subcommittee and communications and technology. ..

a look at cybersecurity, privacy and spectrum issues before the house with representative greg waldren of oregon. he chairs the energy and commerce subcommittee on communications and technology. >> dislike of the communicators tremendous representative greg walden, congressman walden terse debate reserves on the committee on communications and technology we appreciate you being on the communicators.

>> it's good to join you again. thank you. islamic if we can start with an issue working its way through congress and that is cybersecurity was fast track in the senate and has had hearings in the house. where do you stand on the bills? >> first of all, cybersecurity issues pos one of the single biggest threats to the nation's security and consumers to businesses to the government we are seeing this enormous loss of intellectual property whether it is from businesses or theft of government secrets and all of the malicious and things that happen, the hacking, the theft of services running whatever. so we had a couple of hearings in the communications and technology subcommittee and we have a fairer government agency. what we got out of the hearings almost all across the board was first do no harm. second, the more you try to prescribe especially in statute of regulation very specific things we should do out here in

the industry the more that you made the bad guys road map that they will simply drive around, the you wilma's allocate capital, see, you will put us very far behind what we are already attempting to do. it does seem to be pretty unanimous. after the first hearing or to comply put together a work group bipartisan with anna eshoo, six members of the subcommittee and said you do a deep dive and report back by the end of this month on what you find, and i think basically what they came back with was that minimal intervention is best, voluntary deadlines, the report that just came out from the fcc group made a lot of sense i think, and if there is an issue where we can be helpful it is more on the path of the piatt partisan mark rogers act information sharing deutsch and the government agencies fox her there may be some things on the sides and certainly the mccain velte is

probably better than a more perspective lieberman bill, but the country needs to come together and i think from what i learned at the strings and i think a bipartisan group on the subcommittee do no harm, don't try to have tsa for the internet if you will, don't house that all of the government agency to write rules and regulations that are outdated the second dillinger drives. >> you agree with lee terry was here last week emphatically against an estimate that an issue. again i get back to every witness we heard from said do no harm to read do not think he can get ahead of this and look things in the regulation will and statute you will misallocate capital and have us to leave our paperwork and do this while the back seat to a bad guys are working around us so be careful and i think they are right. they have economic incentives to stop them now where, to protect cybersecurity to be out front and innovative and what we want

to create is a system that encourages the dynamic kafta the introduction of the private sector initiatives to try to keep them out focusing not held back by too much government involvement. >> joining as the guest reporter is tony romm of political. estimate to continue the path of cybersecurity you kind of diluted to this talking about the lieberman collins versus the mccain bill in the senate, but what responsibilities should the critical infrastructure systems that are deemed so critical to the way that we live, should they have to live up to some kind of different levels of security standards? who should sit those standards? >> that's a good question and in the house we have had the grid act that we took out last year, a couple of years ago that passed in retrospect there may be a better way to do the act by you different set of issues when it comes to the power grid. now you're talking about switches and relays and critical

infrastructure especially on that side and i think they have a process for her to leave kuwait gets back for the principle applies that of innovation and the dynamic reactions encourage better communication and it may be that there have to be some standards of the altar of sight in terms of your building not all of this smart grid technology now. every with more of those was margaret devices is a portal to the antiyour grid potentially and so i think you get down to can we encourage best practices developed and devolved on the dynamic basis on the energy side of the other infrastructure. >> it sounds like you are saying let's wait and see if industry can develop this on their own and if they don't, we can revisit it or receive a different interaction. spinnaker think there is a role for nerc and ferc to be talking

and have access to the critical information so nsa or the other agencies see something coming the of a direct line of communication that instant and there is an ability to have that flow of information. the other thing you run into is not to violate antitrust rules or some of the other rules that normally would apply if you are sharing information back-and-forth you may have privacy issues there as well so we have to be thoughtful about what steps the commission from happening. what are the best practices. the process that just came out in the report summed up well in terms of the rest of the internet to reverse bernanke mentioned privacy. what should the balance between information sharing and privacy, how you take care of the groups like the aclu to the bills right now don't do enough to protect the average american. >> that is the challenge we face i don't know that we have it all tied together clearly that there is a fine line between mauney private information. i think the notion of employers

can demand passwords. really, for your facebook site, your e-mail or what ever? i think that's outrageous. so there are no clear lines and blurred lines but the information that we get back and you said it rehearings is pretty clear we are fighting this war on the internet every day or it reminds me of the movie men in black, the full war that none of us ever had to worry about its going on on the internet and the attacks are very devastating and when we are warned in the next 12 to 18 months america will suffer a catastrophic cyberattack they don't choose those words indiscriminately. their four or five months into the warning period. it tells me that we have to move rapidly but not in a way that violates privacy or the basic tenets of privacy. and it encourages quick

