The Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Darrell Issa (R-CA) today announced that the Full Committee will hold a hearing on January 18 to examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking system like that proposed in SOPA will have on American cyber-security, jobs and the Internet community.
In light of policy proposals affecting the way taxpayers access the Internet, the hearing will also explore federal government strategies to protect American intellectual property without adversely affecting economic growth.
The Committee will hear testimony from top cyber-security experts and technology job creators.
“An open Internet is crucial to American job creation, government operations, and the daily routines of Americans from all walks of life,” said Issa. “The public deserves a full discussion about the consequences of changing the way Americans access information and communicate on the Internet today.”
The witness list includes strong opponents of SOPA and will lay out a powerful case that it will be ineffective at stemming piracy while discouraging Internet investment and innovation,undermining cybersecurity and promoting Internet censorship.
Among the witnesses, Stewart Baker is former General Counsel to the National Security Agency as well as Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security; Dan Kaminsky is one of the most respected Internet security experts in the world, and Alexis Ohanian’s Reddit.com is the Internet news aggregator where the campaign against Go Daddy was initiated that led to the reversal of its support for SOPA.
Here is the full witness list:
Mr. Stewart Baker: Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Mr. Brad Burnham: Partner, Union Square Ventures
Mr. Daniel Kaminsky: Security Researcher and Fortune 500 Advisor
Mr. Michael Macleod-Ball: Chief of Staff/First Amendment Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union
Mr. Lanham Napier: Chief Executive Officer, Rackspace Hosting
Dr. Leonard Napolitano: Director, Center for Computer Sciences & Information Technology Sandia National Laboratories
Mr. Alexis Ohanian: Co-Founder, Reddit.com, and Web Entrepreneur
As the January 18th hearing approaches, more information will be made available at http://oversight.house.gov.
Congressman Issa deserves to be commended for his willingness to fight through the willful ignorance displayed by Lamar Smith, Maxine Waters, Marsha Blackburn, et al in the last hearing.
One thing though, Christine Jones name is not on the list of speakers. It will be interesting to see if Godaddy is willing to issue a written statement that explains why they now oppose SOPA. Hopefully with the same zeal and detail on display in their previous pro-SOPA letter just a few weeks ago. I for one won’t be holding my breath.
Playing the “national security”/”cybersecurity” card may work on internet-ignorant members of Congress.
Of course, they won’t know that DNSSEC is not going to make the internet any more secure in the way they’d like it to be. It’s too bad they don’t know the facts.
If we really wanted users to be secure against misinformation about IP addresses, there are other more basic and more effective ways we could do it. And DNS is not the biggest issue.
But DNSSEC being as complex as it is to implement and administer (complexity is itself a leading cause of insecurity in computing) is a fun excercise for complexity-loving nerds. And as an added benefit it will make certain technology consultants more money. One of them is testifying.
Fear is a great well to sell technology consulting.
Let’s see if it works on the Committee.