by name. [laughter] because i'm not going to get involved in that and people who advocated that are making a proposal which i believe runs counter to stability in afghanistan. afghanistan must be dealt with on its merits but as president obama, secretary clinton, secretary gates, admiral mullen and i have said repeatedly, there are many countries with security interests in what happens.

and it's not an accident that when you have a country that is torn by the war which is relatively weak compared to a very powerful neighbors it trolls other countries in the. that's what happened in cambodia and a different way and it's happened and other parts of the world. part of a story. in afghanistan is surrounded by, when my system now that i don't just mean continuous neighbors, i mean countries in the region. russia still has an interest in the common border. india has a legitimate interest even though they don't have a border. iran and pakistan are the two lowest important countries with common borders. i just visited two of the others, uzbeckistan and tajikistan and i missed turkmenistan and only because logistics and i will go back. now, having said that i need to

stress pakistan and india have historic relationships which people must respect. it is complicated. its origins go back to 1947 and before 1947 ayman and mature student of that history but i don't profess to know a lot about eight, but what happened then affects us today but i need to stress both countries have legitimate security interests, and if one country says the other has no interest, then it's hard to have a dialogue. that is why president obama said we encourage any sort of dialogue between the two countries, and afghanistan is not the core of the issue but it is part of the issue. the other issues i would mention are critical of water.

water is a huge issue and increasingly on our trips people in both countries talk about water, and overall security relationships. other issues have risen continuously, and we have good relations with both india and pakistan. it is our view that is in our national interest to improve relations with both countries. neither, not at the expense of the other. it is not -- improve relations is not at the expense of the other. on the contrary, we by improving relations in both countries we can go forward general search for peace and stability in the region. this policy began in the year 2000 when president clinton is. the first president to visit either country in 22 years since

jimmy carter in 1978 and since then president bush has done the same thing and this is the overriding approach we have to the issue and that is our starting point for the strategic overview of the region. >> just a quick -- >> was that not long enough? [laughter] >> the foreign secretary said the other day that the task ahead was that india demanded pakistan to handle the mumbai attacks and others. when you visit or have talks with india and pakistan to these issues come during your talks handing over? >> of course both sides to raise issues like that but it will not serve any purpose for me to make public confidential discussions.

our relations with both countries are good. we are improving relations with both countries. both in new delhi and islamabad people come up and say you are for the other country. you are favoring one country over the other. that isn't true. we are focused on the issues themselves to an on generally good relations and we seek to do everything we can to help pakistan economically, which is i think my highest priority, and we work closely with india on a range of issues which you're all familiar with and which my colleague, bob flake overseas for secretary clinton, and i hope that addresses -- >> we will take one more. >> in kabul did you discuss with

president karzai how to deal with not trafficking from afghanistan because as you probably know the problem is very pressing and russia and central asia. >> i didn't discuss it with president karzai on this trip and but i discussed with other american officials and i was discussing it on the phone with frank a few minutes ago. and when i was in moscow i had very extensive talks with the general who i am sure you know who i mean, the head of the drug agency. president obama and president medvedev issued a communique july of last year with attention to the precursor chemicals and other interdiction measures. we are working as actively as we can with russia to work out common policies. this also came up in my meetings because it is of enormous

importance to them. so it is a very high priority for us. we don't always agree on every single detail, but we have the same objective, and so we work it through. the russians think the poppy crop eradication should be continued. we think it works against the larger focus and we are on the high traffickers interdiction and destroying the drug bazaars. but that is a tactical difference. we have the same objective completely and i spent a great deal of time talking to the russian officials about this. and as you know there is a -- i have a russian counterpart, russian special representative ambassador who was the russian ambassador in kabul and he and i are in regular contact on that as well.

my deputy, paul jones was going to leave from moscow today but he got sick and had to reschedule the trip or else he would be in moscow tomorrow. i'm sorry about that. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

president obama toward the steel company in savannah georgia today just after he outlined a plan to get homeowner's tax rebates for energy efficiency improvements.

he spoke at the savannah technical college for about 20 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. ♪ [applause] [applause]

[cheering] >> hello, everybody. thank you. everybody, please have a seat. thank you. thank you. is good to be back in her georgia. it's good to be back in georgia although where is passan? [laughter] i was looking forward -- i'm still fired up but we've been getting a lot of snow in washington, d.c. so i was looking forward to maybe 60, 70 degrees. [laughter] i guess i will take 50. first of all, i want to just make some acknowledgements of some wonderful leaders who are here. first of all i want to thank president kathy and the entire seven and at tech community for their hospitality. [applause]

i want to thank your governor who i had the chance to see recently posted him in the white house with other governors, mr. sonny perdue. [applause] york mayor john simmons in the house. [applause] [cheering] congressman, you are in his district. [applause] that's right. congressman jack kingston. congressman samford bishop. [applause] and congressman johnson are all in the house. [applause] thank you for taking the time to be here today. i really appreciate the opportunity to visit here at savannah and i just took a brief

tour of some of the classrooms where the students are learning about clean energy. they are learning about solar cells, learning about efficient heating and cooling systems and you've got young people who through the youth build program are gaining jobs skills that will help them the rest of their lives and by the way they are building a house right now while they are at it. [applause] from the instructors to the students use of an incredible enthusiasm for america's future and i was just talking to the president loved about the focus of savannah tech on clean energy. the idea that this can be a real model for green energy as a way of linking students to the enormous job opportunities and

business opportunities that exist in the future. these are the skills that will help our country transform the way we produce and use energy and that is so important especially as families in georgia and across america continues to experience the painful consequences of the worst economic crisis we have had in generations. i also had a chance to meet with some business owners who told me what i have heard time and again that it's tough out there. unemployment in georgia is still above 10%. that doesn't include folks that have had to accept part-time jobs or in some cases have given up finding a job altogether. when it comes to domestic policy i have no more important job as president and seeing to it every american who wants to work it is able to work can find a job and a job that pays a living wage.

[applause] that was my focus last year and that is my focus this year to lay the foundation for economic growth that will create jobs but raises in comes that will foster secure economic future for the middle class families. this depends not just on spurring hiring but doing so in the areas that will create lasting opportunities and prosperity. that's why we it invested in the roads and railways so our economy has room to grow wheat we are leading the infrastructure for the future effect because the recovery act there are more than 300 transportation projects underway in georgia right now. [applause] for that's why we invested in schools and prevented layoffs, hundreds of thousands of teachers and public school workers including thousands of

educators in this state because we know we will not be able to compete in the new industries on less we have got workers ready to fill the jobs in those industries. i would also point out that i have proposed the largest ever investment in community colleges and technical schools like this one to produce millions more graduates ready to meet the demands of 21st century economy. [applause] to spur the hiring and sustained growth we've placed a big emphasis on energy. just a few weeks ago i announced a loan guarantee to break the ground on the first new nuclear power plant in the country and nearly three decades, a project right here in georgia. [applause] right here in georgia. a project that's going to create more than 3,000 construction jobs the next few years and

ultimately 800 permanent jobs operating the plant. we are on track to create 700,000 jobs across america building advanced batteries for hybrid cars and modernizing electric grid and doubling capacity to generate clean energy. in his fact here at savannah take the recovery act provide a grant to the youth to help provide training in these fields because -- [applause] i'm convinced the country that leads in clean energy is also going to be the country that leads in the global economy and i want america to be that country. i don't want a second or third place or fourth place when it comes to the energy technologies. i want to be in the first. as we have the potential to create millions of jobs in the sector. jobs building more fuel efficient cars and trucks to make us energy independent, producing solar panels and

erecting wind turbines. these are jobs designing and manufacturing and selling and installing more efficient building materials because 40% of the energy we used is used by homes and buildings. think about that. all of us know we use a lot of gas in our cars but in terms of energy usage 40% goes to our homes and buildings so as we are looking for additional initiatives to spur hiring i think we ought to embrace what is happening on the campus. i think we ought to continue to embrace the incredible potential that awaits us across america and clean energy. in my state of the union address, i call on congress to pass a set of initiatives for homeowners who make their homes more energy efficient to continue the energy transformation that's already begun so today i want to explain the details of this program and

thank the members of the house and senate helping to assure this proposal through congress. many of you have heard of energy start. how many have heard of energy star? you see best eckert on the computer or microwave. the energy star program was created to promote energy efficiency by letting the consumers know which appliances, which electronics would save electricity therefore would save them money over time. the program line describing today applies this concept not to the appliances but to the home itself and it takes it further so we are going to college home starts to make it easier to remember [applause] kirsanow it would work. we would identify the kind of building supplies and systems that would save folks energy overtime and here's one of the best things about energy efficiency. it turns out energy efficient windows or insulation, those are

products almost exclusively manufactured in the united states of america. [applause] it's very hard to ship windows from china. [laughter] so a lot of these materials are made here in america. so, we take these materials and if a homeowner decides to do work on his or her house to put in new windows to replace a unit to insulate an addict and redo a roof, the homeowner would be eligible for rebate from the store or the contractor from 50% of the cost of each upgrade up to $1,500. if you decided to retrofit your whole house to greatly reduce your energy use would be eligible for a rebate of up to

$3,000. these are big incentives and you would get these rebates instantly from the hardware store or the contractor so if he went to los or home depot, right there when you pay at the cash register you get that money. you wouldn't have to mail in a long form and wait for the check to arrive months later. [applause] we know this will save families as much as several hundred dollars on utilities. we know it will make the economy less dependent on fossil fuels helping to protect the planet for the future generations. but i want to emphasize that whom starr will also create business and spur high gearing up and down the economy. i was meeting which a number of business leaders in the different segments of this industry, we've got

manufacturers making insulation and windows and other products, we have folks who are contractors so stand up, the guys i just met with. they are ready to work. [applause] they are ready to go. [applause] we were just talking about how they are geared up and have the capacity to guarantee a homeowner if they are willing to do the work on the house they will get their money back not just the rebate but energy savings use each year. let's say you decide to use this to see a lot and insulate your attic because you want to save electricity but also because you are tired of the draft the house. think about the ways in which that will stimulate jobs and growth. if you know you're doing you might do it yourself but you will probably have somebody come to the house to carry out the

installation work because you did the smart thing and refuse to let your husband do it himself. [laughter] that's the smart thing. [applause] he will be stubborn and told you he can do it but don't listen to him. that creates work for small businesses and contractors like some of the folks here today. and obviously construction work has been as hard hit is anything during this recession, so you've got a lot of skilled contractors ready to go. it that means the contractor's start hiring some of these folks who may have been laid off. some may have been trained right here at savannah tech and you also have to buy the insulation, the other materials and that means you are producing business for your local retailer and that retailer has to purchase those supplies for the manufacturers

as i said most of them located in the united states of america. and i mentioned these domestic manufacturers in the crowd they would benefit from this program. then there's a huge amount of capacity, excess capacity and construction related industries to meet any demand out there. the fact is that there is nearly 25% unemployment in the construction industry so far. so the construction companies, are restore some contractors, manufacturers, they face a rapid decline in demand in the week of the mortgage crisis and to make matters worse the of seeing the same decline in credit that has hurt every sector of our economy. so these are companies ready to take on the new customers. they are eager to do the new installations and renovations of factories ready to produce new building supplies. all we have to create incentives

