Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Communicators 20150922 : vimarsan

Point of viability. Who knows how many other abortionists do the same just more discreetly. Its past time to end this barbaric practice androtect it is past time to protect these innocent babies. I strongly support the unborn child protect and act and propose that my fellow senators do the same. This legislation will stop the legislation of abortion for i babies 20 weeks and older. People of i acknowledge that people of good will disagree about the wisdom and morality of the first term abortions. O what i am mystified as to why we cannot come together and agree to protect babies who can survive outside the womb. And and its not just me a large majority of the American People feel this way. The civilized world overwhelmingly rejects this kindountries of lateterm abortion. Ft only seven countries allow elective abortion after 20 commust weeks. Including communist communist dictatorships like china. Which conflict and forcedtrast, cou abortion and sterilization on franc people. By contrast, countries to our left like france and germany abortio heavily restrict or dan abortion after the first trimester. F and even russia bans elective abortion after the firsternation trimester. I where we shouldso be ashamed of e ourur international isolation. And these days it may seem like a miracle and i think that a miracle is called for now if it ever was. Coming up on cspan2, the communicators looks at personal Data Protection with two members of the federal trade commission. That conversation coming up. And later remarks by the outgoing labor secretary. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. On this program we talk about in with the federal Communications Commission but there is another federal agency and that is the federal trade commission and we are pleased to have two commissioners on the communicators this week. The only republican currently on the commission. This commission are there is the intersection between the sec when it comes to telecommunications issues. Well, the fcc is the primary Consumer Protection authority and we work closely with the fcc especially as it relates to telecommunications issues. And so for a number of years we have shared some areas of Consumer Protection jurisdiction. We have seen how this prevents us from having too much jurisdiction and im sure that it plans common carriers from her authority. The commissioner, one of the issues that is semisettled is the Net Neutrality issue something that the ftc had been involved in. How has your work changed. How have your rules changed since the fcc decided on Net Neutrality . Well, because there is still more to go the issue is the common carrier exemption. And that includes Broadband Internet service. [inaudible] and its also there are antitrust a authority and so i am personally very concerned that we may not be able to protect consumers as well because reclassification. Do you share that concern . Yes, i think this is an area of longtime bipartisan agreement. We really do view the common carrier exemption as an anachronism after those that are regulated for dual government authorities. Joining our conversation this week is brent. Thank you for having me. While we are on Net Neutrality can you just talk briefly and how this authority has clearly been displaced. And are there gray areas where its not entirely clear that they still have a role. Guest for example, we have litigation ongoing right now alleging that it misrepresentation of unfair practices involving unlimited wireless broadband service. Because that activity took place before the reclassified. But later we should have problems like this again with another provider and so would be a serious question that the provider of defense would be a common carrier and the authority is foreclosed. If you are engaged in the activity providing a broadband or Telecommunications Service with where our jurisdiction lies. But you are classified as a common carrier and so this is a practice putting unauthorized charges on mobile phone bills. And that we would continue to have jurisdiction in that kind of area so in theory we would still have a role. I would argue that, yes. And i think that we would view it the same way. That i would have a concern about this in the order reclassified. Lets open that they could reject edge providers that traditionally are not being considered as engaging in common carrier service. So that if the fcc ends up interpreting it Authority Even more probably, it can enhance even more. Host how does this affect the consumer . Is this a behind the scenes turf war . Or does this have real impact . Guest i think that it has real impact. One way is the fcc is primarily a Law Enforcement agency and not a regulator. And we have done a lot of this cramming, billing issues, and this agency has not traditionally put this roll up. And when they are dealing with this edge provider or isp ultimately they may not be protected in the same way and im not sure that they will be able to understand it. And i would add that there are some differences between the ftc the authority and the fcc. As was pointing out they are primarily a consumer enforcement agency. Guest the ftc recently won an important type case in federal Appeals Court involving the commission bringing several dozen cases against Companies Involved in data breaches that they didnt do basic things to protect consumer data. They obviously challenge the authority and said that the commission is going after the hackers themselves. And so they said we had asked her to speak about this case and then more