[inaudible conversations] are right. If i could is this on . If i get everyones attention, please. If we get everyone in, take a seat. We want, we want welcome great champion for our broad bands, for competition who served on committees of significant importance to our industry, on both on the technology, internet, all of the infrastructure. She serves on the Commerce Committee, Judiciary Committee education . Agriculture. Its like a quiz. Is the chair of the Senate Broadband caucus and the senate rules committee. How could i forget . But she is you know an important voice and t most important debates facing our country and our industry, and so were very talkful that she has come today about the issues of most importance to all of us in this room. So with no further ado, senator [applause] okay. Well, thank you, everyone and its wonderful t get off the field for a little bit, i will say. Theres a lot going on as you know we are not in a to be here. We also have been working on the budget somewhatpropos of our topic at hand of competition. I been working to try to make sure that the antitrust Division Topic of my talk today, gets funded as we believe senator be with the merger of the change that we passed on Something Like 88eight vote. If you only get that for of the, and so weve been working about some technical language thats in there here it all sounds really small ball but its really a ball. And so we have been trying to get that changed and thats been occupying my mind but now i get to come and see you and kind of go out for the forest for the trees and talk a little bit about all the work that you are doing and what needs to be donet we have strong competition in america. And want to thank chip andngie for inviting me, and i know theres reps from Great Plains Communications and metronet here. Where are you guys . Summer. There. Of course minnesotas in the back. Humble humble. Thank you so much. I did notice they were the audience members that were nodding their head thank you. So just so some of you know, my street cred still be here is i started out at a law firm. I was actually in years. Thats part of why i really care about competition. And one of big clients was mci. Actually changed law firms to keep representing them when there was a conflict. And i loved doing their work. Back then they were a really scrappy company. The federal law was in the midst of getting past and we were basically taking on the bell monopolies at the time to get into the market. The case had been done but it was a where they were actually doing the work. And i was loved some of the regulatory hearings which were maybe a little monday sometimes but i remember i told the story about when Alexander Graham bell, the first were decent as we all know when we got the as come here, watson, i need you. Right . That was a fuzzy set on the telephone. At the hearings i note that in the wild west world they were getting ready to relate the first communication between st. Louis and chicago, the investor erwin hirsch memorialized that great moment not exactly with Connie Watson i need you, but these words, ill be damned. It actually works. [lau9ugh■cing] and i know that many other companies and people you work with might feel the same way when new discoveries are made, when new innovations are made but the really drove me, that work with mci which i loved and started doing work for them all over the region before i became a prosecutor. It really, it drove me to be bin i got in the market. I also represent macaca medications by the way and has a blue see how that really spawned ce pw. ■r right . Before when they with the big bricks like the phone in wall street and how it brought downe lodistance charges in a big way. Thats what you wonder why kick and obsessed with making sure we still of competition in tech in the fields and we broadband people can access them, it is really driven from that experience and from seeing what it means when we have actual competition. Im also a big believer capitalism. I believe one of the ways you do that is, i make sure your guided thereby enforcement of our competition laws. It was one of grandfathers of want to get the words rightare, here, beware the unbridled por of monopolies. And we got remember that as a go forward. I actually wrote a book on all of this. It was called the antitrust, if remember, during the president ial campaign. My friend pete buttigieg, we truly are friends, we go back and forth a little bit in the debates, and since were on super tuesday i may as will■l commemorate that moment, one of the more amusing things is when we got done with the campaign pete wrote a New York Times trust, not to be outdone wunderlich i came up with my own two weeks on the noontime bestseller list book, antitrust. [laughing] that is actually true story. I want to talk about first of all incompas, your members have been great partners in effor to close the Digital Divide and bring fast, affordable, reliable and competitive highspeed Internet Access to eve mobile pn america. Your work is the bedrock of our digital economy, and we all know that c 2024 in the marketplace if you cant get online. Its about education. Its about healthcare. I visit all 87 counties in minnesota every year, some counties are so small i know every Single Person in the county, but it also does a lot of ruralncluding just about last month winners of four hockey days, all another store in war road, minnesota come just enoug tbeen a gold mey team in the olympics without a player from not just minnesota, from account of 1500 people were road. And went to some hospitals near their and the use of technology, if they are is phenomenal because they have realized a lot of their seniors some of this came out of the pandemic are much better off accessing from home now that youve learn to use it, or coming into more likely into the hospital, their rural hospital. They set it up. Because the primary doctor there, thats clinic, its clinics attached to the hospital and then they get a doctor from mail or someone else