and the f.c.c. to reject that takeover. but i know my previous career has given me reason to be concerned let me phrase they're very concerned about the actual merger of comcast and n.b.c. universal and b.c. universal one of the largest media conglomerates of the country and called the largest cable television provider with america want to join forces to control an even greater portion of the media industry in order to smooth the waters carcass has doubled the amount of money they make in campaign contributions and opt out contributed from three quarters of the members of the house and the senate. now despite those protests from congress merritt along with three other members of the f.c.c. voted to approve the contrast n.b.c. universal deal so after taking heat for the planned merger comcast and n.b.c. decided it was time that they fell the public tell them the best deal is really great for everybody so they launched a massive media blitz. bringing comcast and n.b.c. universal together really mean for his. actions and. he's

earlier this year the federal communications commission the f.c.c. approved a controversy a merger between n.b.c. and comcast a merger that will have huge impact on the internet and the future of net neutrality now four months after the com has birger was approved one of the f.c.c. commissioners meredith attwell baker a republican appointee will soon leave her post to become a lobbyist for you guessed it i'm cast as right just months after giving comcast the golden keys to national media meredith baker is rewarded with a top job there. so is there any agency in washington d.c. that's not bought off by industry lobbyists should there be laws against this sort of revolving door policy joining me now to talk about this issue as dave's communications director of free press dot net paved welcome thanks to the exposure be great great to great to be sure thanks for joining us first of all there's this transition to shall we say. call into question the original decision that she voted on at the f.c.c. . well the only thing that shocking about this is that it

speaking of government and censorship issues, you had some comments about the f.c.c.' just bewildering actions, recently, involving eminem. for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it was two years ago that-- in 2000, actually-- in 2000 that the f.c.c. fined a radio station $7,000 for playing the uncensored version of eminem's the real slim shady. then after the bush administration took office, and michael powell became chair of the f.c.c., there came a new fine for a censored version, a cleaned-up version, a bleeped version of the real slim shady. then after people like you spoke out and said this is insane, they decided they weren't going to fine the radio station after all. what's going on there? well, i don't want to guess what they're thinking. i can only say that they didn't have any good legal right to stand on their ideals, and so they had to drop 'em, from what i can tell. that, i can assume, and i think that they were a little bit aggressive, and they--and they decided against their choice, and i think that it was going to be obvious that it was cultural

in response to this new policy of capping it was the f.c.c. by the way that allowed caps in the first place as part of the recently passed net neutrality regulations and the letter reads these caps pertinaciously undermine each of the goals that are by the national commission or the commission of the national broadband plan stifling the competition in innovation that has established itself in the internet economy so will the f.c.c. do anything to stop mega-corporations from meddling in our internet and screwing us of huge fees here offers take on the issues dan gainor president t. boone pickens free market fellow in the business and media institute it see again dan good to see you need lessons. through the resorts and so i heard there were a lot of good first time i've ever done that on t.v. . what's wrong with the internet as it was for the last decade wide open the wild west so i think you know. if you go back the last decade you actually do find. a graduated policies well and a lot of the other original dial up was based on how much you use

says we're going to just cause me to try to we don't have authority from congress the chairman the f.c.c. julius genachowski admits i don't have authority to let the washington post but he does it anyway they've already been thrown out in court once they're going to try to do it they've done it again are going to get sued again the kill switch is a terrible idea i don't want the government involved as you point out egypt saudi arabia china iran government time after time it's not corporations that are preventing people from speaking it's governments that are keeping people from speaking why does the united states feel like it can go into china though and that's actually break chinese law and create technologies that would directly contradict those companies or do in china sovereignty i would i would certainly if those companies are doing that i would certainly. punish them in the way that we should punish the united government investing millions of dollars in this technology this is the broccoli bomb administration please for the life for the life of me don't ask me to defend what brough

to approve -- for the f.c.c. to approve this merger and we would go back in a time machine to that point in time. we've already got at&t and verizon dividing the country into bell east and bell west, which is as manned, letting them have a national wireless monopoly which is at stake. i have seen the movie before and know how it ends with consumers being tipped over and money shaken from their pockets. we wanted to make sure we ended that era and i think it's critical for the f.c.c. version of that. on the subject. this is not something where we have to go back to alexander graham bell. there are people within our own life times that we can go back to. they were still alive. and they can still be consulted as to what the state of that marketplace was. but all i can tell you is it would be an historic mistake to go back to that time with the promises to become the two ba home outsides after 100 years with alexander graham bell, they do not innovate. and that's the key. they do not innovate. it's investment and tec

in the mid 1990's, congress and the f.c.c. opened the duopoly to competition and the firms that became sprint and t mobile entered. and competition then began to make a noticeable interest. at&t's acquisition to turn back the clock on wireless competition. it would as the title of this hearing suggests, put ma bell back together again. let's examine what the twin bells would control in a duopolistic world. two companies would control over 80% of the customers and 88% of all wireless industry profits. two companies would control most of our nation's fast wireline infrastructure and the critical last mile that sprint and the rest of the industry need to provide affordable rates and quality service. with control of nearly 80% of the market, the twin bells could discourage device manufacturers from partnering with anyone else for the next generation of smart phones. two companies would largely control industry pricing. by controlling about 80% of the market, the twin bells would have significant unchecked leverage to increase pric

