Take on some new challenge. Of what, i have no idea yet, ive been so busy, but its been a great run are, and weve gotten a lot done, so im pleased with it. Host well, speaking of that, youre regarded as one of the Telecommunications Experts in the congress because of your background in radio and being on the enc committee. Whats your legacy in telecommunications . Guest you know, thanks, peter. I dont spend a lot of time on that sort of stuff, but i would tell you together the committee did great work opening up spectrum. And really positioning the united states, i think, to have the spectrum when it needed it to advance the new technologies as they come along. And i remember when we passed some of these laws, there were parts of the band that nobody thought had any value that today is like the highest value real estate. Really Young American minds develop new technologies and innovation. I think making sure they have access to spectrum is kind of like, you know, build it and they will come. So i think thats part of it. I think implementing the 911 commissions personal recommendations to make firstnet spectrum available was really important for the curt of our country. Security of our country. I think that was critical. We got through the whole broadcast transmission, certainly in terms of the repack and all pretty successfully. And i know theres more weve worked on, but those are some of the highlights, i think. Host well, to help us explore some of the unfinished issues is chris mills rodrigo of the hill. Hey, thanks for having me. I guess i wanted to start with some fairly big news that broke last night, obviously on twitter, there were several accounts that were compromised including former president barack obama, the presumptive nominee joe biden and i just wanted to get your thoughts, representative, on this hack and sort of what it speaks Going Forward for the security of platforms like twitter. Guest well, i think it, once again, you sort of start by i saying if it can happen to barack obama, among others, it can happen to any american anywhere, anytime. And i think weve become aware of that. We know that there are bad actors out there. Some may be kids in a basement, others may be russian intelligence services. You see those news reports today as well that theyve been hacking into our covid scientists and companies. Which is really despicable. But we know this goes on. It goes on by the chinese, it goes on by the russians, it goes on by the iranians expect north koreans, and you can go on down a long list. But it also speaks to the importance of making sure our Telecommunications Networks are as safe and secure as possible, and i know were going to get into some of that discussion, and that each of us does things to secure our own systems. I remember, i think it was the wanna cry attack they discovered that, you know, apartment of the problem in some part of the problem in some Health Care Organizations was they hadnt provided the updates to, i think it was windows 95 or something. You had to go way back. And it was just vulnerabilities in the system, things that could have been patched, should have been patched, werent patched. So its a big, long array of issues when it gets into cybersecurity, but the threats are real. Were all vulnerable, and we need to do more about it. Great, yeah. Its one of these Telecommunications Security questions. Earlier this week the [inaudible] decision on allowing huawei into its noncore 5g network. It seems like a big win for the united states. Its been actively pushing and campaigning for our allies to avoid using the Chinese Company for their networks. What are your thoughts on that . Guest im really pleased that the United Kingdom took that state. I was surprised they didnt do it sooner, frankly. I was in meetings at nay toe and with various european nato and various European Countries representatives in the last year where we had these discussions, and its sort of stunning to me knowing what we know and knowing they know what we know to a large extent that they arent doing more to secure their networks from potential malign activity. And so im glad that theyre making this decision, that theyve made this decision and theyre moving forward. We have work to do here. As you know, we have a rip and replace bill thats now law, signed by the president. We need to get that funded so that our Communications Networks here are safer and more secure. So it seems like one of the steps that weve taken to secure American Networks and to make them more [inaudible] is the u. S. Telecommunications act which was passed out of your committee yesterday which would promote a shift to open rand network, can you explain what that is for someone who isnt involved in the Telecommunications Industry . Guest well, ill do my best to not get too deep into the weeds, but bottom line is it allows other entrepreneurs to work in this platform and continue to develop new systems, basically. So its not just the hardwired piece of equipment, if you will. And i think it allows us to have more flexibility, more innovators and more ability to make sure that its dynamic and that we can develop a Communications Network and enhance improvement all the time. As opposed to having a piece of hardware in place that the owner can send you with an update, shall we say, to change. And that update might not be what you want in that system, but there you are, youre look locked in. So i think the concept makes sense Going Forward. Im glad we moved that legislation unanimously out of the committee, and i hope to see it become law. Do you see this as an opportunity for American Companies to maybe catch up might not be the right term, but sort of assert themselves in the space of 5g which has kind of been dominated by huawei e and other Chinese Companies so far . Guest youre right, chris. Coming out of the 08 meltdown economically around the