booktv, 48 hours of programming. nonfiction books all weekend, every weekend right here on c-span2. >> here's a look at some of what's ahead this morning on c-span2. next, "the communicators" talks with reporters about the major telecommunications issues expected in 2012. then, secretary of state hillary clinton on president obama's plan to involve more women in peace negotiations around the world to help prevent and defuse conflicts. after that, commerce secretary john bryson on the federal government's role on spurring inkno vegas and job creation. >> this week on "the communicators," a look at online piracy legislation, the debate over spectrum and other key telecommunications issues expected this year. >> host: well, as 2012 begins, we thought we'd take this opportunity on "the

communicators" to look at some of the legislative and regulatory issues that the telecommunications industry may face this year. and to do so we've invited three of our regular guest reporters on to talk about some of these issues. paul kirby is a senior editor with "telecommunications reports." juliana gruenwald is with "the national journal" where she is the tech and telecom staff writer, and gautham nagesh is with "the hill" and he's a technology reporter there. thank you for being on "the communicators" once again. gautham nagesh, second session of the 112th congress begins in just a couple of weeks. what's the biggest issue that the congress will be facing with regard to telecommunications issues? >> guest: well, i think right now the hottest issue is, obviously, online piracy. that's a new development, but as we've discussed in the past, there's two bills in front of the house right now and a bill in front of the senate that would take some rather significant steps to increase

the government's authority to enforce online copyright. they've also drawn a very strong backlash from the technology community, and i think that's the hottest topic right now pause the fate of those bills is still very much in doubt. >> host: juliana gruenwald, who's on each side of these piracy bills? >> guest: well, on the one side the supporters include the content industry, the movie makers, the record industry, publishers, people who make content, you know, movies, music. and on the other side, as gautham mentioned, are the tech industry, a lot of the big tech companies oppose both the house and the senate bills, twitter, facebook, google are lined up against it along with internet engineers, civil libertarians, other folks. >> host: paul kirby, do you see piracy passing -- piracy legislation pass anything 2012? >> guest: i think it will. the house will probably get something through. the problem always will be in the senate which is controlled by the democrats. so it's going to be, it's kind

of going to be messy as we get down to crunch time if house passes something, what will the senate do. and once the senate f they do pass something because the rules are different in the senate, what would a conference look like? so i think it's going to be some time, and as we get closer through the year even though this is an election issue, if you will, we get closer to the election, people want to get out of town, so it's going to get messy. >> host: gautham nagesh s there a lot of money being thrown at these pirate bills. >> guest: absolutely. in the house it's called stop online piracy act, it's the result of many years of lobbying on behalf of hollywood, the retail industry, the u.s. chamber of commerce has a whole office dedicated essentially to this legislation. we're talking about probably one of the largest lobbying efforts in recent years in washington, and the tech industry even though it's very large constitutes a larger share of our economy is having to catch up very quickly, and they're far behind in terms of spending right now.

>> host: when you see the ads being put out by the companies for and against these bills, they're almost apocalyptic about what could actually happen. what, what's the purpose of that, and could something, i mean, could our world change that much if this legislation gets passed? >> well, it depends on who you ask. there are some internet engineers who have some strong concerns with the legislation particularly because it would mandate that internet service providers or take certain actions to keep americans since that's the only jurisdiction the bill could effect, keep americans from accessing foreign web sites that offer online, that offer pirated content or counterfeit goods. and so they have concerns of some of the things that have been put in place to protect the security of the internet's domain name system could be hampered by this. that's what the critics say. the supporters, on the other hand, say this is all overblown, that some of the measures they're asking be taken are being used to block spam and to

do some other things, so it's a he said/she said. >> host: paul kirby, have we heard any word from the administration on their view on this piracy legislation? >> guest: well, i mean, actually, i don't cover it kind of day-to-day, and at this point they haven't weighed in, the administration will often weigh in when it get toss the floor of the house and senate, and they'll say we recommend the president veto or not veto. is that accurate? >> host: go ahead. >> guest: pardon me. i think right now there's been some hope in on line community in particular that they've asked president obama to veto the bill, they've submitted one of those online petitions which the white house will respond because it's reached the required number of signatures, so the white house is expected to give us an official position. however, the white house has been aggressive in terms of online copyright enforcement. it would seem more likely the white house would not veto the legislation. of course, that's speculative, and they have not yet given us

