With that association . Iti is the trade association of the Technology Sector and we represent 70 of the Worlds Largest and most Innovative Technology companies. Weve been around for 103 years founded in 1960 as the associated of business appliance manufacturers, things like scales and time clocks and the like. Over those 103 years our industry has changed and so has ipi, or a presentation of tech Sector Companies is quite broad. Host how did you get into this line of work . Guest ive been in dc for close to 25 years. Came here to work on broadband policies after the 96 act passed at the federal committee cajuns commission but ive been involved in the tech policy sector and since then worked at the fourth trade association most recently a red led the industry before joining iti. Host as you will know there are several trade associations that represent tech and some of the companies that you represent are members of a lot of them. Dell, adobe, google, microsoft, et cetera so what is it that you do differently from the other trade associations . Guest there are a lot of great trade Technology Associations and there are industry segment representatives within a broader industry Like Technology so theyre great trade associations that deal with software specific issues or Semi Conductor specific issues or intellectual property issues and the like but what is unique about iti is we are truly the broad crosssection of the tech sector. Our members include software and hardware companies, manufacturers, service providers, network operators, and Production Companies with very broad range of the industry so we are unique in that we have an opportunity to represent all segments of the Technology Infrastructure industry. Host to help us delve into those Public Policy issues that iti deals with is Steven Overly of a political. Thank you for being back. Thank you for having me. Jason, good to chat with you. I want to start off by talking about privacy. This week the Ranking Member, maria cantwell, released a bill that has a democratic support and im curious what you make of that bill and it being released and now particularly given it only has democratic support. Guest this is incredibly important issue for the tech sector, iti came out with pencils to advance federal privacy legislation over one year ago. We were the First Association to say on behalf of an industry we need federal privacy legislation and this is an currently important for the industry and important for consumers and the components of that privacy legislation that we think are important as one, we can needs to be federal that we need a unified National Privacy law that allows both innovators and consumers to aid, know what their rights are and be, how that they are an effective balance of both knowing those rights and still having access to Innovative Services that consumers demand. We appreciate the Movement Forward at the federal level. There are a lot of important components to federal privacy legislation but the bill you mentioned certainly will delve into and we know other legislation will be introduced. Our hope is we will be bipartisan because, of course, this is a bipartisan issue. The consumer focus here needs to be on empowering consumers to know what their rights are and a focus on transparency. Needs to be a focus on control. Our hope is the eventual passage of federal privacy law will have all those components to it. Do you think releasing this bill which only has demagogic support, does that hasten or hamper the prospect of getting it to Bipartisan Legislation . Guest our understanding is there is bipartisan support for this in the senate, in the house. We have seen in your coverage has shown from discussions with members from both sides of the aisle that this is a credibly important and there is a broad understanding but we know theres understanding from this legislation because numbers have introduced it and they understand the value of federal privacy legislation but of course, bipartisan support is necessary to move everything through congress and our expectation is that although legislation will be introduced from a variety of members that eventually we will move toward something that everyone can agree to that has provisions that everyone agrees and we been pleased that the receptivity of members on both sides of the aisle listening to various constituents, including industry avidly but to consumer groups and to representatives of government at both the state level and internationally, gdp are in europe is a very interesting model and of course california has adopted privacy legislation so theres a lot to fall into the mix. Host use a gdp art is an interesting model and that is and overstep from the view of iti . Guest no, iti was supportive of dtr that was adopted and we remain supportive of it today. Two very interesting and important things that lead to gdp are, one in europe, at the time that it was under discussion there were 28 separate National Privacy regimes that made it virtually impossible for consumers to have any idea on the europewide basis what their rights were under National Privacy regime. Gdp are unified those 28 separate regimes under one european wide regime. Second, on the enforcement side dpr empowers what are called National Data protection authorities at the state level, if you will and at the nation level to make sure the laws are enforced. Those two things for a very important to us as an industry and we think gdp are has been a success. Host that said, with all those