[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16244-16246]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            SENSE OF CONGRESS ON GOVERNANCE OF THE INTERNET

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur 
in the concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 50) expressing the sense of 
Congress regarding actions to preserve and advance the multistakeholder 
governance model under which the Internet has thrived.
  The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
  The text of the concurrent resolution is as follows:

                            S. Con. Res. 50

       Whereas given the importance of the Internet to the global 
     economy, it is essential that the Internet remain stable, 
     secure, and free from government control;
       Whereas the world deserves the access to knowledge, 
     services, commerce, and communication, the accompanying 
     benefits to economic development, education, and health care, 
     and the informed discussion that is the bedrock of democratic 
     self-government that the Internet provides;
       Whereas the structure of Internet governance has profound 
     implications for competition and trade, democratization, free 
     expression, and access to information;
       Whereas countries have obligations to protect human rights, 
     which are advanced by online activity as well as offline 
     activity;
       Whereas the ability to innovate, develop technical 
     capacity, grasp economic opportunities, and promote freedom 
     of expression online is best realized in cooperation with all 
     stakeholders;
       Whereas proposals have been put forward for consideration 
     at the 2012 World Conference on International 
     Telecommunications that would fundamentally alter the 
     governance and operation of the Internet;
       Whereas the proposals, in international bodies such as the 
     United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations 
     Commission on Science and Technology for Development, and the 
     International Telecommunication Union, would attempt to 
     justify increased government control over the Internet and 
     would undermine the current multistakeholder model that has 
     enabled the Internet to flourish and under which the private 
     sector, civil society, academia, and individual users play an 
     important role in charting its direction;
       Whereas the proposals would diminish the freedom of 
     expression on the Internet in favor of government control 
     over content;
       Whereas the position of the United States Government has 
     been and is to advocate for the flow of information free from 
     government control; and
       Whereas this and past Administrations have made a strong 
     commitment to the multistakeholder model of Internet 
     governance and the promotion of the global benefits of the 
     Internet: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that the 
     Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of 
     Commerce, should continue working to implement the position 
     of the United States on Internet governance that clearly 
     articulates the consistent and unequivocal policy of the 
     United States to promote a global Internet free from 
     government control and preserve and advance the successful 
     multistakeholder model that governs the Internet today.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Eshoo) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Tennessee.


                             General Leave

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
and insert extraneous material in the Record for S. Con. Res. 50.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Tennessee?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  This week, representatives from 193 countries are meeting in Dubai to 
reexamine an international treaty dealing with telecommunications. 
Several hostile countries are seeking to use this opportunity to impose 
new international regulations on the Internet.
  We need to send a strong message to the world that the Internet has 
thrived under a decentralized, bottom-up, multistakeholder governance 
model. That is why I stand in strong support of Senator Rubio's Senate 
Concurrent Resolution 50. The U.S. is united in its opposition to 
international control over Internet governance, and we've seen 
leadership pushing back against ceding more power to the International 
Telecommunication Union. It is referred to as the ``ITU.'' It's a 
branch of the United Nations.
  Some want to give it new powers. Several countries see the Internet 
as a tool for political and/or economic control that they want to 
exploit. For example, Russia's Vladimir Putin has

[[Page 16245]]

openly stated his intention to seek ``international control over the 
Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the 
ITU.'' Just last week, the Syrian Government shut off Internet access 
as the regime sought to suppress the free exchange of information among 
its private citizens. But it's because the Internet is the ultimate 
tool of political and economic liberation that we should foster and 
protect it, not give those who fear its impact on politics and the 
economy the power to repress its continued innovation and untapped 
potential.
  I also want to make an important point about our legitimacy in the 
fight to keep the Internet thriving, democratic, and decentralized. 
Unfortunately, we did undermine our credibility when the Federal 
Communications Commission imposed net neutrality regulations without 
the proper statutory authority to do so. Even Ambassador Verveer at the 
State Department had made the point. He said in 2010 that the net 
neutrality proceeding ``is one that could be employed by regimes that 
don't agree with our perspectives about essentially avoiding regulation 
of the Internet and trying to be sure not to do anything to damage its 
dynamism and its organic development. It could be employed as a pretext 
or as an excuse for undertaking public policy activities that we would 
disagree with pretty profoundly.''

