The issues in front of the energy and Commerce Committee are going to determine americas leadership in the world. My goal is to make sure we are leading on climate, driverless cars, closing the Digital Divide. Making sure america is leading and the rest of the world is following. Peter one of the issues before your subcommittee right now is privacy. What do you want to have done . It is very Important Congress act. That we set a National Standard for privacy in the u. S. What is happening is we are seeing a patchwork of laws. California has led with the law that is going into effect right now. Other states are introducing their own laws. Washington state has introduced legislation. There are 80 bills being introduced at the state level addressing privacy because congress is not acting. We need to have a standard or else we risk a patchwork of laws that are only going to cause confusion for consumers and make it difficult for businesses. We could run into a situation where a business would blackout a state because the state laws might be in conflict with one another. It just underscores the importance of congress acting. I am encouraged and have been working very hard with the chair of the subcommittee on a bipartisan bill. In congress right now, we are the only bipartisan bill in play. We are continuing to hammer out important provisions. We released sections of a bipartisan we released sections of a bipartisan bill and asked for input on it. Our goal was to introduce language that would be stronger than california. That would ensure consumers know their information is protected. Also, beef up the enforcement. Largely at the state level. I believe among the ags and the ftc, we beefed up some of the ftc. We need to make sure there is strong enforcement mechanisms. The goal was to have language that is strong so we dont continue to have some say we need a private right of action. I fear a private right of action and privacy legislation will be a damper on the innovators and Small Businesses. Peter the European Union came up with a gdpr. With the jdpr. Are we heading in that direction . Rep. Mcmorris rodgers i believe we can do better and we need to do different. There are increased Compliance Costs that are dramatic. Costs. 10 million in that is a significant barrier to entry. In america, my goal is to make sure we are leading innovation. If you create a barrier to entry around privacy, that is going to be a damper on the Small Businesses and startups. That is what we are hammering out is how to move forward with important privacy protections and a standard in place that will ensure innovators and startups can continue to be the next generation of competitors. Peter what are the chances of a privacy bill coming through in an Election Year . Rep. Mcmorris rodgers some would say it is a longshot. However, as the california bill is being implemented, i believe there will be an increased awareness this patchwork in the states is unworkable and is not going to create the trust we need to be building with consumers. With that, there is an opportunity and it will underscore the importance of congress acting. Peter part of your district in washington is rural. How do you get 5g to your district . Is it important . Rep. Mcmorris rodgers i think it is the number one issue right now. The number one issue is closing that Digital Divide. It is foundational to our economy. It is foundational to our future. As you think about communities in Eastern Washington and all over the country, the access to the internet is foundational to our economy. It is foundational to education. More and more education is demanding access to the internet. Children are doing homework on the internet. Health care. I am very excited about telehealth, i am etc. About what about what itd means for people who live in rural and underserved areas. If you dont have a broadband connection, it is useless. Closing the Digital Divide is critical. I have areas in my district that still need one g. It is very important this is addressed and it is a priority at the national level. Peter representative mcmorris rodgers, the fact that Washington State is a technological leader, has that spilled over to Eastern Washington and spokane . Rep. Mcmorris rodgers absolutely. We are proud of being a tech leader. In spokane, we have three companies this year that have had 10 million plus investment and raised capital. We have 25 startups we are celebrating. It is fun to see the next generation and the new ideas people continue to have to improve our lives and creating efficiencies. Peter Cathy Mcmorris rodgers is the Top Republican on the subcommittee of the energy and Commerce Committee. And has been our guest. Joining us now is a republican from texas. I talked broadly about Artificial Intelligence, robo calls. The fact that it is 20 20 and it robocalls areand still an issue. 50 of the calls are robo calls. The technological innovation we are going to see is going to make the last years look insignificant and we have to be ready. Peter why do you say that about the 30 years . Representative hurd we are in a geopolitical struggle with china. They laid out a plan saying they are going to surpass the u. S. As the sole superpower. They are going to do it in the ten areas of technology. 