to make it happen. and this is not a democratic idea work republican idea. this is a common sense approach that will help jumpstart job creation while making the economy is stronger. [applause] ultimately that is what we are called to do. it just like eight responsible homeowner will invest in their homes in the near term to fortify their economic security in the long term. we've got to do the same as a country. it will have cost on the front end. you buy a new boiler or get insulation or get new windows the screen to have initial cost and the same is true from the government perspective and its way to be politically difficult to do some of this but it is what is right to plan for the future. the same is true with when it comes to the education system and when it comes to trying to

make our health care system more affordable. the same is true when it comes to energy. each of these things are hard, some of them have costs on the front end and working through congress is more than the notion. [laughter] [applause] bye taking these steps we will help foster the brought a share growth that will search in the years and decades to come. that's how we will create the conditions to expand and hire and we will grow our middle class again. that's how we will not only rebuild our economy but rebuild it stronger than it was before the crisis. i confident we can do it. savannah is leading the way. a bunch of folks in this room are leading the way and i hope washington stands alongside making sure we've got the kind

of energy future that we need. thank you, everybody, god bless the united states of america. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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over 1,000 middle and high school students entered this year's c-span studentcam documentary competition of the shore of the deal will love the country's greatest strengths or challenge the country is facing. we will announce the 75 winners on march 10th and show you the winning videos at studentcam.org. nouri hearing none global internet freedom triet state and commerce department officials. in one hour, executives from google and other technology firms. the entire hearing is less than

two hours. >> this hearing of the judiciary committee on human rights and the law will come to order. today's hearing is global internet freedom amol the rule will fall apart too. after a few opening remarks i will recognize the centers in attendance for an opening statement and then turn to the witnesses. we appreciate their attendance. the subcommittee held our first hearing on this issue in may of 2008. at that hearing we learned repressive governments around the world censer the internet and persecute him in rights and democracy advocates to express views on line.

since then the scale and the scope of internet censorship has increased dramatically. at the hearing two years ago i showed some pictures of the censored internet searches on google and dahuk. today i am going to demonstrate on the fortunately the censorship not only continues but many cases is worse. let me start if i can do this -- when you were looking at here on the screen to your left is google search for the word tiemann in. you'll find pictures of the famous protest in 1989 and especially the iconic photo of a demonstrator standing in front of several tanks.

now what you see is google .cn, china and the same search for the word trademark in. here you find only beautiful postcard images of trademark and square. but may be clear on not singling out google. dahuk and bing sensor the internet in china and the leading chinese search engine censors even more content than these american companies. i want to commend google for announcing the plant stops answering the chinese surgeon jargon. i look forward to an update on their efforts. at the first hearing we discussed the global network initiative mackinnon to be negotiated. the gni is a voluntary code of conduct takes measures to protect human rights. following the meeting senator

tom coburn and i encouraged google, microsoft and yahoo! to complete the gni negotiations and it was launched in october of 2008. i want to commend the companies for their extraordinary leadership in promoting internet freedom. since then i asked several dozen other companies to consider joining the gni. without objection the written responses will be entered into the hearing record and also made available on the website. i am disappointed the year and a half after the gni started no new companies have joined. based on the responses that i have received only three companies, at&t, mcafee and skype has been committed to participating in a dialogue of the joint the gni. one company indicated they will joined if the membership is waived. many companies told me it is not relevant to the company's business. the last two years demonstrated

that is simply not true. the explosive growth of social networking services like twitter and facebook has helped human rights activists organize and publicize human rights violations in the iran and other places of the world. however, repressive governments can use the same tools to monitor and crack down on advocates. i invited facebook and twitter to testify today and they refused. last year the chinese government announced they would require all computers sold in china to include software called green dam, which censors political content and records users activity. thanks to the opposition from the u.s. government and companies the chinese government eventually backed down. this highlighted the human-rights challenges faced by computer manufacturers. i invited hewlett-packard and apple to testify about the

challenges today and they also refused. for altering software produced by american companies has been used to sensor the internet and several countries with repressive governments. i invited mcafee which produces filtering software to testify today. mcafee initially agreed with fri informed us they were pulling out. the bottom line is with a few notable exceptions the technology industry seems unwilling to regulate itself and even to engage in a dialogue of congress about the serious human-rights challenges that the industry faces. in the face of this resistance i've decided that it's time to take a more active position. at the hearing two years ago i indicated the congress could step in if the industry failed to take concrete action to protect internet freedom. today i'm announcing i will introduce legislation that would require internet companies to take reasonable steps to protect human rights or face civil or

criminal liability. i look forward to working with republican colleague senator coburn and my others to enact the legislation into law. i recognize the technology industry faces difficult challenges when they deal with repressive governments but we have a responsibility in the united states and congress shares that responsibility to ensure american companies are not complex set in violating freedom of expression, fundamental human right enshrined in the first amendment of the constitution and universal declaration of human rights. now i want to recognize my colleague senator coburn the ranking member of the subcommittee. >> thank you. due to being under the weather i think i will ask my opening statement be made part of the record. >> without objection. senator franklin, do you have remarks? >> i do not. i look forward to keep the hearing. >> we will turn to the first witness panel. u.s. government has an important role to play in promoting global

internet freedom and ensuring the technology companies do not facilitate government repression. i look forward to hearing about the plans to advance freedom of expression around the world. the witnesses will each began five minutes for an opening statement but the complete written statements will be part of the record of post of mine. i ask now with the witnesses would stand and raise their right hands to be sworn in. do you live from the testimony you're about to give before the committee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you got? let the record reflect both of the witnesses answered in the affirmative to the first witness is the assistant secretary stand for democracy and human rights and labor. the government's top human rights official. he was previously founding executive director president of human rights first which he headed for 30 years. he is substantial the expertise and corporate social responsibility played a key role in funding, part of the founding of the network initiative. he has a bachelor's degree from the university of michigan, law

degree from california berkeley. he first testified before the subcommittee last year when he held a hearing on the implementation of human rights treaties and we are glad he is with us again. our following witness is daniel weitzner, the ministry dirt for the policy analysis developed and commerce department's national telecommunications information administration and i think that he will win a prize for the longest title having appeared before the committee. he is one of the nation's leading experts on internet policy prepared to join in mr. weitzner was part of the mit artificial laboratories decentralized information group and policy director of the world wide web consortium technology and society activities. mr. weitzner was the director for the democracy technology deputy policy director of the frontier temptation. you're reza may have to be loaded with titles. mr. weitzner has a bachelor's degree from swarthmore and a

degree from buffalo law school and we think he was all for joining. would you like to make the opening statement? >> thank you. i want to thank you, senator durbin and colburn for inviting me to testify and for your longstanding interest in the subject. i followed this issue quite closely and the subcommittee's involvement since the part one hearing in 2008 and it's great you are pursuing this. when you first addressed internet freedom the primary concern of the tests were content filtering on the internet and harassment and the rest of digital activists. these persist today as the sector clinton highlighted in her january 21st speech on the internet freedom the state department continues to protest the a rest detention and harassment of bloggers in iran and china, vietnam and elsewhere. and countries that seek to filter access to information are becoming more skilled at doing so. these problems persist but the

threat to internet freedom are expanding beyond restricting access to content. as again secretary clinton described repressive regimes are coopting the media tools to crush, dissent and deny human rights and while the increase in the use of mobile phones creates new platforms for connecting people and providing access to information it creates new threats to the free expression and free flow of information. so we have a major set of challenges. state department's since 2006 has had an internet freedom task force which has been launched as the freedom task force chaired by the two undersecretaries and it is going to oversee the state department's efforts on these issues. i want to quickly site three aspects what we are doing. first is advancing internet freedom through programming. our effort is to provide

unfettered safe access to information and communication beginning in 2008 the bureau of democracy human-rights and labor which has implemented $50 million in programming to support internet freedom i spell out some of the details of my testimony we are also working with a i.t. and the middle east partnership initiative on the range of specific initiatives aimed at providing training to journalists, civil society activists, political parties on the use of the new technologies. the second thing we are doing more broadly is monitoring and analyzing. next week we will release the annual human rights report of the state department of human rights practices and you will country reports. one of the things we will do in the coming year is to review the reporting process and improve and expand on the internet freedom reporting which is a and the central piece of what we

need to be doing. we will make the records accessible to people in the world with limited access to the internet and increase the capacity of the embassy officers to monitor and respond when there are threats to internet freedom. and that is the third aspect of what we are doing responding. it's unfortunately too often the case that those who are involved in human rights and other advocacies of themselves are targeted because of their advocacy and those who are using the internet and social networking sites are being attacked precisely because they are communicating effectively. last, for example last fall when a popular social networking side was blocked in the end, we raised the issues with officials in hanoi and in washington. when bloggers in countries such as china and vietnam and egypt and iran or threatened, we speak out publicly on their behalf.

this is an important part of what we can and need to be doing. i want to just say as a last comment and it relates to what you spoke about, senator durbin in your opening. this is an issue where the government has a role the private sector also has several. as you notify was involved before coming into the government in the creation of the global network initiative which is similar to stick with our initiative that brings together companies, ngos and academic experts and social investing firms. i think it's critical that we and you work to figured out ways for companies to step up and take responsibility pure dewey can't do it alone and companies acting alone can't make a difference. there needs to be collective response and i am personally committed as are others in the state department to define ways to work collectively with private-sector to make a difference in this area.

thank you. >> chairman, ranking member coburn and members of the subcommittee think you for the invitation to testify on behalf of the department of commerce and the telecommunications administration. i will work on shortening titles. i'm a global challenge facing the internet industry. as an advocate of economic growth innovation and exports, the department of commerce is to support a global open internet as a platform for the free flow of information of goods and services. the department of commerce is committed to the role as a partner with u.s. companies large and small as they grapple with challenges of operating in countries that reject openness, transparency and free flow of information. the innovative information is due to the fact even the smallest internet start-ups can be reached by the users of the world. with these strengths we must recognize u.s. companies can become the target of arbitrary foreign law even if they have no offices in that country. today i will summarize the

challenges we see facing the transparency on the internet and we update you on the, as the productivity is to support the commercial robust trends prevent intranet. let me highlight three major threats that we see very briefly. first, u.s. companies are often pressured to block or filter internet contador communications absent evidence of legality based on the rules on nuclear and often lack due process or transparency. second some governments would require a internet service providers assistant electronic surveillance without due process or adequate judicial supervision this puts these companies in situations they shouldn't have to face. u.s. companies third risk being the victims of packing a thames sponsor schweiker rebels foreign governments or lose it groups of both working together. in this area of the globally integrated cloud competing platforms security threats in one country can put the entire global enterprise at risk.

