line on that one. it's not every employer. it's probably a few. but the long and short of it is that's like asking someone to bring all your mail you've gotten the last two years to bring in all your photos you've taken on your can. we want to look through. no. frankly i would want to work for a company that is that interested. .. >> just the fact you hold

hearings draws attention to issues that i always prefer to see is there a private sector solution out there. and if not, then we need to be prepared to act. and so i, that's where i approach it from. and so i think the discussion that's been had in washington, the hearings that have been had, there's a lot of talk of legislation, but, you know, it gets pretty dicey, too, in terms of what one person's view of privacy is, a whole business model for another. and people don't realize the interconnection is what makes it free on the internet. >> host: chairman walden, what about piracy legislation? do you think that will be revisited? [laughter] >> guest: well, sopa and pipa have put a new spin in town on how you lobby congress. talk about a new model that appeared out of nowhere. we were all inundated by the response. now, i think -- and i'm going to be out in the silicon valley again here in a couple of weeks -- but i think some of the companies involved in opposition

also recognize that may not be a long-term lobbying strategy, that there ar issues of theft of intellectual property, and they want to be careful they're not viewed as the driver of the robber, you know, back and forth. i mean, if you're doing that in a bank, you're culpable. if you're doing that online, are you? i don't know. but i'd like to see the content community and the ip community come together and figure out a way to address internationally what we address better domestically and what we would be able to call a local sheriff on if it were target and you're walking out the front door with somebody's dvd and cd in your hand you haven't paid for. i mean, so again, i go back to i'm a bit old-fashioned on some of this. this is property that you're stealing. just because you're taking it digitally doesn't make it any better. and you shouldn't be in a situation where you have, you can't police the fact that you

put in free music or free video takes you right to the rogue web sites. they can adjust their algorithm ims to adjust for that and should. >> host: this is "the communicators", and we're talking with representative greg walden, and the next question comes from our guest reporter, tony romm, of politico. >> host: sure. so the big thing for your committee, obviously, was spectrum reform. those things are somewhat behind us, but the big talk has been the language on never auctions. -- incentive awks. we've heard multiple officials say that the language put forth in the actual bill limits their ability to capture spectrum and to sell it. i guess to start, what is congress' intent here? are you guys looking to limit very strictly the fcc's role in setting participation on the auction, or did you give them some leeway here? are they maybe looking at it in a way that isn't exactly how you

intended? >> guest: well, first of all, i think this is first time there's actually been an incentive auction like this anywhere in the world, so we're all in new, uncharted waters. the staff did work with the fcc staff along the way using their counsel. what we didn't want to do, though, was create a situation where some of the principle buyers of spectrum would be excluded at the beginning. at&t and verizon, let's just name names. there was a lot of chatter coming out of the commission that maybe they would be exchuted -- excluded, and i didn't think that was right. they can do all that, we didn't take away any of that authority, so they can deal with public interest, issues related to monopolies and that sort of thing. and so what we wanted to do was maximize participation, maximize revenue generation, maximize the buildout and fulfill this part at least of the national

broadband plan to get more spectrum into the market while protecting the rights of those who have it today, creating a fair system there for broadcasters and, further, actually implement 8-year-old recommendations from the 9/11 commission to build out an interoperable public safety broadband network and pay for it. >> host: sure. >> guest: i think we did all that. >> host: let's talk about the public safety network, the fcc said once upon a time that that network could cost up to $16 billion. the proposal that went through congress puts aside about $7 billion for the construction of that network. is there a concern that congress is going to have to come back to this in a few years and say, well, hey, we've got to give more money? >> guest: let's see how it plays out. i commend the commission for getting their appointments done on time, they had a tight timeline, they met it. we'll be doing oversight on the rollout here, and remember that national broadband report also didn't say give them the d block. that's worth about $3 billion

