PREPARED TESTIMONY BY

MR. CARLOS MARIO ASCUASIATI GUERRERO

BEFORE THE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS NOVEMBER 16, 2013

I.

Greetings,

Good Afternoon. I thank you for allowing me to testify today before you. I am Carlos Mario Ascuasiati Guerrero, here to represent the consumers and their interests in the face of the new policy that is about to be made law. I am deeply humbled by this appointment, as the people are, after all, what governments are meant to protect and am looking forward to aiding in the crafting of this legislation that will effectively safeguard the interests of all Americans when referring to the telecommunications industry.

II.

Introduction

While the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was an extremely important piece of law, it has now been 17 years since it set off to change the industry as we knew it. 17 years that have seen change in the field at an ever increasing rate: devices are obsolete before they are six months old! Technology is moving at an unprecedented rate, and our legislation does not have time to catch up to it. Not only this, there are several important limits imposed by previous legislations that were relaxed and have been repeatedly considered for further relaxing again. This runs directly in opposition to the interests of the American people. My testimony today hopes to address the issues that have become paramount over these last 17 years that went unaddressed due to their irrelevance at the time; as well as attempt to accomplish change in the issues that somehow made it into legislation that run contrary to the rest of the law.

The previous Telecommunications reform was one mainly designed to promote the use of better technologies by pushing competition and innovation to the forefront. This new legislation needs to be one that makes sure that the superpowers that have since arisen remain performing their activities in a manner that result not only in their own economic benefit but do so not in detriment of the people and definitely not based on misinformation and deceit.

III.

Specific recommendations

The most important issue to be addressed would probably be more suited for a philosophical discussion. How much power should a single corporation really have? Considering the telecommunications history in this country, this is not the first time such a debate has arisen. Very much like at that time, the answer is: not as much as they currently possess. It is well known that the power of the media lies on its hold in public opinion. It is then important for the future of American history to have a media system that is worthy of that level of attention. So-called Mainstream Media has failed America and has failed to uphold the principles that were once held so high. It is in the interest of the people I represent, that an institution once called the Watchdogs of Democracy doesnt use its influence for the agenda of a few privileged individuals. Not only is it morally wrong to abuse power this way; it should be illegal and prosecutable. As such, we recommend that it is acting for the public convenience, interest, or necessity of the people to promote an environment of not just competition but of diversity and truth by:

Severely limiting the number of radio stations, newspapers and television channels that a single corporation and its subsidiaries can own, both as a whole and within a single metropolitan area.

Promote a network of independent media by subsidy and tax exemption with sufficient power to deliver news locally, and in numbers enough to effectively provide coverage anywhere with the same ease as mainstream media can currently provide.

Promote a policy of growth and development of infrastructure to the purpose of providing high speed internet and access to independent media to the American people that is at the same level with the rest of the Developed World both in terms of bandwidth and price.

Promote the journalism profession with a strong emphasis on moral education to instill on the upcoming generations the importance of their calling. Demand standards of truth, diversity of opinion and impartiality to any selfproclaimed news channel, and a system of crowd-sourced judgments to any and all

opinion talk shows aired, with considerable sanctions to offenders of these standards, portraying them as truth. Provide a genuinely safe avenue and legal assistance for whistleblowing and investigative journalism to pursue and cover any and every story of public interest.

The second major issue to be addressed in this testimony is that of the Liberty of the Internet. Here, another great philosophical debate can be derived, as we consider the question whether a government is an entity worthy of protection in and of itself, from the people who select that government or is the people the government itself and can thus openly and without fear of persecution plan resistance. In the end, a government that needs to defend itself and its power from the people that placed them in office is not one conducive of the democracy that the United States holds so close to its own inception.

So many of the good things happening around the world has its basis around a free internet, most notably the Arab Spring and the resulting Arab Democracies, the activism in Brazil and Turkey, and even locally with the Occupy Movement, among others; and so much of what is not happening has as its core reason a lack of a free internet and all that it entails. American democracy is not a bomb dropped over another nations land; it is the intrinsic right that the American people have of saying just exactly what they mean even beyond the point of wisdom without fear of persecution because of it. The internet is the tool with which the World and its people are expressing their opinion.

