format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at eight eastern through monday morning at eight eastern. nonfiction books all weekend every weekend right here on c-span2. .. >> between the candidates for new hampshire governor.

and later a fellow with the new america foundation shares his insight on the political unrest in the middle east following his recent trips to egypt, syria andlibya. also today retired supreme court justice john paul stevenses speaks to a conference of attorneys in washington, d.c. about gun laws, gun violence and his dissents in the court's cases involving the second amendment. this event is hosted by the brady center to prevent gun violence live coverage beginning at 12:15 eastern here on c-span2. >> host: well, our goal on "the communicators" this week is to look at the philosophies of both president obama and governor romney when it comes to tech and communications issues and to explore any possible policy changes that could result from a second obama administration or a first romney administration. joining us in our discussion is john kneuer.

now, mr. kneuer used to be the administrator of the national telecommunications and information administration under the george w. bush administration, and ed paisley is also with us, a longtime journalist. he is currently vice president for editorial for the center for american progress' action fund. and, mr. paisley, if we could start with you. how would you describe president obama's overall philosophy when it comes to tech and communications issues? >> guest: i would include tech communications and science because i think all three go together. i think it's a mistake to try and separate the one from the other or the two from the other. the overall philosophy really is trying to figure out the best way in which the federal government can work cooperatively with the private sector in improving u.s. economic competitiveness in whatever range it is. and the administration's done a number of different public/private partnerships in a lot of arenas trying to boost

our science and innovation capabilities, you know, as a broad philosophical focus for what he thinks of as a progressive agenda to help boost our economic competitiveness around the globe. on telecom and communications in paragraph, i am far -- in particular, i am far less of an expert than he is, i have to admit right up front. in general, i would say that really falls for the administration much more into the regulatory arena in how to deal with various different constituencies and various different businesses in trying to balance the different issues that different kinds of industries come at. so, and i would also say that in many ways the administration looks on -- and i may be speaking too broadly here -- i think the administration looks much more on far-reaching investments in science and innovation as their policy agenda compared to trying to

work out where telecommunications and i.t. firms can invest because they can do that pretty well on their own. i mean, they're powerful, they're quick, they're very adept. and it's really the regulatory issues, i think, that define that there. >> host: mr. kneuer, same question with regard to governor romney's philosophy. how would you describe it? >> guest: well, at the outset let me just say i'm not speaking for the campaign. i'm an enthusiastic supporter and observer of the campaign. >> guest: i should add that as well. >> guest: ed makes a good point, and i think there's broad consensus that technology and telecommunications industries are some of the most innovative that contribute enormously to our national productivity and to our standard of living. the real distinction, i think, between the two philosophies is what is the role of government with respect to these enormously innovative industries and whether or not one can, one can

take advantage of innovation, investment, changing technologies, consumer demand, competing business models to drive these industries or whether or not there should be a more heavy involvement of the government. i think ed's also exactly right with regards to telecom. it's viewed as a regulatory matter. and i think that comes from a real difference in viewpoints as to the state of competition within these industries. i think there is a viewpoint and a perspective that these, there is not competition among various market participants and components of the industry, that cable is a vertical and land line is a vertical and wireless is a veritable as opposed to the real recognition that they are fiercely competing with one another, and in that competitive environment the role of the government should be to protect that competition, robust enforcement of anticompetition

statutes. but not to manage that competition from a regulatory seat in washington. >> host: and also joining us is josh smith. he's with "the national journal." mr. smith recently wrote a long piece comparing and contrasting the technology agendas or potential technology agendas of the two candidates. mr. smith, thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. john, you mentioned that within the tech community and the broader community there's many verticals, they're all competing with each other. what are these companies looking for or looking at, i guess, in the agendas of both candidates right now as far as clues for what might come ahead? you know, obviously, telecom issues are not something that up pops up on the campaign trail. where are companies, you know, looking for clues as far as what the agendas will be? >> guest: well, i think ideally

what they should be looking for is a common understanding of the rules of the road and the ability to enter the marketplace and compete with one another. i think part of the problem, and it's a real problem, when the regulator tries to manage competition, then there are incentives for market participants to become rent seekers and try to manage the regulatory environment in a way that's going to maximize their business rather than looking to consumer demand and business models and engaging that way. so i think what they're looking for is certainty in what the rules of the road are and to the maximum extent possible rules that don't interfere with their efforts to meet that consumer demand. >> ed, what do you see as far as or where should companies be looking for clues about what a second obama administration might entail? >> well for, again, separated between telecom and i.t., i

