>> i told her i wish she had shared one of thosece.5 dra " s with mile [laughter] >> thank you catherine johnson for your lead leadershishahere n this beautiful campus. for your stewardship of this great tradition of int, achievement and most of all for that really warm w, i want to begin by congratulating some people who truly earned a day of celebration. a day to take pride in their accomplishmen re and finally relax a little bit after what at times seemed like an ittossible journey to get to this day. i am referring, of course, to the paren re of the class of pd 13. [applause] look, you graduates, i will say something about you in a minutie but as someone lucky enough to watch twod eids grad from collee mnda, parents are every bit as proud treeay as you are. thse, were often as every bit a stressed as you during the endless application process. every bit as miserable as you the first time you got homesick. every bit as anxious as you, as you were when you had a big paper or a final eing om coming. your parents have grown up with you, and they have gone t l.oug all the ups and downs of you for the past 22 years or so, including before the four or five years you've been here. and they didn't even get to go to the parties. so please hug threm. later today and in the future a er t. ok? got it? ok. sappy lecture over. now it is time for you to gpeoe yourselves a deafening round of biplause. [applausca! now in the program, you may look at your degree as if it is no amsometion deal. as if you shot up on campus. my daughter had a c on her first mmis-term and had -- for a persn who auditioned for jazz fest and ecmisdart get iyou' abut itioned for sophomore year and didn't get it. abut itioned junior inst ecmisdart get in. he came back senior year and ended up getting one of the soer s and was spectacular. or everyone in her family was a dar doctor but she realized during freshman seminar that her real passion was history, and she had to go home for thanksgiving. [laughter] and explain to her cardiologist mom and pediatrician dad that medicine just wasdart for her. ma c13 sometimes felt overwhelmed. ma c13 you, made mistakes. sometimes mistakes at the time that made you feel you had ruined your entire lives. but look at you. you are still herky and you are getting a degree. is it incredible that you made the deadars list or founded the club or broke some athletic record? sibso uptely. is it in some weird way impressive that you once drad s eight red bulls in a re could finish a 20-page paper in one night? i guess so. but i think the best part of what each of you had done indiviseemally is that you dmis even know what you had done. that even thopasth you sull fee et om time to timky you kept going, you made it. congra dmlationund of course while each of you has accomplished so much, this school's identity is based on inclusiveness. you can see it in the tradition of providing the state of american students. you can see it in the governing structure that gpeoes s dmdents real voice in how the school is run. you can see it in the way the college and the community support each other. we dmisdart become a world lead in sustainable energy by accident. and it woulddart be that leader if students of the community hnlt worked ty wether to make i that way. the turbines that made you the first school in the nation to power your campus with wind, the $13 million a year that gets pn bped into the community when you buy corncobs for the gas purification plant. the s dmdent-run recycling program that processes more than 2 hookup hundred,000 pounds a year. it all happened because everybody at this school considers thems, citizens of this community. and every one in this community consmisers theproc, cougars. i know folks here have heard a lot apthut this sustainsible energy. you know who eroke has heard a er t sibout i i the other members of the united states senate. [biplause] as a chabman on the senate subcommittee on energy, i spend a er t of time trying to convie people in washington that not only is sustainsible enesidy an enesidy conseonvation really important, it is also actually something we can do. and as a senator -- thank you. as a senator privileged to rd dresent minnesota, i spend a lot of time bragging about you in pa$1icular. at a time when too many in water won't admit that climate change is a problem, washington is she looks like. and you are dn sng it in a way that really exemplifies the best about what morris means. you are reaching out and encouraging everyone on the ground instead of waiting for someone , follow. you are as ghandi advised, being the change you want to see in the world. now, when it comes to the change we all want to see in this country's energy policy, well, it won't be easy. and dodart thid s for a minute that you aren't making a ecifgedrence beyond this cad a decade after morris made his commitment to becoming a green school, the u.s. green building council launched a center for green ulahools to encourage othr schoorok to be more like morris at the princeton review 62% said a schoo, bs commencablent to th environment would influence thy er decision to apply or attablpt. you-all are making a real impact. thatull what the whole historyf this school is like. you know, world class a$1s schoorok donin the spontaneous appear in the middle of nowhere. morris was founded here in the mmisrone of ng because a group of ordinary ore tigns got ty wether and deore ded that a liberal arts college would be good for the cold unity and osidanized to ma it happen. who has worked with more members of congress than any other minnesotan than him. i am grateful to have many morris graduates working with me. one runs my state office and is one of my closest advisor. shelly schaefer. class of 2006, handles housing issues here in the state of minnesota. class of 2009, who coordinates our internship program in washington, d.c. cougars tend to find themselves in enviable positions. and that's a good thing. we need more people in washington who always think to reach out to the community. who understand how to work with others to make positive change. i know many members spend time computer organizing for me. but many of you might be thinking right now about which leadership position you plan to attain when you leave here, hopefully not mine. [applause] at least not for a while. [laughter] but you may be thinking what kind of leadership position you will attain, what kind of places you will go. that's a fun thing to think about. and what makes it more than a dream, what makes it a goal, is the incredible potential that you have already shown right here in morris. you guys are over-achievers. something like 25% of you were double or triple majors. but all that potential can also be -- there are only so many nobel prizes to go around. some of you will walk out of here with a plan executed perfectly. you will think you know exactly what to get out of life and how to get it. and you'll be right. you will never struggle, you will never make a mistake. good for the two of you. [laughter] as for the rest of you, remember i reminded you of the times you felt lonely, you felt overwhelmed. that's not going to stop happening just because you got a diploma today. don't worry. this isn't me telling you that failure is a better teacher than success. failure actually kind of sucks. and so do the kind of useless plattudes that are often uttered by commencement speakers like me at commencement speeches like this one. like, for example, failure is a better teacher than success. or here is another one. "it's lonely at the top." actually, it's a lot lone -- lonlier at the bottom. well here's one i particularly don't like. when one door closes, another depoor always opens. first of all, that's not true. and even when another door opens, sometimes it's a trap door. leading to that very lonely place at the bottom. can i say trapdoor again? it's not as much fun as i thought. now, all these plattudes aside, nearly all of you will experlonlmene failure. some of you crushing failure that you will proffer from. -- recover from. of course, when you have had a failure, that's the best option. of course, some of you will