Senate Proceeding on Oct 21st, 2009 :: 7:18:45 to 7:35:45
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7:18:41 to 7:19:02( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: of time. i yield the floor. mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator north dakota is recognized. mr. dorgan: tomorrow at the federal election commission f.e.c., there will be a vote on a proposed rule making.

7:18:45 to 7:35:45( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Byron Dorgan

7:19:03 to 7:19:24( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: it is called a rule making on something called "net-neutrality." but let me put t if i might. it is about internet freedom. i'm going to talk just for a moment about the importance of this. and you would think, given the reaction by some and dozens and dozens of letters that are now going to the f.e.c. that what is going to happen tomorrow is some

7:19:25 to 7:19:48( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: unbelievable vote on some controversial proposal that has had no discussion. it is into the at all. it is a notice making. it is the beginning of a process what is called net neutrality or the principle of nondiscrimination with respect to the internet. i want to describe how important that is.

7:19:49 to 7:20:09( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: the internet is an unbelievable new invention in our lifetime. it was created by government, a bunch of scientists and engineers in the federal government described this method of communicating one to another with the computer technology, and it became the internet. and the internet developed over

7:20:10 to 7:20:33( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: a number of years in a completely free and open architecture. that meant that anybody anyplace could go to anyplace and see anybody on the internet. and so the stories are legend. it was, i believe, 11 years ago

7:20:34 to 7:20:55( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: when larry and sergei two young men in a dormitory room started a company. they moved it to a garage that had a garage door opener that had eight employees and they had this idea, a new company, a new search engine. it had eight employees and it was in a garage with a garage door opener 11 years ago. well now it's called google.

7:20:56 to 7:21:17( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: but it's not just larry and sergei having a dream hand a vision. it is so many others as well. it is jeff bezos who drove to california with an idea and that idea became amazon.com. selling books and then selling almost everything, or it became someone with an idea about

7:21:18 to 7:21:38( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: having an auction on the internet, and it became ebay. and most o us know about ebay. or mark disukerberg w idea about something called facebook. i'm tking about huge successes. but you know for every one of

7:21:39 to 7:22:01( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: those, facebook, ebay, amazon, google, for every one of those large companies that have now grown on the internet, there are millions of people out there that are conducting a business in their kitchen, in their dorm

7:22:02 to 7:22:24( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: room, in their gabbing ra their garage because they're the next enterprising person to succeed on the internet. the question is this: if there's someone in my hometown -- and let me describe that someone because it happened to be someone that is now occupying the home that i grew up in, a very small two-bedroom home in a small town of 300 people, and i had not been back

7:22:25 to 7:22:46( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: for some long while to see the home. and so i knocked on the front door and the woman that answered, i asked if i could see the home that i grew up in, spent my first, i guess, 17 years in. she said, of course. come on in. so i came in and she was doing something that i found kind of interesting. she had in this small kitchen on

7:22:47 to 7:23:08( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: the table, she had a camera and the camera was pointed at an aperture with an arm. on the arm was hang ago bracelet, a little gold bracele committee of the gold brace let. i said, what are you doing? well, i have a business, she said. i said, well, what kind of business do you have? well, i sell on the internet. i purchase jewelry, and then i sell it on the internet.

7:23:09 to 7:23:29( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: and sure enough, in the little porch coming into the home, she had cardboard boxes and tape and the kinds of things that you would do to box something up and send it. and here in this little townn southwestern north dakota, a town of 300 people, a woman in the home that i used to grow up in, a woman was running a business, and i said, how do you do?

7:23:30 to 7:23:50( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: she said, pretty well. this income supplements my husband's income. and she said, i well, you know what? in that little kitchen, anybody in the world could find her business. anybody in the world can find that business. why? because the internet is open.

7:23:51 to 7:24:12( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: the architecture has never been closed. the whole notion of the internet is this notion of freedom, of liberty to go anywhere you want to go. the last three and a half years i've written two books. and i've discovered in the writing of books how unbelievable the internet is to be able to go to anywhere in the

7:24:13 to 7:24:34( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: world and do research. you want to know something? go there, and nobody is going to stop you from going wherever you wish to go. yeah, put it in a search engine. go find it and you'll go find it in some crevice on the internet. somebody out there has put on the internet for you to seevment it is the most unbelievable research tool i have ever found.