there, so in terms of the math thai got about ten -- they've got about ten when you figure in the three, 2.7, whatever it was for d block. so i'm disappointed. we ended up accepting governance language that wasn't exactly how we proposed it in the house. i'm concerned about how that's going to work in the end. i really hope that the opt-out provisions that states have are real and ntia will recognize that. but we were really thinking you could leverage what the states and regions have already done to build networks as long as they were interoperable and worked on the national basis. that's been diminished the way this came out. i think there was great value. you've got several states, nevada, oklahoma, some others that have been building out interoperable networks that are seeking waivers. so there's some things that still need to be worked out. >> host: sure. i guess the key question is, when do members of congress

including yourself expect this network to start to reach first responders? >> guest: yeah. i think, clearly, the d block they've got, so they don't v.a. to wait -- have to wait for the incentive auction. we set up a way so that think get funding -- they get funding earlier rather than later, so they'll be the first out of the box, and sooner the better. we want to make sure police and fire have this interoperable broadband network sooner rather than later. the model's there to go do it, they'll have the money in the spectrum to go do it, and i think they'll get after it. >> host: chairman walden, when it comes to spectrum, when do you foresee actual auctions taking place? >> guest: well, i know there's an economist, i believe she's an economist at the fcc said in the next 18-24 months. i hope she's right, that's perhaps overly optimistic. my guess is in the 3-5 year

range, they've got ten to do it. the goth's already -- the government's already spent the proceeds, and there's enormous demand for the spectrum to fulfill all our demands on all the devices we're packing around. so the sooner the better. my guess is you're talking 3-5 years as tony and i were talking, you've got to set up the actual incentive auction piece and process. >> host: when will we see the results of that spectrum auction then? another ten years after? >> guest: no, i think given the demand at least as you hear from the carriers, as soon as it's available i think they're going to be trying to put it into use. it's dependent on the economy and, you know, everything else. >> host: another thing that the house particularly is looking at is fcc reform. >> guest: yes. >> host: there's an fcc reform bill. what is the status of that, and what are you looking for in that bill? >> guest: i appreciate the question, peter, it's something i've worked on, we've had four or five hearings over the last year. we put everything out there, everybody that had any idea what they wanted to do with the fcc,

we put it o out there in a concept draft bill. that's a good idea, but you need to do it this way. and we really refined it down into a fairly tight box. it does a couple of things, i think, are important. first, it implements for an independent agency, the executive order that the president of the united states put forward for the other agencies saying go out into the market and see if there's a reason to regulate, evaluate the costs, have a prick transparent process -- public transparent process and basically reform how you operate. we backed off and kind of went the other way. i've talked to former fcc officials, and they said, you know, we just want the fcc to set their rules, set timelines and then just report publicly whether they're meeting them or not and to clean up their process. i have a request into the fcc on their universal service fund order which in its end was 751 pages. it was something less than that

in its beginning that they actually voted on. they vote on a news release, right? basically, a piece of paper. and then they edit it behind the scenes among the offices, and they circulate all this, and then they come out with their final rule that they allegedly voted on. if you're participants in this market, you never see ahead of time what the actual rule is that they're considering. so how do you effectively comment on that? so i've asked for the first and the end, they are apoplectic. i can come down and look at it, they might show it to me, i can't have a cope of it. if you go to ferc, they publish in advance their draft bill, so you know, i know what it is, and that's what they're voting on. and i think the fcc can adopt these processes and procedures as well. the second thing we do is adopt the sunshine act that allows the commissioners to get together and talk about issues and not violate public meetings laws.