worse securities become a pretext often for the forced compliance with technically deficient standards disadvantaging the companies to support global internet standards and putting the entire internet at risk. unfair treatment of internet users and providers threatens the internet fundamental notice abiram buy transparency. open technical standards enabled rapid innovation and global interoperable lady of the internet and applications that run on it despite the recent vulnerabilities in the internet infrastructure we must not lose sight of extraordinary engineering achievements that enable global citizens to communicate through a common platform. transparencies the heart of the internet success. looking for work the commerce department will continue successful tradition of working with stakeholders to develop government industry civil society partnerships supporting the internet development. we've been heartened by the network initiatives ongoing efforts to develop the fall/winter code of conduct for

internet companies. the government must be a full partner in this effort we believe standing up for individuals and businesses when free flow of information and human rights are threatened. insuring the internet is open for innovation and social progress is a viable priority for the department. in the early months of the new administration we assembled across department internet policy task force whose mission is to identify leading public policy operational challenges in the internet environment. our task force leverages expertise across bureaus including international communications policy, trade, intellectual property protection business advocacy and corporate responsibility. work began with the from the new internet privacy cybersecurity framework the task force convened consultation with major u.s. corporations and innovators across academia and civil society. we've added consideration of the internet global trade barriers along with online copyright enforcement and internet government. in the coming months outreach will continue the task force issued notices of inquiry on

these topics. based on the feedback test scores will focus the resources of the strawbridge's and contribute to administration wide public policy development. in closing let me say from my own experience the internet was created and is ground to the global scale because of the unique combination of cooperation and transparency. academic and commercial research is as you know came together and created extent the underlining internet technology. as the internet grew it was efforts of industry, civil society government that came together to solve our social and legal problems. the threat of the free flow of information on the internet are serious. we should look to solve them as much as possible with cooperative transparency spirit gave us the internet in the first place. thank you for the opportunity to be here and for your longstanding attention to this important issue and i look forward to your questions. >> thanks. we asked facebook to come and they replied by saying we have no business operations in china

or for that matter most of the countries of the world. they went on to say as a young startup the resources and influence are limited. we do not have the resources to devote to the membership. but here are the facts. facebook has over 400 million users which makes it the second most viewed website in the world about 70% of the facebook users are outside of the united states. facebook has over 1,000 employees, hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue and is worth billions of dollars that's hardly a mom and pop operation that can afford to be part of gni. and it acknowledges it engages in censorship and their letter facebook said and i quote, when contant shared from a particular jurisdiction violates the jurisdictions local laws or customs facebook may take down that content. is my understanding facebook recently asked the state department for help when they were blocked in vietnam and you

responded by raising the issue with the vietnamese government. is that right? >> yes. we have responded a number of companies have come to us, facebook is one of them and we are trying to promote internet freedoms we are trying to become operative. >> facebook expects government to help resulting efforts to center their service italy seems reasonable to the accept responsibility themselves for addressing human rights issues. mr. posner come this facebook face challenges such as a censorship the gni will address? >> i don't want to single out one particular company but i think it's fair to say companies like facebook and twitter are certainly susceptible to a lot of the pressures that we have seen others face. the technology is changing, the world is changing, governments are getting much more aggressive trying to regulate and control content. >> i don't want to see about one company for so that we see

another one. let's take twitter in a letter to me to better experience they were having a conflict on human rights and i believe that. they said twitter is a triumph of humanity not technology. twitter helped activists organize and publicize violations but also they face human-rights challenges. flexible there are reports the government is tracking down opposition activities of those who use twitter however in the letter twitter declined to join the gni singing and like what is the initial since the draft policies process is and fees are better suited to the bigger companies who have actual operations, and of quote. mr. posner, dustin utter face the human rights challenges that the gm i could address? >> yes, they do and i think one of the things that makes the gni to me an important part of the solution here is companies are going to learn from each other. there's not one of little company that will have some

become monopoly and creativity or thoughts about how to deal with it the need to work collectively and that is part of what this initiative is designed to do. >> in the next panel and i ran in boulder who was a witness today says, and i quote in his testimony, it was in the eye iranian government to shut down my website it was the domain and host provider in the united states, and of quote. testimony by rebecca, another witness on the second panel indicates the u.s. web hosting companies denied services to the political opposition groups in zimbabwe and syria and i would like to ask you both what can be done to ensure u.s. sanctions and exports control do not prevent the u.s. companies from providing internet technology and services like website hosting to human rights democracy activists living under the government's. >> as you know, mr. chairman the jurisdiction for the control is shared between the commerce

department. we enforce our export administration regulations and others as well as the treasury department. as the services like water and others that you mentioned that don't employ any encryption software on the user's end as far as we understand those services are available around the world from the perspective of the u.s. regulations obviously as you note other countries need access to those the commerce department's export administration regulations do not prevent anyone in the world from using a service like twitter. that is because it is a service based on the web and it doesn't require installation of software. it's also the case under the commerce department regulations publicly available downloadable software with encryption can be used widely. too

close to some american internet companies. for example, last week twitter's ceo jack dorsey was the member of an deutsche state department delegation to russia. top state department officials used twitter to post details about their personal lives. technology expert says and i quote, the kind of message it sends to the rest of the world that google, facebook and twitter are now extensions of the u.s. state department may simply endanger the lives of those who use such services in our third world countries. it's hardly surprising the iranian government begun to rescrew all twitter users with suspicion. mr. posner, are you concerned about the perception that the state department is too close to fis like twit around facebook companies like twitter and facebook. i can't comment the impression that these companies are in our government? >> i think we have to be able to work in multiple ways as a government. the fact that there are the social networking sites that

deployer or allow information to be disseminated quickly means that there are a tool for all governments and for private citizen. we shouldn't regard that. at the same time, i think we have to be clear there's a separation between government and these private companies. they are not part of the government and/or certain obligations that have to hold their feet to the fire to be acting responsibly of companies. so, i think we need to be really operating in multiple tracks here not to deny ourselves the ability to use the excellent tools they provide care to do the same time, keep the lines clear who we are and who the companies are and holding them accountable for their own actions. >> thank you. senator coburn. >> thank you. mr. posner, we tax about the things you're doing in analyzing and then responding and he spoke specifically about responding to two or three different instances. i think vietnam was when you mention. what's been the effect of the

ounce? >> this is a long-term and tough subject for us to claim immediate results. it's not going to happen that way. governments are testing the limits and we're pushing back. i think of the long run we're going to succeed because they think efforts by governments to control people's ideas are not going to succeed. people are going to find creative ways to circumvent whatever research government has put up. but i think we just have to be resolute in saying we are absolutely dedicated, as secretary clinton said, to a free open internet and communication environment, without restrictions. and we're going to keep pushing for that. and when government pushes back, we're going to be there to say this is a counter to american values in american foreign policy. >> so there's definitely going to be consistency to your message in a constant feature message?

>> if were not consistent, we're not going to succeed. >> mr. weitzner, you mentioned the gni and your perspective of the diversity of other companies that make up the industry that offer internet-based goods and services around the world. do you see gni as a framework double-faced every one of those companies? or is there the case that maybe this doesn't fit some of them? >> from the dirt of the efforts that we imagine the commerce department have our main interest is to be a partner with the gni. it seems unlikely that every single internet company in the united states would join, we certainly hope more do. these organizations have to figure out how to create the proper kind of fit between their mission and those who they hope to serve. that's not an easy challenge, as you know. but we think it's important. from the commerce department perspective, we hear from companies large and small and of course a number of sectors across the internet company.

certainly small startups may not be able to fully participate in the gni, but we think first of all they will benefit from the efforts of an organization like that and we are looking very carefully at how we can make the trade assistance resources we have available on the ground in over 60 countries around the world available to those u.s. companies who for whatever reason don't fit as well. >> but you do feel that ultimately they'll will have some benefit directly or indirectly? >> i think if the gni can succeed at its efforts to bring greater the and a set of commonly crafted practices, that would benefit the internet as a whole. >> what kind of guidance that sort department give to people using internet-based restrictive countries to overcome the challenges that you outlined in your testimony? >> i wouldn't say there's a single answer to that question, but i say no date the commerce

department of resources we can about what state department resources and in many countries work on a case-by-case to work through barriers or misunderstandings that companies face. when those berrier's are seen to be too hard to revolve in individual cases, we can escalate those two discussions with the government and often to government discussion at whatever level can be helpful in a way that the company may not be able to muster all by itself. this is especially true for smaller companies, for companies that don't have the international profile that some of the cases that we've seen in the news. so again, we think that we will have an essential role to play in helping u.s. companies. >> are there instances of success we are able to accomplish them? >> well, very often, these are efforts that require cooperation across the executive branch. i point to the recent

interactions involving the green internet filtering requirement those proposed by the chinese government. as that issue is raised to various parts of the u.s. government, including the commerce department, the international trade department and others were able to have a dialogue with the chinese government that we can produce results. >> okay. and the department of commerce seems to be on the forefront of some the issues were discovering -- discussion today. on the other was startled to hear that effort to target internet policy changes in trouble may just begun. as the interagency internet policy task force the first such initiative undertaken by the department? >> the department of commerce's efforts in internet policy go back to more or less the beginning of the commercial internet in the mid-90's. soberly work was done in the department of commerce and lane of a farmer for global electronic commerce domain of

privacy rules and approaches that would be appropriate for the internet. i'm proud to say there's a long-standing tradition that the commerce have been far predating albert and we intend to continue that. >> how long before notice of inquiry runs in the federal register to solicit additional outside opinions? >> we are hoping to do this in the next couple of months. >> why can't it be done immediately? >> well, we've been engaging in discussions with the variety of companies and tactical experts and academics to make sure we understand the questions we ought to be asking peers who are actively engaged in that and we're going to get it out justice in this weekend. >> that's fair. when does the task force anticipate making formal recommendations to the secretary of commerce? >> will be working over the course of this year and we expect by the end of the year will have recommendations. but will be contributing based on what we learned in an informal way both to commerce department efforts into administration white efforts. we do this as an ongoing effort.