7:24:35 to 7:24:55( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: so, yes, it's google, it's ama disorntion it's ebarricks it's the big companies. but much more than that, it is the backbone all over this country and the world to do business. yes, from their kitchen, from their garage. and some of those businesses don't now know but will, because

7:24:56 to 7:25:17( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: they'll be successful. they'll be the next invention, the next opportunity on this thing called the internet. now, here's the question: the internet was created under circumstances that required rules of it was for the first portion of

7:25:18 to 7:25:38( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: its birth and then origin, it was an internet that was described as a telephone service, and it was subject to rules that had nondiscrimination. so no one could discriminate. it was completely open, completely free. its architecture was available to anyone at anytime. anybody can go anywhere at anytime.

7:25:39 to 7:26:00( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: nobody has a toll booth. nobody is a gatekeeper. it is completely open and frievment the biggest company over here and the smallest little enterprise over here -- big old corporate executives wearing gray suits and wireless glasses, making lots of and two people in a dorm room or someone in a small kitch nona small town.

7:26:01 to 7:26:23( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: they're equal. anybody has access to both sites. or all sites. that's called nondiscrimination, and the nondiscrimination rules say, no one can set up a barrier. no one can set up a gate. no one can set up a tool booth. anyone has freedom and access anywhere on the internet.

7:26:24 to 7:26:44( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: that's the way the nints net was developed. that's its or contingent and -- that's its oar gin and that's the way most of its life has existed. then the federal election commission came along and said, we're tabooing internet as an information service rather than a telephone service and the result is the nondiscrimination rules fell off the chart because they attached to the telephone service.

7:26:45 to 7:27:05( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: so some of us have said, well, we certainly want to maintain and continue rules. i mean, who would be for discrimination, right? so we want to maintain the nondiscrimination rules. we want to, with what is called network neutrality, or net neutrality, restore the nondiscrimination rules and the

7:27:06 to 7:27:26( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: basic freedom under which the internet developed in the first instance. and that has been our effort, and that is what the chairman of the federal election commission is attempting to do. it is notice of proposed rule making. doesn't means a saying, here's exactly what we're going to do.

7:27:27 to 7:27:48( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: it say, let's propose a rule making. and that rule-making process will allow everybody to weigh in, to make comments, to be involved in the question of exactly what kind of a rule they may or may not write. i think what the federal election commission is doing tomorrow is exactl thing. i know there are some who are pushing back. in fact, there are some who have

7:27:49 to 7:28:10( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: said, we want to set up a toll booth. i mean, there are some c.e.o.'s of some large companies who have -- who have suggested, you know what? those wires belong to u we want to be able to have some tool booths and so on. well, i don't believe they should be able to set up any impediments. by that, i'm not suggesting they don't have a rig

7:28:11 to 7:28:31( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: security for their networks. they certainly do. they don't -- i'm not suggesting they don't have a right to do certain kinds make sure that the kinds of things that are prohibited -- child pornography and others -- are stopped on the internet. but what i am saying is the architecture under which the internet service was created is an architecture all of us should

7:28:32 to 7:28:52( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: is aspire to continue, and that is nondiscrimination rules and transparency. this is very simple. tomorrow there will be a vote at the f.e.c., and i would say to the chairman of the f.e.c. and to all of the commissioners that you are doing the right thing by certain that the future of the

7:28:53 to 7:29:13( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: internet access with nondiscrimination rules and transparency. here are a couple of l like to put in the record. if i might ask consent, a letter this letter says, october 19, "we write to express our support for your announcement that the f.

7:29:14 to 7:29:35( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: dopt rules to preserve an open internet. we believe a process that results in common-sense, bas baseline r ensuring that the internet remains a key engine of economic griewj, innovation, and global competitiveness." leet me not treed all. paragraph of this letter. "america's leadership and technology space has been due in

7:29:36 to 7:30:01( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: large part to an open internet. we applaud your leadership." again the letter to the chairman, "in initiating a process to develop rules that ensure the qualities that have made the internet so successful are that's a letter from a large group of people who run internet companies and

7:30:02 to 7:30:23( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: from craig's list, echostar, skype, ex peeda, -- expedia, facebook, ebay, twitter, and so many different folks that know of what they're speaking and i support this letter and commend

7:30:24 to 7:30:44( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: it to the chairman of the f.c.c. the presiding officer: without mr. dorgan: and my partners -- or my colleagues, rather, here in the congress. this is a letter from the largest venture funds in the country that have made substantial investments in these companies that have helped the internet grow.

