from the Berkman Klein Center. As with a lot of our events on campus, this is being live

webcast and recorded. Please just keep that in mind if and when you ask questions, which

I hope you will toward the end. I have the privilege and the pleasure of being

able to introduce Prof. Susan Crawford and Chairman Tom Wheeler this afternoon. As I'm

sure you know, Prof. Crawford teaches here at HLS, works with us a lot in the Cyberlaw

Clinic, and works a lot on issues related to telecom as well as civic innovation, government

innovation, and helping cities think through data-smart governance and policies.

Joining Susan today, Chairman Tom Wheeler who spent three decades working in telecom

on both the business side and law and policy side. In November of 2013, he was appointed

by President Obama to the position of FCC chairman, where he was unanimously confirmed.

His tenure as FCC chair was one of the extraordinary accomplishments on a wide range of issues,

and it's particularly well-known for ushering in the FCC's final rule on net neutrality

in April 2015, which I'm sure is one of many things that Susan and Chairman Wheeler will

talk about. Without further ado, I'm going to turn things

over to Prof. Crawford and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Thanks so much.

[Susan Crawford] Thanks so much, Chris. [Tom Wheeler] Thank you, Chris.

[Susan Crawford] It is indeed a singular pleasure and honor to have Tom Wheeler here as the

country goes through this whirlwind over the last few days. The 31st FCC chairman, a proud

graduate of the Ohio State University and a recipient ...

[Tom Wheeler] You got that right, the ... [Susan Crawford] The Ohio State University

and a recipient of its Alumni Medal, a former president and chairman of the National Archives

Foundation, a student of history, who cares about America's documents and America's future

and America's past, and the most consequential FCC chairman since a 35-year old Newt Minow

went to the Sheraton Park Hotel, to the lion's den, to the National Association of Broadcasters

in 1961, the beginning of the Kennedy Administration, and told those broadcasters that they were

supposed to be serving the public interest. [Tom Wheeler] Interesting concept �

[Susan Crawford] Isn't that something? Tom Wheeler told four companies that want to control

our destinies that they should be serving the public interest as well and was active

on a huge range of issues, as Chris mentioned. Tom, I know that someone you revered was your

grandfather. Pretend you're speaking to your grandfather right now, someone with absolute

compassion and affection for you, and tell him what you're really proud of in your tenure

at the FCC. [Tom Wheeler] Golly, Susan.

[Susan Crawford] What are you really proud of? What did you do?

[Tom Wheeler] I think we did a lot of things. [Susan Crawford] Okay. You did.

[Tom Wheeler] Let's start with the basic. Note that I said, "We did a lot of things,"

because what I'm most proud of is the team that did these things. Here's the silly thing.

You're chairman. You're the guy who ends up in the newspaper or in front of the Congress

or whatever the case may be, but you're just the band leader. I mean the people who are

making the music and playing the instruments are the people who were doing the real work.

We were just incredibly fortunate to be able to attract to the commission a team of new

senior folks, bureau chiefs, folks in the Office of the Chairman, General Council, et

cetera, to work with a really strong staff. I mean they are really dedicated, really bright,

really caring people on the staff of the FCC. What am I proudest about? I got to work with

them. I went around on the last couple of days, and I met with every bureau, and I had

one thing that I said in common to all of them, and that was that I was proud of the

fact that I was able to say I was their colleague because there's a lot to be proud of in that

agency. I think you have to put everything in perspective because it basically boils

down to it's all about people. Now, really what you're going for is ...

[Susan Crawford] How do you know? [Tom Wheeler] Let's talk about net neutrality.

Let's talk about privacy. Let's talk about �

[Susan Crawford] Actually, I wanted to put the personal angle on it, but really the human

pride here. [Tom Wheeler] It only happens because of the

people. You mentioned this small struggling educational institution called the Ohio State

University. When I was in graduate school there, I was Assistant Alumni Director, and

my job was the care and feeding of Woody Hayes. It was a fabulous experience. That's an overstatement.

My job was that I would, I traveled the state with the coaches including Woody, and so I

got to know Woody Hayes up close and personal. It was, "Son." "Yes, coach." Woody used to

say, "You win with people," and there's nothing more true than that, "You win with people,"

and so the reason why Woody really gets some things done so we had really good, really

dedicated people who busted their ass, who believed in things and busted their ass.

[Susan Crawford] Let me tick off a few things then.

[Tom Wheeler] Okay. [Susan Crawford] Bringing fiber access to

about 50% of America's schools, the ... [Tom Wheeler] More than that.

[Susan Crawford] What, more than? We're at about 50 now?

[Tom Wheeler] Here's where we are. When I came in, two-thirds of the schools in America

did not have fiber connections and the third that did did not have Wi-Fi; only half of

them had Wi-Fi to the student's desk. The latest report out of EducationSuperHighway

says that 90% of the school districts in America now have the standard, the 100 megabits per

student to the student's desk. [Susan Crawford] Terrific.

[Tom Wheeler] That's because of a team that worked together to overhaul a program that

had originally been envisioned by Al Gore but had atrophied as a narrowband program

that wasn't making sense in a broadband world. I'm very proud of that.

[Susan Crawford] Big one and revolutionizing the idea of subsidizing low cost phone service,

changing that over to high speed Internet access, that's a big deal.