reaction, not sort of regulatory environment. >> chairman walden, just to take a different path on privacy, google has a new set of privacy by declines one. do you have concerns about those as you talk with google at all? >> we haven't had a lot of discussion. it is an mary bono max the five subcommittee more than nine. what we are looking at as it relates to the agency report. i think -- i guess i'm old-fashioned and a lot of ways i always sali phone call and the court order to listen in. i read the other day one of the groups is talking about being a will to listen into the background noise in your phone conversation and target on what they hear. i don't know what they are going to hear in the background but it could make for interesting ads to come forward and i don't think it's appropriate. so i think people are starting to wake up and realize on facebook and the things they've

posted on the public side can affect potential employers as a way to do a background check. so this issue is emerging as more and more users are starting to go wait a minute what are you saying? i also believe that the internet community as it showed on the wall sopa debate will rise of the providers across the line and you have seen that happen when different providers have tried different things using your data the internet is pretty powerful and quick and agile and effective when they feel like their rights are being misused, so i think that you will see -- that's what i prefer to see is the sort of user community have the power and not have to commit try to start mandating and regulating the internet. i think that it leads into the notion of going on at the u.n. through the i.t. you about who

controls the internet, and i -- we have to be careful what we do here it can be used against us because the last thing we want the united nations controlling the internet. >> on privacy you mentioned a few minutes ago the news stories on facebook and how some employers are asking for replicants user names and passwords. is that one of the areas the congress should consider getting involved or something the needs to be sorted out elsewhere? what is your fault? >> we have bigger fish to fry than that but it's worth having a discussion and express their own personal opinion. individual when players are doing things that seem a little over the edge. i don't know you need to pass some of these statutes and describe what employers can and can't ask for but okay maybe we crossed the line on that one and not every employer is probably a few but it's like asking somebody to bring in all of your

mail that you've got in the last two years we want to read through the letters coming in the photographs taken we want to look through what you know. i guess i do working for the people in the second district court and they know everything is on display. >> more broadly used the ftc has released its privacy framework for how it expects companies to act and it might take action against companies that don't follow the rules, so i guess more generally speaking should congress play a role in the past will lock in privacy this year? it is the representatives bone yellmac de riss de mccuish share some jurisdiction but she has been in the lead as i've done th e spectrum work. what you've learned around the converse is the fact that you hold hearings and trials attention to issues i prefer to see a profit selector solution out there and if not, then we need to be prepared to act.

and so that's where i approach it from and so i think the discussion that has been had in washington, the hearings that have been had, there's a lot of talk of legislation, but it gets pretty dicey, too in terms of one person's view of privacy is another business model for another and people don't realize the interconnection sometimes is what makes it freed on the internet. >> german walden, what about piracy in legislation? do you think there will be revisited? >> well, sopa and pipa have put a noose been in town how you lobby the congress, talk about a new model that appeared out of nowhere we were all in the data i'm going to be out in the silicon valley some were involved in opposition sopa and pipa also recognize that may not be a long-term strategy that there are issues of the theft of intellectual property and you

ought to be careful, they are not viewed as the driver back and forth. if you are doing that in the bank or culpable if you are doing it on line i'd like to see the community as the ip community come together to address internationally what we do domestically and we would be able to call a local sheriff if it were targeted and you are walking out the front door with some of these tvd and cd in the he and you haven't paid for. so i'm a bit old-fashioned on this. because you're doing it digitally doesn't make it any better and you shouldn't be in a situation where you can't police the fact that you put in a free music or video takes you right to the web site they can adjust and i am convinced of that and

should. >> this is the communicators and we are talking with representative greg walden, chairman of the subcommittee on communications and technology and the next guest comes from tony romm of politico. islamic with spectrum reform those days are behind us now that it has become all but the big talk has been the language on incentive options. we've heard multiple officials say that the language put forth in the actual bill limits devotee to capture spectrum and sell it, so i think to start what is the converse's intend? are you looking to limit the role in setting participation on the option or did you give them some leeway? are you looking at it in a way that isn't exactly how you would intend it? >> first of all i think this is the first time there has been an option like this anywhere in the world, so we are out there in the on chartered waters. this act did work with the staff