generally. And how does the commission begin to began to decide where it gets involved, where do you look, where does the staff look, what is the kind of reach where the company is a victim through no fault of its own. And this is an area for us to get involved. Guest in the narrative, the basic authority to ask requiring reasonable Data Security requirements was upheld by the focus. And i think that the requirements have been undertaking reasonable precautions. If they have important consumer data data that could be financial harm or medical information, we have an obligation to safeguard that. Mentioning the idea that as a provider and a business if you leave a lot of risk that could harm consumers, you may be liable. So i think that that is what we are requiring is that a Company Needs to take reasonable precautions. And i dont think that people necessarily understand when there is a data breach that is not necessarily the fact that the ftc will go into this violation. Its not a strict liability. [inaudible] guest there are some gaps in jurisdiction and i think that we do. But as we have pointed out our standard is does this company practicing security by design as the ftc has articulated in this area. We start with security guidance and the initiative. And we rely upon technical Security Experts to evaluate this very quickly the procedures that are in place. Are these internal people that work for the commission . They are both, and im really excited that this commission we have actually expanded our technical resources. We are expanding our capacity to investigate and understand highly technical issues. Before we move on one interesting thought, the court recently said that surely by the time they have been asked multiple times we shouldve realized what is the problem. Which includes if you have been hacked just one time, conceivably could you get in hot water with the commission for having said that security. Yes, if you didnt take reasonable caution and it led to this and sometimes this can even be quite expensive. So some of the things that they have had actions against companies that fail to have a firewall those whose password was password. These are some very interesting things. And so if youre really not undertaking basic security hygiene. When there is a hacking case, as is the lead federal agency . Thats a really good question. I think that we are in important consumer agency, theres a number that we could be dealing with. There could be criminal components to it. And so i think the that includes what you would encounter at the federal level. I think that that is right. We mentioned some of what we have from the authority and insurance is another one. So some of the biggest hacks have recently been against Insurance Companies and the ftc would not be able to investigate. Because under this act Congress Said that we do not have authority. Why is there only one republican commissioner and three democrats. Well, the commission is bipartisan no more than three can be from the same political policy in the current administration. So you almost always going to have more of the commissioners and in the other. But republican recently resigned from the commission to return to academia. You foresee getting another commissioner soon . I think eventually, i think that congress has a lot on their plate, as im sure that we are all aware. And i understand that they have a lot of priorities. We have talked about Data Security on the privacy agenda and its focus here. We have talked about this recently with an introductory remark that she gave. Describe them as the nations chief privacy agency. I want to ask you how weve gone to this point. I know that they have this issue over unfair practices, is this entirely where this authority is derived from and you go out and meet with computer programmers and hackers and businesses Building Security into their applications and products. How did we get where we are back. The first privacy cases they actually went back to the late 90s when the internet first became sort of a consumer experience. The first case was in 1999. And i think that its a great example, the bipartisan continuity that we have at the ftc, this focus on Consumer Privacy on the internet really started back then. And each chair of the commission has continued to make it the focus of his or her enforcement and the policy research and the consumer education, so that we have established a great baseline of information and knowledge and expertise in this area and democrats have continued to build on it. Would you have conceived evolving in this way where you are basically the de facto Government Agency liaison on privacy issues . Well, its always hard to foresee, but i understood that the current leadership really saw the potential here and were very wise and invested a lot of resources to get out in front of that and continue to pay dividends for consumers. And just to back up, i think that the ftc plays an incredibly valuable role and even more so as we are increasingly digitizing our life and connecting more and more and turning back information for smart phones and things like that, but its important to remember that we have this sectorbased approach to privacy and laws that protect childrens information and financial information, Health Information and we have laws that protect educational records that are administered by the department of education. So we have had a sectorbased approach to privacy. So this is in all of this sort of unregulated space that is evolving very rapidly where innovation is occurring that impacts directly consumers and their privacy and information and