Something that legislators ought to remember is that the invasion of privacy, the acts of unaccountable surveillance and filtering of content is seen by everyone in the World. Who can tell who is looking at the News and thinking: if it can be done in the land of the free, why can I not do it on my own despotic government? How can I be criticized of doing what they are doing? The eyes of the World look upon the United States for guidance and leadership.

As such, we consider that a free, uncensored internet is key to the democracy of the country and the world that looks towards it. To paraphrase Digital Activist Mary Joyce,

why would we reconsider the use of telecommunications for activism in the basis of it now being over a digital medium as opposed to an analog one? Regardless of the technological platform used, its a matter of whats being discussed. It is because of this that we suggest:

Formal regulation outlawing bills such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, CISPA and any other similar such bill that pretends to limit the freedom of use and the spirit of cooperation that rules so many of the interactions in the internet.

No filtering of any content in the internet except in very specific cases where unlawful and sensible material is being displayed. No monitoring of anyone except in very specific situations such as known felons and people with multiple police records. No invasion of privacy and accessing of private information except for select cases, and always within the bounds of reasonable data retention. It should be noted that this access of information should be the exception, not the rule.

Guarantees to the anonymity of the users of the internet and the protection from persecution. Guarantees to protesters to avoid ulterior persecution from authorities based on their activism.

The next issue on the list would be that of network neutrality. While this testimony does recognize the high cost of creating and maintaining the sort of high bandwidth availability network that America demands, the internet is not only a major tool of freedom of expression and key to the democracy of any nation, it is also an incredibly powerful economic progress catalyst. It must be very carefully manipulated in issues that would change it even a small manner, and even more so in a manner that would change it so drastically. The issue with this idea presumes that the net is currently neutral, which it isnt: According to Writer Tim Wu, The internet is not neutral and its implementation of best effort generally significantly favors file transfer and other non-time-sensitive traffic over real time. Aside from the (unacceptable) practice advocated by the ISPs of throttling some content travelling their networks in favor of that of their services, Quality of Service is a consideration that must necessarily be taken into account, as this would mean a more effective broadband network.

The result would be a much improved and smarter use of current bandwidth availability. Network neutrality advocates have long claimed that it would be an insurmountable hurdle for the deployment of new fiber optics networks claiming that net neutrality would take some of the incentive of building these networks that would be at max capacity almost at completion time, thus causing a stagnation of the net and the subsequent slowing down of the net as a whole due to the traffic levels that we are heading towards. In a way, this has already been addressed in a previous suggestion on this testimony. With the subsidized deployment of new and advanced FTTH networks we can employ what most think to believe to be the ideal solution, alongside with more permanent ones. As such, we recommend:

Promote a policy of growth and development of infrastructure to the purpose of providing high speed internet to the American people that is at the same level with the rest of the Developed World both in terms of bandwidth and price. This would provide us with much needed overprovision, providing the core of the network with more bandwidth that would be available at the edges, and then good QoS could be achieved by simple excess of bandwidth. This nonetheless is a temporary solution, and in order to stretch the investment then this network needs to be

Promote this new infrastructure to employ longer solutions by the use of QoS capable and Deep Packet Inspection equipment in order to provide a long lasting and scalable solution.

Prohibit the use QoS capable and Deep Packet Inspection equipment and any other software or hardware method in order to identify and discriminate between users of one or another ISP or users of one or another service, regardless of the ownership of the service. It is acceptable to discriminate by service type, not by user. This is intelligent use of the network resources. What is not acceptable is to throttle someones connection to a website and not to others, or to limit VoIP and Video streaming from another provider not the internet supplier.

The final issue to be addressed in this testimony is that of spectrum distribution in relation to short range, low power FM radio. The value of a localized network of private owned small radio stations can prove extremely beneficial in order to provide radio coverage to small

communities; providing them with a much needed space for the expression of the communitys local identity and culture, as well as a local sense of identity and a place to express and promote each of these localities an individualized public opinion. This is intrinsically tied to our previous issues of media reform and power, and a major step towards the true separation of the public opinion from corporate media. Low power FM radio also serves to provide an invaluable resource when considering emergency response. The capability to provide broadcasting power with the power needed to power a light bulb results in an extremely economically feasible task that should be promoted to the end of its capabilities. This section of the testimony then suggests:

The recent Local Community Radio Act of 2010 is expanded not only to provide them with capability to operate in every third frequency away from a full station but to also subsidize and promote every single available space in the spectrum to be filled by local, small powered FM radio stations.