7:30:45 to 7:31:05( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: "dear chairman, we write to express our suppo for the commission's ongoing efforts to adopt rules to safeguard the open internet. as business investors in technology companies, we have first-hand experience with the importance of guaranteeing an open market for new applications and services on the internet.

7:31:06 to 7:31:27( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: clear rules to protect and promote innovations at the edges of the internet will reinforce the core principles that led to the extraordinary social and economic benefits. open markets for internet content will drive investment, entrepreneurship and innovation. for these reasons net neutrality policy is pro invest ysm, pro

7:31:28 to 7:31:48( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: competition, and pro consumer notion." and i ask consent this letter be put in the record. this is from one of the -- from some of the venture capital firms that know a lot about the internet. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: i ask to put in the record a letter from the folks who created the internet.

7:31:49 to 7:32:10( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: the list is headed by vint and surf who is often called the vert of the internet. steven crocker, david daniel lynch. they're internet pioneer they were there at the beginning. th created an engine of opportunity for the american people. they write similar letter sang, as individuals who

7:32:11 to 7:32:31( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: worked on the internet an its predecessors, continuously beginning in the late 1906's, we are very concerned that access to the internet be open and robust and we are pleased by your proposal for the consideration of safeguards to that end. a letter to the chairman.

7:32:32 to 7:32:52( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: and i ask consent that that be put in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i understand that this issue is controversial. i and senator snowe have worked on this issue for a lon while. the only time it has been voted on in the congress was an attempt by us to add an amendment in a commerce committee markup -- this is

7:32:53 to 7:33:13( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: about 2 1/2 years ago -- and we had an 11-11 tie. now, why was there a tie vote? well, it is a controversial issue, although it should not be. the basic principle of freedom on the internet, open architecture on the internet, the openness with which this internet was created ought to

7:33:14 to 7:33:34( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: persuade everyone to say, yes, let's restorehe conditions under which the internet has always operated up until recently and that is nondiscrimination and transparency. there are some countr i understand, some economic interests who say, no, we don't want that. we want some opportunity perhaps to -- to go a different direction.

7:33:35 to 7:33:57( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: we had one c.e.o. in this country say, you know what? i want some -- i want some of these -- these companies on the internet to pay me for the right to move on my lines. well, once that starts, once you go down that road with those who have a right -- or those who have the muscle or the strength to decide who's going to css

7:33:58 to 7:34:20( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: and who isn't, who can get by their tollbooth and who can't, then i'm telling you there are larrys in a dorm room someplace or some woman in a kitchen wen a small business that's not going to succeed. and that innovation, that new company, that new business for this country, the expansion of the internet, an opportunity that comes with it, will not exist. why?

7:34:21 to 7:34:41( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: because we the open architecture and the basic freedoms on which the internet created and on which we still ought to govern the future of the internet. so what julia stenikowski is doing tomorrow, is the right thing. he's not mandating a specific

7:34:42 to 7:35:02( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: menu. he is beginning a rule-making process which in my judgment will result in the restoration of two basic principle nondiscrimination on the internet and tarns painsy. is there anyone who really -- transparency. is there anyone who really believes that is not fair or unreasonable? i don't think so.

7:35:03 to 7:35:25( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: there's been a flurry of protests. an unbelievable dust that's created by a lot of noise, a lot of crowd noise around this. i hope that perhaps the chairman and those on the commission who believe we ought to move in this direction understand there's very substantial support for what they're trying to do. that support exists in a letter

7:35:26 to 7:35:47( Edit History Discussion )

Byron Dorgan: that i am sending with some of my colleagues signing that letter today to say thatupport is here. work that senator snowe and i have done on this will be reflected as well in a message tomorrow. but i just want the chairman to know, keep going. you're doing the right thing. don't worry about some of the dust that's out there. do the public business. do the right thing and this