Technology. Were you able to bring that to the senate . Such as data privacy and things like that. Guest indeed. I have about those issues with me. You know, peter, we last visited when i was finishing work on the [inaudible] act which was the reauthorization of the fcc which is not been done since 1990 and then of course the mobile bill and the precision agriculture bill and some of those components that really are foundational items and in our internet ecosystem so getting those provisions finished was important and then bringing that knowledge and expertise to the senate where we are dealing with the privacy and Data Security of data issues not only commerce but Judiciary Committee. One thing i have found so interesting about being in the senate is how you take one issue and work across platform on it. Im also on Armed Services committee and the Veterans Committee and at veterans we are working to get everybodys records in the cloud. We are doing the same thing at Armed Services so that we can have someone in list for the rest of their life the records are cloud based and then as they need medical care or if they want to track what exposures they may have had, such as hazardous toxins and things of that nature they, the veteran, own those records and this will end that laborious process that is so frustrating to so many of our nations veterans or they are having to go to places they were stationed or posted to places they were deployed and try to rebuild their records. It takes a lot of time and great wasted energy goes into their and at Armed Services im working on future threats and technology and 5g and Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Vehicles and supercomputing and hypersonic since our Technology Sector really underpins to innovation to take place on 21st century warfare. Host joining us, senator, to delve into those issues you just mentioned is Steven Overly of political. Hello, senator. I wanted to ask you about the big news in washington this week which was this announcement from House Democrats that they they would pursue impeachment proceedings against President Trump and im curious what you make of that decision and do you have concerns that that might start momentum around tech policy issues or other priorities you have in the senate . Guest i would love to see them focusing on the issue that Americans Care about and certainly that tennesseans care about and one of the things we learned from the 2018th election cycle is that voters, especially women, want to see things done and they dont like bickering and they dont like the back and forth and they want to see things done that affects them. I call them security moms they are women that are focused on keeping their children safe. They want job security and income security and make a certain that their elderly parents and relatives are well cared for as they retire and they want to make certain that this nation is secure, securing that southern border so i think this may be an overreach by our friends in the house and we all know that we should have expected that they would try another impeachment process. Indeed, estimate when i was on the floor of the house speaking i talked about 2016 in vanity fair magazine in december 2016 had an article that talks about the democrats push to impeach President Trump but he was not even sworn in yet but before he was sworn in and was still president elect trump the Senate Democrats started writing a bill that they felt like would be the way to get him and it would be looking for areas where there would be conflict and his business interests and conflict with his service as president of our nation. So, this is something that theyve been trying since they were sworn in. They tried to get an Impeachment Vote in a house in 2017. It failed. They tried in 2018, it failed. They thought the Mueller Report was going to be exactly what they needed and it wasnt. That effort failed and they tried earlier in 2019 to get an Impeachment Vote, they failed. Here they come with this. I think they were probably a little bit surprised when they read the transcript of that phone call. Senator, talk about getting things done so want to ask about the tech task force were leading in the senate. I know youve had several meetings with Tech Industry leaders and Civil Society advocates so what were you learning in those meetings . Guest one thing im learning is that we finally arrived at a position where people are sayi saying, you know what we need privacy and Data Security guard rails in law. Its time to get something on the books. That is very encouraging to me and as you well know i filed the browser act in the house and work to get a privacy standard and we need one set of rules for the entire internet ecosystem with one regulator and i think that individuals should have the right to opt in and give their explicit consent if they want to share their private or Sensitive Data and then opt out if they do not want the platform sharing their non Sensitive Data but i dont think platforms should be able to boot them off the platform if they say hey, im exercising my right to privacy. What i am learning is that there are many an industry that share that view that this light touch foundational privacy standard, as simple as i have just laid it out, but that is something that is a good thing to have and that basic federal standard and then if you want to increase it through the Financial Service sector you got something to build on. It would give the opportunity to clean up [inaudible], if you want to increase it through hepa which needs to be