Officials. Representative Cathy Mcmorris rodgers, when you let Republican Leadership in the house, he basically had your choice of any committee you wanted. Why did you choose energy and commerce . Guest im excited to be on the energy and commerce right now. Energy and Commerce Committee has it at the forefront of americas competitiveness, at the forefront of our future, the issues and from the energy and Commerce Committee are going to determine americas leadership in the world. My goal is to make sure we are leading on energy, climate, healthcare, technology, 5g, driverless cars, closing the Digital Divide making sure america is leading and the rest of the world is following our leadership. Host as a Top Republican on the Consumer Protection subcommittee, one of the issues right now is privacy. Where is your marker . What you want to have done . Guest its very important that congress act. Its important that we set a National Standard for privacy in the United States of america. Right now what is happening is that we are starting to see a patchwork of laws across the country. California has led with a law that is going into effect right now. Other states are introducing their own laws. Washington state, my home state has introduced legislation. Theres nearly 80 separate bills being introduced at the state level that are addressing privacy. Because congress isnt acting. We need to pass a National Standard or we risk having a patchwork of laws across the states that are only going to cause more confusion for consumers, and also make it typical aspect difficult for businesses. We could run into a situation where a business would lack out the state because her state laws might be in conflict with one another. It underscores the importance of congress acting. I am encouraged and had been working very hard with the chair of the subcommittee, jan schakowsky, on a bipartisan bill. In congress right now we are the only bipartisan bill in play, and we are continuing to hammer out important provisions. We released sections of the bipartisan privacy bill right before christmas, and asked for input on it. Our goal was to introduce language that would be stronger than california, that would ensure that consumers know that their information is protected. Also beefed up the enforcement, enforcement, largely at the state level. I believe among the ags and the ftc, we beefed up some of the ftc but we need to make sure their strong enforcement mechanisms, and the goal was to have language that is strong so that we dont continue to have some saying we need a private right of action. I fear a private right of action in privacy legislation will be a damper on the innovators and Small Businesses in particular. Host so the European Union came up with gdpr. Are we headed in that direction . Guest i believe we can do better and we need to do different than gdpr. Gdpr is yes, going into effect in europe. What you are saying our increase Compliance Costs that are pretty dramatic, one to 10 million in Compliance Costs, thats a significant barrier to entry. In america, my goal is to make sure we continue to be the country thats leading in innovation and encouraging the startups. If you create a significant barrier to entry around privacy, and the regulations of privacy, thats going to be a damper on the Small Businesses and the startups. Thats part of what were hammering out, is how to move forward with important privacy protections and a standard in place, but also will ensure the inventors innovators and the startups can continue to be the next generation of competitors and disruptors. Host what are the chances of a a privacy bill come throuh in an Election Year . Guest somewhat say its a long shot. However, as the California Law is being implemented, as other states are moving forward, i believe there there would be an increased Awareness Among the states is unworkable and isnt going to create the trust that we need to be building with consumers. So with that there is an opportunity, and it will underscore the importance of congress acting. Host part of your district in washington is rural. How do you get 5g to your district, and is it important . Guest maybe it is an ongoing issue right now. The number one issue in my district is closing that Digital Divide. Its foundational to our economy. Its foundational to our future, and as you think about communities in Eastern Washington and all over the country, the access to the internet is foundational to our economy. Its foundational to education, more and more education is demanding access to the internet. Children are doing homework on the internet. They need to have access. Health care, im excited about telehealth, very excited about what it means for people who live in rural and underserved areas, and yet you dont have broadband connection its useless. So closing the Digital Divide is critical, and 5g, yes. Ive ever is my district that still need 1g. We have a long way to go and its going to be very important that this is addressed and it is a priority at the national level. Host representative mcmorris rodgers, the fact that Washington State is a technological leader, has that spill over to Eastern Washington and spokane where you represent . Guest yes. Absolutely. We are proud to be a tech leader. In spokane right now we have three Companies Just this year that affect 10 million plus investments and raise capital. We have 25 startups that we are celebrating. It is fun to see the next generation and the new ideas that people continue to have to improve our lives and creating efficiencies. Host Cathy Mcmorris rodgers is the Top Republican on the Consumer Protection subcommittee of the energy and Commerce Committee, and has been our guest on the communicators. Guest good to be with your. Host joining us now on the communicators is congressman will hurd, a republican from texas. What we should talk about here at the state of the net conference . Guest i i talked probably about Artificial Intelligence, robocalls, the fact its 2020 and robocalls are still an issue. Almost pitch a of calls people get our robocalls. I talked a little bit about how we have to use technology because the technological innovation we will see in the next 30 years will make the last 30 years look insignificant and we must be ready. Host why do you say that about the next 30 years . Guest because we need to be thinking the odd its hard for people in congress for just a month amount. Were in a mobile range, a geopolitical struggle with china. China major interest very clear back in 2015 they laid out a plan that said they will surpass the United States as the sole superpower and they will do that by a world leader in ten areas of future technology. 