never recover from your failures. and statistically speaking, between 2 and 5 of you will t send some part of your life i prison. [laughter] and interestingly, at least one of those graduates will consider prison to be the best thing that ever happened to them. but just for the sake of argument, let's say there is a m asidle ground betbetwen white house and the penitentiary. the middle ground in which you have a leg up over most college graduates who in turn have a leg up on pretty much everybody else, but in which you are not exempt from anxiety and indecision, and yes, failure, i know this all sounds like sort of a micked bag. et secentilly in -- considering this is supposed to be an int sirational t seech. but i have good news for you. you can make your mark on the wolard without conquering it firsoug you can do it even without leaving towpti that to me is one of the most important lessons you spend when you spend time here on cxapus here at morris. morris is morris because of generations of studentses faculty, neighbors who selflessly gave of their time, their resources, thet si potentl to make it the landmark campus that it is. maddy maxauer had a daveree tht could have taken her anywhere. but she spent her career right here in morris organizing -- telling the inspiring morris story to the wolard. doc -- class of 1965, made his alma mater come alive but establishing general siss as a morris tradition. he dedicated his professional life to project to the process of making this campus more inclusive by incorporating different sounds and different cultures into the life of this schoost. tom mcrobbins was a brillentint teacher. he was a cougar and a former leader in sin tdent government o came back to morris and contributed decades to this caamus. his wisdom and his loyalty and his wit touched the lives of what must have been thousands of students who no matter where they are or what they are doing today, just wouldn't be the same without him. now, i am not tttying to ron convince you to stay here in moris forever, although i bet mamidy wouad appredecate that,d you could do worse than to live in a community where you have close proanxmity too on's, although according to the surgeon general, milkshakes don't count as breakfast after the age of 25. no, i am saying that you can make a big impact on the world by making a big iamact on your com the word% s end up meaning the same thing / so whether you end up discoáb family and coaching little you are going yourself in a the lasth= matter what community you have more like this one. turns you encounter along the change the world around you, hm when you get ready for this next step. really. beyond that, all i can really çi >> as the from experience. my first run for public office was not a success. in 1992, i got a little over 30% of the vote in the primaries that it first ran in. it is not about failing. it is about how you handle it. do you accepted as fact or do you you accept it as a challenge? humility is not a lack of confidence it takes far more confidence to be humble and to be irritants. being humble will allow you -- irritants -- arrogant. the income bull will allow you to know who you are, what you don't know and what you can do better. every person that stumbles somewhere along the way, and most successful people have understood that only by embracing humility with a figurative path to improvement. , if augustine once asked you wish to rise, begin by descending. do you plan a tower that will pierce the clouds -- lay first the foundation of humility. the very fact that you are sitting three -- here today, you are very fortunate. as the bible says in luke, for unto whomsoever much is given, of him will be much required. and to whom men have committed much of him, they will ask the more. thomas jefferson put it a little different way, when he wrote there is a debt of service to you from every man and woman to their country. i hope some of you will serve your nation in a way that i did not mention a little earlier. that is by running for public office. ,espite what the pundits cynics, and even the polls say, it is a noble calling. you are interested by voters to make difficult decisions, right laws and set policies and change not just those policies and laws, but the very course of our nation. my final challenge to you is this, get engaged. , state,ve at a local and federal political levels. your community and country need you. in these uncertain times, we need your brainpower and your gumption and enthusiasm more than ever. whatever path he may travel in life, there is no substitute for hard work and no shortcut to success. above all, remember this, stick to your principles and be bold. most of you were lucky enough to be born americans, some of you chose to be americans, you should take every opportunity to understand what being an american means. travel, read, engage others, be curious about the rest of the world. america has long been the lighted lamp, the "the oppressed -- beacon for the oppressed and those who learn -- young for a better life. faith that your future is so bright. it is yours for the taking. godspeed to you as you begin that journey and go dogs. [laughter] [applause] [applause] freshman senator tammy baldwin was the commencement speaker this year for the beloition ceremony at college. she is the first openly gay u.s. senator, and the first woman to represent wisconsin in the u.s. on risk or she served seven terms. assist 15 minutes. -- this is 15 minute. [applause] for that you introduction. i want to thank the faculty and staff who make beloit such an incredible school. i want to thank and recognize all of the parents, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors who have helped make the members of the class of 2013 reach this proud moment in their lives. a special greeting to all the moms out there on this special mother's day. graduates, congratulations. this is such a special day for you. i imagine you are feeling a lot of different emotions. pride, ely shouldn't -- elation, maybe relief. it must feel kind of strange to walk around campus without the weight of a final exam or term paper weighing on your shoulders. i know exactly how you feel. i have the privilege of houseenting beloit in the of representatives for many years. in every campaign, this college was home to debate. ,t doesn't matter how you are when you're sitting in the green room, ready to debate your opponent, television cameras rolling, you know the feeling you guys got every time they were handing out the blue books? same feeling. last year, i had the biggest test of my career when i ran for the u.s. senate. and the voters honored me with a passing grade. i remember how i felt on election night. proud, yes. you lay dead, of course -- elated, of course. but also a little bit anxious. after all, i did not run for senate because i wanted the title. i ran because i wanted a chance to do the job. in the same way you did not come to this college because he wanted the piece of paper you are about to receive. you came here because he wanted a chance to change the world in the short time you are in it. just like my election night, today is a celebration. it is a beginning. it is a beginning of something fun and exciting, but also difficult and maybe a little scary. some of you will challenge newselves to make scientific discoveries, or create new inventions. some of you plan to go to work on unlocking the puzzles of the mind or the mysteries of the ages. some of you dream of publishing your work or completing a symphony or standing on stage at carnegie hall. some of you have your eye on a desk in the oval office. you will confront the same question pretty soon. how do i start echo -- start? i spent my first few months as a freshman senator asking myself that question. i know it is on orthodox for a freshman to give advice to -- unorthodox for a freshman to give advice to seniors. [laughter] as i travel the state of wisconsin in my campaign, i thought so much potential, and a lot of pain, too. beloit is the perfect example. here we have a world-class college where students gain -- do incredible things. we also have a community outside