it is one that the u.s. will certainly participate in, and it is, again, designed to try to address the kinds of issues that you've described. so it is a very valuable instrument in terms of accumulating and then disseminating important information about the kinds of broad, social issues you've just addressed i. think the best hope is actually the growth of wireless. wireless internet access has been explodsive. the growth tremendous. that is primarily because governments have stayed out of the way, as in this country as well. so i think we need to let the market work and encourage other countries to try to get out of wait as much as possible, because the mobile internet is really the future for improving the human condition overall. >> i think as much as they can learn from, maybe, our approach

is at distance learning, mr. chairman, maybe we ought to be looking at the great successes that are being developed in places like panama and latin america, where the private sector is building actually the infrastructure in a telecommunication way that actually surpasses even activity of countries like costa rica that's had hard-line technology for so long and the great opportunities that's providing for the education of people in third world countries. so i yield back, mr. chairman and appreciate that. >> gentleman yields back his time. the chairman recognizes the gentleman from new hampshire, mr. bass. >> thank you, mr. chairman. again, a lot of the issues and question ice have have already been addressed by other mens of the committee, and i would say this has been very helpful and informative, both ambassador verveer and commissioner mcdown mcdowell have enlightened us,

how the consequences, implementation of a top-down regulatory structure for the international internet, if you will, and your comments, commissioner mcdowell, about an engineering morass, an economic uncertainty and i guess a sort of dark and dismal specter for economic freedom over the internet is very apt, and hopefully the, many other nations, others have said, especially third world nations, understand the consequences of this, given the fact that the structure of this deliberative body is relatively democratic and these little third world nations have quite a bit of power. commissioner mcdowell, you published an op-ed recently in the "wall street journal"'s in which you mentioned that the internet helped farmers find buyers for crops. i can give you many examples of small industriesen in my neck of the woods in new hampshire that

have created whole, new economies that didn't exist before by using the internet, and i'm wondering if you can speak a little bit about how the multi-stakeholder model helps small businesses and how the international regulations, if they went into effect, would hinder them. >> well, as many people have said already, it allows innovation without permission. so when you combine the liberty that comes with mobility, when you combine the invention of mobility for marty cooper with the invention from vince and bob of packet switching and the power of the internet, you really fundamentally change the human condition. i think more so than any other invention that i can think of. maybe, since fire, and i'm trying not to be hyperbolic. so you are not just contacting a place. or a thing. you're being, you're able to communicate with a person, and that does more to empower the sovereignty of the individual than any other technology i can

think of. so do you have farmers who can find buyers for their crops without having to take on the risks of traveling to the village, to the market, where they could lose their crops or they could be stolen, or the buyer might not show up. so they can take care of that transaction. worried parents can find medicine for their sick children. they can locate portable water, actually a huge global concern right now. much more easily through the power of the mobile internet. >> and for both of you, is it the multi-stakeholder design, governance model, if you will, really unique in that it prevents government entity, and nongovernmental entities, for that matter from controlling the design of the network and thereby content that rides over ter? do you a you glee with that-o-- with that or have comment on

that? >> generally we think this has in fact been enormously instrumental in creating the internet that we have today, and we're very anxious that the free flow of information, the freedom of expression, remains as a centerpiece in terms of one of the many capabilities of the internet. and multi-stakeholder model tends to help protect that, because it does bring all voices to the table. it is a kind of ethic in which no one, no one set of voices is especially privileged, and we think that probably does help in terms of this what you might think of as a broader political social culture aspects of the internet. >> to conclude on a personal note, commissioner mcdowell. my father had the honor of serving in this body when i was about the age of your son, who's sitting behind you. and i remember well going to a science -- calmed the space committee in those days. he was a member of the science and technology -- the greatest

committee you could be on in the congress because it was in the middle of the space race, being so excited that here i was in this great place, and they went through this hearing and i didn't understand a single word. so we -- what was said. but when i got out i told all my friends that i knew all kinds of things now about where we were going in space. so, griffin, i expect you to brief your dad on this hearing and make sure he's set straight. knows where we're helded. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. bass. appreciate that. i recognize the gentlewoman from the virgin islands nchtsds thank you. mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent on behalf of ranking member, ask you to insert the "new york times" editorial by vicinitien cerf into the record. >> without objection. the chair now recognizes gentleman from ohio for five minutes. >> well, thank you very much, mr. chairman, and mr. ambassador, and money commission. thanks very much for your testimony today. it is very enlightening, and