agree completely, i think the danger is the rent seeking capabilities that that regulations just generally bring and the way in which companies can interfere and influence through congress, through the administration, through the courts, and antitrust is clearly one of the great ways you can do that. antitrust can pairly keep up with what's -- barely keep up with what's going on in changes. it's difficult. i really do think in the next administration congress is going to be the one driving some of these things because it comes down to the kind of regulatory issues that are there. conversely, on the science and innovation side i think the big difference is that there's a real commitment to public/private partnerships by the obama administration looking for ways that you can have collaborative progress to be able to outcompete or increasingly fierce competitors abroad. and those kind of initiatives

that first start as experiments and are now pretty well full blown through a number of different initiatives are focusing on the bottom-up region allocations of the economy, different industries, places where we're really strong, places where we need to be stronger. it's been derided as industrial policy on capitol hill,st not that at all. -- it's not that at all. it's trying to find that bridge between the basic research and development money that goes out there and no money at all through the financing that gets commercialized. it's trying to find financing and find those ways. it's very unique, and it's very different from what the romney campaign -- well, the romney campaign hasn't talked about this at all, it's really private sector, private sector. for the obama administration, it's this collaborative approach. ghs john kneuer, when you hear public/private partnerships, what's your response?

>> guest: again, i think it goes to defining the role of government. and the federal government has historically had a long, successful history on research and development funding. and in particular with pure, basic research where there isn't an economic or business incentive to engage in research. the government can go a long way through goth labs and -- government labs and collaboration with universities and those sorts of things. i think the trouble is where do you twine that, and what is -- define that, and what is the government's role in any partnership? very, very often companies come in looking for research money, and, you know, it's development in drag. they want money they can contribute to get to their bottom line. i understand their incentives for wanting to do that, but i think the other problem is when the government views itself as a partner and is driving economic decisions for faved political -- favored political entities, i'm not going to go into a long

rehash on some of the recent experiences around, for instance, investment in renewable energy and some of the less than successful endeavors we've had there. it's when the government views its role in the partnership as an equal partner steering the ultimate outcome, i think you run a danger, it's not just the government picking winners and losers, but some of the robust, you know, market-based outcomes and consumer-driven outcomes that get revealed through this messy competition in the marketplace get pushed to the side in favor of what appears to be a preferred, you know, parochial outcome. and, you know, again, i think there's a broad consensus that the government has a role in helping sponsor research. like i said, partnerships with government labs, universities, those sorts of things are areas

where partnership's been very successful. i think it's when the government steps in almost as a commercial partner that not only do you have less of a likelihood of success, but you can do real harm to, you know, emerging technologies. [inaudible] >> guest: the interesting thing about this is when you think about what the administration has done, they are offering competitive grants to regions around the country competing for the first one, the experimental one was on energy efficiency technologies. and a consortia of 12 different con so star composed of work force development agencies, all these different groups competed. nebraska won. -- philadelphia won. and they got $129 million for energy efficiency technologies, both research and development and commercialization and work force training because you've got to get people to be able to go into the right places and

inspect, put things into roofs, things like that. that was not picking a winner, that was picking a sector. now, energy efficiency most people will agree is a useful sector. i mean, we've got to cut our reliance on foreign oil if nothing else. forget climate change arguments for this point. a number of those have gone elsewhere. the i6 challenge which is another program which is six different agencies coming together looking for ways to boost regional, bottom-up regional innovation, st. louis won a biotech sector. and it wasn't in the st. louis region. and they won it because that was where the cattle arrived. a long time ago they have an expertise in animal husbandry, they have an expertise in animal testing and all kinds of genetic stuff, so they're looking for, like, the next bay for us to compete -- the next way for us to compete as a regional

economy. not picking winners and losers, everybody coming together, big universities in kansas st. louis an interesting approach. and the either/or idea misses the point, in my opinion, of what every other country who we're competing with is doing. and many of them are picking winners, and they're failing. we're not picking winners, we're picking sectors. i think it's a big difference. >> host: josh smith. >> do you think that one of governor romney's criticisms of the obama administration's programming investment in r&d is not so much the money that's been spent towards that, but it's not been spent in what they see is a smart way. do you see, doou see something changing in a second obama administration from what they have been doing? you've listed off a lot of things that you see as, you know, innovation. is there a next wave of innovation, you know, in obama's playbook? >> guest: i'll say two things, i think they've learned a number of lessons, and i'll happily

mention solyndra. it was a mistake. it was a problem. and then there we are. but that also was a mistake and a problem that got caught up by market forces involving china which we might get into later which is now unraveling backwards again. the chinese solar cell industry is now collapsing because they overbuilt themselves. nonetheless, those kind of lessons are going to be learned by any program that's up and running like that for the first time. the second thing, though, is that what the, what the administration is looking for is next generation stuff, personalized medicine, 3-d printing, advanced polymers, nanotechnology at the cutting edge. these are a number of different things where it really marries basic research and development wed with the that early help for commercialization. as i said before, $250 billion a year put into basic research and development, not a dime to commercialize it. there's this huge gap between what private sector will do and what the government will do.

