Expressing Sense of Congress on Governance of the Internet

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentlelady for her great leadership.

I have served 36 years on the Telecommunications Subcommittee. No Member of Congress has ever done this.

I know that this is an important moment. This is an important resolution because the Internet today is indispensable to our economy, intricately linked to innovation worldwide, and initiates the free flow of ideas around the planet. It is the most successful communications and commercial medium in the history of the world.

In testimony before the Telecommunications Subcommittee in May, Vint Cerf, known to many as the ``Father of the Internet,'' explained:

To allow any rules that would sequester this innovation and inhibit others would damage the future of the Internet dramatically.

I could not agree more. That is why I strongly support this bipartisan resolution with Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Waxman, Mr. Walden, and Ms. BONO MACK. This is why we have to be out here together. It is why we must send a bipartisan signal to the rest of the world that the United States will defend an open Internet.

The World Wide Web is essential to our economy. Companies large and small rely on the Web regardless of whether their commercial aspirations are local or global. The Internet's worldwide scope has also helped to foster community and cultural communications across the planet. We have recently witnessed the power of social media in toppling dictators and in promoting democracy across the globe.

What makes the Internet so special is the decentralized, open system that currently governs it. It is chaotic; it is impossible to control; and the multistakeholder process that is in place today ensures the Internet's vibrancy will continue into the future.

Here, domestically, we have to ensure that the broadband barons don't close down this cacophony of voices which are heard and stifle innovation. But globally, yes, a number of countries, including China and Russia, are now proposing measures that strike at the core of what makes the Internet great. Their proposals could stifle innovation, cripple job growth, muzzle democratic principles. These proposed measures include bringing the Internet under intergovernmental control and imposing fees for relaying Internet traffic or termination rates for delivering Internet traffic to its end destination.

We have to resist and reject these regressive ideas. It would undermine the essence of the Internet. It would take us back to the days when, in the satellite world, it was the controlling governmental officials in countries that actually decided what ideas could go into that country and made people pay exorbitant rates in order to get access to those ideas. The Internet--this packet switch system that was invented in the United States--breaks down those barriers. We must ensure that we keep Internet freedom. Thank you all for bringing this great resolution out to the floor here this evening.

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