that is where we use the authority to make sure that consumers are getting Accurate Information about how the data is being handled. Is the unfairness issue, is a clearly defined . Yes, i think its clearly defined by the cases. What would you like to see congress do when it comes to this . That is a great question. I would say a few things. First, i would like to see them really clarify data breach in security legislation and i think it would be very helpful. I would love to hear about this, there have been really interesting debates specifically in the privacy space about student data and right now there are about 21 different state laws and of course we have this discussion about a privacy bill of rights that has been going on and its a policy discussion that really is part of this. One of the issues that we are dealing with. Do you agree with that . We have been talking about some very interest and challenges in the u. S. Because we have a very irate history around the First Amendment and this is the issue of that kind of thing with what the rights ought to be and if you want to take down certain information. I would like to think about how we would approach this and have it erased from the Public Record. And i think that we have a different set of values. Talking about your first question on as far as congressional action, i believe that they do have a unanimous recommendation that they adopt including Data Security legislation and i think theres a patchwork of obligations that are problematic for consumers and businesses and i would like to see a uniform standard applied and i think you would have a wide range of benefits. I would also like to see a clarification of authority. It clarifies that the ftc will continue to have authority into some of these areas that are now put into question by that classification. Regarding the right to be forgotten, i have concerns about that. And so rather than trying to restrict peoples ability to know things which no information that has been out in the Public Record i would be more interested in seeing how can they use this to harm consumers. So we have the fair credit reporting act and that has been in place for a long time and its worked out well with credit information. To deny consumers or give consumers credit or housing or employment and so that is an area that i think that we should be thinking more about. How do we look at this and try to address that rather than trying to foreclose the ability for members of the Democratic Society where we have the First Amendment with information. In the privacy space there are main principles that the both of you agree on and theres areas that you do not. There was a company that helps retailers track as they come into the store is by using the wifi signals from their cell phones. And it promises to peoples to be offtrack. And so for the majority they offered something and it didnt actually follow through on that offer, and that is a problem. The commissioner i understand from your side, that you think this is the case that they should not have brought and its actually doing more and terms of giving consumers room to opt out. And that includes a company trying to do less that is more protected from the ftc enforcement action that they are trying to do more of. I am happy to go first. I do think that my objection based on prosecutorial discretion, this is a company that was not required to give us any notice because it was a dirt party selector of nonconsumer information. But it did try to give consumers notice and it did give them the ability to opt out of this Data Collection if consumers do not wish to have it occur. It also included that the retailers didnt offer this out. But what we did see is that consumers offered out at a fairly high rate compared to other opt out situations through the website. So it seems that consumers were able to exercise their choice. My concern is that by been imposing this approach where there was no indication that we made this representation to benefit, and what was going above and beyond what he needed to do that ultimately we would discourage companies from giving consumers Additional Information and additional choices and they could only be a downside for them. And we did hear that from a lot of sources. Sort of learning this from the case doing only the bare minimum in the vast majority of the cases that we bring in privacy Data Security bipartisan consensus, that is an important feature of how the commission does its work. But as you point out, we do disagree on it. And i think that what is interesting is that it cues up the gaps that many people are not really a aware exist. This is the technology that gathers Location Information off your mobile phone and your wearable devices and they are under no legal obligation to provide you with any notice that that is occurring and i think that many people dont understand that in their suppression of that is the case and i view it as a continuation of the ftc using its authority to protect consumers from representation and this is including a consumer acting reasonably part of this. And so i think as we have more and more of this technology in our homes and kitchens and bedrooms and in our daily lives, we really do need those promises about what parts of them. They dont have to give you any notice at all. They continue to opt out and it is that the company recognizing that some would be sensitive about this kind of information being gathered and we have required them to make promises to consumers that are accurate. You have focused some on encryption that consumers have available. And you mentioned among other things