>> based on, you know, you're this tremendous knowledge and tremendous experience, is that always going to be possible for u.s. companies to operate in ways that support a global open internet that facilitates the free flow of information, goods and services, even with countries that do not share those values? and how do we get there? >> i hesitate to say anything is always possible. i think that it will be possible and i share my colleagues, secretary posner's optimism that will made progress on the spirit of the history of the internet has been the spread of a recognition that openness is good for everyone. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. posner. congress has reserved tens of millions of dollars for funding in the censorship initiatives. just last december your bureau

called for $5 million of this funding. however, as a barber certain group senders pointed out the activation required a significant quote in country presence requiring the groups developing a censorship software, for example, to physically be present in an authoritarian country. i know i.t. expert, but the impression i get is the software is pretty portable. i also get the impression that it's hard to live in an author taurean country and as an anti-censorship programmer in a country like, i don't know, say iran. why do we have this requirement and is it necessary? >> senator, i think there's been some misunderstanding of that

requirement. and i will say we've gotten a range of very exciting proposals from more than 20 different entities. what we are trying to do is create opportunities for people operating in tough repressive places like iran, to get access to information. when we talk about presidents, we're not talking about having servers on the scene or complicated technical equipment. what we're trying to do is find entities, a range of different groups who are looking as we are creatively at how to use internet, how to use telephone application to better communicate within their own societies. so the field is wide open and we have a range of different applicants for that money, many of those whom are not located in the countries that we are --

>> in the proposal, says the bulk of project activities must take place in country and life between one and three years. >> but when we say that, what we're talking about is, for example, let's take the example of iran. what we're interested in doing is providing the kind of training assistance protection to people, iranians, who are within their own society trying to open a free flow of information and access to information. we are working with a range of groups that are not themselves based in iran or in china or in any of these countries. we're trying to create opportunities for people inside their own countries, their own societies to communicate more effectively. that's the purpose of that language. >> okay, i'm not sure i totally follow, but let's go somewhere else. a "washington post" specifically

criticized the state for not giving offense to a group called the global internet freedom consortium and mr. chairman, without objection i like to add a copy of that editorial for the record. according to "the wall street journal," these are the guys who developed the software that allowed protesters in iran to communicate during and after the government cracked down. can you speak to the post editorial and why hasn't this group received any funding? >> first of all, the group you mention is one of the 20 some that applied for funding in december and those applications or that money is now being disbursed and were reviewing all the applications that will make a decision in the next few months. and they were open, the competition was open and we encourage them to apply and they did, which is a good time.

our approach has been that there is not one magic answer to how to circumvent these restrictions, that there need to be a range of tools, a range of different approaches. we sorted view ourselves as somewhat like a venture capital firms in the silicon valley trying a lot of different things. >> these have been particularly facile and there's not one that -- >> there are different views about how successful any one of these has been and we're looking at that. but we're absolutely open to there being a candidate for funding and looking at it very seriously. >> mr. weitzner, and of the free trade agreement are negotiated either united states trade representative, not your department. but i so want to ask you this question. over time, our free trade agreement has come to include

robust protections for workers and for the environment. one of our latest fta korean fta includes quote of the free of information in facilitating trade, but it only covers international information, not in country censorship. and also is mandatory. will this administration support a simple mandatory ban on political censorship on the internet in future trade agreements? >> that's a question i'm not prepared to speak to write here, but we'll certainly take it back and consider it. i think as we look at the free trade agreements that are being amended in the new ones that are being negotiated, it certainly pro. to consider the range of issues that affect the open internet. it's clearly in the interest of promoting free trade to have an open internet scandal be happy to come back with you and talk in more detail about your

suggestion. >> okay, and you mentioned that part of your portfolio is trade and intellectual properties, so i just wanted to bask in were talking about the free flow of information and internet freedom here. but i want to also talk for a second, that as long as we are considering putting this kind of restrictions in our trade agreements, that will restrict censorship, what are we doing on intellectual property and can we put these together to prevent countries like china for ripping off our intellectual property, our movies, music, et cetera. >> as you probably know, senator, a member of the free trade agreements that we have already negotiated have intellectual property provisions in them and they are negotiations ongoing. on trade and other venues to

advance that two other countries as well. so it's an agenda that's being actively pursued by this administration. >> okay, thank you tiered thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. kaufman. >> i want to thank you you for holding this hearing. it's very timely and i can't think of anything more important than the ideas that were going to be successful in having a peaceful world over the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. i spent years wrestling with the problem of internet freedom in how you do with that in certain countries. and i just like to bring in force with mr. posner said and that is in the late 90's when not to silicon valley and talk to the experts out there about how do you do this battle and how can you win and they all come into a person, reassured us that they cannot block what it is that we are sending, but it's always easier to send messages than it is to block. it's like nuclear where you set one, two, three, four missiles. knocking them down as much or

difficult than putting them out. if you do this thing in the end is created and doing more and people will find a way. that is in no way how difficult it is to do with their non-technical people with these different techniques that are available. the second thing i'd like to believe follow-up is what senator coburn said. i'm convinced one of the secrets of this is government. they think this is important, for instance, wheat for a country that we all know. there's always 20 things we want to talk about. it is not on the agenda for discussion, they get the clear mission would not care about and far too often this issue is not on the agenda and not just the internet, freedom of the press. i'm saying in these discussions when we go overseas, if we do not resist, they will get the message this really doesn't matter. so senator coburn is random point in my opinion we have to stress the government to government power. in both of you comment on the recent conviction of google

representatives in italy for third-party content, what it means for internet freedom and what we can do about it both in the state department and the commerce department? >> it is distressing to say the least that italian authorities have sought to make representatives, local representatives to a private company. in a sense, the sensors of content and we are clearly concerned about the ramifications of that as it was spread out across the globe. it is obviously -- they are obviously sensitivities with the companies i think it's got to take again responsibility for monitoring the content. but this is a company to mind was trying to do that. and when they were informed about the content acted properly and get there being targeted by government. so i think this is actually a

very important case and one we need to respond to and follow very closely. >> thank you, senator. i'd agree the case is very important in the larger issue that it raises is probably even more important. one of the first steps that the united states to in legislating and creating a legal environment for the internet was to recognize that if we place third parties in the position of third party -- whether their internet service providers for those who post content such as youtube. if you place those parties into position of having to figure out what the rules about third-party content might be, to figure out whether they might be viable, that the internet really would grind to a halt. and i think that it's an issue that i think we tackled early on in the united states and its one that i hope we can raise awareness of around the world as we go forward.

>> and i hope a gamble to government to government multilateral. this could bring it all to a halt in the interest of anyone to have this happen. and if italy gets away with it, then more countries will do the same thing. one of the models i think we should use one port on this is not voluntary and that is the voice that, to deal with iran and the way iran blocks the internet in the things they do. and we have the voice -- the government has promoting ways to help get folks around the iranian blocking of the internet. and mr. posner, we are expecting a report soon. can you give me the status of where we are on not? >> as i understand it, the report was -- a draft of it has been prepared by the gbg and is now being reviewed in an interagency process and i think you should get it shortly. it is certainly underway and i will make sure that you get it very soon.

>> good, thank you. are there any examples beyond google, what google is doing in china of corporations taking on charges for internet freedom that she can think of off the top of your head? some good stories? >> yeah, i would say -- i mean, one of the things that again has been encouraging to me about the companies that participated in the global network initiative is that they've taken internally steps to do things to preempt or to anticipate problems. so for example, we talk about google. i'd also talk about yahoo! in the same breath. i have really internally undertaken to make human rights part of their internal decision-making process. and when they've gone into new markets, they've undertaken to review into country analyses so they know what they're getting themselves into. i think those sorts of steps, while they're not dramatic are

essential. if we're really talking about companies stepping out and taking responsibility, it starts within their own corporate structure and it starts with their understanding the places where they're operating and taking the time to really evaluate the human rights and free expression risks. so i think that's the kind of initiative that i'm looking in hoping that other companies will follow. >> i think that's a business division having worked in corporate america. whether you're going to in country where you're going to have a problem. many people attribute the end of segregation in the south is when american said they wanted to do away with the good neighbor policy. and with all due respect, i think until corporations decide that they're not going to abide by the internet freedom good neighbor policy, we are going to be aiding and abetting like we have in the past regimes from blocking the internet and a lot of it is being done with u.s. technology companies.

at some point someone has to get up and say i'm not going to do it. on the slippery slopes we all travel and we all know that is if i don't do it, someone else will. that's the time to sat back and examine your conscience on what's going on. the other thing is an interesting mind and that is u.s. companies. i mean, what is a u.s. company today with multinational corporations having so many interests around the world? to deal with non-us companies and what they're doing about internet freedom? >> i think one of the challenges we face now and the gni will face in its own operations is trying to reengage particularly with some of the western european governments and companies and some of the asian companies, the japanese and koreans than others. this cannot just be a qs based initiatives. and in the early negotiations or discussions of the gni, several of the telephone companies from europe were nominally involved,

preliminarily involved and they pulled that. we are very keen to get european governments and european companies in particular, the asian companies as well to get engaged as well. this has to be a collective response. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. and i'd like to ask a question that may portray my legal training back in the early days of our republic. but i'm trying to put in my own mind the spectrum of the dvds were it would be -- where most of us would approve of an internet company cooperating with the government. example one, child. our government in the course of investigation asks for the identification of those who have add access to certain websites which should be the basis for prosecution. example two, people venting their political feelings

bordering on the violence against certain officials. number three, specific threats of violent against an individual, a member of congress and the president of the united states. number four, involvement in terrorism working with groups that are literally trying to do us harm. number five, the disclosure of information classified by our government as top secret, which may compromise our national security. as i've gone up the spectrum here, you can see the severity of the issue and the seriousness of the issue. and i'm wondering -- i don't want to oversimplify what we're doing here and saying it should be easy for companies doing business in other countries to know where to draw the line. where does gni draw the line? how they draw the line?

mr. posner. >> it's an excellent question and it's probably one of the toughest questions to deal with in a practical way. there is -- that was to give, we have all sorts of constraints in our own society against pornography and against promoting or supporting terrorism or engaging in violent acts are promoting them. i think we have to use the same frame globally and say there are certain activities that the government has an obligation to prevent as a matter of law enforcement. the challenge we face is that the concept of law enforcement, international security takes on a very different coloration if you're talking about the government of iran or the government of china or many others. in the notion of national security becomes so overwhelmingly broad, that what we would consider protected speech, political speech, you

know, criticism of government action becomes under that rubric. so that's the challenge. company site and with some justification, we need to follow local laws, somebody tells us there's a violation of national security. we need to be responsive to that. i think the hardest, almost the hardest question is when do you say no, that does it feel to us like a legitimate national security question. you just don't like being criticized. and that's the world we live in. >> how does gni draw the line? >> to be honest, that's where we have many, many discussions with the negotiation of the gni on exactly that question. and i think those are going to be the hardest calls for companies to make or for government to make. the good news for me is, there is an awful lot of activity and work that can be done that's short of that, where you're dealing with your speech and where your example, the video,

you know, that tian an men square image on google cn to be the same one that's on the google site that we all look at. and so there's a lot of work to be done in promoting free expression that i think is clearly a spot for it is companies for together, push the limit and a senator coffman said, we reinforced not what karen action. >> mr. weitzner tiered >> thank you. let me try to address that procedural aspect of that. the nature of that spectrum that you drew out, we recognize how some national variations around the world and we've always had to deal with that. i think some part of the way that we can come together in an environment where the internet can actually function globally, where these national differences can be accounted for, where they're reasonable, but where they don't become overall

barriers to the freefall information and viability of the internet is to really keep in mind two important principles. i think we should have a basic expectation of two process. national rules may vary, but when they become arbitrary, i think we all have a concern. and that's obviously most concern for the individual rights at stake. by the same token, transparency and particularly of these rules wherever they found that spectrum and however that results over time are los angeles were going to have a viable commercial environment because as we've discussed, companies simply cannot make these choices by just throwing darts at a board and trying to figure out what's in the mind of the government that have real power over them. i would say that if we can stick to those procedural notions of due process and transparency, we have some chance as an international community of the evolving towards a set of norms that everyone can live with.