5g, Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, this is in essence a struggle. A couple of years ago a Bipartisan Group of ceos, generals, diplomats did a review that showed that American Military and Economic Dominance is no longer guaranteed, and so we have to recognize this place that were in, we can continue to win, continues to be a leader in these areas but this is an actual cycle. Host congressman hurd, we often talk but intelligence matters. You are on the intel committee. When it comes to china, theres an issue with stealing technology and is the issue of huawei. What are your thoughts . Guest so the chinese are still stealing technology. They are using our laws to technology and illegal ways. A u. S. Company or investigate do in china but in china, a Company Investor cant do it in the United States of america. If amazon is not treated like a Chinese Company in china, why are we treating alibaba in the United States like its a Chinese Company . That is true reciprocity and something were working on. Huawei is an extension of the chinese government. Theres a question about this. How would look at the heads of all these Major Chinese companies, and there is that all have a strong relationship back to the mr. Comer oftentimes Intelligence Services and, indeed, to the conus ruling party. But huawei has 30 of the world market. What are we doing with our leaders and our allies to make sure that the 5g technology, that that is why the germans are thinking about buying samsung or nokia versus huawei. And why is china focused so much on the 5g and what is 5g, why does it matter . 5g you can download a fork a movie, the best quality in like three seconds. Thats awesome, but the real power of 5g is what is called latency. You may have command on your phone and that command goes to a server in the cloud when it comes back to your phone. That trip is called latency. Under 5g you can do it in ten nanoseconds. Why does ten nanoseconds matter . Because we make decisions in a nanoseconds. So now 5g is going to allow us to the entire power of the internet in real time. So that is whats going to empower Artificial Intelligence. The chinese know that. So whoever owns the 5g infrastructure, they want to make sure they own the companies that sit on top of 5g because those are going to be the next trillion dollar companies. This is where, you know, it takes time to build this kind of infrastructure and we need to be thinking of 6g and 7g, whatever the new communication, quantum communications. So its hard sometimes, the government plays a role in this and basic research but they also play a role in regulation and not making sure we over regulate this so that we can have these new technologies. Host are we moving toward two World Wide Web or separate internets, u. S. , chinabased . Guest you can make an argument there already is one, right . You have one that chinabased and you also all the infrastructure that are within applications, the apps on your phone. The fact you cant move information from facebook to another social media account, so you already have these Little Pockets where its hard to get information out of. I think consumers are going to bed and ease of transfer between various systems. So yeah, i think we can but 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 a lot of time with facial recognition, and they are not doing this to make it easier for their citizens to buy groceries. They are using this technology because they already are using one of their provinces where they using this technology to monitor and Ethnic Minority Group called the uighurs. And million of them already and concentration camps and the chinese are using this facial Recognition Technology to deal with them, and their perfecting it. Basically turning or wells 1984 into a 21st century reality. They are perfecting that in this one province, use it in the rest of china and then theyre going to share this with other autocratic regimes. We should have our values, defining this current technology, and thats why we continue to be a leader and why we should be working with our allies, especially our european allies, on creating the rules of the road in this technology. Host but theres a slippery slope towards that, social behavior contract and facial recognition and Artificial Intelligence. Its here in the states, isnt it . Guest it is a lets be simple. We already have rules against discrimination in housing, against discrimination of all kinds. Guess what, the algorithms, the new technology need to adhere to those rules, too. Theres a thing in Artificial Intelligence called guidance. And guess what, and algorithm should not discriminate. If you are using an algorithm to make decisions on whether someone gets a home loan, you can use discriminatory tactics now, you shouldnt be able to use and algorithm. So the people who are developing these algorithms have to ensure that their able to detect bias and prepare for this. This is happening. The change and disruption is coming. We cant stop it but we have to be ready for it, and i think we can take offense at the coast before it takes a bench of us. Host somebody with an intel background, how do you protect your own data and privacy . Guest it starts with simple things you can do. Have a long password, more than 14 characters, make sure your software is patched, right . So that means software may find a vulnerability in it. We know theres a problem in code and youre supposed to download the patch. Make sure the apps on your phone are up to date, make sure the software on your computer is uptodate. And