whether or not we have passed the accountability act. we don't need to go into the details of that policy issue, but whether or not we will stay on the record saying human rights matter. they matter in russia, they matter in china. >> more with katrina lantos swett on s&p's -- c-span's "q & a." >> this week on "the communicators" lawrence strickling discusses the reanalize zation of spectrum. >> very quickly, if you could start "the communicators" by saying what the national telecommunications administration does, what you do, how interact with the fcc, the white house, the t.t.c., et

cetera. >> certainly. we're a branch of the department of commerce, but by statute we are the principle advisor to the president on communications and information policy issues. >> now, you mention spectrum, and there was a recent spectrum report that came out where you mentioned how to free up 95 megahertz of spectrum. what is involved in that? who owns that now? who uses that now? is it unused? what will be involved in bringing that up? >> as you will recall, the president back in 2010 charged the ncia and the f.t.c. to work to find 500 megahertz of spectrum we could realoe spectrum we could realoe indicate to -- reallocate to

commercial broad band use. almost a fifth of the president's. they each have 2,000 in that band. what we're looking at is what's involved in realoe indicating that band to commercial use. we concluded it is technically possible to realoe indicate to commercial use.

>> we think we can make the spectrum available faster and more cheaply if we follow that approach. we're about to sit down with the agencies to have that discussion. >> there were some deep concerns. d.o.d. used that spectrum. >> well, d.o.d. is a large user. they have complex systems in that band. one in particular that we talked about is the air combat training system, and these are transmitters embedded in the skin of aircraft, and when pilots are doing their training in the sky, a stream of data being transmitted to the ground which provides instan tainous -- instanta. instant feedback to the pilots. that system alone will cost,

according to d.o.d., about $5 billion if we were to try to put in new transmitters with d.o.d. spectrum. that is an example of a system that we really want to score. how could we leave that in place and let it use the spectrum it currently uses where it uses it. for the most part, that system does not use spectrum in our major metropolitan areas. there may be a way that we can leave the system there and allow the commercial folks to come in and use that same spectrum, sharing it with the federal agency. again, these pr issues that we need to explore with the agencies and with industry, and those are the discussions we want to get underway as quickly as we can. >> right now joining our discussion is jasmine melvin, the telecommunications reporter for "reuters."

>> when you talk about sharing the airwaives, i want a lot of trade associations have said while they know some sharing is inevitable, their hope is that the primary goal will be to clear as much of the band as possible for solely commercial use. what's your thinking in this area. >> in the past, the solution always was, leave the federal agency somewhere else and allow the commercial provider to take the commercial provider to take the exclusive use of the spectrum. we just don't have the ability to do that much any longer. part of the problem is, federal use is growing. unmanned aerial drones is a good example of a system that did not exist as a spectrum user 15 or 20 years ago, but increasingly these systems are being put into operation.

not just in the board theaters not just in the board theaters but in the united states to support the relief and those sorts of efforts. we have to find a way for industry and federal agency to use the spectrum. the way to take advantage of it is the fact that the federal agency is somewhat interest mitent, and -- somewhat intermittent and it does not involve the whole country at any point in time. this seems to offer an opportunity for the commercial industry to apply this new technology and be able to operate in an environment where they don't have the exclusive use of the spectrum any longer.

our goal here is to five 500 megahertz of spectrum as the president asked. indode, we're hearing from industry that they think it will be greater than that. so from our perspective, we had an opportunity to put 95 meckrerts of speck -- megahertz on the table and put this together. we thought this was the responsible thing to do, to continue to do it the way we have done it before, and put an incremental 25 megahertz on the table would not have met the president's goal and frankly i think it would have been an irresponsible way to proceed when we had them talking about commercial use in all 95 megahertz of the spectrum. >> and with this goal of getting 500 megahertz, the goal is to get it within the next decade. how soon do you think consumers will start to feel the effects of the spectrum crunch?