everyone not only in this body but aacross the nation wants to make sure that we keep our internet free and way from more regulations and best to be enveloped the tway has from the ground up, from private industry and without government regulation. if i could, mr. commissioner, i would just like to ask a couple of questions briefly. because i think -- i'd like to go back to the whole question as to, i know there's been a lot of questions as to businesses and business regulation what could happen out there. but the chairman has conducted hearings on krish securicyber sy helpful. talking about the russian federation asking for jurisdiction over ip addresses. quote/unquote, a remedy of phone number shortages or the chinese would like to be see creation

where use ares are registered using their ip addresses. i think you end up that in a lot of totalitarian regimes, those awe authoritarian regime, the ability to identify and silence political distance, but haw wou -- how would you look at those two areas that would give those countries or other countries some sort of advantage on attacking the united states or gaining more intellectual property stolen over the net today, because, again, the more that is out there that these companies have to submit of themselves to other countries, you know, it's hard enough right now to protect what you've got. so if you could just answer that, i'd appreciate it. >> i think the general theme with that, and also just looking at history, at other analogy, could be a scenario where they might want the rest of the world to live under a set of rules that they, then, break. in other words, they would break the rules and everyone else wool

abide by them, and that would be to their advantage. >> mr. ambassador? follow-up on that? >> well, the -- the general issue that i think you've raised about the question of protection of blecttual property, for example, is one that is a very, very serious one. it's one that we at the state department work at very hard. it's one the administration works at very hard through the office of victoria es spa nall in the white house. these are issues that obvious he are complex in terms of figures out appropriate enforcement modes and so forth, but there's certainly no don't about the importance of protection in the internet. is something that's very important. >> thank you. and mr. commissioner, on, talked about very much today, you brought up in your testimony about, that there's some form of government officials that have

inlt mafted to you about maybe having international universal service fund -- whereby foreign usually stayed on telecom companies would an international mandate to chart certain web destinations and on basis to build out broadband. you know, with the -- so many companies here in the united states having spent hundreds of millions of dollars to do that, would that, then, put u.s. companies at a disadvantage? especially since you've been looking a a lot of the companies in this country really having to finance that? >> i think you have to look at which web destinations attract the most traffic. might be youtube on itunes or netflix is expanding naturally internationally as well and the video applications use a lot of bandwidth. the point here is that there might be international sanction or international mandate for some sort of regulatory regime to impose these charges, and

that is a concern. if companies want to enter into contracts in a competitive market i'm all for that, but we don't need an international body distorting the marketplace to anyone's disadvantage. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i yield back my time. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. shimkus who i think is our last one to ask questions of this panel. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i apologize for obviously keeping us longer, but it's very important. it's a very important subject. and it's very important if you've been involved, as i've been fortunately been involved with democracy and freedom movements, at least in the former captive nations, eastern european countries. i pulled up with great technology, the cyber attack on estonia in 2007. just returned from the nato parliamentary assembly meetings in estonia just over the break. i've watched the crackdown on

dissidents in belarus and commissioner mcdowell, you're highlighting the prime minister of russia's exact quote. international control of the internet through the itu should give everyone a cause for concern. those of us who follow these movements are rightly concerned about, as was stated in maybe question and answer in opens statement, the movement to do this is for regime stability and regime preservation. i mean, it's clear. look at the actors. russia, china, iran. i imagine north korea. probably on there, if they really had any concern of anyone having computers to begin with, other than the handful that they allow. for downloading movies.

i won't go there. and -- breaiefly talk about, wi they be using, first to the ambassador and then commissioner mcdowell, the whole debate is this linked in and using cyber security as an excuse to get further control, and of that we should be concerned with especially from state actors who have used technology to cyber attack other countries? that would be the last defenders 69 system. ambassador, want to comment on that. >> well, yes. in the specific context of wict, there have been contributions suggesting there ought to somebody sort of a cyber security regulation. now, the discussions have tended to be at a very high level. for example, something like all countries should be responsibility for protecting their networks. things of that nature. the united states generally opposes any significant effort

to bring cyber security regulation into the itu or similar bodies. there are -- as you know, enormously significant issues surrounding cyber security. there is a great deal of engagement that we in the united states have with other countries about how to improve the cyber security environment. but we don't think that apart from potentially a very high-level kind of statement about the desirability of cyber security, that it has any place at all in terms of these itrs. >> great. commissioner mcdowell jl any comment on that? >> yeah. my concern overall is that such international mandates could be used as a sword and a shield by authoritarian regimes at the same time. keep in mind, though, that cyber security is discussed in many diplomatic for ra, not just wict or itu, other places as well, but as a general matter, we