who talks them through whats going on. This is just an increasing use of technology mayo some of the last mile areas i would say that must have highspeed internet. And you see this with Mental Health care. The wazoo. All of the innovation going on that is for not going to be able to have a doctor with every specialty have Mental Health provider. Its a game changer but its not going to exist with the head if they dont have highspeed. I remember several hearings, i used examples of why we need highspeed to every household. My favorite was one of my colleagues i always use this example, i commit the mom of a High School Kid who had to do oa liquor store parking lot. Its a true story, right . I dont know if you want to keep talk about that kid going in the liquor store. Unlike know, that was the only place that had highspeed. No, they just didnt get it because i dont think of a lot areas. These are true stories of what goes on. The doctors who sit in the mcdonalds parking lot reading xrays. So that was why i was infrastructure law. I do want to thank my colleagues who worked on it. I worked on the broadband part because of the debt deal witn bk on, i mentioned that today because senator sinema has announced today shes not running again and i just want to for her work on that agreement and negotiating including this latest agreement where i worked extensively withvz help my afghan refugees, the 80,000 people who are here that are interpreters the worked with our troops that are still in limbo, and she w include that ie border bill. It got included and then unfortunately that part of it we will see anotherope because really important part but its just an example of the work she does every single day. So the bipartisan infrastructure law you to me that we go those extra last miles. Ive some counties in my state that maybe 20 dont have highspeed. At it having visited iceland went and saw that they the best highspeed internet next to sng just maybe we can get it on the Canadian Border where theres like no hills at all. So those are some of theb thins involved in this. You know the investment we see in states across the country, and also making it more affordable that program is already empowered over 20 million american households counting . Ine. Other things that ive worked on and believe in when it comes to fair competition, Net Neutrality. Since the communication act was enacted in 1934 congress always intended for the fcc to have the authority to ensure americans have reliable and stateoftheart communication service. As you know way back that meant telephone. Now it means broadband. For years Net Neutrality divided the framework to just do just that. It held large internet providers accountable for providing the connection consumers expect while promotingband networks. Its also a reason one of the reasons the internet became oney of the Great AmericanSuccess Stories transforming not only how we communicate also the Way Companies do business, how educate our kids. Ds and unfortunately, from my perspective, it was repealed in 2018. And i continue to believe we a t area and make sure that everyone is going to be able to access the internet on affordable basis, spatial with ai coming along. Ill get to that in a moment. Theres just a reason we want to make sure it continues to be accessible. Im glad this last year the fcc took the first steps toward restoring Net Neutrality, andi look forward to working w the commission along with Business Leaders from across the Telecom Sector to make sure we have a fair and open internet. Next up, privacy. I have always found that to be one of the more ironic things. I dont think you thought i would say■÷ that, in the lobbyig world of washington, d. C. In that when i first got to the senate no one really wanted to have a federal law but companies were lobbying against it. Its kind of an instructive for just kind of giving a little at the beginning and maybe thats a good way to be because it was all this lobbying against it and then you know what happens, right . We see it happen and then the states start having to fill in the void and so then one state think something is okay, thats okay, another state to something you hate, no, increasing of a patchwork of laws. Sonata number of the same companies are saying we need a federal privacy law, which i believed all along. Im still hopeful, im on senator cantwell ill. Theres a number of other proposals way back. I had a proposal with senator kennedy on these lines lit hope we are able to reach some kind of agreement so that we have a federal privacy law like so many other countries have. It would just make it a lot easier for everyone other things along these lines that i just hopeful we can move on, very soon is kids safety on the internet. You know we had that rather famous hearing recently, and i am myself im sort of done with the at people and i think we need to actually legislate and get something done. I think one of the issues thats so challenging for families with the internet right now is yes, whats on it on the platforms in terms of what the kids can see, and the need to do everything we arents be parents. Im glad were going to empower them with better tools and the like but i■a do get sometimes jt relying on it as the postage is trying to get the stuff off of their and monitor better ttechn. One mom told me she knows theres all these controls but she has three kids and every time she tries to get oneng on one platform, then another thing, the kid gets around it and then just to have older kids try to teach the younger kids what to do a s fined she said its just reminder like theres a a bigk in front of her and its overflowing all the time and teachers out there with a mop tryo it up, those were her words, not mine. And i think we just have to remember that as we look at how can we put in some laws tha these kids dont get exposed to really dangerous content. Its one of the reasons im working on safe the reven the ih dr. Singh where kids think their life is over because some has tricked them into