most importantly, do not click on links from people you do not know. Because most malware is perpetuated from what is called spearfishing or phishing campaigns. So dont click on emails you dont know. A simple way to know, if you have come interact with a person before, their name, the actual name will show up in the two lines. But if the name doesnt show up and its a long email and may look like the person you know, dont click on it, right . That the best way, you do those three things the you will defend against like 80 of the bad things that are out there. Host should Law Enforcement be able to break into a phone. Lets me refine that question. If Law Enforcement can break into a phone and they have it want to do that and theres a reason to find that phone, thats one thing. But should Law Enforcement be telling a private company how to build their widget come and dance yet is no. This this continued issue backdoors to encryption. Weakening backdoors to encryption weakens encryption. We should be strengthening encryption, not weakening it. Encryption is a tool protect ourselves and the tool to protect our society and ultimately Law Enforcement has a tough job. I served alongside men and women in federal Law Enforcement, but theres never been a real case or no one has present the case has gone cold because of encryption. And theres no such thing as an impenetrable device. Lets go to the San Bernardino shooter, the killer in San Bernardino when you have that phone thought and there was a court case, fbi versus apple. In that case you had the killers email, you have the phone number, you knew all the apps that run the phone, got all the backup. And so fbi was able to get all the information that was available on the phone, and then when they broke into the phone they found out there was nothing else on the phone that they didnt already have. The reality is, theres no such thing as an impenetrable device and is always ways to get access to that information, then if the federal Law Enforcement has a judicial order to get that information, then they should be able to use the tools they need. Host congressman will hurd, thanks for your time on the communicators try to always a pleasure. Host joining us now on the communicators is Ellen Weintraub, who is a commission on a federal Election Commission. How is it that you were chair of the fec during a Republican Administration . How does that work . Guest the fec is a bipartisan body. It was designed that way. It supposed to have three republicans of three democrats or lease no more than three members of any one political party. Right now with a bit of a pub because theres only three commissioners. Thats a whole other story but the chairmanship rotates. Every year he goes back and forth. Last year i was the chipper issue a republican is the chair. Host and next year ub chair again if youre the only democrat tried traffic im reay hoping its not going to come to that but a democrat will be chair next year. Host what are you doing here at the state of the net conference . Guest im here to talk about technology and elections, and a lot of interest in the role of technology in our elections and a lot of concerns. I am one of those people who is concerned about it. Host what is your major concern right now . Guest there are a lot of concerns related to technology. There are concerns about hacking, and thats a little bit out of my area of expertise, but im also concerned about how messages are being conveyed to the American People and whether they can trust those messages, whether they get information from american citizen or people who are masquerading as american citizens. Im worried about the application of this information and misinformation on social media platforms, and unprincipled whether the social media platforms are stepping up and doing everything that they can to ensure that theyre not going to be a forum for people who are trying to undermine our democracy. Host whats the federal Election Commissions role in monitoring or enforcing those laws . Guest our role in this area really goes to issues like this claim is and whether the information, particular information on lyrical ads and with people can tell when they see this as whether the ads are coming from who is paying for them. Thats our primary jurisdiction in this area but a somebody who has been active in trying to protect the integrity of our government and our elections for my entire career, i personally have broader concerns than that. Host Ellen Weintraub, hasnt disinformation been part of campaigns since 1783 . Guest in in a sense, but te problem is platforms provide this new mechanism that, where disinformation can spread at the speed of light and any corrections after that never quite catch up. Its become a way for people to spread information without conveying who is really doing the talking. I dont think anybody really wants to get their news from the russian control farm, and yet that happen in 2016. We all in government and industry need to step up to do a better job to make sure that the American People are well informed and honestly informed and transparently informed about the issues of the day so they can make well reasoned and informed judgments on who to vote for in the election. Host in your view have a social Media Companies done their part . Guest i think they are trying to work some of them are trying harder than others. They are coming up with Different Solutions and some of the solutions that different platforms are coming up with our better than other solutions. We have seen, for example, twitter is just try 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 an opportunity to use that platform to get their message out. Its a little bit concerning. Google has tried to address issues of microtargeting which ive been particularly 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 at maybe gender and age. The importance of a rule like that is it ensures enough people will hear the advertisement so that if there is counter information that needs to be put forward, if people have contrasting views on the subject, that they will hear the ad and know they need to