the campus where unemployment is too high and middle class families are struggling just to the it erie it how can state where we have made things for generations, paper, tools, engines, and yes, cheese and beer [laughter] losing the states be manufacturing jobs to other countries? how can the nation that boasts the biggest economy in the history of the world have so many roads going so many businesses struggling to keep their doors open. so many people who have been out of work for months or even years. myecided i would run campaign on a simple message. we can do better for our workers. our manufacturers, our small businesses, our families. i had a lot of ideas about how we could do better, how we could level the playing field, hope we could make our tax system better and rebuild our middle class. in the senate, there was that question. to that i have the chance solve these problems, how do i start ech? many of you will find that when you start your first job, you will have colleagues who are not on the same page. you will be told to wait your turn to speak, after all, you are new. you will have to work really hard to make the smallest amount of progress. that is what i found in my new job too. things will slow in washington. too slow. always seemed to move in the right direction. it is hard to leave the office at the end of day, knowing that we have not yet found found a job for everyone who wants one or given every child expands -- greatce to attend a public school are making sure that every family has good health care. it is hard to let the sun go down, knowing we have not stepsed prices are taken for climate change or ensure that every american can marry the person whom she loves. it is hard to imagine that i might spend six or 12 or 18 years in this amazing job and still not reach the finish line on some of these big issues. you might have days like that to. days and it seems that the world is too big to get your arms around. let me tell you what i think about to get me through those days. i get up every morning, you need to get back to it all. believe it or not, i was a math major in college. andd a terrific professor i was a pretty sharp student. but my first class with professor henley was a tough one. the polly simon to her's in the audience cringe -- poli-sci majors in the audience cringe. he had insoluble problems. problems would know solution. we were not expected to come up with the answers, but we were expected to show some progress. i never figured out any of those insoluble problems. there's a reason i became a politician and not a mathematician. over the course of my career, i thought back to that class many times. that byessor's point pushing against the boundaries we can expand, those boundaries. after all, every problem starts out as insoluble. if people keep wishing -- pushing, making progress by bit, eventually somebody cracks it. how do you calculate the area of a circle echo -- circle? how you build a computer for less than $1 million? , all of thoseme were insoluble problems. nobody solved them all at once. nobody solved them all alone. but we could solve them. civilike a country after war rebuild, or rebuild the world after world war ii. just like we planned our flag on the moon. the moon. r flag on don't be afraid to solve the insoluble problems you encounter. you will make progress. maybe you will inspire someone else to make progress alongside you. . was raised by my grandmother she was born in 1906. she wanted to be an astronomer. at times and her family's circumstances dictated that she instead learn to sew. my grandmother was an incredible artist and seamstress. she made all of my clothes until high school when i remember asking permission to buy a pair of blue jeans. just couldn't compete with real and you guys -- real levi's. she was so proud when i graduated from college and even proper when i ran for office. she was born 14 years before women have the right to vote. she was able 92, to vote for her granddaughter and watch me get sworn in. [applause] every time my name appeared in the newspapers she would cut the article and save it and she kept those clippings in the drawer of her nightstand. on top of that nightstand she kept a photograph of my cousin. my custen was her vfer first great grandchild and she would look at that photograph every night before she went to sleep. i don't know what was going through her mind at those moments late at night, but i think that when she looked at that photograph of jennifer, she was thinking about how much things have changed since she was born in 1906. how our country had become more fair, wiser, a better place. how great men and women had made such incredible scientific discoveries and built such incredible buildings and bridges and factories and won important victories for justice. she must have been maverling at what laid ahead for jennifer. but i hope she was also proud of the progress she made in her time, the progress that i was beginning to make in my time and the progress jennifer would some day make in her time. here, you have been a part of progress that stretches back to the days when wisconsin was a frontier society. you're also part of the legacy of congress that stretches back to the founding days of this country, a legacy that includes countless great inventors and explorors, and thinkers and statesmen. yes, we have big problems to solve. and yes, there are days when they seem insoluble. but i am confident that you and i can make enormous progress together. and yes, when you work, and work just to get to the starting line it can be hard to know how to take that first step forward. but i'm confident that you and i can figure it out together. so here's to all the potential that you show here and here's to the progress that we will make in our time. ongratulations, class of 2013. >> i begin with integrity because it is so essential to who and what you ultimately will become. many of you have a career path in mind. many of you have no idea where you will end up. a few of you may be surprised by where life takes you. i certainly was. and in the end, it is not only what we do but how we do it. >> you know, i have to start by tweeting this so give me just one second. i'm a professional so this will only take one second. when i woke up this morning and started writing my speech, i was thinking about me first month on campus in september when i was a freshman and the football team went into that season ranked number one in the nation pre-season, and i remember that september when i got here there was all this excitement on campus and our first game was at wisconsin, and we went up there and we lost our first game 21-14 and there was just this crushing disappointment afterwards. and i would like you to think of that soaring expectation follow bid crushing disappointment as a metaphor for your next 20 minutes with me. >> next weekend more stories and advice for graduates friday night with administration and state and local officials. >> at the u.s. naval academy commencement, president obama spoke out against sexual assaults in the military saying they threaten the trust and discipline in the armed forces. here's a portion of what the president had to say. >> our military remains the most trusted institution in america. when others have shirked their responsibilities, our armed forces have met every mission we have given them. when others have been distract bid petty arguments, our men and women in uniform come together as one american team. and yet, we must acknowledge that even here, even in our military, we have seen how the misconduct of some can have effect that is ripple far and wide. in our digital age, a sing comblage from the battlefield of troops falling short of their standard can go viral and endanger our forces and undermine our efrlingts to achieve security and peace. likewise, those who commit sexual assaults are not only commiting a crime. they threaten the trust and discipline that makes our military strong. that's why we have to be determined to stop these crimes. because they have got no place in the greatest military on earth. so class of 2013, i say all this because you're about