the fed the f.c.c. and the justice department that's five major regulatory or law enforcement bodies that should have got to do this before the senate had put the justice work i put the justice moore on the very top of that list the s. and p. recently said standard and poor's recently came out with a report and so that there is more of a risk in the market there is more risk in the market today than there was before two thousand and eight you know obviously these guys are partly responsible for the crash of the bad credit ratings and so you know taking s. and poor and p. seriously dangerous thing but it seems that they're right in this case are we headed for another great crash or what some refer to as a double dip well you know i hear varying things about that and you know here i should admit i'm not an economist you know what i'm going to let me rephrase that. are there cure him in olds who crashed the economy by their crimes still committing the same crimes which could crash the economy again. i thin

the f.c.c. alleged google violated the f.c.c. act by inappropriately collecting google g-mail information to flood their social network. according to the f.c.c. it led to g-mail users having contact with consumers they had serious concern about. qu respond to google's comments to the f.c.c. on that matter. >> absolutely. as i said in my testimony, we hold ourselves to high standards in adding choice control to our users. the situation with that product didn't meet our standards. we think we fixed t we have been in a longer conversation with the f.c.c. about it afterwards and then we entered into a consent decree with them. we have agreed that for the next 20 years to put our money or wur mouth is. we signed up for two major things here. one is really instilling privacy by design. a process in our company for making sure that we're thinking about privacy from the earlyest moments, and that is going to be something auditted and assessed by an outside auditor and reported to the f.c.c. for the next 20 years. the second thing is, we

i just hope as the f.c.c. moves through this process that you'll cooperate and not just have the approach, ok, you had this spectrum for six years now we're going to say there's potential interference here. >> yes, sir. we're actively engaged and working through and trying to find a solution there. one of the problems of course was the original intent of light squared was to use a satellite signals. back in november they began to come up with the idea that they could enhance the signal by boosting it on the ground with antennas very powerful literally 100 times more powerful than the original forecast from space. now, there is a technical solution available but i have to tell you it would be not without consequence. the technical solution remember we would have to design the equipment to filtter interference, certify it, reinstall it. there are consequences to putting new equipment in airplanes. to do that would probably be in the 5-year at best range. and then you're talking about equipping airplanes that hav

revelations are goldman are now coming out as a result of a senate report i mean what happened to the f.c.c. and the other watchdogs during the time or for that matter stockholders and their ability to sue for fraud and damages. well you know that this is really the remarkable thing about this report is that there is an absolutely no reason that this kind of work should be left to a senate subcommittee there are at least five important regulators that should have been doing this work before it got to the point of a senate subcommittee and i would list among those people the office of thrift supervision the o.t.s. the office of comptroller of the currency o.c.c. the fed the s.c.c. and the justice department that's five major regulatory or law enforcement bodies that should have got to do this before the senate had put the justice work for the justice for the very top of the list the s. and p. recently standard and poor's recently came out with a report and so that there is more of a risk in the market there is more risk in the market today than there was the fourth two thousand and eight you

enforcement is built in there recommended guidelines now and five years from now when they kick in the f.c.c. is going to be checking this out and slapping handcuffs on people you never know where it's going to go do you think that andrea was made with real for you because of you can family really good know because. barbie serial we had just moved from russia and you're like you know what i think i don't know exactly zero was and i love you. i mean i saw back to my original plan we talked about this in the show before that you know the industrial revolution was wonderful but i think we as a world kicked a few really bad habits including putting children to toil on fields where they can grow their healthy food and then consume healthy food and also burn a few carol calories in the process so yeah that's a show about. let's talk about something that i just completely absolutely ridiculous we did a story where the girl with a duke university sensually did a whole list of all the guys that went to school there and you know what their abilities were in the bedroom business that was a bit of an ou

listen up because your phone is probably going to be bugged by the government yet believe it or not the f.c.c. says that all cell phones will be required to carry a chip by two thousand and twelve and it's for the purpose of safety that a way for the government to reach you directly but we wonder are these new measures there really to keep you safe or simply to keep you scared archy's marina portnoy has more of. the country that created blackberries and gave birth to i phones. has more than three hundred million wireless users and in the name of national security the u.s. government will soon have a direct link to each and every handheld device it's like he's going to stay here for a reason but we hope to have the troops gathered at the scene of the september eleventh terrorist attacks federal in new york city officials join the c.e.o.'s of the four largest wireless carriers to announce the nation's new tech tools and alert system enabling the president and government agencies to blast every american with text messages warning of terror threats weather disasters and kidnappings the cell phone