world, thats when china really put its muscle behind huawei, because everything over there is a stateowned enterprise one way or another that flows back into their military structure and funding. They have the ability to come in, they steal the technology or they come up with it themselves, and then they can undercut the market. You know, i have people here in my own district say, yeah, but its good equipment, it works well and its so reasonably priced. Well, what a great way to infiltrate. And so i think Going Forward, the ability to get that out of the systems and i would say not only compete on 5g, but leapfrog to whatever we call the next iteration, 6g, i dont care, is where we need to focus because where america has always had an advantage is when weve been able to lead in the innovation of the next technology. If we lose that edge, then were beholden to somebody else, and right now that somebody else is basically china. And i dont think thats good given their, what theyve just done in hong kong, given, you know, their track record, everything we know about them. That thats a bad place for america and free societies to be, is beholden to chinese equipment and everything that goes along with that. Host congressman, youve mentioned 5g. We seem to have been on the cusp of getting into 5g. Are we still on the cusp . [laughter] guest thats a a good question, peter. Yeah, i think were still on the cusp. I think theyre making progress, you know . Theyve been moving rapidly. I would say that i think the merger with tmobile and sprint freed up spectrum and capital and all, and i know that company not to put them ahead of anybody else, but theyve really been aggressive about trying to move forward in this space especially in some of the rural areas, at t, vising, the others verizon, the others are as well. Look, its essential. But part of it was somewhat build it as you go, adopting the technology developing the technology, getting towers up. But, you know, where theyre doing it, it seems to be deploying and working, and now its just a matter of getting it built out. And theyll continue to refine and improve and enhance, i know that. But i want us to be in the lead. And by us, sure, itd be great if it were all American Companies, but at least lets make them our allies and friends companies as well. And so i think there are partnerships to be had here internationally, but certain seasonally domestically wed like to certainly, domestically wed like to move forward. Weve got some catchup to do in terms of making that spectrum fully available and understanding the importance of getting it out there and getting the buildout going. We still have our buildout through arcane, expensive overregulation by the federal government. Siting and approval permitting processes. Host congressman, just to piggyback on an earlier question by chris, what do you think the reputation of Silicon Valley is right now in washington . Guest i think its twofold. One is theres great admiration for the innovation and the brilliance that just pulses in Silicon Valley are. Ive been out there and toured a lot of the companies, met with a lot of the leaders, and gosh, its so exciting to see whats being developed and what the future holds. Ill be careful how say this, and ill probably offend somebody, but theres also an arrogance that comes with that incredible productivity and innovation that tends to downplay the effect that they have the on Public Policy and people who are engaged in Public Policy. Ill just say that when that good, youre that big, youre that strong, youre that innovative, sometimes you think you can discard sort of public reaction or political reaction. I was in a meeting with one of the ceos with a democrat friend and colleague of mine who said, you know, you basically dont have any friends on capitol hill anymore. The right thinks youre biased to the left, and the left thinks that, you know, youre whatever. And thats a bad place to be, and thaw dont have to be there. If they were more transparent, if they were more fort coming and if forthcoming and if consumers knew what was really going on and had more choice and im speaking principally to some of the privacy issues and content issues, and weve got some proposals on those fronts i think theyd be in a better place. But theyre new, theyre exciting, theyre rich, theyre powerful, and, you know, some every company that gets in that place ends up eventually running into a Political Organization called the congress that goes, now hold on here a second, you dont get free reign. There are laws and there is public opinion. Thats kind of where theyre at. Host chris mills rodrigo. Yeah, continuing the discussion of privacy. Obviously, during the coronavirus pandemic theres been a lot of questions about Technology Companies having access to more sensitive data, health information. I know that you and your colleagues in the energy and commerce meal and democrats as well have introduced kind of competing legislation related to coronavirus. Could you sort of give us a little bit of information about where youre at in that process and [inaudible] as of now . Guest yeah, chris, i e wish we were farther along, you know . Its always easy when you have been the chairman and now as i call it, chairman in exile permanently since im retiring, heres what i would have done. Privacy would have been something that senator ricker and i would have focused on early on. Of course, my party lost the majority, and i lost the gavel. We were hoping to get ahead of the california privacy laws taking effect and taking a look at what worked and didnt work there and same with gdpr. And youve got the whole european issue now, as you know, on privacy. America should lead in this space. We should set a strong Privacy Protection for consumer law on the books. The longer we wait, the more other governments including the states, let alone foreign