It is important because a lot of people say, it is one of the top issues that people contact me about, it is also the top issue that the fcc and the ftc receive every year, it is about robocalls. People say, i thought i signed up for this do not call list, what happened . Unfortunately, you signed up, but the calls are coming from overseas. There has been great work that has occurred on this. Not only in congress, but with the fcc and the carriers. Earlier this year, in the meetings i had with the fcc, what we are going to see is they have call identification. It is called stir shaking technology, when that call originates, when you look at your phone, you will know that is who the call is coming from. It will not be spoofed. Spoofing is when someone thinks, i am answering a call from my daughter, friend, doctor, but it is just to make you pick the call up. At the same time, you will say that is exactly what the call is. Our legislation makes it congressman doyle from pennsylvania, chairman of the subcommittee, it is also in the legislation where we have an opt out provision for people. Not opt in. What they find is people dont want to opt into these things. They say wait a minute, what am i doing here . We are going to take care of it for you. You are out already. If you want to start back in and i am not sure how many people will want to receive these calls, but at the same time, we want to make sure we did the legislation, there are calls you want to get. Your doctor reminding you of the appointment, pharmacy saying your prescription is ready, kids at home, it was the happiest day in our household when the state called and said no school today because of snow. There are certain things that do get through to people. I think that is really significant. The other significant thing is you always hear about everyone in congress fighting, no one is working together, this is truly legislation that is bipartisan and worked its way through the committee in a good process with the fcc to come out with a very good bill we are sending over to the senate. Host to help us dissect some of the issues your committee is working on, ashley gold is with us. Shes with the information. Ms. Gold good to see you. We had the robocall bill passing yesterday, now it goes to senate. Do you foresee issues getting those bills reconciled and getting to the president s desk . I think it is important, i spoke with my Senate Colleagues and said we would have this bill out. This is one of the issues that the American People want us to solve. It is important. I think you are going to see both houses get together on this hopefully quickly to get it done and to the president s desk. It shows that first of all, congress can work, and we can really solve issues for people out there across america. When you talk about robocalls, it is important, because they are annoying but they can also be harmful. The ftc and irs did a scan in my a senior scam event in my district. Seniors are scammed out of 37 billion of hardearned savings in the last year alone. When they look at the phone calls, and i have heard heartbreaking stories where a grandparent will hear that their grandson called and said they had been arrested and to send 5,000 to the court and he would be out. Then they want 5,000 more, then you lost 10,000. We want to stop this. Theres a lot of issues. Not just the annoyance, but theres a lot of harm. This is legislation that needs to get to the president s desk. Ms. Gold this is something people can agree on. Also on a bipartisan basis, there is agreement that there needs to be strong Consumer Protection data privacy law. That is the place where there has not been quite as much agreement. It hasnt moved as fast as some people have hoped. Im sure you were paying attention yesterday to the ftc facebook settlement. I was in that press conference with chairman simon, commissioner philip, commissioner wolfman. The main message i was hearing was this was the best they can do without a Consumer Privacy law. They would have done more if they had a Consumer Privacy law to work with to say facebook, collect thatt data, but they did where they could with the resources they had. Now that the settlement is order, do you think it will provide motivation to get the data privacy bill done . If not, what is the main holdup . Is it differences between republicans and democrats, what is it at this point . Rep. Latta we had to get the bill passed. We started in committee in last Congress Working on this. I was the subcommittee chairman of Digital CommerceConsumer Protection. If my memory serves me right, we had about 10 different meetings and hearings on these issues alone. We had mr. Zuckerberg before us. When that occurred with facebook. Hadwill also remember, we equifax, 147 million americans were breached. It is really important we get this done. What is also important is that we have a uniform standard for people to understand what is going on. At the end of this year, california is going to kick in with their legislation they passed. We are up against that december 31 date right off the bat, which is important. Again, if we dont get something done, and this is really important, and done right, you will not only have california, but all of these other states will start saying they will do it. How do all of these companies and folks out there start saying now i have to comply with not just a standard, but maybe 50 standards . Maybe 51 if you add the district of columbia. It is important we get it done. It is important we have folks out there that understand what their rights are, that there is transparency. Mr. Zuckerberg was about 5. 