                              {time}  0950

  We need to pass S. Con. Res. 50 and rebuild our credibility in 
support of Internet freedom. Regulating beyond our authority at home 
sets a very bad example when we want to oppose truly devastating 
regulations at the international level. Despite our domestic 
disagreements on telecom policy, one thing both sides of the aisle can 
agree on is that we should uphold the Internet governance model that's 
working. Let's not try to fix what's not broken.
  In Dubai, we want our country promoting private markets and U.S. 
interests. Let's encourage the decentralized governance model that's 
been successful in the past, and let's show leadership instead of 
giving away broad regulatory powers to those who don't deserve and who 
should not have it.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, it's fitting that on the week in which the World 
Conference on International Telecommunications convenes in Dubai that 
the House will once again take up a resolution demonstrating the 
bipartisan commitment of Congress to preserve the open structure and 
multistakeholder approach that has guided the Internet over the past 
two decades.
  I think we are all very, very proud that there is not only bipartisan 
but bicameral support underlying this resolution, and there is complete 
support across the executive branch of our government. In other words, 
the United States of America is totally unified on this issue of an 
open structure, a multistakeholder approach that has guided the 
Internet over the past two decades.
  The Senate resolution before us today, Mr. Speaker, makes a minor 
technical change to a resolution that the House passed unanimously in 
August by a vote of 414-0. I have no objection to this change, and I 
ask my colleagues to support this bipartisan measure.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), who is the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
  Mr. WALDEN. I thank my colleague and friend for the time.
  I rise today in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 50, which, as 
you've heard, opposes international regulation of the Internet. It is 
virtually identical to the language that our friend and colleague 
Representative Mary Bono Mack put forward in H. Con. Res. 127, which 
was introduced earlier this year and passed by my subcommittee and in 
the full Energy and Commerce Committee and went on to pass this House 
without opposition. With this vote, we unify that language and we send 
a strong bipartisan, bicameral signal about America's commitment to an 
unregulated Internet.
  I want to thank Representative Bono Mack for championing this 
important legislation to keep the Internet free from government 
regulation. I also wish to thank FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who 
has tirelessly sounded the call, not only about the peril we face if we 
stand idly by as countries like Russia and China seek to exert control 
over the Internet, but also about how FCC's own actions adopting 
network neutrality rules regulating the Internet undermine America's 
case abroad.
  I also fear that recent talks of cybersecurity executive orders here 
at home may be cited back to us by some foreign nations with them 
accusing us of telling them to do as we say but not as we do.
  The historical hands-off regulatory policy has allowed the Internet 
to become the greatest vehicle for global, social, and economic liberty 
since the printing press. And despite the current economic climate, it 
continues to grow at an astonishing pace.
  FCC Commissioner McDowell and Chairman Genachowski are in Dubai this 
week as U.S. delegates to the World Conference on International 
Telecommunications. Our committee has also sent representatives from 
both parties to keep an eye on the proceedings. There, the 193 member 
countries of the United Nations are considering whether to apply to the 
Internet a regulatory regime that the International Telecommunications 
Union created in the 1980s for old-fashioned telephone service, as well 
as whether to swallow the Internet's nongovernmental organizational 
structure whole and make it part of the United Nations. Neither of 
these are acceptable outcomes and must be strongly opposed by our 
delegation.
  Among those supportive of such regulation is Russian President 
Vladimir Putin, who spoke positively about the idea of ``establishing 
international control over the Internet,'' to use his own words. Some 
countries have even proposed regulations that would allow them to read 
citizens' email in the name of security, require citizens to register 
their email addresses for tracking purposes, and to charge for Internet 
access to their countries on a per-click basis.
  This resolution rejects these proposals by taking the radical 
position that if the most revolutionary advance in technology, 
commerce, and social discourse of the last century is not broken, as 
you've heard others say, there's no reason to ``fix'' it.
  The ability of the Internet to grow at this staggering pace is due 
largely to the flexibility of the multistakeholder model that governs 
the Internet so successfully today. Nongovernmental institutions now 
manage the Internet's core functions with input from private and public 
sector participants, and this structure prevents governmental or 
nongovernmental actors from controlling the design of the network or 
the content that it carries. Without one entity in control, the 
Internet has become a driver of jobs, information, business expansion, 
investment, and innovation. Moving away from the multistakeholder model 
would harm these abilities, preventing the Internet from spreading 
prosperity and the cause of freedom.
  As the United States delegation continues its work at the WCIT, this 
resolution is an excellent bipartisan demonstration of our Nation's 
commitment to preserve the multistakeholder governance model and keep 
the Internet free from international regulation. I encourage my 
colleagues to support passage of this measure.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 4 
minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), who is a member 
of the Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlelady from 
Tennessee for yielding and for her leadership on this issue.
  As has been noted, right now, in Dubai, an arm of the United Nations 
is considering trying to take international control over parts of the

