>> 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 would 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 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 espinal in the white house. these are issues that obviously are complex in terms of figuring out appropriate enforcement modes and so forth, but there's certainly no doubt about the importance of protection in the internet. is something that's very important. >> thank you.

and mr. commissioner, talked about very much today, you brought up in your testimony about, that there's some form of government officials that have intimated 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 at 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 opening 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 -- briefly talk about, will 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 of the system. ambassador, want to comment on that? >> well, yes. in the specific context of wict, there have been contributions suggesting there ought to suggesting there ought to be 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, 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 balkanization. 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 questions 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 of state. on behalf of the world conference and international telecommunications ad hoc working group. ms. sally 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 presented 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 weitzner 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. we 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 knows 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 subcommittee, 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 about the future of the internet and am here today because the open internet has never been at higher risk than now. a 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. if we follow one path, a path of inclusion, openness and common sense, i am convinced the internet of the future will be

an even more powerful economic engine and communications 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 centralized management. any one of which could significantly hinder internet innovation 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 telecommunications networks and policies such as setting international standards for telephone systems, asian

radio frequencies and encourages development of telecommunications infrastructure in developing 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 proposals 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 submitted a 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 disastrous. first, new international control could trigger a race to the bottom where free throw of information 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? 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 forum 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 wentworth, senior manager of public policy for the internet society. we look forward to your testimony as well. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my name is sally shipman wentworth. i'm with a nonprofit organization ensuring open

development, evolution 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 for technologists and policymakers worldwide and driver of community based initiatives around the world. the internet serves as the organizational home for the internet task force whose

missions it was to make the internet work better. we produce high quality relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use and manage the internet. these technical documents include the standards, guidelines and best practices that created and continue to shape the internet today. the international telecommunication union's upcoming world conference on international telecommunications has rightfully drawn heightened attention from the global community as some it member states proposed amendments to a key treaty, the itrs that could have far-reaching implications for the internet. while the internet society has no voting role in the process we are a sector member. in that capacity we have raised significant concerns rather than enhancing global interoperability, the outcome of the wict meeting could undermine the security, stability and innovative potential of networks worldwide. the internet society understands why some of the it member states are focusing on the internet and its infrastructure. the internet has fundamentally changed the nature of communications globally and many nations view the changes as falling under the auspices of

the itu. some stem from the very real economic pressures developing nations face seeking to update allowing to engage fully in the global information economy, but we are not convinced the international treaty making process represents the most effective means to manage cross-border internet communications or to achieve greater connectivity worldwide. we are concerned that some of the proposals being floated in advance of the december meeting are not consistent with the proven and successful multi-stakeholder model, and finally, we are concerned the wict process itself which severely limits meaningful nongovernmental participation could create negative outcomes for the internet. the internet model is characterized by several essential properties that make it what it is today. a global unified network of networks that is constantly evolving. that has proposed enormous benefits, that enables extraordinary innovation and whose robustness is based and a tradition of open standards, commune collaboration and bottom-up consensus.

as the internet has flourished, internet policy development at the global regions and national levels has continued to evolve to work harmoniously with the internet to assure its ongoing development. this process has provided the capacity to cope with the necessary and fast-paced technological evolution that has characterized the internet to date. in contrast to this approach, some wict submissions seek to apply an old line legacy telecommunication regulations to internet traffic in a manner that could lead to a more fragmented, less interoperable global internet for all. for example, proposals related to traffic routing, numbers and peering, would have significant impacts on the growth of the internet. while we find strong cause for concern about the agenda of the wict meeting there is no reason it can not produce thoughtful, worthwhile policy developments that advance the mission of the itu and the ongoing expansion of global communications without imposing dangerous and unnecessary burdens on the internet. many itu member states including the u.s. have shown they understand the value of the internet and its unique multi-stakeholder model.

those delegates are in a critical position to advance an agenda at wict that respects the internet and its global contributions continuing to support the pro-competitive policies that have been so successful since the itrs were first negotiated in 1988. working with allies from around the globe the united states government has an opportunity to help chart a productive course forward at wict. and to ensure that the value of the multi-stakeholder model and light touch regulatory approach are highlighted. we're ready to stand for this and thank you very much for this opportunity. >> thank you for your testimony. we'll go into questions now. and i want to go straight to you. you mentioned in your testimony there are other parts of the united nations that have activities concerning internet governance, and if the itu meeting is not the only place where this is being discussed, what other things are going on we should be aware of? >> yes. thank you for that question.

i do think it's important that we put the wict in context. the wict is an extremely important event in 2012. it is a treaty making conference. but the discussion of internet governance will not stop there. there are ongoing discussions within the united nations framework in the commission for science and technology for development within the international telecommunications and within the general assembly that seek to take on the internet governance with a great deal of specificity. all of these discussions are things that we at the internet society are following carefully, and we think that multi-stakeholder engagement and discussion of these issues over the next several years is going to be extremely important. >> mr. cerf, you seem to be weighing in there with a nodding head. >> i'm certainly in agreement with ms. wentworth. first of all, the itu is not the

only element in the united nations that is interested in internet matters. the point about the committee on science and technology is one example. ecostock is another. there's a long list of players

who see the internet as a fundamental part of the environment now and would like very much to have influence over it. i worry about even activities as the internet governance forum champion emerged out of the world summit on the information society. the reason it has been successful, at least up to now, is that it started as a multi-stakeholder activity, but as responsibility for the subject matter under discussion from one body to another, the question who controlling the agenda now becomes a big issue. the process of involvement in the united nations has one unfortunate property that it

politicizes everything. all the considerations that are made, whether it's in the itu or elsewhere, are taken and colored by national interests as a long-standing participant in the internet board and internet task force where we check our guns at the door and we have technical discussions about how best to improve the operation of the internet, to color that with other national disputes, which are not relevant to the technology is a very dangerous precedent and that's one of the reasons i worry so much about the itus intervention in this space. >> there are press reports out of this hearing already that would tend top say that