[Tom Wheeler] We've always had a program where, starting with the Reagan administration, we

have had a program that subsidized low income Americans to be able to have phone service

because how are you going to dial 911, but same story. It atrophied as dial-up telephone

service, when the world had gone broadband. How do we make sure that the same kind of

concept supports subsidies for low income Americans for broadband. The champion for

that was Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. She was the person that was constantly, constantly

pushing on that, and she was my conscience on that issue.

[Susan Crawford] It's a wonderful issue. There are some things that didn't happen, before

we get to the Title II discussion, the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger.

[Tom Wheeler] That didn't happen, and T-Mobile Sprint didn't happen.

[Susan Crawford] T-Mobile Sprint, that�s the one that didn't happen.

[Tom Wheeler] We had dinner last night with former Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust

Bill Baer and his deputy Renata Hesse and then my two key folks who had been involved,

Phil Verveer and Jon Sallet. We had dinner to reflect on not only the substance of the

issues we had worked on but, again, back to this people angle, I don't think there had

ever been a better working relationship between the Antitrust Division and the FCC because

we all shared a common belief, and we all liked each other and liked working together

with each other. [Susan Crawford] A lot of learning on both

sides. Everything depended on a lot of information trading around.

[Tom Wheeler] No. I mean the Comcast-Time Warner decision broke some new ground.

[Susan Crawford] Privacy? [Tom Wheeler] There's a really simple issue

that I think that we're going to have to face again because of the new administration, and

that is that privacy is a civil rights issue of the 21st century, of the connected era.

Let me give you an example of it. We had, for decades, rules that applied to telephone

companies that said that the information that was transmitted in order to set up the call

could not be used by the telephone companies. For instance, if I call Air France, Verizon

can't turn around and sell that information to some tour operator or hotel company in

Paris. That doesn't exist in the broadband world.

You had that strange situation where your smartphone, if you used it to make a voice

call, your privacy was protected. If you use that same device and the same network to go

on the web and go to the Air France website, that information was for sale. It was not

your information anymore. The very fact that you had used the network meant you were giving

that information. We said no. This is the consumers' information, and so we put a rule

in place that said that the consumer gets to make the choice as to how the network is

going to use the information. That was another one of our three to two votes.

[Susan Crawford] We'll talk about party line in a bit. I want to get there. I'm still ticking

off the great moments of Tom Wheeler. [Tom Wheeler] Do you want me to keep talking

about it? Are you interested? [Susan Crawford] The idea of labeling an Internet

service provider as a common carriage Title II entity. That was pretty big. I've always

wanted to know, what is it like to hear from 3.7 million Americans? What's that feel like?

[Tom Wheeler] They crashed our servers. [Susan Crawford] Exactly.

[Tom Wheeler] You don't always want to hear everything they say about you. I've heard

more descriptions about what could I do to myself with a pineapple than I ever want to

hear. The whole open Internet discussion debate was fascinating. You're a

part of this because you and I, we're on the phone discussing this. For me, it was kind

of a Damascus Road experience. You go back, and let's put it in perspective that twice

before the commissioner tried to do something and twice before the broadband companies,

the carriers, took it to the court and the court said, "No, you can't do that."

Let's see. I walked in in November, and then in February the court came down with a rising

decision that threw out the previous attempts at open Internet. It seemed to me that the

court was leading us in a certain direction built around Section 706 and protecting what's

the virtuous circle of, if you have good broadband that'll drive more services, which will drive

more broadband, and the job of the commission is to protect that.

Initially, my proposal was that we should follow what I thought the court was trying

to signal to us. At the same point in time, I asked in the notice proposed rule I can

ask about Title II and other areas. It became clear over the debate, the discussion, that

that wasn't going to be sufficient, 706 wasn't going to be sufficient. People like to point

to John Oliver and all that. I will show you one thing here that my daughter gave me. This

is my cell phone case. It says, "I am not a dingo."

[Susan Crawford] Dingo is inherently funny no matter what.

[Tom Wheeler] Dingo is inherently funny until you stand up and say, "You know, I've decided

I'm not a dingo." That's not funny. Do not mess with that guy who is funny for a living.

One of the things that you and Chris didn't mention in my background is that I was the

CEO of the Wireless Industry Association for a dozen years. In 1994, 1993, the Wireless

Industry went to Congress and said, "Please make us a common carrier but put us under

Title II." Because Title II was designed for a different era, with different technology,

less competition, et cetera, remove a lot of these old requirements that were in Title

II. Congress did that, and the commission followed through, and the Wireless Industry

went like this. The summer of 2014 I guess, I'm going through

options, and it's kind of, "Wait a minute. Section 332 of the Communications Act, which

is this structure that I subscribed for the wireless industry, is the perfect model for

this. Yes, you should be a common carrier with all the responsibilities that come with

a common carrier, but at the same point in time you can forbear from some of the most

ridiculous things. The statute says you got accounting rules, who's on your board, who

you can buy from, and all kinds of things, including ex-ante price regulation. We can

forbear from that. Let's take that as the model of how we implement

Title II in a broadband world, and that was the decision that we ended up making. We were

constantly working through various iterations of it. The President, of course, came out

and said he was a strong Title II supporter, and so we were able to put together three

votes and uphold it in court. [Susan Crawford] A very strong decision.

[Tom Wheeler] With a very strong decision that was crucial for that. Third time we got

it right because we did it this way, and the court strongly agreed to this.