Hearing of the
Subcommittee on Technology and the House
Subcommittee hearing on "Legislating in the 21st Century Congress"
Mr. Dreier. Thank you very much, Mr. Beilenson.
And I have to say that I am very pleased to have the Chairman of the Legislative and Budget Process Subcommittee, who has taken the time from his schedule to join us; and I would like to call on Mr. Goss.
Oh, I am sorry. Before I do that -- we are dealing with technology -- the little hissing that we hear apparently is coming from our friend -- the microphone of our friend, Mr. Flahaven, in Minnesota.
Let me say to you, Mr. Secretary, if you could hit the mute button on the microphone there, I am told that it will not create the noise that we are getting here in the committee room. Apparently, they have been trying to call you so they have relied on me to communicate with you.
Perfect. Sounds great now.
I thought it did. How did we do? Okay.
Mr. Goss.
Mr. Goss. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is with some sense of wonderment that I am here watching all of this work. I want to thank you for your initiative and creativity on this.
I think every Member of Congress is probably suffering from information overload, and any ways that we can deal with that more effectively are going to be very important, especially since technology is going to bring more information to us. How we screen and handle that and how we use technology to help us, rather than to work against us, is going to be very important, and I will come back to that point in just a second.
I listened very closely to what my colleague and good friend from California said, and I share a little bit of the concern that we become too robotic in our life, not just here but as more and more technology comes across our life; and those of us who are a little older have to cope with it and learn new skills every day.
But I firmly believe that Congress is never going to be put on autopilot. That is just not going to happen. Maybe some people think it is a good idea; I don't. I think this is a deliberative body. It is very much the people's House. The interest and awareness that technology offers for people will help us overcome apathy in our country, and we all decry the small amount of voter turnout that happens quite often in our national elections. So maybe, in fact, we can steer this all in a way that we can create more interest and more participation at the ballot box. And that, of course, is healthy for democracy.
In terms of education, we all agree that it is important that people know what is going on on the Hill and in Washington. That is a critical factor. We all want an informed and well-educated electorate. We want them to know what they are casting their ballots for when they go and not just be subject to the 2-minute sound bite or the 30-second sound bite or, even worse, the talking heads and the anchors of the broadcast networks who are guiding and molding opinions and people leave it at that when there is always so much more behind the news.
And I guess the final area, the area that really attracted my interest today, was this question of secrecy and accountability. I think that technology offers us a great opportunity for offense, but clearly we have got to have some defense in it, too. And I am reminded of this because we had a very interesting and controversial vote yesterday in the House, and I got a lot of unprintable, untraceable input. And so I am very interested in how we use this technology so that there will always be accountability to those people who are sending messages, as well. And, of course, I serve on the Intelligence Committee. I am very concerned in terms of our national security about protecting whatever technology we have, to make sure that it is used properly and not abused.
Having said all of that, I am delighted that there is such a stellar array of witnesses coming before us, as well as such a stellar array of Members of Congress participating.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