their official position. >> host: juliana bruin wald? >> guest: there's been a cloture vote on the senate bill protect ip, and that will likely pass. at least that's what supporters say. senator leahy, who's chairman of the senate judiciary committee and is the author of the senate bill has said he believes he has more than enough votes to, you know, to get that bill through over there. >> host: juliana gruenwald, what else will the telecommunications industry face this year? >> guest: well, the other big issue is spectrum legislation, and the whole push to free up more spectrum to meet the nation's demand for wireless technologies. and before congress left there was thought that maybe spectrum legislation was going to get attached to the payroll tax extension. now, when that, when they only passed the two month extension, they did not include spectrum legislation. now, when they come back and work on a one-year extension, there's, you know, the thought is that spectrum legislation

could be included in that because spectrum options raise money for the treasury, and that would provide an offset for the cost of that bill. >> host: paul kirby, this has been one of julius genachowski's prize issues, talking about spectrum shortage and looking ahead. >> guest: it has. he calls it the invisible infrastructure, and he has pushed for what's called incentive auctions that would basically allow the fcc to auction spectrum, and then some of the proceeds would go to the folks giving the spectrum up, tv broadcasters namely, perhaps satellite operators. the legislation that juliana talked about has the incentive auctions in it, and that's bipartisan. people do support that part of it, and it pays for a lot of these other things in the payroll tax extension, unemployment benefits, something called doc fix which involves medicare. so it can help pay, the house republicans feel, for $16 billion, basically, as an offset to help pay for these other things. so it's caught up in this bigger package. again, it has the bipartisan

support, the incentive auctions. there are some other things in there for public safety, funding m of those things are somewhat controversial. the democrats and the house in particular and public safety groups are opposed to some provisions that would require them, for instance, to give back some narrow band spectrum in exchange for other spectrum. governance of a public safety network in the funding level, the house republicans passed a bill that would involve a lower funding level than what was passed in the senate and a bill that was pushed by senators rockefeller and hutchison. so i think that's going to end up in any final package. i think that'll stay in there. the conference committee, two of the people on the conference committee that will talk about this legislation are walden and upton, and they're the chairmen of the house energy and commerce committee and the communications subcommittee. so they're expected to push the spectrum revisions. >> host: juliana gruenwald, do you see action on spectrum happening this year? >> guest: i do. there's a big push on all sides

to see this go through. the question is, what does the legislation look like. and congressman walden has actually thrown out the idea of possibly dropping the public safety provisions if they can't settle some of the issues on that. but, you know, that's a big priority for senator rockefeller in the senate, and i would be surprised if he allowed that to happen. he says public safety provisions are his most -- his top priority as far as spectrum goes. >> guest: yes, i think juliana's right. it would be surprising to see public safety left behind on this issue because that's been one of the main sticking points going forward. i think there's fairly widespread consensus on the need for spectrum auctions, obviously, wireless networks have been a huge issue for the fcc with the at&t merger. so it's been front and center for the last year. the momentum is there, they're really hammering out the details, i think it's fair to say. >> host: when you say widespread, gautham nagesh, do you mean bipartisan? is there bipartisan support for

this? >> guest: i think so. in fact, yes. the broadcasters have always been one of the main flies in the ointment when it comes to the auctions. they've expressed support for some of the proposals. lobbyists characterize it as passive-aggressive support meaning they still raise seeming objections, but overall they've indicated they understand this is coming, and i think they've accepted that. >> host: paul kirby, third issue. >> guest: i guess another issue that will continue to be an issue at the fcc and on the hill involves lightsquared. lightsquared is still kind of out there. there's more testing going on. there was testing that was completed, and the government reported in december that the government felt anyway that testing of general location gps devices would cause interference. lightsquared feels that conclusion is too pets mystic, but there's more testing that's going to occur in january. the fcc would have to make a decision. ntia which is in the commerce

department would make a recommendation. so that will continue to be an issue. now, it's not as broad as spectrum or online piracy, but it's still kind of a regulatory issue that the people in congress care about as well. >> host: and there's a lot of money involved there. >> guest: there's a lot of money on both sides, the gps and lightsquared. >> host: juliana gruenwald, where are we on privacy issues? >> guest: privacy. i think we'll continue to see some hearings on that. i would be surprised if we see any markup of legislation. in the house congresswoman mary bono mack has indicated she may hold more hearings on that. there is a bill out there dealing with data breaches and intrusions into companies' networks and private information being taken that could move forward, but that's also been -- there's been issues with that in the house. democrats don't like the bill that came out of mary bono mack's subcommittee, and they've been trying to work through some of those issues.