we will never, i think, close the gap completely, that to say. but what we have to work for both for the sake of human rights and for the sake of u.s. innovation and global innovation on the internet is making sure that we have an environment in which everyone is able to function with some predictability and stability. >> senator coburn. senator franken. >> i guess i just wanted to make this one thing clear, just for people listening or watching about the situation in italy. because i think we talked on a pretty high level about it aired and basically, it is that servers, is this right? our platforms, basically if you're a platform in america, you're not responsible or you can't be put in prison because somebody used her platform to

print something that was viable or something like that. and that allows for the free flow of information, whereas in italy, what's happened is that google executives have been prosecuted and convicted, right? and will have to go to prison just because something showed up on using their platform. i'm only saying this because i think -- i just want to clarify for people listening. sometimes i think we operate on a higher level here or maybe i'm mistaken. maybe people listening are operating on a higher level than we are. >> senator, i know you have -- [laughter] hopefully they're some of both. i don't know. i know you have a witness from google on the next panel, so i don't want to speak for them. they guess, i think it's a very

stark situation. there were criminal convictions handed out and indeed the situation -- and it is indeed the case that that sort of conviction would not have happened under united states law because of the protections that we provide to service providers and platform providers. i want people to understand this. i remember then everyone had a contest to duets and it was basically anti-bush ads or whatever. and one of the people put up -- one of the people sent in an ad comparing the bush administration to the not the regime, which is just wrong. you don't do that. the nazi regime is way beyond parallel. admin, you can't do that. now move on didn't know it was that. but i kept hearing shows like, you know, on fox saying, move on

on an ad comparing, you know, bush with hitler. and, you know, i just want people to understand what that was and that what a platform is and that we shouldn't -- we can't hold those platforms responsible for things that people put up on the platform. that's all. thank you. >> yeah, i mean they can't place those. mr. chairman, i think it would ask you in your comments on legally how we should do with this. i think if you go to these other countries and correct me if i'm wrong, my experience, all jamming of broadcast, all closing down they don't they were doing anything about this. this is about child pornography.

i mean, that's the number one. an american corporations when you go to them early on in this process and said what are you doing, we're just providing equipment to deal with child pornography, when in fact when you go into the country clearly they're blocking everything. this is like the stewards coming out said to when you see it. legally the were doing child pornography, were controlling national security. they use that in these very sophisticated countries as why they are blocking the internet. is that a fair analysis of what's going on? >> it is. in fact, after secretary clinton gave her speech in january, i talked to several chinese activists and that's exactly the way the chinese government and chinese media were portraying the speech. this is not about free speech to pretax. they just want to promote. so we sort of live in a world where we assume there's a

rational discourse about these things. in fact, our intentions are being challenged all the time. in the notion of a kind of free open internet is assumed to be for purposes that we in fact would also not regard as legitimate. >> thank you i'm a senator coffman and thank you for this panel. with some fellow questions and we hope you can answer them in a timely fashion. if the second panel would please come to the table, i'm going to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record the assessment of fees for the gni, which i believe will be referred to in one of the witnesses second panel. let me start by asking the three witnesses who are before us to please stand and raise your right hand. duo from the testimony you're about to give before this committee is the whole truth, nothing but the truth so help you god. thank you. let the record reflect that the

three witnesses answered in the affirmative. the first witness is nicole wong, vice president and deputy counselor google where she's primarily responsible for company products and litigation. ms. wongcome i want to commend you and your company, google, for engaging with congress on this critical issue. ms. vaughn without the law for the perkins culprit in 2006 and were the the best lawyers under 40 at the national asian pacific american bar association. law degree, masters degree in journalism from the university of california berkeley. she testified at her first hearing in 2008. we thank you for joining us again. following her, rebecca mackinnon a fellow at university for center technology policy, cofounder of global voices online international network of journalists and bloggers heard she's not a member of the global network initiative. ms. mackinnon has been at the berkman center for internet

society, the supervisor the university of journalism and media studies center. previous work as journalists for cnn in beijing for nine years, served as beijing bureau chief correspondent from 199,822,001. she holds a bachelor's degree from harvard college. thank you for being here. and our final witness is omid memarian. i hope i pronounced that quickly. journalists and blogger. he received human right watch, highest honor in 2005 at the human rights defender award. he was awarded the golden pen award at the national press thessalonica and in 2002. he's been blogging in english and persian since 2002. the bashers degree from inside university. mr. memarian know the iranian government persecuted you because you exercise your free speech. thank you rubberneckers to speak out and join us in that capacity.

let us start with the wong. your five minutes. a written statement will be put in the record in its entirety. please proceed. >> thank you, senator durbin, ranking members and. i want to talk to you today about the importance of an open internet. an open internet is a leading national broadcaster in venezuela to upload daily newscast on youtube after hugo chavez review their broadcasting license because they were encountered whose policies. an open internet is what entered the publication of bug reports, photos and videos of congress burmese monks being beaten and killed in 2007. even after the government shut down the national media and kicked out foreign journalists. an open internet is what brought the protests on the presidential elections in iran last summer to all of our attention, even after the government banned foreign journalists, shut down the national media and disrupted internet and telephone service. but the continued power of this medium requires a commitment from citizens, companies and

governments alike. in the last two years, more than 25 governments have blocked google services, including youtube and blogger. the growing problem with secretaries content on internet freedom where she'd cited cases from china to tunisia to this pakistan to vietnam. for example, our video service has been blocked in turkey for nearly two years now because it is their videos that insult turkish nash. in 2009 during elections in pakistan, the pakistani government issued an order to all its isps to block certain opposition videos on youtube. and of course, our experience in china where the last year showed a measurable increase in censorship in every medium, including the internet. an open internet, one that continues to fulfill the democratic function of giving voice to individuals, particularly those who speak in defense, demands that each of us makes the right choices to support a free and strong internet and to resist government censorship and other acts to show speech, even when

that decision is hard. as google is deputy general counsel, part of my job is handling censorship demands around the world. that is by three principles, maximizing access to information online, notifying users when information has been removed by government demand and retaining our users trust by protecting privacy and security. no examples received more attention than china in recent months. in mid-december we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure, originated from china with a primary but unsuccessful old to access gmail accounts. however it became clear that what first appeared to be significant ones with something quite different. other companies for a range of businesses finance technology, media and chemical were similarly targeted grades we discovered in our investigation that the accounts of dozens of gmail users around the world who advocate for human rights in china it. to have been accessed by third parties. let me be clear that this

happened independent of the attack on google, most likely to fishing or mao were placed on the user's computers. the circumstances as well as attempts over the last year to limit free speech online lead us to conclude that we are no longer comfortable center in our search results in china. we are reviewing our business operations there now. no particular industry, much less than a single company can tackle internet censorship on its own, concerts elective action is needed to promote the impact of censorship here we are grateful for lawmakers and particularly your leadership, mr. chairman, whoever's marconi suit joined the global network initiative as a platform for companies coming in and works investors and academics, gmi members commit to standards that respect and protect users rights to privacy and freedom of expression. additional corporate participation will help the gni reach its full potential. beyond the gni, everyone of us

at the grassroots corporate and governmental level should make every effort to maximize access to information online. in particular, governments can take some specific steps. first and foremost, the u.s. government should promote internet's openness is a major plank of our foreign policy. the free flow of information is saved important part of diplomacy, foreign assistance and engaging in human rights. second, internet censorship should be part of our trade agenda because it has serious economic implications. it tells the playing field for domestic companies and reduces consumer choice. it affects not only u.s. and internet companies, but also hurts businesses in every sector to use the internet to reach their customers. third, our government and governments around the world should be transparent about demands to censor our request for user information are winning network comes under attack. this is a critical part of the democratic process allowing citizens to hold their governments accountable. finally, google supports the commitment of congress and the administration to provide funds

to make sure people who need to access the internet safely get the right training and tools. want to thank each of you for your continued leadership in the fight against online censorship. we look forward to working with you to maximize access to information and promote online free expression around the world. if the next thank you, ms. wong. ms. mackinnon. you might thank you for testifying today. a court to answer your questions along with those other esteemed members of the subcommittee. after describing how it. some is adapting to the internet in ways that involve companies i'm afraid, i will offer some policy recommendations. now if the turin regimes except these days they need to connect to the internet to be economically competitive. but they're also working out how to control things well enough to stand power. regimes like china and iran and a growing list of others usually start with the blocking of websites, but they'll choose a range of other exile landing greater detail in my right

testimony. they include cyberattacks against activist website, deletion of online content by internet companies at government request, and the use of law enforcement demands in countries where the definition of crime includes political speech, which means that companies end up assisting in the jailing and tracking of activists, whether or not ever intended to do so. so what do we do? at the top of my list of recommendations is corporate responsibility. mr. chairman, your recent letters to 30 companies in the information and communication technologies that are were an importance that in advancing the conversation about how american companies can compete in the global marketplace while at the same time upholding core values of internet freedom. soon after your 2008 hearing on the subject, google, yahoo! and microsoft launched the global network initiative, he could of conduct for free expression and privacy in conjunction with human rights groups investors

and academics, including myself. the gni recognizes that no market is without its political difficulties or ethical dilemmas. every company, every product in every market is different. therefore we believe in an approach that combined flexibility with accountability. but fundamentally, it's reasonable, i believe, to expect that all companies in the information and communications technologies that are should acknowledge and seek to litigate the human rights risk and concerns associated with their businesses, just as they and other companies consider environmental risks and labor concerns. next comes legislation. lott may be needed to induce corporate responsibility if companies fail to take voluntary action. meanwhile, however, i recommend immediate steps. it should be made easier for the dems to take action and a u.s. court of law would companies assist regimes and violating their universally recognized

rights. we need to incentivize private-sector innovation that helps support internet freedom. we need to revise export controls on sanctions in two ways. on the one hand, we need to fix path that now make it difficult for u.s. internet companies to legally serve activists from sanctioned companies like iran, syria and zimbabwe. get on the other hand, we have to make collaboration with repression more difficult they make it harder for u.s. companies to sell products and services to regimes with a clear track record of suppressing peaceful political and religious speech. then there's technical support. congress deserves rates for supporting the government of tools that help people in repressive regimes get around internet blocking. but these tools do nothing to counter other tactics machines are now using. so our support should also include tools and training to help people a state surveillance, detect spyware and guard against debilitating

cyberattacks. mechanisms to preserve and redistribute censor content that's been deleted from the internet and also support for global platforms through which citizens around the world can share information intact takes to fight internet freedom and innovative ways. finally, it's vital that we have continued executive ranch leadership. secretary of state clinton plan marked speech on internet freedom made it clear this is a core american value in reviving the global internet freedom task force the administration can coordinate between government and industry and between government agencies so that u.s. diplomacy, trade, commerce and national security all can support the goal of internet freedom. in conclusion, there is no silver bullet for global internet freedom, as with physical freedom, internet freedom requires constant struggle and constant vigilance. it'll also need to support -- we will also need to support the

ecosystem of industry, government and concerned citizens working together. esther chairman, and all mothers of the subcommittee i commend you for taking the historic first steps in that direction. thank you. >> thank you very much. mr. memarian. [inaudible] >> if you would please -- thank you. >> i welcome this opportunity to speak on the important matter of internet freedom and i hope that our efforts how people around the world to have more access to internet information and the other means of communication. i'm a journalist and a senior researcher for the international campaign for human rights in iran and an independent nonprofit that monitors iran's compliance with international human rights standards. in 2004 was arrested by the iranian security forces and i

was held in a prison in solitary confinement and then i was kept to -- i was taken to a prison where hundreds of prisoners, journalists, civilian society activists have been taken after the june 12 presidential election. during my time in solitary confinement i was beaten and psychologically and physically tortured repeatedly and i was told that i cannot post my writings on my blog and i should stop working as a journalist. there was no actual point in my case. i will rest at an abuser using the internet for sharing information. and this last year, the blogger died in detention. when i moved to the united states in 2005 i learned that my website has been shut down and it was not long before the

iranian government shut down my website was a company that provided the domain and host army. in a letter, the company mentioned restriction on any transaction with iranian companies. later i learned that many democracies were human rights websites had to change their domain on the outcome of that restriction in its easier for the iranian government to monitor those domains. so i decided to participate in this. i talked to many of my friends, bloggers are not and journalist put difficulties to even send a simple e-mail or chat on the messenger. they'll believe any kind of support to give iranians more access to the internet is supporting human rights and democracy in the country. supporting turkey in the persian gulf region and more importantly saving the lives of many people who are threatened by

restrictions on information that allow the iranian government to operate the hind close stores as that violates the basic rights. as a journalist and a human rights defender, i would like to stress the importance of applying the standards in a balance in a particular way, not only iran, but numerous other countries and the rights to access the internet as the people today mentioned. and the united states should support compliance across the board. otherwise, the charge of holding double standards will stay. with that in mind, i would like to make form points in my testimony this morning in relation to global internet freedom. first, modify and the internet, the u.s. sanctions on iran.

