It considers whether to approve the comcast Time Warner Cable merger. The s. E. C. Has asked eight Media Companies including disney viacom, and fox to describe limits to online distribution in their agreements with comcast. Uber says an unauthorized thirdparty access to its database last year and may have taken data on about 50,000 drivers. Bloomberg says it has notified the impacted drivers. There have been no reports of misuse. Jawbone is said to be in contact with blackrock. The size and terms might change. The Fitness Company raised 500 million from investors including sequoia capital. Competition is heating up with fitbit. And there is an apple watch in the works. Republican president ial hopefuls are making their case for conservative activists. Speech is going on all day at cpac. A common theme, getting rid of obamacare. Senator paul obamacare, at its very core, takes away a patients right to choose. I promise you this. As a doctor, i will take it and make it my mission to heal the nation, reverse the course of obamacare, and repeal every last bit of it. Cory other speakers included jeb bush, donald trump, and former senator rick santorum. Congress is moving toward a shortterm fix to keep Homeland Security up and running. Current funding ends at midnight if the house fails to pass a threeweek stopgap spending bill. The house said they will not take action on the plan that funds it until september. We are joined by peter cook. This was quite a stunning turn of events down on the floor of the house. Peter another rough day for john boehner here in the halls of congress. Did not totally expect what happened on the floor a short time ago, but you had not only 172 democrats but 52 republicans bucking john boehner and opposing this threeweek stopgap spending measure to keep the lights on at the department of Homeland Security. The idea on the Republican Party was to have the time to whack president obama over his immigration executive action. The reality is, in a few hours funding for this agency will dry up. Boehner and his Leadership Team meeting behind closed doors to decide their next steps. They had a couple options. Maybe shortterm spending bill get them through the weekend. Or they could do what was almost unthinkable a few hours ago take up the bill that passed the senate that fully funds the department of Homeland Security but says nothing about the immigration executive action. If the speaker does that, he is going to have a lot of angry conservatives in the republican conference upset with him. But they are already upset with him and did not back his bill today. Cory this raises all kinds of questions. Are they going to stay there tonight and work on something, or is it game over . Peter it was on the floor. There were working on votes, trying to get the margin up at 217. It did not happen. House Majority Leader Kevin Mccarthy announcing to the somewhat stunned audience, other members of congress, they would be staying in town and could have votes through the weekend. They are deciding their next step. Cory i would like to volunteer you to stay there as well, peter. I will not do that. I wonder if this is what we are going to see from this congress, where you have some hardliners on the right that are going to keep a congressional majority from forming even though the republicans hold the house. Peter this has been a really interesting week or two for john boehner and mitch mcconnell. We have seen a split between republicans, a different tactical approach in the house and the senate from what john boehner pursued in the house. They are clashing with democrats and the administration. Democrats are somewhat gleefully standing back and saying, look what you got with republican control of congress, harry reid saying, this proves republicans cannot govern. Democrats are taking their shots at republican in the midst of this, but they can pick up the pieces and get something done in the short term. There are questions about how they challenge the administration and democrats given their numbers here in congress. Cory what does this mean for dhs . What does this functionally mean . It seems like 80 of the staff is considered essential. Do those workers get paid . We talked about Cyber Security a big issue with Homeland Security. Peter those folks, about 80 of the 230,000 people who work for dhs, will remain on the job no matter what. If funding dries up, they will not get paid. It will be a bad p. R. Story for congress if that happens. They will be on the job, but there will not be funding for contracts, grants for Cyber Security, technology on the border. All of that is on hold until congress can get this sorted out. Cory the narrative changes. It looks like rather than talking about immigration, the argument could change. Peter cook, thank you very much. We do appreciate it. That is the politics. What about the impact on Cyber Security operations . What would a potential shutdown tonight or three weeks put the country at risk to him online threats . I spoke with mark weatherford, the former undersecretary for Homeland Security, and now a principal at the chernoff group. He explains what would happen through the shutdown. Mark the Cyber SecurityIntegration Center is the focal point for the utter government working with the private industry. The umbrella underneath them is the u. S. Cert organization. These are the mechanical organizations that are working with not just the private sector, but with the government as well. And they are doing the daily operations, the daily intake and output of Cyber Security information, working with the Critical Infrastructure sectors to provide them threatened vulnerability