different standards california introducing its own and other states looking at that is that in impediment to growth . Guest we think its in impediment to consumers having access to a unified body of right so they can understand whats being done with their data and understanding what can they can do as a result of that knowledge but we also think its in impediment to innovation because if we have companies trying to design products that have to ascribe to 50 different privacy regimes across the country it makes it impossible to continue to support the innovation we are looking for. That is why we think federal privacy legislation is so important. Now that Ranking Member cantwell has put down a marker with this legislation that she has released what you expect to see from republicans particularly Senate Commerce chairman roger wicker on this issue . Guest we appreciate the fact that Ranking Member and the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee have been in discussion and dialogue and obviously this week is a big week for production of legislation as well. We expect and understand that dialogue will continue and there is a broad recognition from all parties from both sides of the aisle that this legislation needs to happen and that federal privacy legislation isnt readily important and its not going to move forward unless theres bipartisan agreement so we expect those discussions that have taken place to continue. One of the provisions and no senator cantwell bills includes but has caused some debate is the right of individuals to sue Technology Companies if they rake any of these new data privacy rules. Is that an enforcement mechanism that the industry can live with . Guest enforcement is important and we include it in itis privacy principles that need to ensure that a federal privacy law is appropriately enforced and we have to think the federal trade commission is the appropriate body to do that and enforcement, and deed and senator cantwells bill, as we understand that she includes a provision to expand the resources allocated to the bureau recognizing that they need Additional Resources from the federal government in order to take on this response ability and we think thats the right place to do it. The concern we have about other enforcement regimes in addition to the ftc is does that advance the consumers interests if enforcement is taken place at the federal trade commission we believe that insurance consumers know where they can go if they need enforcement of a federal privacy law and to whose jurisdiction they are subject if you put that jurisdiction in private hands and if you put the ability of consumers to get the redress they need in private hands and we think thats less effective than allowing the ftc to do it. I support a bill that supports us private right of action or is that a redline for the folks in your association . Guest we been focused on moving legislation forward and being part of the dialogue and part of the discussion so if there were particular provisions in a bill that a member of congress wanted to ask at the industry about we be happy to provide that input. Again, our focus at this point is moving legislation forward, not on identifying any particular provision as one would stop things from happeni happening. Our goal at this point having laid the marker down we think federal privacy legislation needs to happen is to do whatever we can to move it forward. Host woodyard member groups to be supportive a gdp are like structure here in the state . Guest i made mention before of the iti possibles that we have published in those possibles actually borrow quite a bit from gdp are and we think its an appropriate framework to use for discussions and obviously the u. S. Market is different than europe and so not every provision of necessary carries over or translates to what would work in the u. S. Market and indeed, california has privacy legislation as well and you mentioned it before but there are provisions in california at legislation that we believe should be included in possibles that advance federal privacy legislation as well. I want to talk about some of the trade talks happening at many of them are in washington at the moment but we heard a Speaker Nancy Pelosi comment this week that congress and the trump and administration are making progress on usmexico canada trade agreement and i know there are digital provisions in there that are important to your members and one that i want to ask about is the proposal to expand Liability Protections for internet media reads like facebook or google for instance. Does iti still support including those provisions in a u. S. Mca trade agreements . Guest there are a lot of provisions that address the Digital Economy in the u. S. Mca. This is of a placement for nafta which, as we no, is decades old and has a provision in it related to the telegraph. That is how old it is. There is work that needs to be done. The digital provisions are particularly important because crossborder data flows are uniquely important to the Technology Industry. We are pleased with the provisions that have been negotiated in nafta and it is one of our Top Priorities to do everything we can to encourage passage of the u. S. Mca and as you noted we think theres been Good Progress in the and meditation has done a traffic job of working openly with congress to move it forward and we are optimistic it will happen quickly. Host where did those provisions benefit your Member Companies and why are you pleased with him . Guest one of the biggest areas of coverage for digital provisions in that u. S. Mca is what we call crossborder data flows but its the ability of companies to move data across borders to ensure that what are called data localization policies arent adopted by nations but policies that would require data to never cross the borders. With the advent of Cloud Services and other Digital Services is particularly important for comedies to have the ability to send data across borders and thats a really important provision but not in nafta because at the Time Technology did not exist but it is in u. S. Mca we think its important. The one provision in the u. S. Mca i mentioned around section 230 protections i know when ipi first commented on u. S. Mca it was supportive of those provisions and since then we seen some numbers suggest they shouldnt be in the trade agreement, particularly ibm and oracle. Where are has your view changed on that or your support for those provisions have a change as they progressed . Guest section 230 is included in certain trade agreement because it is u. S. Law. Our advocacy was focused on the fact that provision because it is effective federal law in the United States was of opiates for inclusion in trade talks. Whether those provisions will included in trade talks going forward, that is unknown and its hypothetical and it certainly is possible but they will be and i think its important to ensure that our trade negotiations reflect the priorities of the u. S. Economy, section 230 has been important to the development of the internet economy, if you will in the United States and i think thats why it was included in the trade talks at the time. It is currently federal law so we did gets important we include that in the discussions as well. Elsewhere in the world we are in trade talks with china and those have shown some signs of progress, including we just saw an announcement out of beijing from vague guidelines around intellectual property theft which i know is a paramount issue to your members when it comes to china. Does that give you some kind of confidence that we might be greater punishment or greater penalty for china for ip theft . Guest its a huge priority and part of why we think its important is the Trump Administration is friendly, doing a good job in putting pressure on china to change some fundamental flaws in the way they do business. Intellectual property theft is enormously important issue for the Technology Industry so china has other policies that make it enormously difficult for he is comedies to compete fairly and effectively in china, and away we dont make it difficult for them to compete Financial Services comedies for example, car networks can issue cards and can offer service in china but chinese Technology Companies can do so here in the u. S. Crossborder data flows are restrictive in china and china imposes restrictive on buddies to do business without a local partner, if you will and the Chinese Government maintain the ability to take information at will so all these fun mental issues need to be addressed and we think its important that we address them in the context of a trade agreements. We remain optimistic that we can get that trade agreement on and as you noted we seen announcements about promises of reform and those announcements have been made before and we appreciate the administration is not just reliant on public announcements out of china but rather looking for an actual concrete agreement to be signed. What enforcement of these issues will look like . What thats one of the criticisms or concerns in the past is that there are promises or art agreements that are made but then there is no backing that up. If you were to draft an ideal trade agreement with china what enforcement would be in place for those measures . Guest enforcement isnt readily important. As you noted with china in particular this is been an issue. Even with chinas entering the npo weve seen enforcement challenges. Our view is that the Trump Administration is on the right path and ensuring those Enforcement Mechanisms are in there from covering this issue that is friendly one of the holdups has been chinas unwillingness to include concrete Enforcement Mechanisms in the agreement and some accounts of the challenges that cause china to walk away is because of the u. S. Consistent on enforcement provisions in the agreement. We agree they have to be in there and we are looking forward china moving on that issue and realizing the importance. Host jason oxman, to build up on what steven was talking about, intellectual property theft and the Chinese Government involvement in the tech sector, are we getting to a point where the World Wide Web and the internet will be bifurcated and it will be different internet for different people . Guest i certainly hope not. We seem china take steps in that direction and russia announced to their couple weeks ago their desire to crate a Russian Internet and that moves us in the wrong direction. We are a Global Economy in a Global People and the Technology Industry is particularly focused on deploying Innovative Products and services that connect us all and i fear that in some circumstances we are moving in that direction and china and russia being two examples of that. I hope we dont end up there that is not where we want to be but the risk of that is its real. A lot of your members do manufacturing in china and has us become harder under this administer agent to do business with china with concerns of National Security