5g, quantum computing. This is a struggle. A couple of years ago, a Bipartisan Group did a review that showed American Military and Economic Dominance is no longer guaranteed. We have to recognize this place we are in. We can continue to win, continue to be a leader in those areas, but this is an actual battle. Peter we also talked about intelligence matters. You are on the intel committee. When you are talking about china, there is an issue of stealing technology and huawei. Rep. Hurd the chinese are stealing technology. I think the way you deal with that is simple. If a u. S. Company cannot do it in china, a Chinese Company or investor cannot do it in the u. S. If amazon is not treated like a Chinese Company in china, why are we treating alibaba in the u. S. Like a Chinese Company . Huawei is an extension of the chinese government. There is no question about this. When you look at the heads of these Chinese Companies there is a capitalist class in china. They have a strong relationship to the military, often times intelligence services, and the communist ruling party. Huawei has 30 of the world market. What are we doing with our leaders and allies to make the 5g technology that is why the germans are thinking about buying samsung or nokia. Why is china focused on the 5g infrastructure . Why does that matter . In 5g, you are going to download a 4k movie, the best quality, and like three seconds. That is awesome but the real power is what is called latency. You may have a command on your phone and it goes to a server in the cloud and it comes back to your phone. That trick is called latency. Under 5g, you are going to be able to do it in 10 nanoseconds. We make decisions in eight nanoseconds. 5g is going to allow us to have the power of the internet in real time. The chinese know that. Whoever owns the 5g infrastructure, they want to make sure they own the companies that set on top of 5g. Those are going to be the next trillion dollar companies. It takes time to build this kind of infrastructure. We need to be thinking of 60 and 7g, whatever the new communications are. The government plays a role. They also play a role in regulation, making sure we do not over regulate. Peter are we moving toward two world wide webs or internets, the u. S. And china . Rep. Hurd you can make an argument there already is one. You have the infrastructure and applications, the apps on your phone. The fact you cant move information from facebook to another social media account. You have a pocket where it targets information out of. Consumers are going to demand an ease of transfer between various systems. What we should be doing is making sure liberal democratic western values is what is used as this technology develops and not autocratic regimes. I always talk about facial recognition. The chinese are spending time in facial recognition. They are not doing this to make it easier for their citizens to buy groceries, so you can buy the groceries with your face. They are using this technology because they are using it in one of their provinces where they are using this technology to monitor and Ethnic Minority Group called the uighurs. One million of them are already in concentration camps in the chinese are using this technology to deal with them. And they are perfecting it. They are basically turning orwells 1984 into a 21st century technology. They are going to share this with other autocratic regimes. We should have our values defining this kind of technology. That is why we need to continue to be a leader and why we need to work with our allies, especially our european allies, creating the rules of the road in this technology. There is a slippery slope toward that social behavior contract, facial recognition, Artificial Intelligence. It is true in the states, too . Rep. Hurd it is but lets be simple. We already have rules against discrimination in housing, of all kinds. The algorithm, the new technology, we need to adhere to those rules, too. There is a thing in Artificial Intelligence called guidance. Guess what . An algorithm should not discriminate. If you are using an algorithm to make decisions about whether somebody gets a home, you cannot use discriminatory tactics now, you should not be able to use it in the algorithm. The people who are developing these algorithms have to ensure they are detecting bias and prepared for this. The change is coming. We cant stop it but we have to be ready for it. I think we can take advantage of technology before it takes advantage of us. Peter as someone with an intel background, how do you protect your own data and privacy . Rep. Hurd it starts with simple things you can do. A long password more than 14 characters. Make sure your software is patched. Software may find a vulnerability, we know there is a problem in the code, and you are supposed to download the patch. Make sure the apps on your phone are uptodate, the software on your computer. Most important, do not click on links from people you do not know. Most malware is perpetuated from what is called spearfishing or fishing campaigns. Or phishing campaigns. If you interact with that person, their actual name will show up in the two lines. In the to line. If their name does not show up, and it is a long email and it may look like the person you know, do not click on it. If you do those two things, you are going to defend against like 80 of the bed things out there. Of the bad things out there. Peter should lawenforcement