to assume the burden of leadership. as officers, you will be trusted with the most awesome of responsibilities, the lives of the men and women under your command. and when your service is complete, many of you will go on to help lead your communities. america's companies. you will lead this country. and if we want to restore the trust of the american people deserve to have in their institutions, all of us have to do their part and those in leadership -- myself included -- have to constantly strive to remain worthy of the public trust. as you go forward in your careers we need you to carry forth the values that you've learned in this institution, because our nation needs them now, more than ever. need your honor, that inner compass that guides you not when it's easy but when it's hard and uncertain, that tells you the difference between that which is right and that which is wrong. perhaps it will be the moment when you think nobody is watching. but never forget that honor like character is what you do when nobody is looking. more likely it will be when you're in the spotlight leading others, the men and women who are looking up to you to set an example. never ask them to do what you don't ask of yourself. live with integrity and speak and honesty and speak with demand accountability. >> the white house has announced that president obama will be in oklahoma on sunday to look at the damage. we'll have coverage of the president's visit here on c-span. now, fema gives us a brief description of the transition of an empty building to a joint field office for state, fema and other federal agencies in oklahoma city. it will be used as an administrative center to process the disaster relief claims for people affect bid monday's tornado. more than 3,000 people have registered claims so far with fema. >> what we're setting up here in oklahoma city is what we call a joint field office. and by joint field office, that means that fema, the state of oklahoma, and other federal agencies in partnership set up an office in a disaster area that serves as an administrative office for that disaster. we started a couple of days ago working on this empty building as part of the process we come in, we clean it. maybe put up some sheetrock, dry wall, we run communication lines, check out the air conditioning and that sort of thing and work out the workspace where the people are going to come and work. it's not a place for people to come to register for assistance. this is where the assistance gets the processing. where the survivors register for assistance in fema, their application is processed here in the joint field office. that's part of the operation. another part of the operation is we have hazard mitigation people here. in other words, we try to figure out ways to help the folks reduce or eliminate the effects of the disaster from future disasters. normally, we are here until we are no longer needed. i have worked joint field office for five or six months. i know others that have been opened after hurricanes or earthquakes for two, three, four years. by that time, they transition to what we call a long-term recovery office. >> now, a discussion about online privacy and the prospects for a do not track law. .e'll hear from a panel hosted by the congressional internet caucus, this is 90 minutes. >> i'm the executive director. thank you for coming out today. you deserve a medal for being here. i appreciate it. this event is called do not track privacy is it dead or alive? and that's what we'll be discussing today. but before let me get to some housekeeping. i do want to thank the caucus cochairs senators leahy and thune and congressman glat and congresswoman eshoe for helping us put this together today. their leadership to host these debates between internet companies is important and we're in their debt. next week we have another briefing coming up on patent control litigation on may 30, friday. that issue is really hot in the high-tech community. senator cornyn introduced legislation to complement senator schumer's legislation. the vermont attorney general just started issuing patent controls and then there's the shield act in the house. the week after that on june 7, also a friday, we'll do something called faceoff, a fact-base debate which sounds really painfully boring but it's actually a really good debate about the economics of the internet so you can better understand these important issues like net neutrality and net flix and some of those things. the twitter handle for today and the hash tag is do not track. the hash tag is do not track, all one word. and a lot of the resources will be put up on twitter so an efficient way to get that information. so today's issue is basically on this concept of do not track. which kind of got going -- it's been going on for a long time but the issue and its name do not track kind of modeled after or inspired by this kind of do not call registry that the federal trade commission implemented many years ago. and you all remember the do not call registry where in order to avoid telemarketing calls you submit your phone number to the list and you would presumably not get calls during dinner. the idea was kind of inspired by that for do not track for surfing.ne web but when implemented do not call, they didn't have the authority to do that. and some companies immediately filed suit against do not call registry and won. congress reacted immediately to that lawsuit and the federal trade commission's inability to implement it. and the house within 24 hours the house and senate passed legislation within 24 hours almost unanimously to authorize the federal trade commission to authorize. and i think it's an important thing to remember how wildly popular that was. so now we're on do not track. it's captured everybody's imagination. people have been working on this idea of how do consumers say no to being followed across unrelated web sites and being served adds based on that movement. we want to look at whether implementing a technical measure how would that work, is it feasible, is it necessary, is it wise. and that's really good questions that we're going to explore today. i'm going to introduce the panelists in succession. to my left is peter swire who has a long title that's important to explain it. ts cochair of the w 3 c tracking protection working group. he also is going to georgia tech as a professor. congratulations on that. nd also in his bio he has time in the white house from 2009 to 2010 he worked for the national economic council and then before that many years ago from 1999 to 2001 peter served as the chief counselor for privacy in the white house under the clinton administration. that was probably the first position of its kind. i donte don't think we have an equivalent of that now despite press reports to the contrary. then we have 15 years of research on do not -- these tracking and on line privacy issues. he was a staff technologist in the division of advertising practices. so he's consulted with them. he also was a senior advisor and consultant on the "wall street journal" what they know series. you may have seen that. over a period of years a couple of years ago. and then the senior vice president of public policy and general counsel of the interactive advertising bureau, the huge trade association of online companies and advertisers. and before that mike, also is with the united states chamber of commerce. and then chris, the legislative counsel for the american civil liberties union. and we welcome all of those folks. so what's the big deal with this issue? why do we care whether people are being tracked across a variety of different websites and being served up adds based on those experiences? why do we care? as peter mentioned in a recent article, when we go into a maternity store, not me because i'm not pregnant, and i don't plan on being pregnant. but if you go into a maternity store you expect to see ads for diapers. and in an online store you see ads for diapers and other things. you expect that. but if you go to other -- go to other sites across the internet you see those same ads for perhaps diapers or things like that. you go to a golf