should be very concerned before entering into any international agreements on this that we aren't put at disadvantage. >> i don't know if congresswoman mentioned this, talking before i had to leave the room, but the process would be consensus agreement, would those, then have to go back to this, the national governments for, like, a treaty ratification, as we see in other treaties like kyoto, not to pick on it, but some countries picked it up. some countries like the united states never voted on it. i think that's the issue of bull can sthaigs you' bulkenization. wouldn't that disenfranchise those countries that think they're trying to uses it for their own regime stability and regime preservation, but it would really hurt them in the

global economy and developmental process? wouldn't you -- so they're cutting off their nose to spite their face, if they do this? ambassador, would you agree with that? >> yes, i would. >> commissioner mcdowell? >> i would agree as well. >> thank you. yield back my time. >> thank you. appreciate your confers and we appreciate the answers and the testimony from our two very distinguished panelists. thank you. you've been most helpful in us understanding better what we face as a country, and the challenge that's ahead for both of you and for our delegation going to be dubai. so, thank you. we appreciate it, and we'll call up our next panel of witnesses. on our second panel's davis a. gross for information policy, u.s. department 6 state. on batch of the world conference and international telecommunications ad hoc working group. ms. salley shipman wentworth, the senior manager public policy for internet society. and mr. vinton cerf, vice

president and chief internet evangelist for google. we all admire that title, and your work, mr. cerf, certainly, that to have internet and addresses all those things you created or helped create and love to talk internet evangelist. again, we thank our prior panel, and their testimony, and we will start right in with ambassador gross, our leadoff witness on the second panel, and, again, just pull those microphones close. make sure the lights are lit, and you should be good to go. thank you, ambassador, for your work on this issue in the past, and we look forward to your comments today. >> well, thank very much, mr. chairman. ranking member. it's a great privilege and honor to be back here with you all again. i appreciate it very much, and i probably should start with an apology to the audience that i did not bring lunch with us. so i'll try to be brief. i want to underscore a couple points made both by the questions and the answers

present the by the first panel. first of all, i think it's extraordinarily important for the american people to know that i think the preparations for the upcoming wict conference are in excellent hands. i think we've seen this demonstrated by the statements and actions by ambassador verveer you saw this morning, by assistant secretary larry strickland, by the white house including danny whitesler played an important role and announced earlier today by ambassador verveer, the incoming held of delegation terry kramer. i will confess i've known terry many years. worked together at airtouch. been good friends for many years and i could not be more pleased and confident of a successful outcome because of who i'm sure will be his excellent leadership. his leadership is important and helpful in addresses some of the questions raised to the first panel about the ability to

create, inform, successful coalitions to be able to identify the issues. he has great experience not only in the telephone industry but also having worked and been very active internationally, he know what's it takes to bring people together and to be able to find that consensus that will be very important. i also want to recognize, of course, as you all have already done this morning the extraordinary work done by fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. he has been tireless and passionate and very focused on this issue in ways that have greatly served all of us and i personally and professionally am so pleased by his leadership to date. having had the great honor of working on these issues for many years at the u.s. state department and elsewhere, i think there are a few core principles that make this particularly important. one that was stressed earlier today about the importance of bipartisanship. and i would like to commend both sides of the aisle in this committee particularly and its

members for the great work that you've done with regard to the new resolution 127. i think that's really quite extraordinary. when i had the honor of leading the u.s. delegation co-leading u.s. delegation 2, world summit society, u.n. heads of state summit, a similar joint resolution was enacted and i found that to be extraordinarily useful and important for us as we went forward, because the world recognizes the importance and the role congress plays on these issues domestically and internationally, and it is an important signal. the bipartisanship is a particularly important signal there. that these are issues for which we are all together. i'd also say that i have a great honor currently of chairing an ad hoc committee that has been put together to address the wict issues and the like, and i think there is much to be learned from the diverse membership of that group. that group often takes different

views on domestic issues. and that's to be expected. but they come together and are unified as the american people, i believe, are unified, on the issue that brings us together about the internet, the importance of the internet and the role of intergovernmental organizations and others with regard to that going forward. there are two sort of things i think that are particularly important to focus on about wict. one is it's important to remember this is not just another conference bought treaty writing conference. the output of this will not be just language that is used but in fact international law. and, therefore, it's very, very important that the details be dealt with carefully. it's also very important because it affects not just the american people but people globally. the u.s. is looked to by people around the world poor that leadership and i am confident that leadership will be maintained. it is the great changes that have happened in the world, the

great growth in the internet, that has benefited the people in the developing world and elsewhere perhaps most dramatically and i think that is first and foremost something we always need to keep in mind. it's also important to recognize as many of the comments this morning, that this is not about the itu as an institution. the itu is an important institution to the united states, the secretary-general has been very important, is a leader and helpful not united states and otherwise. having said that, this is about other member states outlined by a number of the answers earlier today. and those are the issues and the coalitions we need to build, the issues we need to address and the facts we need to gather. and with that i believe my time is about to expire. and i don't want to delay this any further. thank you very much. >> master gross, thank you for your leadership and testimony today and encouragement on our bipartisan resolution, which we hope to be able to move rather rapidly to the house floor.