and there are no more bell labs bridging the gap. it's got to be done collaboratively. it's also, you know, many different technologies and sciences coming together. that also requires collaboration. so i think they'll learn more from that as well. >> host: ed paisley, let's start with you. there's an issue that has been talked about here in washington policy circles for quite a while, cybersecurity. and there seem to be a clear divide between democrats and republicans on cybersecurity. very briefly, what do you think going forward is the best strategy when it comes to cybersecurity? >> guest: again, this is one, this is one area i wouldn't pretend an expertise, but i do know that the administration in looking for ways to protect american companies and the american economy and american infrastructure from cyber attacks, i mean, that's a critical national security issue, and there are many things that have to be done. i understand the position of industries, different industries worried about what's going to happen if they're suddenly

policed by the national security agency or something like that. but we have to fess up to the fact that we need to protect ourselves, and we really co. we really do. and that's going to be, i think, a major debating point in the next administration and in the next congress because it's really only getting worse. and our adversaries are worried about us too. and, you know, i think we're probably pretty good at it. and so there's a number of international things that also have to be worked out, and i think that's coming to a head in the next administration as well. >> host: john kneuer? >> guest: obviously, cybersecurity is a critical issue for government networks and private networks and commercial networks, and there's clearly an important place for industry and government to collaborate, particularly on the sharing of information, identifying what attacks each is being subject to, what effective remedies to those attacks might be. i think the split and the danger

is whether or not one supports the premise that the federal government ought to take a leadership role in the regulatory role in establishing cybersecurity standards. there's, i can't think of anywhere else in the economy where the technology changes more quickly than in the internet space and where the threat vector changes more quickly than in the internet space. the reason it's so critically important to share information among best commercial entities -- amongst commercial entities and the government is the type of attacks change almost daily. having a place where you can share that kind of information and we can be better prepared to collectively protect ourselves is very important. but if the government starts setting standards and starts setting regular -- regulatory dictates on what those should be, the incentive becomes

regulatory compliance. you're creating those incentives, you're drawing away resources to think about what is the latest iteration of the federal reg on my network security rather than what's the latest threat that we've just been subject to and how are we going to deal with it. i think you're misaligning incentives in a really misguided way. again, this is an area where i think there's broad consensus on the problem. the question is, what is the role of the government to deal with it, and are there adequate incentives, you know, i think the commercial market participants have enormous incentives economic and reputational and otherwise to be doing everything they can to defend their networks. their networks go down, their businesses go down. so the added addition of regulation doesn't make them more incented to protect their networks, it just adds a new compliance metric. >> host: joining us in our discussion today are john

kneuer, former national telecommunications and information administration administrator under the george w. bush administration, also ed paisley of the center for american progress' action fund and josh smith is our guest reporter from "the national journal." >> john, governor romney hasn't, you know, laid out a specific proposal on cybersecurity beyond some general proposals. um, he has called, however, for greater involvement of the intelligence and defense communities, and it's officials in those intelligence and defense communities that are some of the more vocal voices in calling for some of these standards that, um, republicans in congress and the chamber of commerce and many businesses have rejected. do you see a president romney, um, taking the side of business, i guess, against the defense department and against the

national security agency? >> guest: well, i'm not sure that there is that kind of a bright line opposition between the entities that you laid out. i think in looking to the military, defense department and the intelligence communities, i think it's simply an acknowledgment that that is where the real expertise resides within the government. they've got the human capital resources and have been dealing with this in a much more proactive way for a much longer time. the issue of cybersecurity has been one that's been very brightly defined between, for a long time, between classified networks and unclassified networks and, candidly, we didn't do a bunch to protect our unclassified networks almost as a purposeful strategy in closing off the network, in shutting the door and locking it to your

adversary, you're telling your adversary something about what you know and how you defend your networks. so the intelligence communities and the defense communities as the primary owners and operators of our classified networks, i think, have spent a lot more time dealing with this threat. and it's only been recently that we have moved towards the necessity to close off even our unclassified networks. even though the information might be classified in aggregate, it just becomes too much of a problem. so i think the reliance on defense and intelligence is primarily around the, that's where the expertise resides. as far as your statement that some of those folks are the ones who are supportive of regulation, you know, i don't know that that is a, you know, a unified position of those communities, so -- >> host: even though we're talking about the presidential campaigns, ed paisley, you introduced the topic of congress, and there's, obviously, going to be a new

