[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13232-13233]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 FIND A SOLUTION SO ALL AMERICANS CAN HAVE CONTINUED ACCESS TO AN OPEN 
                           AND FREE INTERNET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa 
(Mr. Young) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. YOUNG of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, America is a compassionate country. 
We are a very giving country. America gives a lot. But I am not sure we 
need to be giving away a free and open Internet.
  If Congress does not act soon, our free and open Internet is going to 
be handed over by our President to a global bureaucratic body, a body 
that may not respect the freedom of information and speech that we 
experience today, a body that may sensor what Americans have to say or 
how journalists can receive information and cover certain stories on 
governments, on current events.
  What does handing the Internet over to a global bureaucracy mean for 
privacy? for freedom of information? commerce? national security? The 
question is really: What is the need to do this, to hand over the 
administration of a working, free, and open Internet to a global 
bureaucracy? And why the rush?
  Now, my colleagues, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy) and we 
just heard from the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), are 
supporters of a great bill Mr. Duffy introduced called the Protecting 
Internet

[[Page 13233]]

Freedom Act, H.R. 5418. It has many sponsors on it. There are efforts 
in the Senate as well to do the same thing to protect the Internet.
  In 2014, the National Telecommunications and Information 
Administration, the NTIA, announced its intention to relinquish, to 
give away, its procedural authority over Internet domain and functions 
to the global Internet stakeholder community. Many of the Iowans I 
represent, and I know many others around the country, are incredibly 
concerned about this--and rightly so--about shifting U.S. oversight and 
giving authority to regimes that have repeatedly censored the Internet.
  As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I have worked with my 
colleagues to try to block funding for the administration's appeal to 
do this, this bogus plan, and I am hopeful U.S. Internet protections 
will remain in any final spending bill coming up. Mr. Speaker, the 
proper place for debate over important issues like this, like the 
integrity of the Internet, is here in Congress, not behind closed doors 
at the NTIA, a Federal agency, with these unilateral actions.
  I urge my colleagues and I urge my fellow Americans to reach out to 
the Members of Congress and tell them and ask them and plead with them 
to protect the Internet, to make sure it is free and it is open, and to 
find a solution so that Iowans and all Americans have continued access 
to an open and free Internet, uncensored, where information can 
flourish and speech can flourish.

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