5 hours. When he started his testimony, i can remember that when he said he started the idea of forming the company in the dorm room, they were optimistic and idealistic. We have the statements before, and i wrote to it, not realistic. This all has to be considered. We are talking about a massive amount of information that is out there. A lot of people, when they scroll down, and they have to make it easier for people, when they scroll down after 20 or 30 pages and it says the you accept or decline . Most people will accept it. I only know one person that i really know that reads all of that. He had been in Computer Security at a university. Ms. Gold i covered this stuff and i dont even fully read it. [laughter] congressman, what are the nonnegotiables for you personally when youre looking at the Privacy Security bill . Rep. Latta right now, we have to have something in writing. The democrats in the committee are working on something right now. We are looking for the text. We have to see what they come up with. Last year, there was a consortium with the chamber of commerce trying to get people on the same page. A lot of times again, it is never going to happen, you will never get 100 , but you have to have a good piece of legislation that everyone can sit down and work with it. Some people say, what we do what r . Ey do in europe, the gdp we have the First Amendment in this country, and things are different. Our issues are different when we think about this. We really need to have some sitdowns with folks to tell us where you are. We are looking for language that might be coming from democrats on the committee. Ms. Gold do the republicans on the Committee Plan on offering their own language . Rep. Latta in a situation like this, it is better to get bipartisanship. Again, there are some questions of one or the other Committee Members may be coming up with another piece of legislation. But again, were looking at a date where it is certainly have to get something. And one of the great things about being on the committee, we can work together. When you look at the number of bills and how broad our jurisdiction is, more bills in the past have come out of our committee and signed into law than any other committee. We pride ourselves in the last congress, the Ranking Member from oregon who was the 94 of our3 or bills were bipartisan. Last week, passing out over 25 pieces of legislation, we worked together on these bills to get them to the house floor. Ms. Gold mmhmm. The december 31 timeline you spoke about, someone i talked to on a frequent basis said there was faith at the beginning of the year the congress was going to get this done and now it seems they are running out of steam. They are not positive it will get done before california is implemented. Do you agree . Rep. Latta you are right, a lot of work needs to get done. We are at the end of july and when we come back after this august work period, we will only have about 40 hardworking days, unless days are added to the calendar. That is where over the summer work period, they will have to be some work done as we keep progressing to make sure we get to that point. Again, we are up to a date that we know something will happen with california kicking in. Ashleyongressman, referenced this earlier, but the ftc fine of 5 billion on facebook, is that enough, in your opinion . Is it too much . There is also talk about the Tech Companies being too big. I want to get your philosophy. Rep. Latta we do have jurisdiction over the federal trade commission, as well as the federal communications commission. The subcommittee i chaired in the last congress that i am still on, we have jurisdiction over the ftc. When you look at the 5 billion fine, the largest that has ever been issued by the ftc, and the different areas we asked them as we went along, do you have what you need to do what you need to get done . Not only do we need to hear from the ftc to tell us is there Something Congress needs to act on . There has been a Consent Decree that was out there since 2011. Also you have the issue, not the issue but what they came up with, more monitoring that has to be done on the privacy side of the company. I really want to sit down with them now and find out exactly, did it works the way it was supposed to work . But when you talk about a 5 billion fine, for most people, that is pretty substantial. Host what about the size of the social Media Companies . Rep. Latta again, we are dealing with companies out there that people like to be on their platforms. If you think about the different things, certain words have become almost a noun to people, even a verb. Did you google something, or how they facebooked. They have become such a large platforms that such a large group of people uses. That is where the American People have gone to and businesses have gone to, governments getting out messages. Again, we have to really look at the overall. People are saying we have to break things up. First we have to ask, is it working . Is it working within the parameters we had in the long run . Thats what we will have to do. Thats what the Committee Work is all about. I like to do Committee Work. You have the hearings and meetings before hand. We had thengress, bill with Autonomous Vehicles. The Committee Staff had 300 meetings leading up to that bill. Thats what this is about. Its about getting the facts out there that we need to know if we need to do something in the future. Ms. Gold the federal trade commission, it came out yesterday after the dust had settled about the privacy settlement, that they were opening an antitrust investigation into facebook. Facebook told investors this yesterday on their earnings call. You have been on the Consumer Protection subcommittee, you guys have jurisdiction over the ftc. Do you think that is right for the ftc to be spending time on . Do you personally see any issues within facebooks businesses . Rep. Latta