certain sanctions or interpretations of the sanctions have seriously damaged the ability of iranians to access the internet and need to be modified. all mass-market software that is useful for publishing communications and education should be accented from the sanctions. a second is that companies whose technology to the iranian government need to be exposed and face sanctions. also, online advertising is not allowed for persian websites. many companies such as google or facebook to not include persian or farsi as a supported language for websites or allow targeting users with such a language. also, funding is needed to allow hiring, a limited number of web developers, many of the small activist groups new t. hire developers to build their websites. the number of web developers

that have the persian language. these groups need to be able to hire the developers in iran and the payments could be cast to 10,000 per year to make sure such a solution is not abused for other purposes. and i have some other suggestions in regard to internet access and giving access is to activist and making -- providing anti-jamming for satellite broadcast as the no for the iranian broadcast to the u.s. government could dedicate the specific satellite number which is against the jamming similar to satellites. and also providing iranians with free satellite internet which is technologically possible. e-mail security which is important. i think that companies can provide this kind of technologies and also security which is the idea that we can

discuss later. thank you. >> mr. memarian, thank you here it be that a number of witnesses before this human rights committee who have inspired us to continue our work and you are one of them. you have paid a heavy price for your commitment to your profession of journalism and your commitment to free expression. your courage to come here today is inspiring to all of us come as a thank you very much for doing that. i can recall in the not-too-distant past when my mother's homeland of lithuania was finally seeking freedom and independence and what kept us alive in the united states was the information that came from lithuania during those dark and dangerous times over a fax machine. that was the technology at the moment. and the soviets couldn't stop us. and we were kept up to speed on what was happening on a day to day basis and we were able to

respond in a global media. well, technology has grown in so many different ways, but it still is the right avenue as ms. wong has said for us to seek it and use it, to promote dialogue and expression and freedom which you have sacrificed so much for personally. in the course of your testimony, you talked about the european companies who sell surveillance or censorship technology to the iranian government. as a result of u.s. sanctions against iran, u.s. companies are not allowed to sell that kind of technology to the iranian government. do you think the u.s. government should make certain american companies don't sell surveillance or censorship technology to other countries that censor the internet such as china and vietnam? >> i think it's very important to include other countries as well because some of these

countries and iranians provide this kind of technologies to a third country. so that kind of technology could go to iran through china or the other countries that have a good relationship with iran. >> i suppose after the election that took place nine months ago, there was the expectation of the so-called twitter revolution in iran would topple the government and change iran. and obviously that is not occurred and we've seen the limit of internet activism in iran. but can you give us your review of what impact this had him continues to have an inspiring those who question the current government? >> i think it was not the intent, god knows how many more people would have been killed in iran and the other cities in the south cricket has been really important that people who dominate the narrative after the

election. and so, it was very significant. >> i think ms. wong made that point as well at night to ask you, you heard or saw the introduction here of google out of china and the reference to tenements claire and i know your company has announced change in terms of censorship in china. can you tell me what your timetable is to accomplish that if you turn your mike on, please. >> thank you, senator. and it's a very fair question to let me take it on directly. we don't have a specific timetable. having said that, we are firm in our decision that we will not censor our search results in china and we are working toward that end. we have many employees on the ground, some of whom are very dear colleagues of mine. and so, we recognize both the seriousness and sensitivity of

the decisions we are making and we want to figure out a way to get to that end as stopping our search results in a way that is appropriate and responsible. so we are working on that as hard as we can, but it's a very human issue for us. >> thank you for stating your clear goal and i think we are all sensitive to the fact that there are important steps to reach that goal that we want you to make in the right way and expeditious way, but one that is sensitive to those elements. earlier i spoke to the panel, the first panel, about this gradation of cooperation between the companies like yours and the government. and i went through a list of possible like to be on the internet, asking where we would draw the line, cooperation with the government to stop child pornography, cooperation with the government to dealing with

nonspecific politically threatening language, cooperation with the government for specific threats of violence over the internet. cooperation with the government when there's evidence of advocacy of terrorism. and cooperation when it comes to the disclosure of information classified as secret by that government. you are in the firing line here when it comes to this issue and the legal question to have to face. ow would you draw the lines. >> it was a very insightful observation because it's something we wrestle with and incredibly difficult not only to look at it as a specific piece of content, but to look at it in the context where you are operating. there multiple layers in which you try to address it. the first is making decisions about entry into a market in the

first place. about what frameworks of law you had to work with. when you look at particular pieces of content, you try to make decisions based on what you know about the laws in that country. some of which there seems to be almost universally on child porn as a bad. on the e political censorship. our general solution is to try to give out which are appropriate for us to abide by given the value of company and the places we operate. the second part of the solution is that mr. weitzner commented on transparency to a different jurisdiction we are required to remove the information we try to be transparent with users that information has been removed to comply with government laws. you've seen that in china where we remove search results from the property we actually put a notice the bottom of the search

results page to let the users no information has been removed as required by law. we do that on all of our services and most what we actually do is linked to the demand letter that asked as to remove the infractions of the user can see who request and what was requested to be removed. >> i would like to follow up and ask about two elements from the element of due process and the companies. if you are to challenge a government and their assertion of the right to know the name of the user or censored information do you use the due process in that country to follow their laws? and second, can you turn to any international organization that establish standards that you try to stand by? >> yes, we do try to use the process within the country to address -- to challenge the request for the user information as we think appropriately we've done that in turkey for example

what that has gotten is being blocked in turkey the last two years. in addition we are looking in terms of our own standards and the principles based on the universal declaration of human rights and it is along those lines we are trying to ensure the maximum amount of access to information. >> it senator frank and would allow me to ask one more question and i won't need a second round and i would defer to him but ms. mckennon let me ask about the gni. after three years we have active participants and some flirtation and some being ignored, some ignoring the operation. what is holding it back? it can't be money because i put the schedule in the record here. it's certainly a reasonable fee, $2,000 for a company with

$100 million of revenue. it doesn't sound like a lot of money although some use it as an excuse. is their something else you can share about this resistance to make this an american effort or international effort? >> that's a very good question in question i often ask myself. what is holding the company's back? it seems in part to the fear of acknowledging that human rights is part of the business that telecommunications and internet companies no matter how you slice it has implications for free expression privacy and human rights and i think a lot of companies are afraid of having that conversation for fear people hang charges on the various kinds and the avoid having the conversation of all and i think what i saw what google, yahoo! and microsoft was

an evolution of self awareness and coming held in terms of recognizing it's okay to have this conversation. it's okay to recognize that you have responsibilities and in fact if you hold yourself accountable this is good for your business because your users are more likely to trust you and if you do make mistakes there is a process by which you can try to figure out how to reverse them through a multi stakeholder group that is trying to help you succeed. the point of gni is in for the rights groups and academics like myself to play gotcha with the companies that help them of late making the mistakes by anticipating and thinking through in advance. but the first step is acknowledging that you are not perfect, that you are fallible, you might even be corruptible as a human being in the pursuit of profits and you need help for

society and from a range of factors to help to the right thing and just as it took quite a while for industry overtime and to have conversations about environmental issues that took a few decades and adhere to labor standards 100 years ago it took a certain process for companies to be comfortable discussing these things in public and it's really only been the past few years companies in this sector has been confronted with this reality that just because you're connecting people to the internet doesn't mean you're automatically going to free them that you have responsibilities in terms of how you are sitting at your business and how you are constructing relationships with different governments and that matters so google, yahoo! and microsoft are to be commended

for making the first step and i do hope other companies will recognize this is not as scary as it may seem to them and that it's essential for the future of their business and credibility in addition to being the right thing to do if they want a free and open internet to continue to exist. >> i'm going to close with this question which you may be think about, maybe not. let's assume you are a customer or user facebook, twitter, apple, hewlett-packard that are not part of this conversation. how could you if he were a customer accuser who happens to believe they should be part of this human rights effort most effectively influence them through the internet. >> there are active as tools which you can form facebook propes of course but i think part of it is for customers and

for customers and users to think of themselves as the internet and need to push these companies and services you are using eni to be active and also investors should be thinking about okay when i'm investing in stocks of these different companies this should be one of the criteria that i'm using in addition to their environmental and labor behavior and when you are thinking of buying products and so on so there's a whole bunch of different ways to do this but part of it is absolutely for consumers to be talking about this to be putting pressure saying this company is good. i can trust these people and these people i'm also sure because they are in denial about whether or not they are even and any issues about my privacy. islamic before we adjourn this hearing there will be something under way. thank you for the testimony and senator frank and for your patience. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to kind of follow-up on that because you

are talking -- i think the global network initiative is a great start, and this is for both you and ms. wong, and mr. memarian, i want to get to you and i can't tell you how much admiration i have for your work and your courage. i think that gni is a great start, but microsoft is one of the members and yahoo! is one of the members and i don't see them making the same kind of decision google has made. i think that bill gates recently called chinese censorship very limited. i think those were his words.