information they are receiving, and to receive that, ingested, aggregated together, and disseminate it to the appropriate parties. Cory in other words, at dhs, an organization tries to find every cyber threat as it is happening, and make sure that everyone who could be affected knows about it. Is that right . Mark that is exactly right. Cory that does not sound like something that should stop. It sounds very important. Mark it is important. That organization is not going to be affected in the short term. Where there could be some impact is in the morale and the people aspect of this. When these things happen, the important point here really is that we spend a lot of time recruiting the talented people who work in this organization, the very people we are starting to treat, i would say, inappropriately. There is going to be incredible pressure on them working in an environment where some of their peers are going to be sent home. Cory let me ask you finally about employment. There is no hotter employment field than Cyber Security right now. Government workers are probably not making top dollar. They could be making it in the private sector. This is not an existential threat to their job, but not getting paid and having this uncertainty this is not an existential threat to their job, but not getting paid and having this uncertainty, what is the threat to the government being able to hire the best and the mark Credit Sector companies around the country are celibate salivating. I cannot name a Single Company i work with on a daily basis that does not have vacancies in the Server Security arena. This is great opportunity for people to start plucking these workers that are unhappy with the environment, and there are going to be some employees that are going to be sent home. And these guys and gals that are sent home, they are not going to be sitting and waiting for the call back from the government. They are going to be out looking for a job. When and if funding does come back, there are going to be gaps they will have to go out and recruit for. Cory mark weatherford, formerly of the department of Homeland Security, now with the chertoff group. Cory here are some top headlines. German lawmakers approved the fourmonth extension of a bailout plan. The vote in the bundestag was overwhelming. 29 of the no votes came from chancellor merkels own party, showing signs of growing discontent with the greek bailout. The manager of the Worlds Largest hedge fund is turning to Artificial Intelligence for bigger returns. Bridgewater associates is starting an Artificial Intelligence unit. The team will develop algorithms for a trading team headed by david ferrucci, who headed up the ibm watson unit. Some sadness to report. Star trek actor Leonard Nimoy has died at age 83. Of course, mr. Spock on star trek. The half human, half alien character became one of the most famous characters ever on television. He died in los angeles of chronic pulmonary disease he blamed on smoking earlier in his life. A landmark vote. The federal Communications Commission with a big deal. Everyone else is debating scottish dress colors, but the fcc was doing a monumental proposal to regulate the internet. The wild west days of an unregulated net are over with the new set of rules. Joining us to talk about this, one of the commissioners who voted against the deal, one of the two republicans who did vote no. Joining us from washington, d. C. You did not carry the day. Title two now reigns. What is the first pernicious thing we are going to see . Quick decisions about how the internet is going to work well instead of being made by engineers and technologists, be made by lawyers and bureaucrats. Consumers are going to see broadband bills go up. They are going to tee up a proposal to impose a tax on broadband. Providers are going to see their state, property, and other taxes go up. Those are going to be imposed on consumers as well. I think the wallet is unfortunately going to feel the pinch first. Cory the tax bill is a separate thing from title ii, yes . Ajit the regulations are going to be farreaching when the fcc releases the plan. Immediate effects in terms of the taxation are going to be severe also. Cory you have been carting around the 322 page proposal. That shows its heft. You have seen it and the rest of us have not. Ajit i think the extent to which the fcc is inserting itself into virtually every aspect of how the internet works Net Neutrality traditionally was meant to encompass the relationship between an Internet Service provider and a customer, the socalled last mile of connectivity. A narrow majority of the fcc went beyond that to regulate such things as interconnections. Even secondguessing Service Plans that wireless broadband providers might offer. In fact, there is still a lot of uncertainty about how these rules will be applied. The fcc leadership was asked how this internet conduct rule, a catchall rule meant to cover any internet conduct how will that work . He said, and i quote, we really dont know. That does not give the industry that does not give the industry a lot of certainty, and will it make consumers better off . Cory one of the interesting things we have not talked a lot about when i think about forbearance, it seems to me the fcc is saying, trust us. We will figure it out later. Is that leeway a good thing or a bad thing . Ajit i think it is a bad thing, especially if you see the document itself. Some of the forbearance is hedged with those classic washington caveats. For now, at this time. Some of the forbearance that is not only granted it is sort of forbearance in name only. There is still this heavyhanded backstop of section 201 