along the way to do the best we could to get it right using their counsel. what we didn't want to do though is create a situation where some of the principal buyers of spectrum would be excluded at the beginning at&t and verizon. there was a lot of chatter coming out of the commission at its highest levels maybe they would be excluded, and i didn't think was right. they still have all of their statutory authority to the rulemaking to decide the market looks like to read the can do all that. we don't take away that authorities of the can deal with public interest and issues related to the monopolies and that sort of thing so what we want to do is maximize participation, maximize the revenue generation, maximize the build out and fulfill this part at least of the national broadband plan to get more spectrum into the market while protecting the rights of those that have it today to create a system for broadcasters and

further out to the implement a hero recommendations on the 9/11 commission to build up in interoperable network and pay for it. i think we did all that. >> let's talk about the broadband network firmament, the public safety. they said once upon a time in the broad and report the 2-years-old that would cost up to $16 billion, the proposal that went through congress puts aside about $7 billion for the construction of the network is there a concern congress has to come back to this in a few years and say we have to get more money? >> for getting their appointments to long time to create the interoperability board the have the time line for that we will be doing oversight on rollout and remembered period the national world a better report didn't say given the d block is worth about 3 billion so i don't know in the math they have got about ten when you figure in the 2.7, when the verdict was for d block, sciu avenue beach front piece of

spectrum. i'm disappointed, we ended up accepting the government's language that wasn't exactly how we proposed it in the house and i am concerned about how that is going to work in the end. i hope that the provisions of the states have a real altgeld provision and that ntia will recognize that. we were thinking you could leverage with the states and regions have already done which is to say we are interoperable and worked on the national basis. that's been diminished the way this came out. there's great value you get several states from others that have been building all the networks that are seeking waivers but now we are not sure under the law what they even have statutory authority to grant the waivers. so there's some things that still need to be worked out to the estimate the question is when do the members of congress in putting yourself a expect the nation to receive and outside of the areas. >> i think that clearly the d

block so they don't have to wait for the incentive option we set up a way so they get funding earlier rather than leader based on future proceeds so they will be the first out of the box and the sooner the better. we want to make sure that they have this interoperable broadband wireless network that is the most sophisticated in the country and in the world sooner rather than later. the model is there to go do it. they have the money and spectrum to do it and they will get after it. it's their interest to do it. >> when it comes to spectrum, when do you foresee actual options taking place? >> i know there was an economist in the fcc the next 18 to 24 months i hope she's right that is perhaps overly optimistic. my guess is in the three to five-year range they've got ten to do it sooner rather than later especially since the government already spent the proceeds and there is an enormous demand for the spectrum to fulfill all of our demands on

the devices we are packing around so the sooner the better. my guess is three to five years as we were talking to set up the actual auction of the peace process and broadcast through >> when will we see the results of the spectrum auction, another ten years after -- >> no, i think given the demand at least as you hear from the carriers as soon as available they will be trying to put it into use, and it is dependent on the economy and everything else. >> another thing that the house particularly is looking at is the reform. what is the status of that and what are you looking for in that bill? >> i appreciate question. it's something i worked on with four or five hearings over the year. we put out everything that a ready that have an id with wanted to do we put in a concept draft bill we put out there and used the public process to have hearings and what people should things down. that's a good idea but you need to do it this way and we've

refine it into a fairly tight box. it was a couple of things i think that are important. first it basically implements an independent agency of 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 is a reason to regulate cony doggett the cost of the regulations come have a transparent public process and basically reform how you operate. now we are pretty prescriptive than initially and we backed off with the other direction i talked to the former officials. they said we want them to set their rules, set their time lines and then just report publicly whether they are meeting them or not. to clean up the process i never requested in to the fcc on their universal service fund order, which in its end was 751 pages. it was something less than that and it is at the beginning that they voted on. a vote on the news release basically, a piece of paper, and then they get it behind the scenes among the offices and

certain that all this and then they come out with their final rule that they are a, the allegedly voted if you are participants in this market you never see ahead of time with the actual rule is that they are considering so how do you effectively comment on that? so i've asked for the first devotee and they are apoplectic i can come down and look at it they might come out and show it to me. i can't have a copy of it go to the several credible charge commercially published a rule in advanced so you know and i know what it is and that is what they are voting on. and i think the fcc could adopt these as procedures as well. the second thing we deal with is what is called the sunshine act which is a bipartisan bill allows more than a majority of commissioners to get together and talk about issues and not violating the public meeting laws. >> relating to the fcc i know that members of the energy and commerce committee have asked the agency for documents relating to lightsquared so the question is first as the agency turned over documents to you and