what do you think we can do and others can do to help other companies follow google's lead in china? that's both through you, ms. wong and ms. mackinnon. >> so, we actually -- our decision about china wasn't an easy one and i don't think any company will confront how to do business in these regimes has an easy one. we think we have now made the right decision to be we stand by our decision for sure. i was puzzled by microsoft's statements because they are not consistent at all with conversations we've had the last three years in our view this censorship in china is not to be minimized. having said that we have been clear all through the gni process we are not striving for one size fits all. this is the right decision for

google. we would not propose to impose the decision on any other company. we do think it's important to be part of a conversation where we actively discuss how things are going in a country and that is an important part of gni. >> to follow-up on matt, within the gni with a ceo's of microsoft and some other companies made some remarks that were quite disappointing. we had some rather heated discussions internally about that. but it is absolutely true as nicole said, it's not one-size-fits-all that each company is a very different kind of business going on in china. donner who actually sold their chinese business to a chinese company a few years ago and they don't actually have operational control over that anymore. microsoft's situation is also somewhat different so the idea is not to impose a one size fits

all set of standards on everybody in a very rigid way but rather to help the companies to be mindful what decisions they are making and what the implications orient to be transparent and accountable about the decisions because part of the problem, and center burba nei lewd to this, these companies or in china and how to comply with certain law enforcement decisions but how are you complying with them? so it is an issue what extent the do they feel comfortable they are complying in a way that is transparent and responsible and that they can do that within the context of that particular market. and it may be possible for one company to the and not another depending on the very specific relationship they have with the government and very specific nature of the product. it is also the case that google

the past year in china has come under tremendous pressure from the government and in the chinese media under the guidance and antipornography crackdown that they have been slammed in the chinese media for exposing chinese used to the content when lo and behold you type smutty terms into the search engine, the results appear and so a lot of these crackdowns and so on are done under the guidance law enforcement and language we use in the west in a very different context so there are difficult decisions companies have to make oftentimes it's very specific to that company at the point of the gni is to be flexible and accountable at the same time. next year is going to be the first year we do this if evaluations where we start being able to benchmark how the companies have done so far and

that will also move the process forward but it is definitely important to get more companies recognizing stepping up and taking responsibility and that the gni is in the but in danger disengaged. there's a lot of different ways you can engage, it's about how do we engage rather than in or out. >> china is a big market. that's my guess. and you brought up the issue of companies doing self examinations and talking about how corruptible they are, and i suppose if you're looking potentially the world's biggest market in taking yourself out of the bottom matter of principle,

you are making a big decision about how corruptible or incorruptible you are. mr. memarian, thank you for youy to read in your testimony you talk about what is keeping us from having greater expansion of freedom of speech online in iran and rightfully so what i have a different question and then i might even go over my time, mr. chairman. can you tell what technological tools the iranians are using right now to get past the government censors and surveillance and i want to know what is already working so maybe we can do more to support that. >> there are companies that

provide anticensorship software so people can go beyond proxies' and have access to the internet and see those website is filtered. private companies and initiatives also can provide resources if you want to do more and provide more access for them. initiatives can provide resources to support the development of technology designed to combat internet censorship. i know many people are working on these now in san francisco and silicon delhi and other states so those initiatives could be supported by the states but it's the department or the other companies and i just want to add something about the fact some companies like dahuk and facebook have not joined the gni initiative and there are rumors

in iran that dahuk and facebook have made the deal with the iranian government and eventually they will give them the information of users and the rumors are so strong in a way that some people have removed their profiles from facebook because of the threat they feel so i think the fact that facebook and yahoo! are not eager to join such initiatives it's not really acceptable at the time that is a matter of life and death of some people around the world. the world is not just the u.s., many people in other countries and iran and china and the imam and egypt, the use the services and they are responsible for what they do and what they provide. islamic it occurs to me there was say magazine, series of

ongoing cartoons called spy versus spy and it seems to have an element where there is the technology and anticensorship technology that's being worked on by some people. ms. wong, the chairman brought this up in mr. memarian's written testimony he talked about companies like yours and microsoft block certain downloads to people in iran for the fear of sanctions and mr. speed it kind of explains this hurts the people of iran because there is encryption technology that the of iranian government already has and that the people of iran don't so i

was wondering in this house by versus somebody kind of world that we are in here which includes not just technology but policy, government policy, business ethics and self searching, what should we be doing about these kind of technology's? do you think that just the government policy is wrong rick the? >> my understanding is that the office of foreign asset controls has certain regulations that prohibit issac download applications containing the encryption and that is why in order to comply with the u.s. law we do not permit the download of certain applications like the browser for example.

having said that the web services are globally available and we do not provide ourselves access to the web sites within iran. whether or not there should be a change in those regulations i think that probably deserves based on the conversation i heard today some consideration. i know flexible some of the regulations are framed and go according to particular countries you can have a regulation of not exporting certain things but exceptions are made for a simple books because we want to have the flow of information and educational materials maybe we should start to think about some of the tools companies like ours provided the same category of access to information. >> think mr. memarian was basically saying that the government of iran already has access to this and corruption,

so what's the point of keeping us out of the hands of iranians cover it? >> that's true and the sanctions are a blanket and should be revised and modified, and by a understand the concern of the companies who which do not frisk because the market is small and the companies prefer to stay away from it and like spending the tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees to apply and export license they prefer to forget so if those sanctions are to be modified i think that really helps. >> thank you, mr. chairman for indulging me. mr. speed, thank you for your courage and this wong and is mackinnon. spriggs before, mr. franken for

the interest in the hearing. i ask to make part of the letter from senator carl levin which notes that the department of state is recommending the foreign assets control issue a general license that was authorized download a free mass-market software by companies such as microsoft and google to iran for personal communications of the government is asking for a waiver so they can provide that additional information. i also have a statement which i will enter into the record without objection. from the chairman of the committee has senator patrick leahy as well as statements from business responsibility, computer and communications association, the global network initiative and reporters without borders which will be entered without objection i want to thank the panel and previous panel to extraordinary panels before the committee on a critically important topic brought home by your testimony.

you reminded us to think about the millions of people around the world is looking for a ray of hope each day that they should continue in their struggle for freedom and finding it when they can reach others on the internet and share their beliefs. this is what made america in its earliest days, thomas paine didn't have access to the internet is pamphlets were distributed and inspire a lot of people to fight for freedom. you have inspired us as i mentioned earlier by your coming here today and testifying and particularly the sacrifice he made in iran to help the country move forward. i want to thank you for that. we will continue to work on this issue. it may not be to eat years before we meet again puts a lot of the countries that refuse to be part of this hearing will have second thoughts and will make the right decision to move forward. the hearing stands adjourned.

>> [inaudible conversations]

republican senator jim bunning ended his week-long objection to proceeding on a bill that would among other things extend unemployment benefits. he agreed to allow the vote to go ahead provided to pace the benefits with offsets from another bill. his amendment eventually failed. the senate then voted 78-19 to pass the hundred 49 billion-dollar bill extending tax breaks on the employment benefits, flood insurance and other federal programs. before the votes democratic senator durbin of illinois joined senator bombing to debate the issue. this is 45 minutes. >> mr. president in a minute i'm going to speak about my amendment to pay for this bill. first i want talk about how we got here. last week i object to the majority leader request for

unanimous consent to pass the 30 day extension of several expiring programs that wasn't paid for. i offered to pass the exact same bill that was paid for and unfortunately he objected to my request. there was nothing stopping him from using the tools at his disposal to overcome my objections. the leader could have filed cloture on the bill and brought it to the floor last week instead of the bill could disagree to give away to his state. if he had done that this bill would have been signed into law already. he also could fall-year-old cloture on the bill and worked through the weekend and it would already be law.

or the leader couldn't proceed to the bipartisan bachus grassley bill but paid for these programs and it would've been signed into law by now or he could have accepted ninth request to pay for the bill and we would not be here tonight. instead of the leader decided to press ahead with the bills that adds to the debt and violates the principles of paygo everybody claims to care about. just over a month ago the majority in the senate passed paygo legislation that supposedly said we are going to pay for what we spend. i support the idea but i knew at the time the legislation would be ignored and unfortunately i was right.

barely one week after president obama signed the paygo lobby into affect the majority leader proposed a bill that was not paid for. the bill passed and added $10 billion to the deficit. that is $10 billion your children and my children and grandchildren will have to pay for. that is $10 billion on top of the $14 trillion national debt. after passing $10 billion more on to the future generations the majority leader proposed to pass another bill to add another $10 billion to the debt. that is when i said enough is enough. we can't keep adding to the debt

and passing the buck to the generations of the future workers and taxpayers, i shall plant your children and our grandchildren. as we know the national debt has grown at a record pace in recent years. a large part of that has been a result of the downturn in the economy a decade ago and then during the last few years but increased government spending has been a major factor. over the last few days several senators on the other side of the aisle have blamed republican spending for the debt and asked why we didn't pay for things when we were in charge. well, mr. president, they have a point. i wish we would have spent less and paid for more when we were

in charge. there are some notes i wish i could have back and i'm sure many of my colleagues on this side of the i will feel the same way. but it's not fair to blame the republicans spending for all of the drastic increases in our national debt. our side has not control the congress for more than three years and the current congress is spending more and faster than ever before. for example, last year the majority pushed through a so-called stimulus bill followed quickly by omnibus spending that contributed to the government ending the year $1.4 trillion in

the red. the largest one-year deficit in the history of the united states of america. clearly, we are not headed in the right direction. i do not want to turn this into a partisan debate because it isn't a partisan issue. i only make the points to show neither side has clean hands and what matters as we get our spending problems under control. as every struggling family knows, we cannot solve the debt problem by spending more three. we must get the debt problems under control and there is no better time than now. that is why i have been down here demanding this bill be paid for. i support the programs in the bill we are discussing and if the extension of the programs were paid for i would gladly

support the bill. the all in plan rate in my state is over 10%. many families to the television through satellite providers in kentucky. more than half of our state is bordered by reverse and flood insurance is vital to the people that live near those borders and in the of the major minor rivers in the state in fact i wrote a ball that enacted the current function to the conversion of the flood insurance program so i care deeply about it. i am concerned about all the other programs in this bill as well as every other member of this body. that is all the more reason to pay for this bill.

if we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support how can we tell the american people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything? that is what the senators say they want, and that is what the american people want. they want us to get our budgets in order just like they have to get their budgets in order every day. that is not what the majority is doing. so tonight, tomorrow and on every spending bill in the future we will see whether they mean business about controlling debt or if it is just where it's

we will see if paygo has any teeth or not. tonight, and i am offering a substitute amendment that pays for these important programs with a democratic ideas. tomorrow i will offer amendments to the offset, the longer-term extended bill that was on the floor earlier today, and i will be back on future spending bills demanding that they be paid for so future generations of americans will not be burdened with our overspending. as i said my amendment pays for this bill with space ideas. mr. president, the cost of this extending these programs is

$10.26 billion. the offset i am offering a well more than pay for this cost, and the offset should be familiar to many. it has been proposed by senator baucus and the substitute amendment to the term extension bill. it was proposed in the obama administration budget. the offset would prevent back -- bolack looker which is a by-product of the pulp and paper process from being eligible for the cellulose biofuel producer tax credits. this will save the treasury almost $24 billion over ten years according to the joint tax committee. as i said this will more than pay for the cost of the bill and

there will be almost $14 billion left over. under the paygo of rules the $14 billion will be available to be used to pay for the next bill that congress passes. i see we all expect the next bill will be the long-term extension bill. some might say i am creating a whole by using that offset now. that's not true. first we are moving over to billion dollars in costs from that larger bill by enacting the one month extensions now and we are also making $14 billion available for that bill. and members on this side of the ogle including myself have

offered and will offer ways to completely paid for the cost of the more expensive longer-term extension bill. this is a proposal made by the majority, and i hope we expect everyone of them to support my amendment. anyone who does not should be prepared to answer why the senate does not have to make the tough decisions to balance the government budgeted while every american family does. we must bring an end to the out-of-control spending and there is no better time than now. i urge my colleagues to join me and say enough and restore some discipline to washington.