mr. cerf, we're delighted and honored to have you here today and look forward to your verbal presentation, your testimony, and your insights on this matter. >> thank you very much, chairman walden, and i see that ranking member eshoo had to depart, i appreciate her participation today. members of the zb committee, an honor to address you. my name is vinton cerf. i serve at chief evangelist at google. as one of the fathers of the internet i care deeply an the future of the internet and am here today because the open internet has never been at hire prifk than now pap new international battle is brewing. battle that will determine the future of the internet. of all of us, from capitol hill to corporate headquarters to internet cafes in far off villages don't pay attention to what's going on, users worldwide will be at risk of losing the

open and free internet that has brought so much to so many, and can bring so much more. . it we follow one path, a path of inclusion, openness and common sense, i am conventiinced the internet of the future will be an even more pouberful economic engine and commune kangss tool than it is today. the other path is a road of top-down control dictated by governments. a very different system. a system that promotes exclusion hidden deals potential for indiscriminate surveillance and tight centralize management. any one of which could significantly hinder internet inovation and growth. at the crossroads stands the international telecommunication union, an agency of the united nations that came into being to regulate international telegraph services just four years after the pony express closed its doors.

this agency plans to meet in six months to consider proposed changes to the international agreements governing telecommunications. until this year, the itu, which through the u.n. includes 193 member countries, each with only a single vote, has focused its attention on telecommune kangss networks and coless such as setting international standards for telephone systems kwornd asian radio frequencies and encourages development of telecommunications infrastructure in developmenting nations. on the whole, benign and helpful to the spread of the internet, but the organization recently passed a resolution in guadalajara calling to "increase the role of the itu in internet governance." this should cause significant concern. in addition, some powerful member states see an opportunity to assert control over the

internet through a meeting in dubai this coming december. several proechls from member states of the itu would threaten free expression on the web. others have called for unprecedented mandates and economic regulations that would, for example, impose international internet fees in order to generate revenue for state-owned telecommunications companies. the international attack on the open internet has many fronts. take, for example, the shanghai cooperation organization, which counts china, russia, uzbekistan among its members. this organization submit add proposal to the u.n. general assembly last september for a so-called international code of conduct for information security. the organization's stated goal, to establish government-led international norms and rules standardizing the behavior of countries concerning information and cyber space. should one or more of these

proposals pass, the implications are potentially sdramp disastrous. it could become the norm rather than the exception. already more than 20 countries have substantial or pervasive online filters, according to the open net initiative. and the decentralized bottom of architecture that enabled the rise could be flipped on its head. the new structure would have the unintended consequence of choking innovation and hurting american business abroad. as you can see, the decisions made this december in the itu could potentially put regulatory handcuffs on the net with a remote u.n. agency holding the keys. and because the itu answers only to its member states, rather than to citizens, civil society academia, the technical industry and broad private sector, there's a great need to insert transparency and accountability into this process.

so what can you do jn i encourage this committee to take action now by urging the u.s. government in partnership with like-minded countries and their citizens to engage in this process and protect the current bottom-up pluralistic system of internet governance and to insist that the debate at the itu and all other international fora be open to all stakeholders. it is critically important for you to engage to help ensure that world understands the economic social and technical advances driven by the internet are endangered by these efforts. thank you for the opportunity to testify on this very serious matter. i look forward to answering your questions. >> mr. cerf, thank you. we appreciate your leadership and comments. >> now we'll go to sally shipman went. worth. ms. shipman, thank you for being here. we look forward to your testimony as well. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

my name is sally shipman went were worth. i'm with a nonprofit organization ensuring open development, everybody lukes and use of the internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world. on behalf of the internet society and our more than 55,000 members worldwide, many of whom are joining us in the audience and are watching the webcast around the world, i would like to sincerely thank chairman walden, ranking member eshoo and all the members for the opportunity to testify on this important issue. the internet society was founded in 1992 by many of the same pioneers who built the internet. one who is sitting next to me. since that time the organization served as a global resource for technically vet the ideologically unbiased information about the internet. as an educator foretechnologists and policymakers worldwide and driver of community based initiatives around the world. the internet serv