be able to break into a phone . Rep. Hurd let me refine that question. If Law Enforcement can break into a phone and they have a warrant, that is one thing. Should Law Enforcement be telling a private company how to build their widget, the answer is no. This gets into the issue of backdoors to encryption. Backdoors to encryption weakens encryption. It is a tool to protect ourselves, our society. Law enforcement has a tough job. I have served alongside men and women in federal Law Enforcement. There has never been a real case where a case has gone cold because of encryption. And there is no such thing as an impenetrable device. The San Bernardino shooter, the killer, when they had that phone and there was a court case, fbi versus apple. In that case, you had the persons email, phone number, you knew all the apps on the phone. The fbi was able to get all the Information Available on the phone. When they broke into the phone, they found out there was nothing else on the phone that they did not already have. The reality is, there is no an no such thing as an impenetrable device. Theres always ways to get access to that information. If a federal agency has a judicial order to get that information, should be able to use the tools they need. Peter thank you for your time. Joining us now is Ellen Weintraub, a commissioner on the federal Election Commission. How is it that you were chair of the fec during a Republican Administration . It is a bipartisan body and was designed that way. It is supposed to have three republicans and three democrats, or no more than three members of a single party. Right now there is a problem because there are only three commissioners. The chairmanship rotates. Last year, i was the chair. This year, a republican is the chair. Peter next year, will you be the chair . I hope it will not come to that but a democrat will be chair. Peter what are you doing here at the conference . I am here to talk about technology and elections. There is a lot of interest in the role of technology in our elections. I know im one person who is concerned. I think there a lot of concerns related to technology. There are concerns related to hacking. I am also concerned about how messages are being conveyed to the American People and whether they can trust those messages. Whether they are getting information from american citizens or people masquerading as american citizens. I am worried about disinformation and misinformation on social media. I am concerned about whether social media platforms are doing everything they can to ensure they are not going to be a forum, provide a forum for people undermining our democracy. Peter what is the federal Election Commissions role in monitoring or enforcing those laws . Our role goes to issues like disclaimers and whether the particular information on political ads is displayed and whether people can tell who is paying for them. As somebody who has been active trying to protect the integrity of our government and our elections my entire career, i personally have broader concerns than that. Peter hasnt disinformation been part of campaigns since 1783 . In a sense, but the platforms provide this new mechanism. Disinformation can spread at the speed of light. Any corrections never quite catch up. It has been a way to spread misinformation without knowing who is doing the talking. I dont think anybody wants to get their news from a russian troll farm, but that happened in 2016. We need to step up to make sure the American People are wellinformed and honestly informed and transparently informed about the issues of the day so they can make well reasoned judgments about who to vote for. Peter have the social Media Companies done their part . Ellen i think they are trying. Some are trying harder than others. They are coming up with Different Solutions and some of the Solutions Different platforms are coming up with are better than others. Twitter is just trying to get out of the political ad game altogether. That may or may not be a great way of addressing these issues. It does deny people the opportunity to use that platform to get their message out. Google has tried to address issues of microtargeting which i have been concerned about. They have adopted a set of rules whereby they say they will not accept ads that are microtargeted below the zip code level and maybe gender and age. It ensures enough people will hear the advertisement so if there is counter information that needs to be put forward, if people have contrasting views on the subject, they will hear the at and know they need to speak out about it. Facebook is taking a very different approach, a handsoff approach. They are continuing to run political ads, but they are not adding restrictions, they are not going to be Fact Checking and they have declined to do anything about microtargeting. The issue with microtargeting is they take the data they learn about you from all of this Information Available to facebook. People arent consciously trying to tell facebook and the advertisers about them, they are just going about their business using the platform, sharing something. Facebook is just sucking all that data out and using it to sell their platform to advertisers as a way to microtarget their ads. So not only might you be getting different ads than your nextdoor neighbor, but you might be getting different ads than