in the senate, data breach legislation could get attached to cybersecurity legislation, but, you know, the one area where we could see some movement on privacy. >> guest: yes. right now i think it's fair to say we're going to see some hearings and discussion, but privacy is more a regulatory than a legislative issue at the moment. the federal trade commission is really enforcing de facto privacy standards. we've seen settlements against google and facebook regarding alleged misrepresentations of their privacy policies. the federal trade commission has put both under comprehensive privacy programs, they're going to be audited every two years, and they really serve notice that this is what's going to happen, we're going to be watching what you guys do. make sure you're not abusing consumers' information or putting it out there in ways that they don't expect because the ftc is going to be there to regulate it. >> host: gautham nagesh, you cover telecommunications for "the hill" newspaper.

are telecommunications issues on the hill broken down by party, are they broken down by industry? >> guest: i think, i think that it's still very -- they're starting to take on a partisan tone in some areas, particularly when you're talking about things like regulation. obviously, the republicans in the house especially have a, struck a very anti-regulatory tone, so that's why they oppose something like net neutrality. with that being said, tech issues are not a priority for most lawmakers. that's changing, but it's a slow change. that means these issues are really whoever is interested in them. and i think you see the differences based on how educated people are about technology policy and how much involvement they've had in it. >> host: juliana gruenwald, you were shaking your head yes. >> guest: i agree. for the most part tech and telecom issues are not partisan, but on some issues, obviously, they have. on the online piracy debate, there's bipartisan opposition in

the house. the house judiciary committee before the break, they were marking up their legislation, and the opposition to that was on both sides of the aisle. you had darrell issa and zoe lofgren teaming up to try to offer amendments to fix the flaws that they said were in that bill. and so that's just one example where there is bipartisan, you know, support. >> guest: and a good example, i mean, a lot of times it's the details. so in spectrum, for instance, the republicans and democrats both agree, gee, we need to get more spectrum out there. but how do you do it? for instance, the house bill that was passed that involves the spectrum, it would basically say to the sec you can't limit eligibility, you can't say verizon, at&t, you can't participate in this auction because you're so big, or you can't bid on these particular licenses. that's a provision the republicans got through. there's also a net neutrality provision that democrats oppose. so the big issues people may support and be bipartisan, but

it's those little details, if you will, that are not so little, but those finite provisions that can draw people to take one side or the other. >> host: this is c-span's "communicators" program. we're looking ahead to 2012 and some to have regulatory issues lawmakers may be facing. we are joining by paul kirby, juliana gruenwald, she works for the national journal where she covers tech and telecom, and gautham nagesh works for "the hill" newspaper where he is a technology reporter. okay. who wants to take this one, who wants to start with this one, reform of the fcc, something that fcc commissioners are now talking about along with people in congress. who wants to start? go ahead. >> guest: so fcc process reform is currently under the house energy and commerce committee. >> host: is there a bill? >> guest: there is a bill. it's from greg walden who is very vocal on alltel come

issues, he's a former telecaster himself. this is, i think, fair to say a lot of this comes from two things which is the merger of nbc universal/comcast and the passage of the net neutrality rules. both were prolonged debates within the commission. both the passage of net neutrality rules and the attachment of provisions raised a lot of, they raised objections from republicans. they felt that some of the conditions on the merger went outside of what the fcc should concern themselves with, and they were just flat unhappy with the net neutrality rules. they think that's an overreach. so what this is trying to do, essentially, is on one hand ostensibly bring transparency to what the fcc does, gives them more reporting requirements, but really it's going to make it harder to pass new regulations because their going to require a cost benefit analysis of any potential regulation, and that would really cloud the water quite a bit in terms of action

going forward. >> guest: i'm going to let my colleagues deal with this. >> host: mr. kirby. >> guest: i was going to say some folks on the other side say why are you treating the fcc different than other legislative industries. basically, that would apply to all administrative agencies. the fcc, of course, is one of many independent agencies, and so some folks feel they're being treated differently. as you said, fcc commissioners have said there's a need for reform. but, again, it's those details of how you do it. the democrats in the house energy and commerce committee say we're not against reform, but we think the way you're doing this during markup and hearing is, in some ways, not a great way to go forward. so, um, there had been a full, had been planned or expected in december a full committee markup. that has been postponed, so we're waiting, you know, action going forward. and, again, once something would get to the senate and there's a companion senate bill, you know, all bets would kind of be off.