>> the congress in the payroll holiday extension act has asked the f.t.c. to conduct a certain number of automatics within the next three years with the idea that that spectrum would be in the marketplace probably within five years. last year we identified 115 megahertz spectrum through a fast-track review that we thought could also be made available within five years, the f.t.c. still evaluating when and how to make that spectrum available. again, the overall role is to make it available within 10. >> you mention the payroll tax compromise. that also included legislative wording for a network that would give some airways to great a nationwide broadband network for first responders. >> right. >> what would be ntia's role in

developing that network? >> well, congress, with its wisdom, decided to hand that assignment off to ntia in response to handing off a new organization, which would be an independent authority within ntia consisting of a board of 15 people, including the attorney general, the secretary of homeland security, and the head of o.m.b., and their position will be to design, build, and operate a national interoperable public safety network. this is something that we have known is needed to be done for years. it was a recommendation from the 9/11 commission to improve the interoperability. we owe it to our first responders to give them a modern communications network. that's exactly what this legislation does. so congress created first net,

and said that $7 million dollars would be available to first net to design this network. we are in the process right now of putting together the board. the board has to start the operations this summer, and then get on with this very large complicated task of getting a network, really. >> larry strickling, when looking for the 500 megahertz of spectrum, do you foresee using broadcaster spectrum at some point or recommending that that be shared as well? that's within the jurisdiction of the federal communication. another recent instruction was to give the f.c.c. incentive options which they are organizing to do. this will involve providing broadcasters an opportunity to make their spectrum available

for auction and they will share in the proceeds of that. that will all be handled at the f.c.c. sfo >> so ntia does not have an office at spectrum? >> no, the fact we are reallocating for spectrum use is that much of that can be considered for option by the f.c.c. in addition there is an opportunity to look for some spectrum that might be made available for unlicensed use. congress directed us to take a look at a couple bands up in the 5 gig hertz range which is typically higher than what the commercial cellular industry would use today. but we are going to be studying that pursuant to the legislation with an idea that it might be made available for unlicensed use which would allow anyone to come in and use that to try out new technologies, new ideas. new technologies, new ideas. which, of course, has led to the development of wifi in this

country. that was the use of unlicensed spectrum, and frankly, i don't think any of us, including the existing cellular carriers could exist today without the robust wifi service that's available today. i know your agency recommended in february that there was no practical, immediate solution to the interference problems of that company's network with g.d.s. do you see anyway that the light square spectrum situation could be resolved? >> that's not a matter of the f.t.c. our role was to be with the

our role was to be with the competing labs and testing report. the testing was conducted last year in two separate traunches, the first in the first half of the year, and then after proposed modification and evaporating structure, and we did a second set of tests with the government and ran a second set of tests in the second half of the year. basically we were trying to determine the extent to which the light squared operations would interfere with or overload g.p.s. receivers. our technical evaluation concluded, as you indicated in february, that as currently planned, we could not find a way to solve the interference issues and still leave light squared with what it seemed to be a viable network. now we did take the test results that emerged out of the testing last fall and use that data to come back to light squared with an option as to how they could proceed to bill without causing

interference or overload to the g.p.s. receivers, but quite reasonably, they looked at it and concluded that because it would involve really ramping back the power of their network did not end with a viable commercial network and that left us where we had to end up, given the state of technology as it existed when we did the testing. going forward, we certainly believe that part of the issue involves the question of receivers specifications and receiver standards, and we are going to initiate an effort with the federal agencies to look at the extent to which we could the extent to which we could develop some receiver specifications for future procurement by federal agencies of g.p.s. receivers that would avoid the kind of interference that they otherwise would have suffered from the light squared operations. but that's from a five, 10, 15-year effort, and it only han

handles the devices by federal agencies. we have no ability to deal with the much larger commercial base. so we think it is a step forward. we do think that the question of evaluating how receivers perform is a necessary part of the larger question of where do we find 500 megahertz of spectrum to use? because if we are going to run into situations where the receivers present us from utilizing spectrum such as the slight squared spectrum from commercial broad band, we're going to have a very hard time meeting the president's goals. we do think longer term this has to be part of the solution. >> larry strickling in a recent interview with the "the washington post" talked about how his situation with light squared could put a damn per on future innovation and future ways to make the spectrum more efficient. what are your thoughts? >> well, i think we had a very unique set of facts and a unique situation with the light squared