are you willing to share that with senator grassley and as to why it hasn't provided the documents >> we are in discussions with them about the scope and the tax of documents and we don't think that is going to be a problem and will cooperate to have no reason not to with the jurisdiction again light them under various ways and ask for documents under various ways including is subpoena which we have no need to do what i think we will get the documents and to our process what we need to do to evaluate the documents and propose to share them with senator grassley who would think the united states senator should be able to get documents to three's committee. >> should we expect a hearing on this in the next couple of months? >> actually, what you are going to see, we are going to do a series of hearings in the coming years and one of them will be on the receiver standards which was triggered in my mind because of

what i witnessed three the lightsquared issue where the fcc put this license forward and somebody bought it and they propose to operate in the band of their power level, and then somebody was listening in the gps system and the receivers is like this is a very good process how do you end up having some to spend billions of dollars on a license and they do everything they're supposed to do in some deals because of the receiver issues prevents them and destroys their business models i don't think that's right light squared is part of that. the engineers and drove the lobbyists crazy. i've done a lot of light engineering on the business on the amateur radio operator so i knew just enough to be dangerous. i wanted to hear what is the issue here. i think we need to look at the receiver standards. >> another issue that the fcc has decided to investigate whether we look at it or look more closely the verizon

wireless cable company, spectrum marketing deal to you have a dog in the fight? >> i don't know if i have no dogs in the fight, and my opinion would be best, the fcc should be focused on what the fcc has jurisdiction over which is the transfer of the license. the marketing agreements i don't think of anything to do is transfer of licence and this is one of my criticisms in the sec and this would be addressed in our fcc process reform bill. it gets pretty near the definition of an extortion when somebody comes in your process as we want to exchange this license and they do their due diligence. there's no reason you shouldn't have it. by the way, we want to affect the market place over here coming and we don't have the legal jurisdiction to do that but you on this license change why would you do this as a side of voluntary agreement crux it's hard to voluntary, right? and i think these agencies if

they want to change the marketplace should do so using their legal authority, promulgate a rule and affect the market place. but in the scope merger exchange licence, the need to deal with the harm they identify and either not agree to the merger or agree to it and fix the harm or not six to harm, but they shouldn't use those situations to legislate outside of where they have jurisdiction. the commission's before this one and this one. i don't know if that is a bad way to the public policy. >> chairman genachowski has talked about putting more information about political ads online. do you support that? >> i'm not in the business now but out of it since december of 07. the disclosure peace best belongs in an organization that's in charge of that and

that is the federal elections commission so if you want to know that contributions and expenditures that's where that fight belongs is over there if on the reform they want to make the broadcaster now the keeper of all the data and print all that stuff online and there's probably a way to put your public final online the reason it is going to save stations money tells you how bad the practice of economics is in this town. i was a broadcaster to i know you have to have somebody come in and stammerich. how do you do that over the weekend or put on long and all that, you are taking the wrong target i think. you have to have public disclosure in your file so i would leave it the way it is. islamic as a broadcaster as it is i wanted to ask about two issues frequently. rush limbaugh and the sandra initio and also the l.a. city council to read

>> right. i have no use for rush limbaugh, it's completely reprehensible and inappropriate. i was on a broadcast station we had talk shows and never put up with that. and he is now apologize to. let's just point out though that it happened on the left and the right. you are now seeing somebody over here, somebody something, yeah. the bottom line is my first amendment guy first and foremost. it doesn't mean you can fly year in a theater and see things the slanderous or things that are far less. there are limits on free speech in that respect. i don't want to get to the city council thinking they are in charge of political speech and they are going to decide what is appropriate and not. can you imagine the? that can play on all different sides and what is the penalty? look people for saying something? this should be good and vigorous and appropriate. you know, and i think the marketplace is seeing that plea

of with mr. lamborn and some of his advertisers that there is reaction and i think he's learned that. >> final question from tony of politico. >> what is next on the committee's radar of the achievers saying -- where beagle throughout the rest of the year? >> there's a lot of work. cyber securities next so we are going to complete our work on that and then we are also going to do hearings on future data video. all of the marketplace is have changed since the 96 act, and we are going to be looking at all of those issues and a get some time to do oversight on the bill dealt from the stimulus and most of the oversight ended up from the oversight stopped when the money went of the door and that is a kind of long strine to stop the oversight are we getting what we are paying for we are going to be looking at that carefully and all that. and we're going to continue to work on spectrum. and going to point to a small working group to work on the government spectrum.