Tax exemptions from equipment purchases. Basic technical training an assessment to me made available to those interested in Low Power FM radio

IV.

Conclusions

While the previous Act was meant to promote new technology an innovation by means of competition, it failed to do this and it fell to the hands of emerging technologies to drive the innovation and pro competition environment envisioned by the act.

While that act was meant to deregulate in order to get market forces do their job, this Act must carry the responsibility of curbing down the power and influence that Corporate Media has amassed and has irresponsibly used to forward agendas non conducive to democracy, freedom of expression, and diversity that mean so much to the American people.

This act must take onto itself the responsibility of returning the power of information to the people and ensure that the means by which information travels and is propagated remains

safe from the influence of economic giants that mean to use it for their own means. For this, we recommend that the fomenting of an independent media be highly prioritized, along with an improvement of the infrastructure of the means by which this new independent media might distribute their work; accompanied at the same time by the instilment of the importance of investigative journalism and the moral importance of said calling. Furthermore, we recommend that the internet is kept free and open, without being used as a tool of population control, and not use the fact that since its a new technology, somehow neither the first amendment nor the civil rights apply to it. For this to happen it is also imperative that the internet maintain its neutrality, in terms of discrimination of peoples. While the infrastructure itself belongs to the service providers, the internet belongs to everyone. Parallel to this thought, we also recognize that networks will soon be past the capacity at which they will be able to provide reliable service to everyone. As such we propose a series of infrastructure improvements, subsidized construction of FTTH networks with QoS equipment and Deep Packet Inspection technology implemented, not so that we can pick and choose who goes where, but to better use the bandwidth available and make it a scalable and long lasting solution. Finally, and as part of the effort to decentralize the source of public opinion away from the hands of those who are using it for their own means, we also strongly recommend that a network of Low Power FM stations be built and supported by government around the edges of full power FM stations in Frequencies unused, to provide radio coverage to small communities and provide a much needed local reflection of the culture of each locality and grant them their own voice and a place to celebrate their own little flavor of diversity.

I thank you all for your time and consideration. I hope that this testimony aids you in crafting a Law that helps ensure the democracy, freedom of expression and fairness to all.

Carlos Mario Ascuasiati Guerrero

V.
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End Notes and References

Wu, Tim Network Neutrality FAQ 2008 A Guide to Net Neutrality for Google Users Google, December 2008 Net Neutrality, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality SaveTheInternet.com One million Americans Urge Senate to Save the Internet Wu, Tim Network Neutrality, broadband discrimination June 2011 The Coming Exaflood, Bret Swanson, Wall Street Journal, January 2007 National Conference for Media Reform 2013, Evangeline Lilly National Conference for Media Reform 2013, Go Ahead, Laugh: Comedy for Breakfast National Conference for Media Reform 2013, Closing Plenary: A Roadmap for Change

10. National Conference for Media Reform 2013, Susan Crawfords Remarks at the Keynote 11. National Conference for Media Reform 2013, Craig Aaron Address 12. National Conference for Media Reform 2013, Amy Goodmans Remarks 13. Save The Internet, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Internet 14. Internet At Liberty 2012, Plenary 1 John Kampfner, Renata Avila, Noomane Fehri, Stewart Baker 15. Public Opinion Enciclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/482436/public-opinion/258763/Complex-influences 16. Stop the FCC from Changing Media-Ownership Rules, Moyers and Company, Deember 2012 17. FCC appears likely to ease media ownership rules Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times, 2012 18. Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Media Ownership Restrictions Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times, June 30 2012 19. Prometheus Radio Project, http://www.prometheusradio.org/ 20. The Prometheus Radio Project & The Next Wave of Community Radio, http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-prometheus-radio-project-the-next-wave-of-community-radio 21. Mass Media Influence, How the mass media influence public opinion Fred Burks, PEERS and WantToKnow.info 22. How Mass Media Manipulates Public Opinion Majestic, February 12 2013 23. Regulatory Reform: The Telecommunications Act of 1196 and the FCC Media Ownership Rules Brucce M. Owen, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University Public Policy Program