issue. they were -- the spectrum they had purchased was spectrum that is directly adjacent to g.p.s. and any time you are putting a high-powered land-based cellular radio service next to one that's depending on much fainter signals from satellite, you are going to have potential issues. and we worked as hard as we could and all the federal agencies worked hard to understand and evaluate how those two very disprit types of systems could co-exist with each other. all we could conclude is that based on current technology we couldn't see a path forward that was going to be helpful to light squared given its business needs. >> larry strickling is our guest here on the communicators. here on the communicators. he is the national telecommunications administration administrator and assistant commerce secretary for communications and information. our guest reporter jasmin

melvin of reuters. >> just following up on the light squared issue. light squared issue. the company has said that if the federal communications commission were to pull the authority and it had -- that it had previously given the company to build its cellular network they called it a bait and switch by the government of an historic by the government of an historic scale, do you believe that the government at all misled light squared? >> well, this is a matter over at the f.c.c. and i'm not in a position to speculate on those positions. >> and the company has proposed several possibilities including possibly swapping interfering spectrum. do you believe -- do you think there is any spectrum that mpia manages that might be available for this? >> again, that's a matter initially between light squared initially between light squared and the f.c.c. if light squared wishes a credit proposal for the f.c.c. for a

swap that might involve credit use, it would certainly respond to any request from the f.c.c. to any request from the f.c.c. to work through those issues. i'm aware of one band of spectrum that's on the other side of spectrum that light squared has that they have indicated some interest in. but that is actually a shared band. it is used by federal agencies as well as by a lot of as well as by a lot of commercial aerospace companies. again, i think, one of the first questions that would have to be addressed is the extent to which companies such as boeing and lockheed and those that make use of that spectrum would be willing to consider swapping to some other part of the spectrum. indeed, if there even is spectrum, they could move into. but i think in the first instance, that's a question for the f.c.c. but we're here and quite willing and able to support that if they want to move forward. >> larry strickling, let's switch topics. nta and the white house

introduced a privacy bill of rights. what is your thinking on how consumers' data could or should be used? >> the privacy effort has been one we started early on in the administration. first we did a green paper back in 2010 and followed on with the administration's blupe that came out in -- blueprint that came out in february. what we set forth is a plan that we think both protects consumer privacy, but just as importantly protects and supports innovation on the internet. from the start, we were concerned about those being in conflict. that if you regulate it too heavily in favor of privacy, you might, in effect, damage or deter innovation. and we know that american companies have been the most innovative on the internet, and we did a -- it would be a great loss to our economy and our overall innovative position if that were somehow deterred through heavy-handed regulation. that was paramount in our thinking throughout this process.

what we ended up proposing and what the administration has set forth as the plan is to -- and some very specific privacy principles, and those are our consumer bill of rights, and they are straight-forward declaretive sentences of what consumers have a right to expect. we really did model it against the similarly spare language of the constitutional bill of rights. rights. then we had a choice. what we could have proposed is those basic principles and handed it off to a regulatory agency were making and creating definitions. but that we felt could lead to exactly the outcome we wanted to avoid. which was heavy handed regulation, very descriptive or prescriptive regulation that would actually by not being able to predict where technology is going to go actually hamper

innovation. so our solution was, let's let the private sector fill in the gaps. let's bring industry together with all the relative stakeholders including the consumer groups, academicics, and others, and take these groups and apply them to specific situations through the creation of what we call voluntary but enforceable codes of conduct. then that is a process that we are going to manage at ntia. we just concluded a comment period where we ask industry as well as the consumer groups to share their ideas. first what topics should we take on with these codes, and more importantly what process should we use? one of the issues always will be, if you don't have someone making the decision at the end, how do you reach consensus? how do you ensure transparancy? how do you ensure that people have a full right of participation? participation? these are all things we want to get right. in my mind, they are just as important as the ultimate

success of this effort as what we end up with as the actual substance of a particular code of conduct. again, we are focusing on what we think is a protection of the bill of rights. again, not without all of the 200 pages of regular industry 200 pages of regular industry language that often accompanies these sorts of bills. we know we can have a straight forward piece of legislation to enshrine the principles in legislation, and then allow a stakeholder process to take over to actually fill in the specifics as to how these principles will be interpreted in particular industry sectors as it relates to particular elements of the bill of rights.