you would assume then to be more friendly to the fcc and their authority, and so what would come out of this divided congress we don't know at this point. >> host: we've all mentioned net neutrality a couple times so far today. what is the status of net neutrality, something we've talked about for years on "the communicators"? >> guest: go ahead. >> guest: well, the rules have become official as of november 20th. we're awaiting several legal challenges, high-speeds like verizon have filed lawsuits claiming the fcc has overreached its authority, it shouldn't be allowed to enforce these rules. at the same time we've got public interest groups and others who want to see these applied to wireless devices. so it's still in doubt. the fcc is moving, putting together an enforcement redream is. the suspicion is with net neutrality it's going to take a complaint, someone's going to have to be caught discriminating against a site, and that's going to be how we're going to see whether or not it's going to play out. but court challenges, i think,

are going to be the theme for the early part of the year. >> host: and will those court challenges happen early on in 2012? >> guest: i'm uncertain about the timeline. >> host: juliana gruenwald, national journal, what else are you looking forward to in 2012? >> guest: there's some miscellaneous issues in congress, the internet gambling issue. congress passed a law in 2006 to, essentially, try to ban internet gambling here in the united states. critics of that bill say it's unworkable, you know, you can't -- people are still gambling online, let's regulate it, let's tax it, that way consumers who do go online to play poker or other games, you know, have some protection. so there was a bill that was introduceed last year by congressman joe barton and congressman barney frank who's retiring, some other folks to, basically, allow for folks to play mace bets -- place bets online for online poker only.

and there's been a couple of hearings on that. congresswoman mary bono mack who we talked about earlier, her committee will probably have another hearing on that. don't know if we'll see any actual legislation move, but you're starting to see a little bit more support for allowing people to gamble online including protections for consumers. so that's one issue that i see -- there'll be some discussion on. the other issue is the whole net sales tax issue, and there's been a lot of lobbying on that. and that deals with -- it goes back to a 1992 supreme court decision this which the supreme court said that you can't require -- you can't require retailers to collect sales taxes from customers in states where those retailers do not have a physical presence. well, with the growth of -- with e-commerce online, you know, main street retailers are saying, hey, you know, why are we still required to do this when online retailers like amazon don't have to? there's been legislation that

would essentially close that loophole. i expect, like i said, another hearing or two. i don't know if that issue will actually move this year. >> host: paul kirby? >> guest: the sec's going to be asked where wireless should be allow to buy spectrum from four cable companies and why that spectrum wasn't build out. it wouldn't effect competition in terms of those companies would now not be offering those services and verizon would, there are some marketing agreements, signed marketing agreements that would allow the companies to basically market each other's service, and that has gotten some concern from the public interest groups. doj's looking at that. they will look at the transaction as well as the fcc. the applications for the verizon deal with three companies is part of what's called spectrum code has been filed and verizon and cox communications will file applications. so that's going the get some attention. we don't have the mega deal of all deals such as t-mobile, at&t, but we still have two fcc

commissioners that are pending in the senate. senator grassley of iowa has placed a hold on jessica other the lightsquared issue. the fcc says we only give document toss the chairman of our authorizing committees, so he's placed a hold on those two. the fcc right now is three commissioners, commissioners copse' term is done, so they can do their work with three, but we're waiting on those other two to get confirmed, and we'll see when that happens. >> host: is at&t/t-mobile one of the big issues of 2011, is it just gone, no more? any further developments in that in 2012? >> guest: i would say we'd have to wait -- i think if the administration, if election results in a republican administration, i wouldn't be surprised to see at&t try it again. because, you know, the democrats in the justice department, the justice department career people as well as the fcc made it clear they have concerns about the

merger. it wouldn't surprise me to see something else. now, justice made it clear when they filed to block the merger, we think there need to be four nationwide carriers. so that would, under the current administration, it would seem to preclude t-mobile and sprint from merging, and that had been what people looked at before at&t said we want to buy t-mobile, people thought t-mobile and sprint even though they have different technologies. i think with a new administration you could see at&t go after t-mobile, but i think it would have to wait for a new administration if there is one. >> host: what's the status of the fcc and media ownership rules? is there going to be action there? anybody know? >> guest: i'm not as up on that one. >> guest: yeah. we don't cover media as much as the strict telecom, if you will, so -- >> host: gautham nagesh, next issue. >> guest: one thing we'll be tracking is cybersecurity. this has become increasingly something that's come to the forefront. like some of these other issues,