and then they can get it with lesser process i think you're seeing his in the f.c.c. advocating for the exact opposite saying that companies shouldn't be forced to store any of this data and we have q government agencies you're essentially going head to head there you go in there was again yet another hearing they do a lot of them here. a few weeks ago about reforms to the electronic ignition communications privacy act is a badly badly outdated statute that governs how one gets information from the phone companies and you had testimony from cameron kerry was drunk there is your brother the commerce department and james baker from the department of justice and you saw a really kind of radical disconnect between those two it's a testimony you saw kerry acknowledging kind of consistent with the commerce department interested in forcing stricter consumer privacy rules but was badly outdated it didn't really protect a very well you know the expectations of privacy people actually have when they when they use these services and the d.o.j. saying no no everything's fine as i

according to the data collected by the f.c.c.usive smart phone launches, compared to the one third share of overall smart phone launches. this data confirm what's most people assume, that at&t committed itself to using exclusive phone contract to attract customers. if this merger is approved, not only would at&t have 44% of all u.s. wireless subscribers but at&t would be able to demand exclusivity contracts from any moan makers seeking their business because of that enormous market share. do you think that's a fair reading of the situation, and are you going to make any commitments about these exclusivity agreements going forward? >> when i look at 600 different options of handsets in the marketplace today, it tells me this is a vibrant marketplace. i think every carrier up here at one time or another had some kind of exclusive arrangements. that's a means to get product to market faster and when the marketplace is utilizing these capabilities, we will probably participate as well. but i think you're seeing fewer and fewer of lon

there have been 27 total f.c.c. shares common -- shares, none more successful. he shifted and improved the communications landscape now in so many ways, upbringing and reception to all tvs and -- screening reception to all tvs, and he inspired or provoked so much of the great television that a merger in the years and now from "sesame street -- but a merged -- that emerged. he also paved the way on satellites. a true story. i am going to tell this one. newt once told president kennedy that putting communications satellites in space was more important than putting a man on the moon. gartner satellites and allow a ideas to be sent to space, and ideas -- satellite allow ideas to be sent to space, and ideas last longer than men. he enlisted to fight in world war ii when he was 17. his mother pleaded for him to wait until he was drafted. newt replied, what will i tell my grandchildren? he had a particular knack for spotting talent. he introduced a future president and a future first lady. that was one of his many accomplishments. he helped grow public broadcasting int

the f.c.c. has brought 30-some odd cases where -- adequately secured data. for data breach notification, 46 and 47 states have versions in place. the legal regime right now also has strong protections in place. the things we would probably look for are, one, more authorities at the f.c.c., greater capacity to bring more cases. penalty authority especially as well. the f.t.c. does not have the ability to give civil penalties for violations of the act. i think that there are a stronger stick, i think you would see bert practices. also i think we'd like to see other fair information practices put into law. one idea we keep bringing up is this idea of data minimumization. you have data sitting on your servers. you don't need it anymore, get rid of it. both the sony and other case it seems they were holding old data they didn't need. sony had two dozen data basings with credit card numbers they weren't using. keeping email addresses of people who had previously opted out. i personally got emails from companies i got opted out. by the way your data was preached. p

i hope as the f.c.c. moves through this process you will participate and not just say ok, you have this spectrum for six years. now all of a sudden, there is potential interference here. >> we're actively engaged working through traffic to find a solution there. one of the problems of course was the original intent of where it was to use the satellite signals. back in november we began to come up with the idea that they could enhance the signal. very powerful literally 100 types more powerful in the original forecast from space. it would be not without consequence. the technical solution, remember, we would have to design the equipment to filter the interference. reinstall it. there are consequences to putting new equipment in airplanes. to do that would probably be in the five-year at best range. and then you're talking about equipping airplanes that have been designed now for the last 15 years to accommodate absb where the airline takes its position and broadcasts that. we have about 5,000 commercial ai

users, the deputy secretary of defense wrote to the f.c.c. chairman that there is a strong potential for interference to critical national security systems. we need the fellow communications commission to ensure that the defense department's concerns about g.p.s. interference are resolved before it moves ahead with the final decision on light squared. this is a bipartisan and bicameral concern. the defense bill contains a provision addressing this concern. the amendment offered strengthens this position by saying that the f.c.c. shall not permit light squared operations. i also thank our colleagues for working with us and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from minnesota, mr. walz. the chair: the gentleman from minnesota is recognized. mr. walz: i thank the gentlemen for their work on this legislation. in this amendment i have an amendment that identified by d.o.d. some important goals in maintaining the operational force of our reserve and national guard. these current conf

the f.c.c.'s only goal here is to make sure that the internet we know and love does not become corrupted and altered by a small number of large corporations controlling the last free and open distribution channel we have in this country. as telecom companies have grown larger and fewer and started owning not just the pipes but also the content, their incentives have changed. they're starting to care more about giving their own content a competitive advantage. rather than promoting innovation and competition on the internet. the fight for net neutrality isn't about changing the internet. it's about creating a few rules of the road to keep it open and free, to keep it the same, and to continue the innovation and growth that is such a creator of jobs and wealth. the fight for net neutrality is about making sure large corporations aren't allowed to put toll booths on the in fact superhighway. this fight is about micking sure that the internet stays just the way it is. free, open, equal, available to