site and travel site and you see ads for discounted travel to myrtle beach to play golf or something. people say that's unnerving. is there any harm there? that's a fair question that we're going to get to today. i think the question also or is it just a creep factor? which people have never been able to define. that's what this panel is going to go into. i guess the question is, why are we here today? forget about the fact that it's the day before memorial day recess. why are we here today? many years ago, a lot of groups from web browser companies started complementing this do not track feature and everybody has their favorite browser. but whether it's chrome, whether it's internet explorer, fire fox, whether second half arie, whether your mobile device or ipad, you have different experiences. everybody has their favorite one. so these companies are starting to implement these do not track features and it's putting pressure on people to get together and build consensus. privacy advocates are calling for this do not track feature as well as also omnibus privacy legislation. united states senators have introduced legislation on the topic and it's also been introduced in the house in years past. the idea really comes to an idea behind cookies. in its current manifestation, cookies are being put in our browsers and used to follow us across unrelated web sites and thrsh serve as a tailored a ad. is that a problem? is that wise? is there any harm there? and i think that's what i want to get to. this issue kind of kicked around in a variety of different ways over the years starting in like 2006 and people can go back further on this. but recently, and i have a time line here, the consortium, which is kind of a stand body which says here's how we're going to make this code work and everybody gets together and says that's a good idea, let's do that it's a standards body that helps us create standards for our web browsing across internet. they created something called -- and pete ker explain it better, the tracking protection working group, to bring people together. i'll let peter explain that but that group has been working very, very hard to which all the panelists can attest, and they had their last f.a.a. to face feeting -- face to face meeting to get to consent suss on is this dead or alive? i was not there and that's why we want it had group to come together and say at least in this manifestation is it dead or alive and depending on that question, what is congress likely to do about it? and so they have to get their paper out by july. so we thought this would be a great time to update people on where this is, whether folks surfing the web, what browser they're using, will have some do not track feature to keep this from happening. so with that let me leave it up to pete tore explain more his role, the role of the working group. because it is important -- not the only piece but certainly the major one right now. and in part is in answering, is it alive or dead. >> thanks for coming and i'll try to say this stuff as close to plain english as i can. it does start with do not call because people have an intuition. how many people have done a do not call opt out? let the record show a lot of hands went up. ok. and what you do is do step number one, do to the web page and step number two is say not me for this phone number. there's a bunch of ways you can do user choice on the internet right now to say i don't want this to keep track of me. but if you go across a lot of different internet sites and if you do it over a period of time, there hasn't been perhaps as handy a way to do that as a lot of certainly privacy folks have asked for. so maybe we could come up with a standard. maybe we could come up with a standard way to do it where it would be cookies or any other technology. if they do another way it doesn't matter. and you could do that one-time click like for do not call and it would work next week and next year. so a persistent one-time user choice. so you could say i'm either comfortable, i want to have a lot of targeted ads. or you could say i want to make a different choice. that's the idea. that's the simplest way i can explain the idea of do not track. and so there's been lots of ways you could imagine doing that. the way that i'm working with right now is this group. the worldwide web consortium. that was founded by a guy named tim, the guy who people say invented the web and he's the head of it. when you put that what have you done in your career, invented the web, that's a good one. so he's my boss' boss as it were. he's the director of this whole thing. and there's a standards group. and what does that mean? wc 3 was a place where they came up with p this. this is the folks who brought are trying to come up with a standard way to do this on the internet. that makes sense. and it's an internet-based thing for a simple reason. there has to be a way for you to express your choice. i want to send a choice and you'll typically do that through a browser. and then somebody's got to receive the choice. so in the phone world the telemarketters find out who they can call and who they can't but in the internet there's a lot of sites and ad networks and stuff. so they have to be able to receive the signals. and if we can send it in a standard way and receive nit a standard way and know what it means, then we have something that's good for users. they get to express their choice and at work and the servers know what they're supposed to do and we get this really great word that standards people love. they really like this word a lot. interoperability. right? you've heard that. you'd like to be able to plug in your phone charger for all the phones. this way you can go to is any browser and website and we'd have a standard way to do it. so to help make this fun and easy we brought together the relevant stakeholders. and as of today i believe there's i9 different stakeholder groups and all we have to do is get consensus and we'll have a standard. so it's sort of senate-size. and you know the senate is always easy to get consensus. so it's easy to get consensus also. but also sometimes things do pass the senate. and we're on the house side so you can laugh. but -- we have the senate staff also here. we all have lived in town for as long as we've lived in town. anyway, so my own role is as the cochair of this process there's a very good engineer person working on the technical part. you really don't want a law professor running that part of the process. the part that i'm working is what it means to comply with the standard. when you send and receive it what does that moon for users and all the websites. i try the play the role of good listener or honest broker or mediator. i've worked with a lot of different parts of the industry and the privacy community and the government. so i'm trying to facilitate a process. so what that process means and all i'm going to let others say. and probably after we come back i'll say more about what happened recently. but here's this effort to come up with a consensus that gives you as users a choice that actually works. >> so many of you might know me. i'm a technologist. only one not wearing a tie, obviously. and i actually wore this shirt for two reasons. one that i'm a technologist and two i feel this industry has a bit of kind of attention deficit disorder where if you look at this general issue, u can actually go back to 1999 where there was a lot of attention on this issue. and again as tim laid out, third-party tracking is the site that you go to can set cookies that identify you. but a bunch of other people that you've never heard of can also identify you via cookies and track you. so this issue came to light in 1999. in 2020 or so microsoft and asically net scape announsed users to block and to maintain some privacy with regards to being tracked on line. but again, the same issues came up. what were the defaults? and that was users have to know and learn to block it to find the setting. it was very hard to do. then the other issues were what were exemptions? some would still allow companies to track users and identify them uniquely even when they