all of this would be voluntary. i'm not a regulator. i c not a regulator. i can't force anybody to do anything in terms of, you know, adopting any particular regulation, which is why i think the department of commerce is the perfect place to run a process of this type. because people will know that what comes out of the process will be what they, working together, are able to achieve as the consensus output, and our job is to be the facilitator and the convener to make that happen. >> what's the privacy -- how is the privaprivac frame-- with th privacy framework so dependent on voluntary commitment, how much do you have the ability to adequately self-police on issues? >> we have had a lot of interest as well as the consumer interest in developing the codes. once a company adopts the codes, it goes back to the federal trade commission enforcement issue. if they don't follow the code, the federal trade commission can bring in enforcement action.

one of the reasons we like the basics principles enshrined in legislation, though, is for those companies that choose not to participate in that process, we want to ensure a basic linte of participation for all citizens and that would be done through enactment of the bill of rights which would be directly enforced by the federal trade enforced by the federal trade commission. if we can move forward with these codes and before any legislation is enacted by congress, we do intend to start the process of convening folks to work on codes as quickly as we can. >> and the worldwide web consortium washington, d.c. this week ahead of recommending a% consortium is in washington, d.c. this week ahead of recommending a do-not-trak track system that would basically give consumers a one-cli, oopings r mechanism to goer adver from tracking them across different web sites. f.t.c. chairman

jhn lebowitz has said do not track should be do not collect data. what are your thoughts on how "do not track" should function? >> i want to be a fair facilitator and convener of outcomes that other people mecide. i think every time the department of commerce puts its finger on the scale and says this is what has to be the outcome, i thitor that's, and i ot tct, potentially weakens or damages the process that we want to sthis happen. so i have to really resist the impulse to step in and say, well, here's what the deparnt t of commerce thinks that answer ought to be. that's not our jjo. our job is to facilitate and convene these other parties and help them reach consensus, and for us to say what we think the outcome nthisds to be and actuay could be destructive of that process. >> larry stricquiing we only hae a fy fr minutes left. i want to ask you about something you recently talked with mary bono mack about, and that's the u.n. and control of the internet. what are your fears with regard

to the utl. and where do you agrthis with r imresentative bono mack? >> this is an issue which has been emerging for some period of time, but it is coming to a head here over the nut itt year or t mue to activities of other nations as well as international conferences that will be coming up later this year and next tionsar. in particulag the internationl telecommunications association will be holding two conferences in december, one being the world conference on international telecoeraunications, the other being a standards conference, and they will follow along with the telecom honications policy conference next year. we are conceboned in the united we are conceboned in the united states with the interest of some of these organizations and some individual nations to tul take what has worked so well to create the internet that we know , this marvelous engine of economic growth and innovation, and tpt it into the hanlp of

more top-down government control through treaty o. aan ciations and such. we find that quite threatening to the success of the internet. and, indthisili thitoring back our discussion on privacy, that very much informed our view that we wanted to take advantage of this stakeholder process about what the specifics oation, ht t for privacy protection as opposed to top wown regulation. if you expand that idea to the international com honity it is the i hme situation. we have relied on state organizations such as the wc-3 or the intebonational internet engineering forum so that these stakeholder o. aan ciations have allowed the internet to develop the way it has developed. we want to preserve that. we are concerned when we see individual nations sation, gest that well mimebe this ought to e handed over to a group of govebonments to run.

all of a sudden we lose the flexibility, the innovation, the creativity that is so characterized the development of the internet. weing ery much want to push go against those sorts of notions, where ever they eme. ae in the intebonational arena over the next couple years. >> and unfortunately we are out of timtat larry strickling, ntia administrator andce tasmin melvin, telecom honications reporter for reuters. thank you for bone ng hertat >> thator you. >> tonight on c-span, we bring you a panel of r imortele who covered a no bber of the year's biggest stories, including the pprising in goehrain. >> we started following around the protesters and then the crackdowns started. they came in wabse waves. they would crack down and pull g ack, cra, down and pull bac then the defining moment when there was the final cra, doof . when saudi arabia was brought

into bahrain by the ruling family in b camrain. some of them were tortured to death. when that cra, doof began, i became difficult to crack down in bahrain. >> plus, wst tll hear from the story that broke the penn state sex abuse scandal. >> people wereing ery clear. they said you will ruin that guy's life if he isnand t cha. our response was alwimes, we didn't say he was guilty. we said he is under investigation. if it doesn't lead to charges, we're going to write that, too