Witnesses Set for House Internet Governance Hearing

Trio of subcommittees come together to discuss way forward after U.S. decision not to sign on to ITU telecom treaty

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/4/2013 2:16:09 PM

The witnesses are set for Tuesday's joint House committee hearing on Internet governance and FCC commissioner Robert McDowell is among them.

McDowell was in Dubai in December for part of the International Telecommunications Union telecom treaty conference, where the U.S. and others refused to sign the new treaty because it was extended to include Internet-related language. In an unusual move for a bitterly divided Congress, both the House and Senate easily approved resolutions going into that conference opposing international Internet governance.

Also slated to testify are David Gross, a member of the State Department delegation at the Dubai conference; Sally Shipman Wentworth from the Internet Society; and Harold Feld, senior VP of Public Knowledge.

The hearing is a joint production of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee, the Committee on Foreign Affairs Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee and the Energy and Commerce Committee Communications Subcommittee.