first, again, we want the ftc to do their job, that is important. As they progress, we want to make sure they do what they are doing what they are supposed to do. As i mentioned, thats the great thing about committees, we have oversight. That is what we are supposed to do. If we dont think that a board, commission, agency, or department is doing what theyre supposed to be doing, that is the oversight we have. If they believe that is the course they will start, we have the ability to have the oversight to see if it is the right oversight. When it comes to questions asked to antitrust, thats what they need to be doing. Also, the question on if Congress Holds hearings on different companies. We had the facebook, the equifax hearings last year. That is our job. That is where the oversight comes from. But just like when we have certain hearings, where the laws on the books are already out there, did they not do what the law says they were supposed to do . Thats where we look to the ftc, fcc, or any other departments and agencies to do their job and make sure they are on the enforcement side if someone has gone and done an antitrust violation. At this stage, they need to do their work first. Ms. Gold mmhmm. If antitrust, and the idea that Tech Companies are too big, it has become very political. It has created some strange bedfellows on a bipartisan basis. Do you think it is dangerous that antitrust has become a political hot topic . Rep. Latta when you look at the companies themselves, as we talked about earlier, they have become a platform where people go to to get information. Ive asked some people in the past, we looked at a yellow pages, and people have become so reliant. One of the great things about being on the committee of energy and commerce with a broad jurisdiction, especially this subcommittee on telecommunications, i want to say this when you sit in our committee hearings, we are looking over the horizon five to 10 years. What were seeing and hearing is that the companies, where they want to be in x number of years ,nd how they will get there we want to make sure were passing the right legislation and get the right regulations to make sure they can get out there. Its just like when we did the Autonomous Vehicle legislation last year that passed out of the committee unanimously and then the house, everybody i was talking with, are you at the point where you thought you would be five years ago . Everybody said, no, we are much farther ahead. With Technology Today and whats happening, it is really spurring growth. It is almost like it multiplies itself as it goes. We want to make sure we have the right laws out there. That we can have we want the u. S. To be a place where entrepreneurs can come and be here and say this is our idea and build it up and it works. You look around the world where you see so much of the tech coming from, it is here. We have an environment here that encourages this. We want to make sure we keep that. We want to make sure again, the laws we have on the books the regulators out there doing their jobs, but they are saying this is what they have done. I know we were having some of the hearings, especially with equifax. Afterwards we talked with the ftc. We had a discussion back and forth with the committee that if something is not working, let us know. Host you talked about looking ahead. Lets look ahead to 2020 and election security. Is that something the committee has looked at . Rep. Latta you know, it is important, because we want to make sure americans know that their elections are secure. When you think about this, the i talked with other leaders from around the world, other legislators from around the world, we have seen the meddling that has occurred by the russians in other election cycles. The greatest thing they can do is say to people, or have people in the back of your mind and can, is this fair, is it working the way it is supposed to . Even if it did, you would have them bringing something out there, you think it is an individual doing this, but you are out there doing one thing, at the same time they might be attacking somebody, you may think reform. With the platforms out there, people saying it is horrible what is going on, but they never knew who was causing it. In the to make sure state of ohio, with our secretary of state, they want to make sure and he talks about it frequently, and our former , thatary of state did too our elections are secure. Some people say we should go back to paper ballots. And that is the only way to only way. We know from past experience across the country that paper ballots didnt mean it was fair. All of a sudden you have boxes that were stuffed, or you find a box somewhere that you need to count. But it is important that we do have that security in this country on our elections. Thats what always set us apart in this country, people can say we had fair elections, we had people representing us who we voted for. Host besides the robocall, the robo call issue, do your constituents talk about any of the issues we have discussed so far . Rep. Latta its interesting. It depends on whats happening nationally, people are hearing about, there are other things we hear a lot about. One of the issues is like Rural Broadband. It is so important. In our metropolitan areas, you think 95 of the country has the broadband they need, but the other 5 is out there. If you dont have it, you cant do multiple things. If you are in school, so much of your homework now is through the internet. You have got to have internet to do your homework. We dont want kids having to go to a local fast food chain to be able to use their wifi to do their homework. We want to make sure a Small Business owner is able to have the Internet Connection so they can get orders from around