>> president obama is taking a tour through south america. he will stop in brazil today to meet the brazilian president. he is scheduled to give a speech in rio de janeiro on sunday. on monday, he arrives in chile for a bilateral meeting and press conference with the president of chile. he travels to el salvador on tuesday, where he meets with the president there. before returning wednesday, he will stay until salvador and to work the national cathedral and mayan regions. >> the communicators is on location at the seventh annual state of the net conference sponsored by the caucus in congress. joining us now is william blair from the massachusetts institute of technology -- leher from the massachusetts

institute of technology. what is the communications futures program? >> we work together with industry partners both internationally and domestically to look at issues affecting the internet. the idea is to try to think about technologically aware policy, business strategy, and strategy where technology -- strategy-up where technology. >> what are you thinking about most these days? >> i could spend a lot of time thinking about wireless issues. i come from a regulatory economic research background, so i am especially interested in all of the non-technical sides

of policies and how they interact with the internet. how do we ensure a healthy climate for the internet? how might we manage spectrum? these sorts of issues are ones i have been thinking about recently. >> when you graduated from your first college, the university of graduated withou floppy disks, computer labs, and dial-up modems. what did you see in the future in 1979? >> the notion that we would be getting to something more like we have today -- lots of people are talking about that.

it was not just me, it was anyone making predictions at the time. the things you read in 1984, you could not have done in 1984, at not in 1994, but we're pretty close now. the idea of information everywhere is the kind of thing people are talking about. >> let's talk about privacy on the internet. is the cow out of the barn? is it too late to close the door? >> the horse is out of the barn. i heard someone say, and i do not disagree, that even though the horse has gone flying out of the barn, you might want to still hold onto the reins. we have got into a point where the technology -- we're pretty

close to the point where anybody who really wants to know anything about you can if they want to do it. we can design technologies, but we need to focus on how the affirmation is used. what about privacy do we really care about, and what we want to preserve? it is a dialogue. a lot of people understand. for example, a lot of what you want from new technology is customization, applications working the way you want them to work, depends on people knowing the applications come in knowing lots of things about you. i think certainly one of the first things we need to do is be more aware of what other folks know, and disclosure. so, if people understood, what

do you know about me and can i check that, those are some of the principals in the privacy initiative. >> do you bank online? >> i bank online. i do all this stuff and online. if i were to avail myself of the privacy option -- and there are a lot of people at mit who are extremely paranoid. they will not bank on line. it is just too inconvenient not to do that. one thing i do is, i multiplied myself online. go find the real me. i have probably 40 or 50 e-mail addresses. >> some of your research focuses on the regulatory environment. how would you describe the

regulatory environment right now? >> i think it is an environment in transition. i organized a workshop with international support in 1998 focusing on internet policy of the future. the largest regulatory phenomenon is the notion that the markets do a better job than centralized planning. i absolutely agree with that. the whole economic profession agrees with that with a few exceptions. i think what we're trying to struggle through now is how do differently regulate. we are in a big transition that is ongoing. we are not in a position to tear the regulatory house down completely and say we want nothing there, but we have not

figured out how to apply it to the internet, the new central infrastructure that we want to try to figure out how to regulate. i would like to respond to market processes, but i think that means thinking that there is a way for regulation and how to do it. what is light handed regulation? it cannot be no regulation. that is not realistic politically. i think we need to embrace that it needs to be something affirmative and think about what that is. >> is the fcc versus thailand and limber enough to regulate -- versatile and limber enough to regulate the internet? >> in the u.s., if i look at

regulatory authority and i say, who is the one that is most up to speed, i think it has to be the federal communications commission. i certainly would not want to destroy the fcc and create something else. but what is the right role for the federal communications commission, and what authority should it be operating under? >> what about international regulation, the world wide net? >> we do not do a particularly great job of international regulation of anything, from trafficking in human -- all that sort of stuff. i do not think people are comfortable with, for example, the un regulating the internet. a lot of all internet hands are pretty happy with the non-

governmental organizations that have done it in the past, but i think there are real questions about whether or not they fail. if you said, what international agency would do this, the i.t. you? i think you would -- the itu? i think you would hear a collective groan. i think the industry needs to be proactive, because i do not think it is a reasonable position for them to think they can push of international regulation forever. they need to help people who do not want it to be organizations like the itu. give them ideas of somebody else to work with. >> there are different rules in the eu, china, iran. >> is certainly, regulation that