i urge everyone in this body to support this amendment and i reserve the balance of my time. >> mr. president i rise in opposition to the amendment. the senator from kentucky decided after one week to accept exactly what was offered last week. last week we said to the senator from kentucky if you want to come up with a pay for further unemployment and health care benefits offered an amendment. you'll have your chance of the floor and is the senator from kentucky said no because i might lose their for i'm not going to offer the amendment. i will only object to moving forward with tiberi benefits for unemployment insurance and health care and several of the things i stay in my objection. the senator from kentucky came to the floor and found for

different ways to blame the democratic majority leader for his objection. i think he was the only senator out of 100 that objected. i don't question his motive for sincerity but i think in all candor let's understand where we are at this moment in time. during this one week period of time while the senator of kentucky could have offered in the amendment he didn't and as a result on sunday might of unemployment benefits were cut off for thousands of people across america. assistance for health insurance would cut off all across america. thousands of federal employees were furloughed, a federal contract for construction of versus been did why? he didn't want to offer the amendment he's offering to might.

i'm glad he's offering a bible tell you why i'm going to oppose it. he knows and i know if we don't pass this bill as it passed the house of representatives, if we make a change we are destined to send it to the house to act in a minimum weight several days or even longer conference committee to resolve his amendment and what happens to the common point during that time? they don't receive checks. 15,000 people in illinois had unemployment insurance cut off sunday night because of senator bunning's objection. they lost the helping hand to pay for their health insurance so the senator from kentucky tonight is suggesting to this will amendment. it will hurt a thing. and while we mall over his change and the movement between house and senate those people will continue to go without an unemployment insurance and

without health care assistance. 2,000 more each day are added to the roles of unemployed people who are going to pay the price for this move by the center senator. i know there's also a pain in his own state. i know many people are aware of the fact there is high unemployment across the united states. many lost their own insurance know it's affected his state. i've seen the numbers as a result of the senator's objection was 3,300 claimants will lose their unemployment insurance by march 15th if we don't complete action to read what he's done tonight is delay. what's even worse about this amendment it reason it should be defeated is not just because it will once again delayed

unemployment benefits to people across america. well once again create problems where people will lose their health insurance they may never eat be able to obtain again because of pre-existing conditions in the family. what's worse, the federal workers who can't go to work are going to suspend construction projects that create jobs across america while the senator from kentucky offers this amendment to change bartletts look at the heart of this. where did the senator from kentucky come up with resources to play for this insurance? he came up with it from the bill pending on the floor where the revenues are already being raised to pay for unemployment insurance. he's not reducing our deficit. in this situation we have already taken this source of money, put it in the next bill related to unemployment to defray the cost of the unemployment insurance so he

doesn't reduce the deficit he just adds a hurdle that delays payment to people all across america. this could have been done last week. he was offered the chance last week. he wouldn't take it last week and as a result of a lot of people have suffered and a lot of them have gone through hard ship. it is right to do it as the united states senator but i think the reaction on the floor of the senate i might add from both sides of the ogle is a demonstration that sometimes just because we have the power to do things we ought to think twice before we use that power. i have the power to put a hold of every nomination this president or any president seeks. i have the power to object to any unanimous consent request that comes to the floor of the senate. people elect us not just to the political judgment but good

judgment. in this case the political judge mudd was made the aden point people involved were expendable. they could just wait for days if not weeks until we get around to a political debate about the deficit. i troubled by the argument the senator believes he's one of the few stalwarts on the floor of the senate when it comes to deficit reduction. the record suggests he's voted for the two war under president bush that were not paid for costing of the united states almost a trillion dollars adding directly to the debt. he also has supported eliminating the estate tax on the richest people in america. certainly that is going to blow a hole in the budget and added to the deficit. the same was true with medicare prescription drug program. senator voted for that without paying for it adding at least $400 billion to the deficit.

those of us who've been here awhile have cast many votes and my critics will find plenty to criticize about my voting record but before i come to the floor and stop unemployment insurance, for people born and where their next meal is coming from i think twice about saving the the debate so the victims of the most helpless people in america who lost their job through no fault of their own. i urge my colleagues when this comes for a vote later this evening to think twice if you vote with the senator from kentucky who takes his revenue source to another bill that we will vote on tomorrow if you do that you are going to delay the checks again. we will have come up with another excuse to say no. he made it clear he doesn't believe the unemployment compensation is an emergency need america. we are in an emergency situation

in our economy. i've met with these people in my states. these are desperate people. some have been out of work for two years. they might lose everything before it's over and i hope they don't put training for new jobs and exhausting their savings, trying to keep their families together, a family i read about today said they put everything they own in one of the storage lockers because they lost their home. they moved from homeless shelters to live in the back of their car. is that an economic emergency? mabey loss to the members of the senate because our lives are comfortable but it's certainly an emergency for those families. the question on this debate is who we are as a nation. do we care about these people? these breadwinners' on their block, who looked for years and are now out of work through no

fault of their own doing everything they can to find a way to survive or is this another political debate, another political issue, another chance to score a point at the expense of people who are not in a strong position to defend themselves. i hope tonight we will defeat the bunning amendment and to mauro have the chance to put a substantial down payment of unemployment benefits and cobra benefits and the bill chairman bachus brings to the floor and i hope we understand that this the right way to do this. an empty victory if we end up voting for the bunning and stop on the employment benefits as a result while we work out differences between house and senate. there's more we can do here to help get this economy moving again. one of the things that holds us

back is when we get embroiled in these procedural parliamentary tangles that eat up a day after day and week after week which leaves us frustrated on the floor of this had net and people across america angry that we are dealing with the issues that count like creating jobs and making sure there's affordable health care for everyone in the country. we should be dealing with that. the center of kentucky said the majority leader could have filed cloture, waited 48 hours, another 40 hours and we could have gone through the weekend for what purpose? for what purpose? we reached the point offered to the senator from kentucky from the start. he's going to get his vote but the week has passed and has been wasted. the week we should allow our sleeves and do things these people of america sent us to do. what about the deficit and debt? it is serious. majority leaders asked me to serve on the commission with senators bachus and conrad it's a tough assignment and i don't

think it's prettyuuf easy to fie on how to deal with 14 trillion-dollar debt in this nation but i will tell you this we will do better with the national debt if we have a strong national economy and people back to work. we will be better off as a nation if the families can keep their kids in school and folks can get up and go to work. this notion we are going to balance our national budget on the backs of unemployed people please aren't we better than that as a nation? i feel we are. twice last year the senator from kentucky to to expand benefits without paying for it read tonight we he insists we pay for it. everybody is in entitled to change their mind. abraham lincoln board to kentucky via stila malae was accused by his critics, his president changing his mind set on a date change my mind but i would rather be right some of the time did wrong all the tide

so we do change on these issues but let's not change our mind at the expense of innocent helpless americans looking for a helping hand. if a tornado swept across god forbid s. eliot and emergency on our hands i would stand up to helping as i believe he would if it happened to my state. we do that because we care for one another in this nation and we may have political differences and there's been plenty of them but they shouldn't be at the expense of the basic need to deal with problems we face. kentucky said center bombing a letter today and a copy to me and said facing of the primary dustin plight 7% in kentucky and 9.7 he said to center bombing higher due to allow passage of h.r. 4691 title extension to unplug the benefits to 1.2 million americans including

tens of thousands in kentucky. he went on to say the governor of kentucky wrote to samet terse bunning there's 119,000 to a deferred 40 kirker of the receiving benefits through the federal extension program without further extension 14,206 claimants would excess all within two weeks. it would take two weeks of the amount that adopted to get this done if we get it done in that period of time. the governor went on to write by the end of march a total of 22,797 kentuckians will exhaust their benefits by mid april 31,521 will exhaust their benefits and by july the remainder of those receiving looks lost. beyond the number of those receiving extension benefits another 90,000 currently on a on a plan of insurance would be eligible for federal extension program at all. these unemployed kentuckians

come from hard-working families that struggled to find new employment in the greatest economic recession in our lifetime. their mothers and fathers trillion to put food on the table for their children and seniors trying to pay the rent. in addition to the extension of unemployment benefits this also includes important extension of federal subsidies to pay health premiums for those unemployed people who lost health insurance when they lost their jobs current medicare payments for doctors, flood insurance and small-business loans. the governor closed the letter to senator bunning saying i urge you to reverse your position and would welcome any opportunity to provide you with further information on its tremendous necessity. sincerely the cover of kentucky. that could have come from and the governor in the nation. that is the picture in the economic picture in my state and so many other across the nation. please when we get down to the budget debates we should be

sensitive to the fact there are helpless victims to the moves on the floor of the united states senate. it is time to stick together both parties an effort to stand up to unemployed and get the economy back on its feet. i urge my colleagues and defeat the bunning amendment. will slow down the unemployment benefits these people have been waiting for and they are worried they may not receive. it will mean more and more people will fall out of coverage and health insurance and it will mean the medicare services won't be available to the seniors across the nation when the doctors decided they are not being reimbursed. those are the basics of this bill. revenue source senator bunning uses is included in the jobs bill before us as soon as this matter is over. if you believe helping to pay for unemployment benefits we should use this source as the

finance committee suggested and i certainly agree with you will have ample opportunity to do that immediately after we pass this bill. in the meantime let's waste no time, no effort making sure these people across america get the helping hand they deserve and i yield the floor. >> the senator from kentucky. >> how much time do i have reserved? >> 70 minutes and 25 seconds. >> thank you. as the good senator from illinois knows there's no need for a conference since the house already passed this bill and there's already passed the language in this amendment. i'm very sure they would be willing to accept their own bill back paid for. he mentioned the fact i object four times.

i objected more than four with the majority leader objected four times to my request. that was nowhere in his statement. and talking about medicare part b premiums and the cost of the medicare part b, the majority party in the senate has had three years to repeal medicare part b if it was a bad idea at the time we passed then certainly was 64 votes in the u.s. senate it could have repealed what they consider a bad bill. the fact that it was not paid for was not to my liking the fact we were going to take care of medicare senior citizens who couldn't afford their

prescription drugs to president. he spoke about the letter from the governor of kentucky(e. i have no knowledge of the letter until it was brought up by the senator from illinois. it's amazing to me how many misstatements and how theçó governor, democratic governor of the commonwealth could bring these facts out to the senator from illinois and not the senator from kentucky. there are so many things i could say and i guess i have one, too, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11 -- 11

constituent either phone calls or letters usually e-mail. i'm just going to read a couple of them because i want to reserve some time in case the senator from illinois gets up again. this is from randall and kentucky, just want to thank you for your principles stand against the squandering of our country's wealth. guess we need to help those out of work but no we do not want to print more money to do it. i have two sons on of employment at this time yet we realize we cannot continue to spend money that doesn't exist. thank you very much, senator bunning for having the guts to stand up for your principles and oppose further spending of the

money we simply do not have. in particular i am glad to stand up against extending unemployment benefits which would put us further in debt regards bob fraga burlington kentucky. and another i just want to send you some encouragement to hold your ground and the senate on reading the unemployment extension benefits. as a kentucky tax payer and federal tax payer i am tired of seeing and some didn't underfunded programs passed by congress and dine glad you are taking a stand. as an american and kentucky and i believe the government has failed the american people almost totally. but in this instant you are not failing us. please