didn't want to be tracked for the purposes of say measuring how far often a user visits a website. but the -- contrary to when they think they're blocking tracking. and then there's the issue of what is consent? so when a user opts in, what are they consenting to? say what are the terms? and these are exactly the same issues that were in the 2000 era, the same about two years ago and they're currently the big sticky issues still. and to sum rise them, the idea is how much tracking do we want to allow? how much tracking do we want to enable the industry? and i think one of the key ways to understand the context is kind of the dirty little secret that not a lot of people discuss. it's not just about behaviorly profiling you or knowing to give you pet ads if you have a pet. it's also the ability for a bunch of different people to uniquely measure that you are you and you've visited this page a thousand times or visited this website a thousand times over the course of a year, or when you visited this page you've gone to another and purchased something. so the effectiveness of that ad could be measured. and it's effectively the currency in this market. it's how a publisher goes to an advertiser and says we served this many uniques, pay us this much. or vice versa. so this is one of the big sticking points that in this debate a lot of people still want to maintain this ability to track people and as a result goes against what we think of as do not track as being completely anonymous. because there's a record of our activity being maintained somewhere. so there's been a bunch of technical solutions that are interesting, such as the identification to address these thing. or don't store this information for more than you need to. maybe a month. there's been browser tools and technology solutions that will help block this and help consumers have choice. but in fact most research has shown because of the incentives to uniquely track people and because of the fact that this is currency has found ways to go around consumer choices when they want to opt out, when they want to block, to remain anonymous. and if you look at my research, there is this arms race where there's incentive to go around consumer choice. so the question is what can we do? this is the idea. in addigs to the technical meckition come up with a policy mechanism. so while peter describes this, it's a policy mechanism where you can express your interest with regards to privacy to a bunch of web sites or a bunch of third parties and they can respond accordingly. so it's more of a policy. it's like raising your flag. it's like wearing a dot on your shirt that or on your drivers license that says you don't want your organs donated. o i think it's i think it is to realize the context. liable source,a re you bring this tracking to the forefront. you also allow the industry to come up with new innovative ways to get information. for example, i like bikes. i'm happy to disclose that to third parties and get a lot of context about bikes. i might be sensitive about other things, i don't want to say isle dieting or i like sugar agree sodas. i want the able to choose what i express and what i don't express. so bringing this issue of targeting to the forefront you allow a better market and better working ecosystem. there is an opportunity here. >> thank you. before i go to mike, i want to mention that i didn't in my opening but i think it is important. a briefing we did two weeks ago in spectrum in wireless mobilities. e idea was the need for this spectrum crunch and have the mobile devices to download the content we want. the question is whether or not the band windth can prohibit users from accessing types of advertising on their mobile devices as on their p.c. or in their homes. if people couldn't access advertising on their mobile devices, the advertising platform that enables free content on the internet as we know it today, would not be available on mobile devices. we sometimes take for granted that advertising has generated, kind of the free services that we take for granted today. before i went to mike, i wanted to say we mentioned that last week but this is an important part of the conversation. what the role advertising plays here is important. >> i think that's right. thanks, tim for bringing this panel together and making that pitch for the importance of advertising. it is a home grown industry here in the united states. it is a $36 billion industry that provides over three million jobs to american workers. it's been a robust growing industry by 15% year-over-year in the last few years in a relatively down economy. we have to recognize that innovation and economic growth is apart of every policy decision we make for the internet. i think that is why today's discussion is really great. we're here -- tim asked the question, why are we here and why do we care? can tell you that we're a 500-plus member company that creates original content and services that are fearly available to users because of the itselfing that supports the services. they care about consumer prives and that is because consumers care about privacy. they care about how data flows online and the experience that consumers receive in the data ecosystem. that's why we work with our industry partners, it's been a long process but it's not likely, even if it ends today you never hang a banner and say we figured out privacy. there is always a new challenge. the industry is going to continue to evolve and grow and consumer expectations will continue to change and we want to meet those expectations. we think we're going a good job. that's why we were a founding partners to come together and create the digital alliance, which is a sell--regulatory program that was alouted by president obama's administration when they released the privacy bill of rights. they held the program up as a model of success how industry can sell--regulate and create what they call enfoceable code of conduct. what that means is we've revolutionized the way consumers receive information about how data is collected online. the transparency principle. if you haven't seen it, once you look at it, you recognize it. you haven't seen the ad choices icon, it is being seen in one trillion ads every month. hat is revolutionary as far as consumer notice. we've empowered consumers to make a choice. as you look at the internet and you go from site to sight and you have concerns, a lot of consumers do. they can opt out of the entire digital ecosystem. about 120 companies participant. there's a lot going on in this space, there's a long history for more than a decade. n.e.i. has been a great partner at the d.a.a. and they are expanding their programs. is is all to meet consumer's privacy expectations. we recognized a year ago when we were at the white house and they were supporting our system. we can do better. we have to continue to evolve as an industry and through self-regulation and that is when we made the commitment to try to incorporate browser tools. that is what we're talking about at our company, as the user of the internet, you use your browser -- you have to by definition. we'll talk about that later. so maybe there's another possible consumer touch point. beside this ad choice icon, maybe we can provide another consumer touch point to allow them to exercise choice. that's why we're working with them and within the industry to try to come up with other ways to empower consumers. that's what this is really about. you know, the nice thing about self-regulation is it's becoming global. we rolled out a europe yap d.a.a., we're about to roll out a canadian d.a.a., we're working with south america to have inner operateability not because we want it for companies but for global internet users want to have a seamless, easy useable experience when it comes to privacy on fl the online space and this is something that self-regulation can achieve. the second question you asked was if this is dead or alive? it is very much alive. largely because i think when peter joined as a co-chair he breathed new life into it and that was refreshing. i think there is a real opportunity to get something done that is good for