>> host: related to the fcc, i know members of the energy and commerce committee have asked for documented related to lightsquared. fest, has the agency turned over those dong units? >> guest: -- documents? >> guest: no. >> host: secondly, are you willing to share that with senator grassley? any reason to why the fcc hasn't provided the documents? >> guest: we're in discussion with them, and i don't think that's going to be a problem. i think they will cooperate. they have no reason not to because i chair the subcommittee of jurisdiction, and we can invite them up under various ways, and we can ask for documents under various ways including a subpoena which we have no need to do, i think. we'll get the documents, we'll do through our processes what we need to do to evaluate the documents, and we propose to show them to senator grassley. >> host: should we expect a hearing on this in the next couple months? >> guest: actually, what you're going to see, we are going to do

a series of hearings in the coming year, and one of them will be on receiver standards which was triggered, in my mind, because of what i witnessed through the lightsquared issue. when the fcc put this license forward and somebody bought it and they proposed to operate in their band at their power level and then somebody is canty levered listening over the receivers, this isn't a very good process. how do you end up having somebody spend billions on a license, and somebody else because of, you know, receiver issues prevents them and destroys their hole business model? -- whole business model? i don't think that's right. so we're looking at receiver standards, but lightsquared, obviously, is part of that. i convened a meeting with just engineers, it drove the lobbyists crazy. i knew just enough to be dangerous, and i wanted to hear from the engineers, what's the

issue here? so we had them all at the table. >> host: another issue that the fcc has decided to reinvestigate or relook at or look at more closely, the verizon wireless/cable company spectrum marketing deal. do you have a dog in that fight, and do you have -- >> guest: i have an opinion. i don't know that -- i have no dogs in the fight. and my opinion would be this, that the fcc should be focused on what the fcc has jurisdiction over which is the transfer of the license. these marketing agreements i don't think have anything to do with the transfer of license, and this is one of my criticisms of the fcc that they -- and this would be addressed in our process reform bill. it gets pretty near the definition for extortion when somebody comes in your process and says we want to exchange this license, and they do their due diligence. there's no reason you shouldn't have it, but, oh, by the way, we want to effect the marketplace way over here, and we don't have the legal jurisdiction to do that. but, you know, you really want

this license changed. why don't you guys do this as a side voluntary agreement. well, it's hardly voluntary, right? and i think these agencies if they want to change the marketplace should do so using their legal authority, promulgate a rule, have comment on it and effect the marketplace. but in the scope of a merger, an exchange of license, whatever, they need to deal with the harm that they identify and either not agree to the merger or agree to it or fix the harm or not fix the harm. but they shouldn't use those situations to legislate outside of where they have jurisdiction. and they've done that repeatedly. commissions before this one and, you know, and this one. and i just think that's a bad way to do public policy. >> host: chairman genachowski has talked about putting more information about political ads online. do you support that? >> guest: you know, i'm troubled by that because i'm an old radio broadcaster. not in the business now, been

out of it since december of '07, but the disclosure piece best wrongs at the organization -- belongs at the organization that's in charge of that, and that's the federal elections commission. if you wallet to know about contributions and expenditures, that's where that fight belongs, other there. we've dealt with this that they want to make the broadcaster the keeper of all this data, and i think there's probably a way to put your public file online. the notion that it's going to save stations money tells you how bad the practice of economics is in this town. i was a broadcaster. i know you have to have somebody come in and scan all that. how do you do that other the weekend, put it online and all that? you're picking the wrong target, i think. you already have to have disclosure. it's already in your public file, so i'd leave it the way it is. >> as an old radio broadcaster, as you say, i wanted to ask you about two issues very quickly;

rush limbaugh and the sandra flock issue and the l.a. city council. >> guest: regulate speech. >> host: right. >> guest: look, i have no use for what rush limbaugh said. i think it was completely inappropriate. i was an owner of a broadcast station. we had talk shows, we'd never put up with that. and, you know, he's now apologized. let's just point out, though, it's happened on the left and the right. you're now seeing somebody over here called somebody something, and, you know, the bottom line is i'm a first amendment guy first and foremost. that doesn't mean you can yell "fire" in a theater or say things that are slanderous or write things that are libelous. there are limits in that art. what i don't want to get to is thinking some city council's going to decide what's appropriate and not. can you imagine? that can play all kinds of different sides. and then what's the penalty? lock people up for saying