is pure randomness because of government behavior is a deterrent. but things change all the time. i think the notion that, setting forth the framework, there are different sorts of things that could be changed. for example, the neutrality principles that were set up by colin powell at the time, i did not think a lot of sense. i did not think they had a lot of teeth, so i was not in favor of them. move forward a few years, and everybody basically agrees. you should not be able to attach devices that would hurt. you should have a choice. these are principles everyone sort of accepted. the question then is, what do you do beyond that? i think the fcc is attempting to move forward. i think it is an ongoing

dialogue. i think they have a role to play. i am not terribly comfortable with the original fcc rule on nondiscrimination because i did not think it was ultimately enforceable and i think it ultimately gets you into a whole lot of other problems. it raises more questions than it answers. what a specialized service? what is the internet? i do not think we're in a good position politically or even technically to figure out how to answer that. i think when you look at those principles and say, i am not sure what these means, but i can tell you agree to said samples -- egregious examples. the question is, are those problems we have to deal with

right now? i think the answer is no. >> we now have a republican house of representatives. what does that do to the debate? >> ideally, nothing. before, policy has been largely non-partisan. if this becomes a partisan it ll be bad for bad for communications policy. if there are policy things that for example the tea party or republicans take issue with -- for example, universal service has an $8 billion entitlement. that makes no sense to me. the idea the need to subsidize people's access to telephones -- you do not need to do that. people by telephones. if people are taking food out of

their kids' mouths, that is a different problem. if you take the program and say, in investing in broadband because i'm investing in infrastructure, i question that. sherri focus the? yes. i would hope -- showed i refocus that? yes, i would hope the tea party would help us with that. here is an opportunity to take a big fat cow. >> what is the next revolution in technology that you are concentrating on? >> there is a bunch. wireless has allowed us to really integrate ubiquitous computing.

with the internet, we have managed to get everybody on computers. with wireless, data model. -- they go mobile. the next big thing is, how we take the real world and hold it together with the cyber-world? when we have computers making more decisions for as -- which is already happening. when you open the hood of your car and see electronics, john q. public does not know how to fix it. when i was in college, i could replace the water pump. today, i do not even know where the water pump is. they're going to be many more decisions. are we comfortable with how the decisions are going to be made and where the technology is going with those?

>> should there be a difference between wireless regulation and fixed? >> i think rationalization of that is going to need to happen. is mobile broadband, a fixed broadband, the same service? i think the answer is no. i think the need for mobile broadband is a different service than fixed broadband for a big chunk of users, especially people at the bottom. they might say, if i could have both, i would have both, but if i have assured budget -- a short budget, i will choose one or the other. i think more will choose mobile. >> william lehr is a researcher at the massachusetts institute

of technology. thank you for being on the program. author and columnist larry downs is also participating in the the state of the net conference. in your most recent book, "the laws of disruption," where did that title come from? >> it came from work i did several years ago looking at how technology and business interact. one thing i realized was that the technological change, or what we sometimes call disruptive technology, got faster and more destructive. the ability of businesses to respond as quickly as possible and the ability of technology to be disruptive and was getting further and further apart. >> what is an example of destructive technology? >> the one we're all talking about here, the internet. it is the most destructive technology of the last 50-100 -- disruptive technology of the

last 50-100 years. it has supplanted many other technologies that many people thought were well established. there were proprietary networking technologies in compartmentalized, rigid boxes, completely focused on business. along came the internet, not even intended to be a commercial technology, let alone a consumer technology, but because of its openness, because it was not owned by anybody, it became a common denominator. everybody took on the internet as a standard and it has changed the nature of businesses, the nature of citizens. it is remarkably disruptive. are aps disruptive? absolutely.

these much smaller pieces of software running on mobile devices, pads, phones, the aps are going to be the next big wave of destruction -- disruption. i've started to realize that the way governments interact or interfere with how disruptive technologies work can have a big impact. i started advising my clients to not pay some attention to their lawyers, but to actually engage themselves in understanding how policy was being debated about core technologies that their business relied on, and making sure that they understood, not as the technologies, but our government may or may not interfere. that was the only way to be effective in making sure the

right kinds of laws got made or did not get made as the case may be. >> what is your philosophy when it comes to federal regulation of the internet? >> my general view, and it only applies to what i have described, is that because of their very nature, how quickly they thread, the way they take on new uses that nobody intended, it is too fast for government in general. peronistas sign to be deliberate and methodical bj government is designed to be deliberate and methodical. -- government is designed to be deliberate and methougmethodica. >> what is cnet? >> is a network that is focused on technology and technology

policy. our readership is largely a technical leadership of people interested in the latest and greatest devices and gadgets. >> you are a columnist for them, but what is your main business? >> i am the consultant. that is what i have always been. i used to do more strategy consulting, helping companies figure out how these technologies would change their business relationships. over the last couple of years, because of the way the world has changed, a move more into policy decisions, court cases, potential new laws in both the u.s. and globally, how those affect strategy and what to do about them to make sure that business can continue and indeed expand regardless of what is happening on the policy level. >> what technologies are not disruptive? >> the basic distinction between disruptive and