sending a naked picture. Weve had 15 suicides according to the fbi of kids just this year, and that we just need come fentanyl laced pills, 30 of people that have exposure to fentanyl, we will have t do something on this kids front in addition to the privacy law and to be go into somewhat other stuff, go to talk about todayatk putting our heads in the sand because the privacy stuff is probably a great example that, if you wait so long and you do nothing, and thats what senator schumer and young and heinrich and rounds are trying to move on a eye. Not just a cohesive federal policy. Thats why on think we did some rules of the road. So im one of the few senators that attended nearly every session, i had a near perfect attendance record of ai. And maybe because of my background, the worknd appreciaa number of the companies have come forward and said we want to have some rules of the road in place when it comes to ai. And as you know we had been working with them as well as consumer groups, nonprofit groups and the like to try t ag. First and foremost, senator thune and i, neighbors in minnesota and south dakota, hes a little taller than me, have introduced kind of a base bill for nonsecurity ai, and and thatfor the federal government n it comes to number of companies and groups have endorsed this bill. We kind nonsecurity topics into two areas. One is is high impact, things that could be more infrastructu, criminal justice, biometric identification, identification for example, if using ai to improve efficiency we need to make sure the systems undergo rigorous testing. So put some higher staar uses o. And then a second group is the ones may be health care, education when we task mr. Pak which is widely believed to be the one that could do this with developing some of the standard with nist dash instead of expecting agencies will go off on their own pickup talk better federal agencies that seems a a little scary. So the idea that nist would be a coordinating force and you work at nist. Im kidding. He works at an agency. To be able to put those an up first. Other things. Voice scams primarily concern about this at protecting peoples identities and voices in general. I was just meeting with our veterans groups on this, andallt home her son is in the marines and at the time they got this call he was deployed and they did nowhere. It were not supposed to nowhere, and they get this call, her husband who is a recently retired reporter, and gets a call and its and their sons voice. Its been scraped off the internet and says dad, dad, im in trouble, i need your help, need your help. I think it was a grapple or if it was someone that was more naive than the somewhat cynical reporter, i think it mightve fallen for it but he immediately starts saying where are you . How can you be calling the . And then hung up. And so that is just one example and a talk to other families that are seen this so the scraped his voice off the internet and trying to suck the pair into sending money, which is what weve seen in a lot of places. So senator collins and i have teamed up to call the ftc and the fcc to raise awareness and prevent aiee more of this last thing ive been really focusing my work on ai and all of these things i hope will be included in this yet, you see them going to Start Talking about democracy [laughing] and okay,o, thank you, russia. Thats nice. [laughing] okay. So this is going to be like hair on fire problem if we dont do something about it. I believe fcc is going to try to use with the camp of their laws, and they have traditionally been pretty dysfunctional. They have been doing a few more things on a bipartisan basis lately with some of the newer pele we put on. I chair the rules committee, its inner jurisdiction. So im hopeful they will step up in some way. Will receive fcc and others, but the best thing would be as if we put in some clear roles in law when it comes to our election. And what weve seen so far is disturbing. New hampshire primary in january, fake robocalls using the president s voice to tell people not to vote. We now know that came out of a democratic campaign, although the candidate was not aware a me talked, i dont know. But that is a very kind of lukewarm little example, but just put it out where theres actual major forces trying to do this in a big way. And you could literally trick after voter after voter into thinking it is your own candidate last year, one republican president ial candidate released false ai generated images of former President Trump hugging dr. Fauci. u viral video of what appears to be my colleague Elizabeth Warren where she basically says republicans shouldnt be allowed to vote. It wasnt her but a l was. This is not ai but if you dont believe me how bad this is going to be, just three weeks ago, or two weeksve the horrific shooting, the murder of the two Police Officers in minnesota, they were killed and ed seven kids. Think of the kids out of the house and then they were shot the paramedic that went in, rn cpr was also killed. Well, a few days after that, photo goes out on the internet and it was a true picture of me at a rally, at a political rally Keith Ellison was in the photo. We actually have the picture which is not going to be normal when these things happen. And someone, and actually think it is for and interest based on the tax ive had on my advocacy on strong advocacy on they put e signs in the hands of everyone there. The police. I read the bill for cops funding and the senate the cops bill. But that thing went viral and finally had call x and facebook and actually we could show the actual photo which is most people end up with altered cotton, false content. There were some articles written and it basically went away. But thats just one example of that using ai, of the pure evil of what we are going to come out of this when it comes to democracy. So that is why two bills that i the rules committee. The first is to go after the really bad stuff, the deepfake we call it. That bill i have with hawley, and it actually bands the deepfake