manager? this is america -- something? this is america. free speech is good, it should be appropriate, and i think the marketplace you're seeing that play out with mr. limbaugh and some of his advertisers. you know, there's reaction, and i think he's learned that. >> host: and final question from tony romm of politico. >> host: sure, and i have to ask what is next on the subcommittee's radar other than receiver standards? where do we go throughout the rest of the year? >> guest: there's a lot of work, cybersecurity's coming up next, so we're going to complete our work on that. and then we're also going to do hearings on future of audio, video and data, and we're going to be looking at all of those issues. we're going to get some time to get some oversight on the broadband buildout from the stimulus. most of the oversight ended up, the oversight stopped when the money went out the door, that's kind of the wrong time to stop oversight. are we getting what we're paying for? we're going to be looking at that carefully, overbilled

issues and all of that. and we're going to continue to work on spectrum. i'm going to appoint a small working group to look at the government spectrum. i'm glad ntia's coming out with their report. we'd like to have seen it last fall, but i think it's due out very, very soon, i'm told, and that's a good thing. we're knot done with spectrum, you know -- not done with spectrum, you know? we're at an important part of that where the legislation's now law, but government has a lot of spectrum. we're going to go very deeply on government spectrum as well. >> host: and greg walden is chairman of the commerce subcommittee on communications and technology, he has been our guest on "the communicators." chairman walden, thank you. tony romm of ""the politico"," thank you as well. >> guest: thank you. >> just ahead, richard cordray, director of the consumer financial protection bureau, on the new rules being considered by his agency. then a look at ballot initiatives effecting women in this year's elections. and later a white house official

talks about the obama administration's proposal for protecting consumer data privacy. >> during the two week congressional recess, we'll be featuring some of booktv's weekend programs in prime time. tonight, a look at the revolutionary movements in the middle east. after the "the communicators," we start with the author of "liberation square: inside the egyptian revolution and the rebirth of a nation." then at 9:55 eastern, the senior political analyst with al-jazeera talks about his book, "the invisible arab." after that at 11:05 eastern, noni darwish will talk about her book, "the devil we don't know." booktv in prime time all this week here on c-span2. >> c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our

booktv and american history tv programming on the road. the first weekend of each month. this past weekend featured little rock, arkansas. with booktv at the high school collection at the university of arkansas. >> collector of photographs, and she he was particularly, again, interested in the 9th century. -- 19th century. these are two friends, union and confederate, who knew each other prior to the civil war, who fought against each other at the battle of pea ridge in 1862, survived the war, came out alive and remained friends after the war, and here they are at age 100 sitting on the porch, talking about the old days. >> and american history tv looked at life in a world war ii japanese interment cap. >> a lady wrote a wonderful book, and gaman meant surviving the unsurvivable. and she talks a lot about how the arts and the crafts were sort of how they kept their

sanity, and it gave them something to do. and about how depression was so bad in a lot of the examples and that people -- there was a high incidence of suicide. so people would make these little things of beauty to give to each other just as a way to say, you know, we support you, and we care about you. >> our lcv cities tour continues the weekend of may 5th and 6th from oklahoma city on c-span2 and 3. >> on thursday the head of the consumer financial protection bureau outlined a number of new rules and initiatives under consideration at the agency including a plan for universal mortgage servicing standards. the agency's first report to congress shows it received 13,000 complaints over the last six months related to mortgages, credit cards and other financial products. mr. cordray is the former ohio attorney general who was begin a recess appointment in january by

president obama. >> the committee will come to order. mr. cordray, we, as you know, we're going to have some vote interruptions, and i'd like everyone, members, to know as well as anyone listening that mr. cordray has agreed to stay til 2:00 which is a very nice accommodation. we very much appreciate that, and we thank you for your attendance today to deliver the semiannual report of the consumer financial protection bureau. the cfpb is an independent federal agency whose authority, as many of us have said, is far reaching. some have said unprecedented. title x or title x of the dodd-frank act confers virtual unfettered discretion and the