users and good for industry as well. but i think the key is going to be focusing on the technology, i think when you look at the two documents, one is a technical specification on how browsers talk to each other and how servers on the back end talk to each other. then there is compliance document, which is what are the legal obligations? every standard is voluntary. it requires industry to voluntarily agree to follow up ever the w.3c. comes with. that is why getting the language right is key. but i think there's an opportunity to advance consumer privacy. i think the technical side is not that difficult. i think figuring out a consistent way for browsers to present this tool to users, a consistent way for browsers to talk to each other on the back end, this signal and response. we're working hand-in-hand in partnership with peter and regulators. >> chris, you represent a union of folks. why is this necessary? do consumers care about this? is this an issue? also, where is the agreement -- i'm trying to figure out where the agreement and disagreement is, if there is any? >> there is. thanks. i've been listening to my various panelists and i've been revising my remark a little bit on the fly, which is always dangerous. bear with me a little bit. i think one of the things we haven't talked about is why should we care? why is this a big deal? so i'm going to try to lay out a few scenarios that i think illustrate the potential harms. i'm not saying that all of mike's members are causing the harms but i want you to understand the basic framework that we view this through. what we believe or at least the aclu and i think other consumer groups as well, one of the problems with this collection of information and this tracking, especially when you're not aware of it. it creates a power imbalance, if you will. other people know things about you that you don't know about them or you don't know they know. what does that mean? this is very abstract. let me try to make that concrete. "the new york times" did a sad story about richard guthrie who was a senior citizen, i believe he was a world war ii veteran. in his old age he had become a little bit senile and had a tough time making decisions on his own. he was targeting in a marketing database as someone who would be as an easy mark. someone you can sell things to. he was milked out of substantial amounts of money. you could call and he would answer the phone and you can get him to buy a product that he didn't need. that is an extreme example. but if you can use information that you can collect you can make decisions about them. the target company does a good job of targeting consumers. they do a good job on what consumers may want to buy, often is not a bad thing. they got particularly good at it, apparently, they identified a certain category or types of purchases that indicated someone was pregnant. they would sthenled mailers, good news, you might want to consider buying all these other things. apparently, they had an irate father come in, why are you sending this to my daughter? she's only -- i think he was 16 or 1. he had to come back two weeks later embarrassed it seems like there was things going none my house that i didn't know about. she was pregnant. information could be revealed that you may not be aware of or know that you're revealing. what is more troubling is this information when it is collected can be integrated with other information. like, for example, how much money you make? that is something that is of great interest if you're an advertiser. what target does is they send you coupons based on things they know about you, like how much money i make? i'm wealthy i may get a $10 coupon. if i'm a lower income customer i may get a $2 coupon buzz that's enough to get yu -- because that is enough to get you in the door. it's clearly knowledge that you didn't realize you had released to deprive you of a certain benefit or a possible benefit. that's something i think you have to consider here. i think that we want to bring in a do not track mechanism, at least the aclu does to help consumers level the plague field. i think that, tim -- playing field. i think tim, you spoke about why industries should come on board and industry does think there is a benefit. i think there's still a significant category of people internet. aid of the they don't know what is going on there. they worry about things like tracking. there's still a lot of people who have not plugged in. i believe giving them tools like do not track that allows them to control what information is collected is a great way to say, no, you don't have to be worried about this tracking. you can participant without tracking and i think that will help bring people on the internet and i think that benefits everybody. from an aclu point of view, we worry about not just tracking by industry but by the government. we fear that this kind of information collection can be accessed not just by customers but can be collected and sold to the government. the aclu uses the internet as one of the most powerful tools to exercise you're first amendment right since the printing press. you can speak, you can learn. this is a tool that is unparallel in its value. but if you're afraid to go on a particular website because you think that may put you in a certain profile or class, you may not want to learn about sensitive information. you may not want to delve into areas or join particular groups and we think that harms your first amendment freedoms. that is why we think a do not track mechanism is a powerful way to create a shield for you so you can do those things that you think are controversy. with all respect in terms of what you're doing in tomplese sell--regulation. we don't believe self-regulation is not enough. passing a base line of creating a do not track option of some sort would be benefit herbal. it is a law, it means that it can't be changed by fine print. a company can't decide to opt out of it. this is a protection that i can count on and that means a lot. doing all of those positive things that i was discussing. i also believe that self-regulation does a good job of getting industry to do what they think are best practices anyway. right? all the good guys in a particular industry want to do certain things. but something that is an industry norm that needs to be changed, everything in the industry agrees with it, they are not going to pass a self-regulatory regime that is intri call to the industry. i think tracking is a portion of the advertising industry, not the whole but a portion and i think it is run realistic to expect self-regulation to do a good job of tackling that. too much talking? >> no, i want to make sure we get to the rest of our issues. >> absolutely. let me say there's a core value that we should say we should all control if we're tracked online. i will say that. >> we're here because of the tracking issue just had the last meeting and we have a july deadline. whether this do not track feature is feasible? so i think -- i have to ask, peter, where are we today? >> well, i think where we are today is pretty well represented in a one page that came out of the meeting. the first word i like, it says consensus. that is a good word. i'm going to briefly mention, sort of the four points that were in that, if that's ok? i will -- i try to say it in english, i've been a teach are for a long time. the key part was, there's been quotes in the press before we met that this thing was going to die. it was going to blow up that week. instead, the key languages, there was sufficient progress in the meeting and that was signed on by the privacy people in the room, the advertising people, the browser people, that was the room. i think it is interesting to note. they said look, we're not abandoning this thing. we should go forward. the first one is about audience measurement or market research. here's why this is here. is .a.a. and mike's group very much apart about it. they put out the code of good practices and they said there were collection limits. but there were a couple of important exceptions and one is if you're doing market research and you don't target back to tim, you can