modernized so that it accommodates the Digital Imaging and telehealth and some of those newer arrivals and entrance into the marketplace, there again, you have a basic privacy standard. That is what we are hearing. On Data Security will be have found is that people would like to see a federal standard that exercises preemption so that when there is a data breach that people are notified within a prompt and given period of time and having that ftc with the ability to level penalties and then having enforcement capabilities when it comes to censorship and prioritization we have heard from some of the newer Start Companies how the Big Tech Companies really are pushing them out of our marketplace. An example of this would be with yelp where they are writing system and were being pushed aside and google was profiting their own Rating System and weve also heard from companies that do not advertise on google or one of the Search Engines and then when you do a search on a Google Search for their company they are way down at the bottom and you have people that are advertising with google that are preference at the top and people would like for that to be more organic and more specific to the search and the people are running or entering that search engine. We are also going to look at antitrust competition and look forward, i think that is something we would get into early next year. Last week we had a session on data portability to actually look at who owns your data and if you have the right to move that data, to transfer that da data, from one platform to another platform. Host senator, i dont mean to be trite but there seems to be political backlash against big tech. Guest i think what has happened as the Tech Companies have grown and really become basically a monopoly within a given field that you are seeing a push for more transparency in their operations more transparency into how they develop their algorithms and insight into how they go about exercising their preferences. One thing also that weve heard a good bit about is look, if these Tech Companies say we are the new modernday town square and the public forum then why is there not a cop on the beat that is making certain that they are rooting out terrorist activity or some of these videos that you will see or hear about online . People expect that type of accountability from these platforms. Likewise, some of the social media platforms that are beginning to distribute news and have a newsfeed, individuals want to see them have a news director so if they are passing on news that has been curated and not passing on rumors or innuendo. Senator, i wanted to ask a couple of those topics including antitrust which you mentioned smaller firms feeling squeezed out of the Online Market weve seen state attorneys general as well as the Justice Department and the ftc all launch into trust probes what you make of those efforts . Guest what you are seeing with these 50 states attorneys general launching a probe into google and also eight states into facebook this is in my opinion the way i see it is frustration by the consumers and the citizens in those states. The Small Businesses that feel as if they are being booted off the platforms and cannot draw people to their websites or their facebook is not being pushed forward or their limited in boosting a post. This is why you have the state going after them and why you are seeing the states go after facebook in this regard. It does not surprise me and i think that they feel if they have the right to move forward and indeed they do but they are bolstered a little bit because of the ftc and doj have been looking at the social media platforms in deed, facebook just paid a 5 milliondollar fine. Host senator, do share these frustrations . Guest of course i do. Everyone does. Im one of those individuals that was censored by twitter when i was in my senate campaign. They took down a video that i had put up will not let us boost it and the reason they felt like was inappropriate speech or inflammatory rhetoric i was talking about prolife. We were talking about leaving the select committee over in the house and theres nothing inflammatory about protecting life. Host from a conservative point of view you feel you been censored back. Guest indeed i was. Yes senator, in that regard have you seen evidence that that is a systemic issue across the social Media Companies . Guest we have so much evidence from individuals and from Smaller Companies about them pushed aside our disadvantage by large social Media Outlets and if there was a public forum or an information source we wanted to make certain its a fair and level playing field. You participated earlier this year on the white house summit bias and the president spoke about looking at regular tory Administrative Solutions to that issue. What movements have you seen from the white house on this . Guest the white house has been good on this issue. I appreciate the fact that they are moving slowly but very intentionally and working with us and the tech tax force is what is allowing those of us at Judiciary Committee to do a good educational deep dive on this to meet with some of the privacy officers and leadership around these tech platforms and hear firsthand from them what works and what doesnt work. Hearing from stakeholders and hearing from advocacy groups is how we will make certain we do this right the first time. What we do know is the American Consumer does not want gdp are and in europe and the eu with that heavyhanded approach you have seen some companies actually come out of the marketplace because