the person sitting across the dinner table from you. You could not even have a sincerely a conversation over dinner as to what you are seeing in your feed and what information your partner right have that might contradict it. My point about the microtargeting is you have to have a broad enough audience so these counter arguments can be brought forth and people will have a fair opportunity to evaluate points of view. Peter some of the Solutions Proposed seem to be stepping on free speech. Ellen i dont think so. The standard First Amendment argument is if you dont like somebody saying something, you counter that with your arguments. But first you have to hear what they are saying. Counter speech has no value if you dont know what other people are saying. Peter with social media, if you or i want to do advertise on facebook, i dont think the other one would want the other one to censor our ads. Ellen i am not advocating censoring any ads. Just make sure you are selling the ads, digitally casting them to a broad enough audience that individuals can hear what the other side is saying and respond to it. Peter i want to go back to where we started which is the advancement of technology with political campaigns. This has always been around, this has always been an issue. I received one letter, you receive another letter from our congressmen given the issues we care about. Isnt that normal . Ellen mail doesnt get microtargeted in the same way Digital Advertising is, and it is not based on information only the platforms have. Nobody is going through my mail to see what i am reading and then designing ads. That is what the platforms are doing. They say, we know exactly what this individual likes versus what that individual likes. We can custom design an ad just for that individual. Peter the panel you are speaking on is called is democracy safe . What is your answer . Ellen i am not sure and that is a scary place to be. I am not read in on all the efforts to block cyber warfare from our geopolitical adversaries. I think after 2016, we have seen very little legislation, very little regulation. We have not overtly responded very much to what we saw happen. The attacks in 2016. I think we need to take stronger steps. We need as a nation to come together and to send the word out to the world and make it clear we are not going to tolerate anybody mucking and our elections. There are bipartisan bills in congress to address some of the issues raised in the 2016 election and they cannot seem to get through. I think that is a shame. For example, a bipartisan act sponsored by marco rubio and Chris Van Hollen which would impose strong sanctions against any nation that tried to interfere in our elections. I think we need that and make it clear to the world we are going to take strong steps. I dont know if we are going to catch it when it comes in the door. We dont know if adversaries are going to use the same techniques as they did in the last election. But if we make it clear there are going to be strong sanctions, we can safeguard our elections in a way we have not done. Peter technology is a threat to democracy. Ellen it can be. When people started using technology in digital platforms to do political messaging, a lot of people were giddy at this low cost medium that could spread the word. But we have learned there are Strong Negative impacts to our democracy from the way people are using and abusing the platform to spread disinformation. The algorithms are designed to keep you in the platform, to find you clicking away. They have found the way to keep you engaged is outrage. Anger, strong emotions. That is not what is best for our democracy. Peter does the federal Election Commission have enough tools to work with this . Ellen i think we need stronger laws. There are some things the fec could do. I was trying to strengthen our rules on disclaimers in online advertising. Even something as small as that is a struggle to get past and has been at the fec. Any action right now would have to come from congress. When the commission does get reconstituted, i can only hope they will be people who are willing to work across the aisle to address some of the strong and deep threats to our democracy. Peter Ellen Weintraub is one of three commissioners who sits on the fec. Ellen thank you. Peter just a reminder that this program and all others are available as podcasts. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Created by cable in 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. Monday, president s day. Washington journal is live from mount vernon, the home and library of our first president george washington. Historian and ceo of juul vernon, doug brander. It is the start of museum week, with exhibits exploring the american story. Be sure to watch museum week all next week at 9 a. M. Eastern on washington journal. U. N. Security council met recently to discuss president trumps middle east peace plan, a resolution to reject the plan was withdrawn after it was blocked by the u. S. And israel. In this debate we hear from palestinian president abbas, israeli ambassador to the u. N. Danny dylan and u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Kelly craft. You ready . [speaking for in which] foreign language] in the name of god, the excellency the minister and president of the council, your excellency, secretarygeneral