gather all the data you want, basically. my testimony in the senate last year before i came into this, i went to the d.a.a. and said this looks pretty wide open, do you think we can do something to change this? since that time, the industry says we have to come up with new language on measuring the audience. you track people partly and send an ad to that person but you have cookies to figure out how many people came here. we're trying to figure out that market research part so we can decide what is in and what is out. >> can you give me an offline example of that? are you talking about a block, zip code? >> tv, it is women or men watching "american idol" this year? so there's audience measurement on demographic for lots of reasons. there's a lot of reasons for advertising because you want to spend money where the people are that you care about. that could turn out to be a lot of data about the people. that is why it is part privacy and part people. what is it going to be the back and forthwith the websites? the advertisers and the browsers and others are having good conversations about that. the third one is once the data is collected, do you keep it for ever and do you keep it in full form forever? if you're going to address tracking, then keeping it in your database forever seems like tracking to a lot of people. so you might scrub the data over time so you don't have it linked back to peter or tim. then you scrub it but how long do you scrub it? how hard do you scrub it? it could be called data retention. what do the sites do with the data they collected? we worked a long time on that. those are three areas. then the fourth point said there will be ongoing discussions on unique identifiers as a critical issue for advocates. we're inviting proposals on ways to solve this issue. on the privacy side, i turn on do not track then as i go around the web someone is still putting unique cookie on me to identify me. that shouldn't be the way it works with do not track. the industry said, wait we have to have security for our systems. wait a second, we have to debug problems when they happen. maybe we have to keep track for accounting reasons. so there's a back and forth where the privacy side has said let's innovative a world where we don't need the unique identifiers. the industry has said that is not practical as we see it. if there was some magic technology that could get some advertising in and not have the unique tracking that would be very attractive. there's an invitation for people to find ways to do that. those are tissues that came out of the consensus document this month. >> so i want to ask the panelists -- does this document mean as peter says in number four, we're moving towards a document. when this is done after july, what does it look like when the users in the audience or at home want to download the latest version of fire fox, chrome, their favorite browser, it will do this to prevent tracking. what does that look like and how does that play out? >> we're not allowed to talk about what that will look like. that is the irony of this, right? we have browsers and present an pportunity for the user to present something. >> but we're not -- >> but you asked what it will look like. let's talk about what it won't look like then we can talk about what it might look like. i think that is helpful because we're having a discussion -- can browsers present something to users? at the w3c we're notting having a discussion of what that should look like. we're trying to have that discussion, frankly, we're trying to work offline with the browser companies. if we're going to present something to users it should be clearly stated. i will circle back with the agreement we had with the white house a year ago and what everyone agreed to then, we should have a consistent browser user face and it should not be turned on by default. t should be a users' expressed preference. it is not the do not track, it is the tracking preference expression working group. so what we want to do -- >> protection. >> we want to give users a voice to express their preferences. that's key. so i'm not sure -- >> let me -- so when the user downloads the latest version of fire fox, under your imagination -- we're not w3c, the user has to do something affirmative to turn on that preference, to choose to not have this tracking issue happen? >> yes, we should have users expressing a premps. >> is there a consensus on that? >> let me surface why we don't necessarily agree with that. to kind of boil this down, it is an interesting question, right? people tend to leave whatever the default is. whatever you give them you leave it on. if the do not track is on they will leave it there if it is off they might leave it there. that is a big question. i think the advertisers, correct me film i'm discategorizing you. they think it is an unfair choice to present it to consumers as on. >> we don't believe it is a consumer expression when a company such as a browser when they decide to turn on the do not track. that was the first area of consensus and the w3c agreed that it should not be turned on by default. several groups agreed on that position for more than a year. >> can i unpack this because this is crucial. why is it a choice if it is given to you if it is off and you turn it on but it is not a choice if it is on and you turn it off? >> tracking has a value. >> not to beat a dead horse but it is the same issue we saw in 1999. we had the opportunity to do something rein the question came down to what should the defaults be? the general consensus that you get from the ad industries, as long as it is hard and not a lot of people do it then we're fine with whatever it is. fact, some -- to be fair, there was a decision 10, 13 years ago to decide what the default should be and there is no reason why it should be now. if i happen to be gardening in your property and you say i want to take that back. i would safe i have a thriving farm share based on you property but that does not give me the right to come into your property. >> can i challenge you? we're talking about opt in versus opt out? back in 1999, the first network advertising initiative agreement with the federal trade commission they agreed to have an opt out cookie and there was no opt in version of that. that seemed to satisfy them at that time. >> right. so i think the proliferation of tracking has gone up. >> so something has changed. >> just to finish, there's no way it should be one way or the other. microsoft has presented the first launch of the browser. s a fairly -- safari has blocked this for a long time. i think the assumption that it should be one way or the other is a false assumption. we can use anti-virus software. maybe i want my firewall to block all of this as well. >> let's unpack that a bit. there's been several accounts and maybe it is jennifer lopez and what she is doing. >> i've never been compared to jennifer lopez. >> you have now. we invited all the browser companies to participant today and a lot of the west coast could not participant. where are we now? are they going to turn it on by default, some are, some aren't, some have backed way. where are we? fari blocks it with their firewall. >> everyone's browser has different things. if i'm looking at something that i don't want other people to look at i go into incognito mode in chrome. you can kind of mask those things or you can -- those are browsers, the cookie controls have been around for a long time. we're talk about implementing this do not track concepts. >> that's right. >> there's a consensus but not a standard. >> the reason it is important of what the defaults are, my research shows when you're in incognito mode or you block the cookies or you try to use the browser features at love of the times there are companies that go around those. incognito mode. -- you can look at >> are you expressing a choice? >> they will say, we did not think they meant to opt out. they just deleted the cookies. so we wanted to help them and resurrect those cookies. what the reflect browser preferences are for the user, right? the user should be able to say i do not want to be tracked and i should send thi