congress coming up. how would you characterize congress over the past couple years when it comes to technology and communications policy, and how would you personally like to see them move forward? >> guest: hmm. um, i'll start again with what i know best which is our science and innovation, and i'm deeply worried about the budget cuts that were proposed by the house on basic science research and development for all kinds of different agencies. it's, you know, it's just the wrong way to go. we absolutely need to begin investing in and continue to invest as the administrations did in the first two years of the administration, with a congress that agreed with them to invest in many of these important, cutting edge industries. and we just have to do that. and trying to cut everything so we can increase defense spending and cut taxes for the wealthy just doesn't make a lot of sense

to me. that's a basic, that's a huge philosophical difference, obviously. the other part that i think is really important and kind of getting back to cybersecurity in kind of a way, one of the investments we need to make is in the smart grid. our power infrastructure is very, very vulnerable b to cyber attacks, and that takes the kind of investment that is we need from, you know, from darpa, from defense department, from a number of different private sector, public sector, collaborative efforts to protect our infrastructure and also make it more effective and efficient and, you know, again, cut power costs and cut, cut, you know, carbon pollution. so there are a variety of different things that one can do with that, and congress has not, this congress has not moved on that. and i truly worry about gridlock in the next administration. really no matter who wins. and that, that's just a really difficult issue. and i -- it does concern me that the republicans in the house in

particular are just so focused on anything involving the government must be bad. st -- it's just not true, and we need to think about ways that the public and private sector can collaborate better. >> host: john kneuer? >> guest: uh, i think there is a tendency to in discussing any cuts and potential cuts in funding anywhere to draw the conclusion that, well, nothing will happen, we won't be able to fund anything. there clearly is a role for research, basic research investment. the question is making sure that those dollars when they're being spent are really being put towards an effective use and not being put towards pet projects or other things. you know, you brought up, you mentioned solyndra, and now that the chinese government subsidies have pumped up their solar industry to that extent, i mean, it's almost perverse that we were borrowing money from china to fund clean energy programs --

the chinese were funding both sides of this, right? and they both collapsed because it was driven by a centralized view of what might be good rather than a consumer demand and business models and market die page ins that would reveal what people really want and what the efficacy is. i agree with you that there's always room for innovation and investment in our power grid just as there is in our communications networks. but again, i think the best place to figure out and understand where those investments are needed and where they should go is from the operators, is from the -- and not necessarily from here. >> host: josh smith. >> one of the areas of spending that has been at least in the telecom world has been kind of the centerpiece is the government's effort to develop broadband networks, and even, i

mean, the republican party platform even had a large section hitting the obama administration for spending $7.2 odd billion, and in the republicans' view not having much to show for it. what's the report card on that spending, and how do you think that kind of development would change over the next couple years? >> guest: well, i think it needs to be put in context. it was $7.2 billion over three or four years, i forget the exact, and it was four odd billion coming out of ntia and the rest was loan guarantees to the rural utility service. that is, in comparison to, close to $100 billion a year in new capex every year by the private industries that are, that have built these networks and continue the build and operate these networks. we've got a long history in this country going back to, you know,

rural electrification and the original universal service fund, a recognition that, you know, there are network effects that benefit everybody on the network whether it's the power grid or the communications network to make sure that everybody is connected. the challenge is designing a tax and subsidy regime that isn't out of date and full of, full of waste. you know, we looked at one of the things that has come up repeatedly was we should reform the universal service fund and make it a broadband fund. i don't think anybody was philosophically opposed to that, but what the complaint was, you can't just make the existing fund which isn't performing well bigger. you need to do fundamental reform to make sure that the minimum amount of money is collected and it's being devoted to actually filling the gaps that are there. i think the primary flaw of the recent broadband exercise was

that there were multiple components in that statute. there was the $7 billion in funding, and there was about $300 million for mapping to actually measure where the gaps were. the mapping exercise was going to be done after the $7.2 billion was already spent. you know, that strikes me as a not likely to produce a successful distribution of those monies to the place that they're really needed if you actually don't know. >> do you see, i know you've been itching in the weeds to telecom discussion -- [laughter] do you see investment in communications networks as one area where the obama administration has done well, or do you think this is more work to be done? >> guest: i have to say, it's very hard for me to speak to that, i really haven't followed the broadband debate all that carefully. i do, one idea that came up which i thought was a good