the world. We want to make sure local hospitals can have telemedicine. It is so important. Commissioner carr from the fcc was in my district several months ago, the same week commissioner wright came out for another meeting, and commissioner carr was on telemedicine helping with stroke. But again, if you dont have the broadband out there in the spectrum that we need, you have a problem. It also runs down to farmers. I did a precision agriculture bill in the last farm bill. Again, we want farmers to be able to utilize all of the technology to get everything out that they possibly can, because they have to minimize costs and get up profits. In our area we are going to have a bad year because of weather. We want to do everything we possibly can. A lot of the times, it is more localized. What i hear a lot about is broadband and how we will get it out to our local regions of the country. Ms. Gold on the broadband issue, we have been hearing this for many years that we need to expand Rural Broadband. It is something republicans and democrats agree on. What is the main holdup of getting that done . Is it there is not enough spectrum, private companies dont want to invest in rural areas . What is the main hurdle . Rep. Latta i think it is multiple. That is one of the things we have as one of the cochairs of Rural Broadband caucus this is not a republican and democrat independent issue, it affects us all. Ms. Gold yes. Rep. Latta i think that when you look at the issues, one of the things we found not too long ago was the mapping. When we saw the maps coming out from the fcc, if you are doing your job right in your district, since they have been keeping track over this last seven years, i have done over 1000 meetings in my districts. You when im out driving my car where i am going to lose connection. We looked at these maps and said they are not correct. What we need to have for the fcc to do their job, they have to have correct maps. We appropriated more money to them to make sure they can get on the mapping. We have legislation that we are working on to make sure local governments know that the maps are not correct. It is important. First of all, you have to know exactly what you have and what you dont have. One of the issues we run into is this, the words unserved and underserved. What is so important is we have to get into the unserved areas. Someoneple just say, might have two bars looking at the phone, but we have none. We need to help those folks out there that have zero. That is where we really need to concentrate our efforts, getting these unserved areas. Fcc sees that too in their policies to get to the unserved. Then you can help the underserved areas. It is important that we do this. We end up in a situation that you will have large cities with all of the advantage, then the rural areas, a large segment of our population living and want to live, but they dont have anything. I think this is an issue we have talked about multiple times in committee hearings, an issue we talked with the fcc about. And i think when we pointed out the maps are not correct, they look at it and said they will haveto make sure we accurate maps. You cannot do anything until you know what the problem is and where it is to begin with. Host we have time for one more question. Ms. Gold i wanted to ask you, some of your democratic colleagues in the draft bill you were talking about, i read that they have proposed a new federal agency that would govern data privacy rather than the ftc. What do you think about that . Rep. Latta i think most people across the country say we have enough government. I say what we need to do is make sure the departments and agencies we have are doing their jobs they are supposed to do. They have that expertise right now. I believe we need to make sure they are the ones out there getting it done. Id say to try to add on another layer, its almost like you start all over. Lets start where we are and move them forward. That is our oversight responsibility in committee. Host finally, a political question to close this out. The president recently held a social media summit at the white house. Are conservatives being censored on social media, in your view . Rep. Latta you know, i sat before Marsha Blackburn went to the senate, she sat next to me in committee. We all remember what happened to her on social media. I think it is really important that the algorithms being used by the companies out there are fair. That is where the oversight is that we are talking about. We want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to be out there on our social media sites, and also they are saying if we dont like this one word or term, it is affecting conservatives more than the other side, we need to make sure that people have the opportunity to get out there and express their opinions. Host congressman bob latta of the Top Republican on the energy and Communications Subcommittee and has been our guest this week. Ashley gold is the washington reporter for a publication called the information. Thank you both for being with us. All communicators including this one are available as podcasts. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the house will be in order. 40 years, cspan has been providing unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country to you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. I was on an airstrip in the remote jungles of guyana, having just concluded a congressional delegation tour with congressman leo ryan and we were ambushed on the airstrip and congressman ryan was shot and died on the airstrip. Members of the press had died. One defector of the peoples sunday night on una q a. Jacky spear talks about her memoir surviving jonestown. 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