director to identify financial products and services deemed to be unfair, deceptive or abusive and to ban them under what's been described as a highly-subjective standard that has no legally-defined content. all of us agree on the need to protect consumers, all of us also agree that every government bureaucracy needs transparency and oversight. the simple truth -- if we can have a little order. the simple truth that there's no reason we cannot have both, robust consumer protection and an agency that is accountable for the action it takes and the resources it uses, the cause of greater accountability was not well served by the president's

decision to circumvent the advice and the consent of the senate and install the cfpb's director in a constitutionally-questionable maneuver. as i've told you previously, mr. cordray, i believe you know the agency you head were well -- neither you nor the agent i you serve were well served by that decision since it casts a cloud over enforcement activity. and i've also previously stated this dispute has nothing to do with you personal hi, but with the structure and lack of accountability surrounding the agency you've been asked to lead. the house has passed two bills this congress, h.r. 1315 and h.r. 4014 that make the cfpb more accountable without in any way hampering its ability to protect consumers. h.r. 1315 includes provisions placing the cfpb under the

management of a five-member, bipartisan commission, an idea originally proposed by and supported by house democrats. h.r. r. 4014 which passed the house just this week with strong bipartisan support and the support of mr. cordray fixes a critical omission in the today-frank act -- dodd-frank act that have have result inside regulated institutions waiving their attorney/client privilege when sharing confidential information with the cfpb. given that the cfpb is not subject to the annual congressional budget process, hearings like this are essential to the oversight process. in fact, hearings like this are the only opportunity currently available to congress to exercise any oversight of cfpb at all. again, i thank mr. cordray, i thank you for your appearance and now recognize the ranking

member of the subcommittee, ms. maloney. >> okay. is mr. frank coming? >> okay. >> pardon me? should we wait for him? >> we're going to -- >> well, first of all, i would like to -- should i wait for mr. frank or -- [inaudible conversations] >> i'll allow mr. frank to come in and make an opening statement. would you like mr. hensarling -- >> i will just go ahead in the interest of time. first of all, i'd like to welcome director cordray and really thank you for your impressive accomplishments so far. i know that when we were doing the markup on dodd-frank, i offered a, an amendment that called for an annual report and oversight by this committee of the cfpb. that was later amended to make

it a semiannual report to congress. but if i had known that you would be before this body or someone senior as yourself would be before this body 15 times so far this year alone, i would not have offered that amendment. because you have been very accountable to us and to this congress. and i'd like to say it was great to have you in my district in new york where you discussed and launched an inquiry into overdraft practices. i know that you have made similar meetings across this country with various concerns from student loans to mortgages to just general concerns of consumers. and as we reach the three month anniversary of the cfpb as a fully-operational agency, i

would like to note some of the bureau's outstanding work. while some will undoubtedly continue to define the cfpb as an unchecked agency, i believe that the bureau's accomplishments and oversight have been extraordinary. the bureau has initiated an examination into the growing level of student loan debt and its ramifications on our economic recovery, its tirelessly helping consumers understand financial products and services through the know before you owe program. the bureau has taken great steps to curtail deceptive, unfair and abusive debt collection practices. they have modified and put forward a simplified mortgage application that people can actually understand. and the bureau is resolving consumer complaints launching bank and nonbank supervision

programs, developing simple disclosures for credit cards and other financial products and is targeting specific abuses aimed at older americans and service members and have created offices just to address these concerns. i think this is a great list of accomplishments for a new agency. and from what i can see in your report, it's just the beginning. i hope that during this hearing we can focus on what the cfpb has laid out in it report rather than constant complaints that there's not enough oversight or accountability. the bureau's structure, the positive gao report, the very fact that director cordray is appearing today before us in his 15th appearance, um, or of other senior staff is a testimonial to the number of checks placed on the bureau. and i wod