it took a while. we've been talking about cybersecurity for ten or twenty years, but as a result of some of these data breaches and high-profile events and just the increasing reliance of our society on the internet to run critical sectors of our economy and infrastructure, there's an awareness this threat is very real. we've also got groups like anonymous which is essentially a vigilante hacker group which are taking aim at government institutions and major u.s. economies that are part of the critical infrastructure. so the awareness of the issue is at an all-time high. what type of action that will amount to remains very much in doubt. >> giuliana grunewald? >> guest: on that issue we've seen the house has been a little bit more active in recent months. there's been two bills introduced, one by the house intelligence chairman and another one by the chairman of the homeland security/cybersecurity subcommittee. so the idea they may have to mesh those into one bill if they bring them to the floor, i mean, there are concerns with, you

know, each bill. so that's, you know, that's -- that'll have to be dealt with this year. >> host: what kind of influence do the national association of broadcasters, the national cable telecommunications association, ctia, all these interest groups have in washington right now? >> guest: well, i think the nab's influence has maybe waned a little bit in recent years, and i think we've seen that with the spectrum debate. you know, one time they were very powerful. so i think maybe their influence has waned a lit little bit in recent years. >> host: have you seen an increase in face wook and google activity -- >> guest: yeah, certainly they're watching lobbying offices. a few years ago they didn't have anyone. i mean, really, they were kind of new to this. kind of like not too many years ago microsoft really wasn't active before antitrust issues. so, yes, they've kind of bolstered, if you look at who

they have, they have a lot of former hill staffers. depending on the issue, they can hire outside folks including former members of congress, so i think they've really increased their lobbying a lot, and i agree with what juliana said about nab. but, you know, industry, i guess you always have to be careful because you can overplay your hand. the at&t/t-mobile merger, they had a huge amount of money, they had four billion reasons to get this through, that is the break-up fee, and some felt like, you know, when you had the ymca of sand san diego weighingn it, jeez, why do they care? well, because they had an interest in what happened to at&t. i think the groups are still powerful, the washington-based groups, but they have to be careful now. in washington you have what's called astroturf groups where you have these names weighing in, but they're funded by the major trade groups and companies and that kind of thick. the reporters see through that, and you would think that people in congress do, but that's not

necessarily the case. um, so -- but they're always going to be players, if you will. they just have to be careful how they do it. >> guest: i don't disagree the nab spectrum may have diminished, and i haven't covered telecom issues for as long as some of my colleagues here. the legacy is much greater than the public is probably aware because technology issues are really seen through the lens of telecom policy issues because that's what technology policy has been for the last century. the internet has only been used widely by the public for about 15-20 years. um, the fcc has been regulating at&t and the phone system for 90 years. so these relationships go back very far. the ncta, the broadcasters, all of the groups that are involved in the technology policy, it's sort of really the insider's insiders group in the beltway. and to people who are, you know, main street type consumers or people who just follow political

issues in a more casual manner, they might think that the influence of a google or a microsoft or a facebook would be much greater than it is based on its impact on the broader culture, but they are still, i think, even though they've ramped up significantly in the last year due to some of these policy battles, they still remain well behind some of the sophistication of these operations that groups that have been around for a long time have. >> host: all right. very quickly, we've talked in 2011 with a lot of our legislative guests about potential rewrite of the telecommunications act. is there an appetite for that, paul kim by? >> guest: no. i mean n2012 there was a guest on recently, gordon smith, and you talked about maybe little pieces, but to do the whole thing, no, you're not going to have a rewrite in election year. you're going to get closer to the election, people want to get out of here, they'll have fewer legislative days. we'll just continue talking about it for the rest of you are lives, but -- our lives, but you

wouldn't see it this year. >> guest: i agree. i haven't heard anybody talk about that. >> host: do you see it potential hi after the election? >> guest: hard to say. i mean -- >> guest: maybe little pieces. >> guest: yeah. it depends who's this charge of congress. i mean, if republicans win the senate like a lot of people are predicting, i don't know if they're going to want to pick that up. >> guest: i've heard some discussion of the communications act and things that need to be addressed, but that's an aircraft carrier as opposed to something you can turn around quickly. >> host: thank you all for being part of our legislative preview for 2012. gautham nagesh is with "the hill," juliana gruenwald with "the national journal," and paul kirby with "telecommunications reports. ". >> today c-span continues its coverage of campaign 2012 on this eve of the new hampshire primary. we'll bring you live rallies with republican presidential candidates. mitt romney will speak to