[[Page 16246]]

Internet. If you look at the struggling economy we have right now in 
the United States, one of the few bright spots is the 
telecommunications industry. One of the reasons--as a computer science 
major, I would argue that one of the reasons that the 
telecommunications and technology industry has been so successful even 
in a tough economy is because the government hasn't figured out how to 
regulate it and slow it down.
  And yet here you have a proposal by the United Nations, coming out of 
the United Nations, to interfere with that multistakeholder 
organization which has been and allowed this industry to be so 
successful and allowed the Internet to shape and dramatically improve 
so many people's lives. So many of the things we can do today and all 
of the conveniences that have been added through great new apps and 
great new technology have come from this multistakeholder governance of 
the Internet. And yet here you have the United Nations try to step in.
  And let's be real clear about who some of these countries are that 
want to do this and what they're intending to do if they are 
successful. Countries like Russia and China are leading this. Some of 
the Arab nations right now where you see uprisings, and many of those 
uprisings, by the way, have been brought through social media, through 
an open and free Internet where people can come together in cyberspace 
and hold their leadership accountable and in some cases rise up against 
oppressive governments, and those governments would like nothing more 
than to be able to shut that down by taking over control of the 
Internet.
  I know it's been brought up before by the gentlelady from Tennessee 
and others, but I think it's important to know that Vladimir Putin, 
when he was meeting with the ITU Secretary-General said his goal, the 
reason that he and others like China are pursuing this, is to establish 
international control over the Internet through these new ITU rules.
  And so while these discussions are going on in Dubai, I think it's 
critical that this piece of legislation is something we can arm our 
supporters with, those who stand up for Internet freedom, to say it is 
the United States Congress' bipartisan agreement that we want to 
maintain that freedom. We don't want United Nations control over the 
Internet.

                              {time}  1000

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers, and as I 
close, I want to thank Ms. Eshoo for the leadership that she has given. 
She's the ranking member of the Telecommunications and Internet 
Subcommittee.
  I also want to draw attention to the outstanding work that 
Representative Mary Bono Mack did as she led the debate and the 
discussion and pushed for the resolution, authored the resolution that 
the House passed earlier on this very issue. I also want to thank her 
for her work with Senator Rubio and having a resolution that would be 
agreed to by both Chambers.
  As Ms. Eshoo indicated earlier, the Senate resolution makes a 
technical change, a small technical change, in the resolution that was 
passed by the House. This is where the U.S. needs to stand firm. It's a 
way that we, in a bipartisan manner, can stand firm for freedom. I 
encourage the passage of this resolution; and I encourage that we, as a 
body, will continue to stand for a free and open Internet.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) that the House suspend the 
rules and concur in the concurrent resolution, S. Con. Res. 50.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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