of title ii, which i know is a little arcane. Essentially everything is subjected to this just and reasonable standard the fcc is going to implement for the internet age. I think there is going to be uncertainty, a lot of regulation, and the forbearance will fade as the regulations ratchet up. Cory Net Neutrality, netflix has complained that they felt compelled to pay to get a fast lane, and they were thrilled that this passed, so they will not have to make payments to verizon and comcast. That seems compelling. Ajit from an fcc perspective, it is going to be worse off for everybody, providers and isps. The fcc does not have the expertise to determine what the agreements reached in terms of interconnection most fundamentally, the question is this. Do you want an unelected bureaucracy, three bureaucrats in particular, to make decisions about how the internet functions . Or do you want to rely on the bipartisan, light touch regulation we have had over the last 20 years, that allowed Companies Like netflix to grow tremendously and reach commercial agreements with isps that both sides ultimately live with . I would rather have a free market approach deliver consumer value, as opposed to having washington bureaucracy make those decisions. Cory title ii has some interesting hair on it in addition to the transit rules. Things like privacy have some specific requirements. I wonder what that means for a company like google, which is providing last mile transit in a couple of communities, and a few more to come, but also the big businesses involved in mining customer data. I wonder if title ii means google has to abide by Different Administration and privacy rules. Ajit Silicon ValleyTech Companies that have been pushing for Net Neutrality should be careful what they wish for. Now having classified Internet Access as a title ii service and treated the entire internet as a utility subject to fcc regulation, one part of title ii is section 222, which involves privacy. There will be a tremendous push to impose regulations on all aspects of the internet, not just the isps, but the edge providers, to adhere to more onerous privacy restrictions. You wonder whether the administration and fcc go down that path. That is one example of the pandoras box that has been open thanks to title ii. Cory sit with us over the commercial break, and i want to talk about municipal broadband another important thing the fcc does. Be right back. Cory i want to get two more minutes with the fcc commissioner. You guys ruled yesterday that state laws, at least in two places, should be overturned, or they should get an exemption, in chattanooga and wilson, north carolina, to offer local broadband. Is there actual competition in the world of broadband . Ajit i think there isnt enough competition. One of the reasons for this exemption is strictly a legal one. I do not take a particular view on any given municipal broadband project. Some people say they are useful, injecting competition into an uncompetitive marketplace. I step away from that entire debate. Focusing solely on the question before the fcc, under the constitution and the laws of the united states, does the fcc have a legal power to block state law regarding municipal broadband . Based on the reading of the Supreme Court precedenct, i say the answer is no. Cory that aside, i have seen statistics that say 75 of americans have only one choice when it comes to broadband, and that is going to be a big issue in a lot of places, because our connection speeds are not as fast as other parts of the world. Ajit this is one reason i said the fcc, instead of focusing on Net Neutrality, which does not address a current problem, should focus on broadband competition. Title ii will drive competition out of the marketplace. We heard from thousands of Wireless Companies and small Cable Companies who said title ii is a tremendous mistake and they do not have the resources to comply with these regulations. If we push some smaller ones in the marketplace, fewer options for consumers. Cory so it is a problem . Ajit i think it needs to be sought through marketbased solutions, not government regulation. Cory does that mean you are going to vote against the time Warner Comcast merger . Ajit the merger is pending before us, so i cannot comment on how it is going to proceed. Generally speaking, a lot of people are interested in this precisely for that reason. Cory i had to ask. Thank you for coming on the show. Cory you are watching bloomberg west. Secretary of state john kerry said the u. S. Is considering removing cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. That decision is separate from the talks to normalize relations between the countries. President obama wants embassies reopened by april, but cuba wants to be removed from the terrorism list first. Priceline group has named a new ceo of priceline. Com. The Online Travel booking Services Current ceo becomes chairman. The new ceo has been the marketing officer of booking. Com and a big driver of growth. Last year, they purchased the restaurant Reservation Service opentable. French media conglomerate vivendi is planning to return 6. 4 billion to shareholders. The parent of universal music groups stock nearly quadrupled in the fourth quarter. Lenova will no longer preinstall Advertising Software on pcs and apologized for including adware on consumer laptops that exposed users to hacking. Lenovo said it has worked with partners to eliminate the adware and will offer users a free six months instruction to mcafee antivirus services. The u. S. Loses oil rigs for the 12th consecutive week. Baker hughes said u. S. Rigs fell by 43 last week, at their lowest level