incremental is behavior. an upgrade from 1 years software to the next is generally not disruptive. one iphone to the next is incremental. these are things consumers can adapt quickly. when a tablet computers suddenly arrives, it has new uses, we do not even know what metaphors to apply, what to call it, it is kind of like when the car came out and we referred to it as a horseless carriage. we did not know what it was. when you have one of those, it is a disruptive technology. >> what do you see as the next big disruptive technology? >> the mobile revolution will continue, and it will be coupled with the movement from isolated

data activities to what is known as the cloud, where our data and processing, and again, this is from a business and a consumer standpoint, moves us off of individual devices and into this network of service providers and companies who will manage our business for us, provide services with it. we're really creating a remarkable opportunity for businesses to be global overnight, for consumers to connect and do things immediately and on an unprecedented scale. >> does it matter where those clouds are located? from ahouldn't technology standpoint. technology does not care. the internet routes according to traffic. if traffic is bad in d.c., it goes from a lawn. if it is bad in the lawn, it

goes through -- it goes through thmilan. if it is bad in milan, it goes through summer else. -- somewhere else. >> how far have we moved ahead when it comes to cloud computing? >> yes. >> it has been shifting in that direction? >> certainly for mobile users, and of course increasingly, a computer is a mobile experience. it is untethered. it is wherever we happen to be. for mobile users, almost everything you have is cloud- based. if you buy at kindle -- a

kindle, your library is in the cloud. i think because mobile computing is where everything is moving to, the idea of a cloud where the processing and storage happens, goes right along with that. the cloud is clearly the architecture that most people in the industry believe is what we will do in the next few years. >> how smart is technology? >> it is only as smart as the engineers to be created. it does not have any brains on the town. -- on its own. we live in an age of tremendous engineering talent, especially

in the u.s., but around the world, and the ability to bring that talent together has really driven the acceleration of this technology. >> a larry downs, do your clients understand washington, and vice versa? >> note to both. -- no to both. silicon valley has a genetic defect. it believes if you do not pay attention to the government, it will go away. i have faced an uphill battle in trying to convince them that increasingly, as more and more economic activity and social activity moves to the cloud, it is natural that governments of all levels are going to be more interested in what goes on there. the idea that there is going to be more regulation of all varieties of the technology that my clients build is inevitable.

it is very hard to convince them of that. of course, on the other side, convincing regulators that they do not really understand technology or they do not understand the speed with which it is changing, the speed with which it will continue to change and its unpredictability, that does not go down very well in washington. >> you wrote about the spectrum. >> yes. >> a heavily regulated piece of technology but part of our technological world. at what level should it be freed up or unregulated, in your view? >> it has what some would say is a fairly good balance between the regulated part of the spectrum and the unregulated part of the spectrum. we all agree that the fcc understands that the mobile computer environment is growing

quickly and requires more spectrum. spectrum has a limited quantity. we can be more efficient about sharing at -- sharing it, but the fact of the matter is, we have a tremendous amount of radio frequency that we do not even know who has the license to it. we have a lot that is not being used well are not being used at all. it is absolutely imperative that we first and foremost understand where we are now. what is the map of the spectrum allocation. then very quickly afterward, start looking for ways of getting the underutilized, undervalued spectrum back on the market so that the best possible use, in this case, mobile communication, can continue to grow at the pace is. everyone, i think, agrees that we're about to hit a hard stop. it may be five years, 10 years, but without more spectrum, the revolution of progress will not be able to continue. >> is people are interested in reading your column, where can

they go? >> they can go to my website, where i read that these things in more detail than anyone would ever want. www.larrydowns.com. >> thank you for being on the communicators. >> thank you very much. >> the senate is in march recess next week and returns monday, march 28th for morning business. at 430 eastern, they will begin in executive session to consider the nomination of judge. they will take a roll-call vote on the nomination at 5:30 p.m. live coverage of the u.s. senate when members return, all week on c-span2. the house is also in recess, and returns tuesday, march 29th.

the house is expected to debate the bill to end the home affordable loan modification program. >> this weekend on road to the white house, a likely gop presidential candidate herman cain on the economy, the spiraling downward of america, and whether he will run for the republican nomination. >> i put my toe into the water. it is now up to my neck. the feedback we have gotten from people in this country, tens of thousands who are willing to volunteer. >> this sunday at 6:30 p.m. eastern. >> representatives from the transportation security administration discussed the effectiveness of body scanners during a hearing. this is about one hour. this is about one hour.