of the cost of compliance and because of the intrusions into the compliance systems. We also know usbased companies that are looking at california are very hesitant when they are looking at the California Law that would go on the books next year. And they are very hesitant to do any expansion or they are yet to make a decision if they will stay into that marketplace. We do not want to disadvantage innovation and we do not want to disadvantage the u. S. Consumer. Host senator blackburn, did you a chance to meet with arcs like a bird and did the task force b2 you know, i talked with him before and i did not meet with him when he was here last week but im delighted that we are beginning to see some of these tech leaders, to the hill and i will spend some time in the near future out in Silicon Valley doing a series of meetings and have a little bit better insight into the backbone of some of these platforms and the way their algorithms are developed. Meeting hopefully with their engineers and developers and also the application of those algorithms on their sites. Host also, his Election Security part of a task force . Guest no, we are not looking at Election Security. That has not been something that was in the directive we were given when we started the task force but i think Election Security after the 2016 election is something weve looked at. Weve had hearings on it at commerce and touched on it and Armed Services and what we do know is this. For decades our enemies have tried to thwart or to wiggle their way into influencing u. S. Policy. This is not something new and i remember being a kid and hearing about what the russians wanted to do to us. And the way they were trying to tear us down from within and some of the ways they felt like a good exercise that. With the advent of the internet it just makes sense that those who do not wish us well are going to gravitate to that platform and try to use that to their advantage. Indeed, they did try what we do know is in 2016 they were not into any Voting System in any county or precinct in this country. They did not change one single vote but we do know that they have continued their campaign to implement or try to influence elections in trying to influence policy and look at the information that came out about vaccines and it was traced back to some of the russian websites. Working as a team with our government with some of these Internet Service providers and when we had these bad actors and thoughts that are in the system and once these websites and facebook pages lets get them taken down. Senator, i want to ask your opinion about whether the feather trade commission or federal Communications Commission should have more oversight of political speech online and ensure the platforms are politically neutral. Guest i think that as we talked about the issue of privacy what individuals have said is lets have one regulator and that regulator has traditionally been the federal trade commission and people feel that we should have that one regulator. Weve also when it comes to political speech we do not want to leverage anyones First Amendment rights. And their right to free speech. I may not agree with what someone says but i will certainly speak up to protect their rights to have their say and its important to do that. Host where are you when it comes to [inaudible] . Guest that is something that we know let me say it like this. With [inaudible] that is something that is putting out purple speech and that is one of these areas where an isp would be well served to review that and review the information that they are putting out. Senator, what changes, if any, would you like to see to the sections 230 which which of these inner companies from content their users post and liability from the content. Guest rightparenthesis section 230 has been there to actually serve as a safe harbor, as you very well know. What we want to do is protect those provisions for new entrants. We do not want to do away with it and make it impossible for new entrants to come into compliance or have it be something to keep them from trying to enter the marketplace. I think at this point we would be well served to have a review and a discussion of 230, maybe a hearing on 230 and what the update should be around it as the internet has matured. Large company like facebook or google, do they deserve those protections . Guest this is something that should be part of a broader discussion and having a hearing and doing the closer work on 230 and what an update should be i think its time for us to do that. Is part of the discussion do you think yourself and other lawmakers should look at 230 like issues like violent extremism or child expectation for these other issues with unsavory illegal content that we see online mac. Guest we had a hearing last week on extremism and we continued to look at how you deal with extremism and how you deal with the violent content that is there and also the sex trafficking that is taking place and that is an area as you may remember several years ago i led the push to get back page off the Google Search and this is one of the things that needs to happen to protect women and children and to thwart the sex trade prohibit them from using online to market these women and children. Also, several years ago we worked with the gaming Online Gaming industry and made certain that they began to do ratings so that you would have content that was ageappropriate and we have looked at this in our task force and will continue to do so. When you look at some of the apps snap or tender or some of these that yo