governments are going to meander around in a space, and youre going to have all this patchwork of competing requirements. And if america head in this space, as we should, as we should have, then we can help set International Standards that protect privacy and protect freedom of speech and really empower our American Companies to lean back and say, hey, i got what you want me to do, but im an american company. If i do that, im in violation of american law so, therefore, i cant do this. It would empower those executives and those teams to bring our have vision of freedom of speech and protection into other areas where that just simply doesnt exist. So we should have moved forward. I think weve had one hearing on privacy in this congress, and were basically at the end of this congress weve lost two years. And unfortunately now you have more and more patchworks, pretty hard to go back. And at the end of the day, a lot of it has to do with private right of action, the trial bar and all of that. I mean, thats a tumbling block on our Autonomous Vehicle legislation which, as you know, we passed in the house when i was chairman unanimously, and nothing moved in this congress. We ought to be leading on that. What do you think an Autonomous Vehicle really is . Its a computer on four wheels. It will be a datasharing device that takes you to a location. But along the way, its going to be accumulating data back and forth. Who do you want to set those standards and build that equipment . The united states. Or china . Id like the u. S. To lead in that. So wed all, you know, its kind of interesting, you think about the telecom act and some of those laws that were written in the 90s, everything was siloed, everybody stayed in their own business, and one of that exists today. So theres a broad need for updating our laws in all of these spaces. Great. I think, yeah, you sort of mentioned the area i want to get to next which is Autonomous Vehicles. It e seems like during a pandemic would be the ideal time to [inaudible] ability to transport people without exposing themselves. This is an area you mentioned your committees been working on for years. What step in the process are you now . Guest well [laughter] there you go, not very far down the road. Again, weve run into the liability issue and the trial lawyers. And we had that worked out in the house bill we passed two years ago. And again it was done unanimously. And there are ways to work through that, i think, its just nothing seems to be moving. Its really, really frustrating. And to your point, chris, during covid ive forgotten where it was, but there was a hospital that was using basically unattended vehicle capabilities, robot capabilities to move samples from wherever they were taking them from people being tested to wherever the test was being evaluated so you didnt have a human in that chain. Boy, you think about the future that lies ahead with Autonomous Vehicle technology to save lives from accidents by preventing them, by transporting people who cant otherwise or shouldnt otherwise drive themselves, theres a whole host of incredible things coming down the pike. Again, if we had a national law to do like we had in our bill a couple years ago, wed be leading in the u. S. I fear were going the lose this innovation edge if we dont have a National Standard. And the administrations tried. Ive worked with secretary chao and the president and others on this. Theyre doing what they can legislate or through the regulatory process. But theres only so much they can do there moving forward. We could do a lot more legislatively. You sent a letter to the industry asking for input on [inaudible] in may. What was the response like for that . Guest well, they gave us some good response back. I mean, you know, look, we want the vehicles themselves, you want to regulate how fast you go. Theres certain things statements can do, right in states can do, right . But what they want is the ability to do the testing and the ability to have enough vehicles to really get them out there and test them and have standards in place that we would have nhtsa and others set. You know, theyre looking for basic federal standardization so they can build to whatever that standard is. And so i think you see that in the proposals weve put forward to give them that framework. Thats really what innovators need. Give us the rules of the road and let are us go. Right now there are literally no rules of the road here that work for them in a meaningful way. [inaudible] go ahead, chris. Have you been seeing the lack of a federal law sort of stunt the development of these actual companies in technology . Guest well, you know, its always hard to say what would have happened if you didnt have Something Else and point to the essence of it. I think that the short answer is, yes. Its not that theyre not working on the technology itself, its about the deployment and all of that and where they can really drive forward and test more rapidly. And i think youre starting to see that happen more in other countries than here right now. But, again, youre not going to hold back american ingenuity, innovation and genius. Theyll continue trying to tinker and and toy and make things work. Its just we ought to have a streamlined process, we ought to have everybody understand, as i said, the rules of the add road here of the road here and our Autonomous Vehicle act would do that, drive act. Theres still a chance to get something done there. Kathy Morris Rodgers has been working on that but, gosh, were almost done with a twoyear process, and we passed this two, i think it was two years ago in july out of the house unanimously. So the frameworks there. To me, that would have been one i would have said, okay, lets go and get that going as soon as the new Congress Starts and then and remember, part of the fight was over heavy trucks. We didnt have jurisdiction over