speak out about it. Facebook is taking a different approach, and much more handsoff approach. They are continue to run political ads but youre not adopting a lot of restrictions. They are not going to be Fact Checking and then declined to do anything about microtargeting. As i said, the issue with microtargeting is that they take the data had to learn about you from all of this information that is available to facebook, the people are not consciously tried to tell facebook and the advertisers about them. They are just going about their business using the platform, liking something, sharing something and facebook is just sucking all that data out and using it to sell their platform the advertisers as a way to microtarget their ads, custom designed the 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 based on how you use platform. You couldnt even have a conversation over dinner as to what you are seeing on your feet and what information your partner might have that might contradict it. My point about the microtargeting is you need to have brought enough audience so that this counter argument can be brought forth and people will have a fair opportunity to evaluate different points of view. Host some of the solutions that have been proposed though seem to be stepping on free speech. Guest i dont think so. If you are sharing the information with a broader audience you are not restricting anyones speech. You are sharing the speech more broadly. The standard First Amendment argument is if you dont like what somebody has to say, you dont stop a person from saying it. You counter those arguments which with your own arguments before shop to hear what they are saying. Counter speech has no value if you dont know what other people are saying. Host with social media, if you or i wanted to advertise on facebook, i dont think the other one would want the other one to censor our ads. Guest im not advocating cinching anybodys ads. Im just saying when they sell these ads can make sure they are selling them to broadcasting them or digitally casting them to a broad enough audience that individuals can hear what the other side is saying and respond to it. Host Ellen Weintraub, i want to go back to where we started, which is the advancement of technology with political campaigns. This has always been around. This is always been an issue where you might receive one letter, i received another letter from our congressmen, given issues we care about. Isnt that normal . Guest well, mail doesnt get microtargeted in the same way that Digital Advertising does and it is not based on the information that on the platforms have. They say we know exactly what this individual likes verses that individual likes. We can custom design and add just for that individual. Host the panel youre speaking on here is state of the net conference is called is democracy safe . What is your short answer to that question . Guest im not sure what the answer is, that that is a scary place to be. Host why are you not sure . Guest as i said i am not read in on all the Cyber Efforts that are going on to block cyber warfare from our geopolitical adversaries. I trust and hope that dhs stays on top of that. 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 we saw in 2016, at a think we need to take a stronger steps. I think we need as a nation to come together and to send the word out to everyone else in the world to make it absolutely clear that were not going to tolerate anybody mucking in our elections. There are bipartisan bills in congress to address some of the issues that were raised in the 2016 election, and they cannot seem to get through. I think that is a darn shame. For example, theres a bipartisan act sponsored by marco rubio and chris van hollen, the teacher asked him which would impose really strong sanctions against any foreign nation that tries to interfere in our elections. We need that kind of deterrence and we need to make it clear to the world we are going to take stock steps in order to deter that conduct conficker im note going to patch it as it comes in the door. These have morphed and evolve very rapidly. We dont know yet come for abhisit for a visit will be using the same techniques the next election that the use in the last election, but if we make it clear there will be strong sanctions as we add to deter that, i think we can safeguard our elections in a way we so far have not done. Host so technology is a threat to democracy . Guest it can be. When people first started using technology and digital platforms to do political messaging, a lot of people were giddy at the prospect of his lowcost medium that could spread the word widely, but i think 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 that the platforms used are designed to keep you engaged, to keep your clicking away, they found what works the best is to keep you outraged, anger, strong emotions. Thats what gets people on the platform and sticking to the platform, and that is that what is best for our democracy. We dont want to be constantly at each others throats. Host does the federal Election Commission have enough tools to work with this or is this a congressional issue . Guest i think we need stronger laws. There is something that the fec could do if we had a quorum here, although frankly i was trying to strengthen our rules on this claims come on at line on Online Advertising and was not getting good cooperation from the other side. Even something as small as that is a struggle to get past, and has been at the fec. We are as i mentioned we dont have enough commissioners to adopt any new regulation epics of any action right now would have to come from congress. When the commission does get reconstituted with new commissioners i can only hope they will be people who are willing to work across the aisle to try to address some of these strong and deep threats to our democracy. Host Ellen Weintraub is one of three commissioners who sits on the fec. Thanks for your time. Guest thanks so much. Host just a reminder that this Communicators Program as well as all others are available as podcasts
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