Whats next . Guest well those hearings i think were very helpful at educating members of the committee and other members of congress and the general public about the importance of this issue. Interestingly we have already scheduled a hearing on encryption before the apple fbi controversy broke out to the publics attention and we were right thing pleased with the presentation made by all of the witnesses at the hearing but i think the number one thing that comes across is encryption is a good thing and a very important thing and we have got to find our way through this not be weakening encryption but by continuing effort to strengthen it and you only need to look at the problems that we have had with foreign governments, with criminal enterprise, with hackers stealing millions of documents from Government Agencies and alleys of credit card records from retail establishments, financial establishments to know that we need to be moving toward stronger uses of encryption and stronger encryption itself so that has got to be the Foundation Upon which we look at this. Having said that its also important to recognize the problems that this everincreasing use of what is called endtoend encryption causes Law Enforcement as an attempt to solve crimes, prevent crimes and keep us safe. So, we are going to continue to work in that direction and as we do so we will recognize this is not an issue of safety versus privacy as some people have tried to characterize it but a matter of safety versus safety and privacy because encryption is a tool used to keep people safe and the information about them safe, keep their property safe and therefore needs to be a critical part of how we move forward. The Judiciary Committee has long played a role in dealing with these issues from both a technology standpoint and from the Law Enforcement standpoint and we will continue to do that. The energy and Commerce Committee also has a keen interest in this so we are going to work in a collaborative effort both between the two communities and a very bipartisan fashion to continue to develop the solutions that will help to make sure that Law Enforcement has ways to be able to gather the information they need to keep people safe. Part of that is going to be Law Enforcement having to find new ways to approach gathering information and utilizing more traditional ways of gathering information because i do think that over the last few decades the reliance upon electronic information gathering has probably grown too great, and their reaction to that has been an awareness on the part of the public that unlike 20 or 30 years ago their most valuable information is now on these devices and in the cloud if you will whereas back a generation ago they were involved, safe deposit boxes, file cabinets or just maybe in your desk drawers at home. The public is very aware of the fact that these are important things to protect and thats going to continue and we should not discourage that continuing. If you simply allow Law Enforcement to under any circumstance have a backdoor into everyones computer that backdoor can be entered by all those other bad actors as well as by Law Enforcement raid thats the number one concern. Host are you saying a growing consensus in the congress for legislation . Guest i think theres growing interest in the congress for legislation but i dont think yet it is at all clear what that legislation would be. So i think its important for us to work on this, to work on it fairly and expeditiously but also with the recognition that we shouldnt jump at the first possible alternative than the congress itself should work on this and the important committees of jurisdiction should work on this and i dont believe we should turn it over to an outside commission as has been proposed by some. This is our responsibility. We have the expertise, we have the access to the advice from the outside and we need to get both public hearings and classified briefings and i think we ought to proceed to do that. Host lets bring in k. Who covers technology for the publication. Guest you announce youre going to bring announce the email privacy act which would require Law Enforcement to get access of emails. You express some concerns that the bill if written could hinder several agencies ability to get investigations. Are you planning to change the bill at all to go through committee . There have been a number of concerns expressed about the language in the bill so let me start by saying that the core concept of this bill i have always strongly enforced and that is that we should have to get a warrant in order to get information from a third party that may be Holding Information just like what we just spoke about that belongs to someone else. Now the bill in its current form will make that difficult if not impossible for agencies that do not have criminal warrant authority, the fbi and dea and organizations like that are empowered to conduct criminal best occasions they get warrants but if you are civil agency that built index investigations then you have a problem that we have a lot of discussions with a lot of people about alternative ways to handle it but that is only one of a number of other issues in the bill which was not written by the Judiciary Committee or even any member of the Judiciary Committee and therefore those discussions are going on now both amongst the Committee Members and with others to find ways to fix a number of concerns in this bill without changing the core concept of the bill which as i say i support the old method of requiring to meet one standard if the email is of a certain age and if another standard it is another age. We think thats a standard by the boards and a warrant to get information from these third parties but there are a lot of fixes to the bill that we think are necessary and thats why we are holding markup and having a good discussion about how to do that or even whether to do it. Guest do you think theres growing concern cracks. Guest there are many members on both sides out that the knowledge there needs to be some changes but which changes and under what language is best . Guest wanted to shift a little bit to the issue of on line sales tax which is something you have been debating for a long time in congress. The senate has teed off this sales tax debate earlier when they passed the cousin joe which included your permanent moratorium on taxing Internet Access and for a long time that obviously didnt tied with the senate. Guest and moratorium by nature is not guest Republican Leadership in the senate committed to debating it. You have obviously proposed different, different way to tackle this issue. Now theres this pressure in the senate if youre planning on taking up their bill or you are still pushing their bill or you are a third party like representative chaffetz bill youre looking at . Guest we will not be taken up the senate bill. We are interested in working with any senators who wish to help us address this issue because again this is an issue where we think it should be addressed both from the standpoint of states needing and being entitled to the revenue that comes from on line sales but also from the standpoint of fairness amongst various types of retailers, brickandmortar retailers always have a physical presence whatever state they are doing business in and they have to collect the sales tax. If the customer goes out of the state of mind to business elsewhere they may or may not ve to collect the sales tax and whether that business is a nexus with my state of virginia or whatever state the sail is taking place in. We think it should be addressed. We set forth quite a long time ago several principles which are available on the house Judiciary Committees web site that we think any legislation to should have to meet and we dont feel the Senate Legislation and this is not new. They have been working on the Senate Passed the bill and the last congress and on a number of occasions thereve been attempts to tie that to other legislation but have been unsuccessful. We would like to work with anyone who is concerned about making sure that we dont set a precedent for allowing the state to reach out and regulate businesses outside of their jurisdiction and thats what they feel the senate bill does. It requires businesses to comply with all of the rules in all the states and all of the subdivisions of those states that may have different addon taxes in different localities. I think there is a much simpler way to do this but more importantly than that is we believe theres a way to do this without having any state give the authority to regulate businesses outside of their jurisdiction. We have looked closely at the trend we are seeing with the number of states attempting to expand their regulatory and taxing powers by shifting the test for this from what the Supreme Court set forth in a long series of cases including the quill decision and basing it on physical miss. They would like to move that to what is called economic sophie have any kind of Economic Activities that might have an impact and that state want to say well im going to regulate your business they should have the right to do that exist those businesses are not represented in their state legislature. They are represented in their own state legislature so we put forward a plan for how to do it in an alternative way. Its gotten good reviews from Technology Companies and from on line businesses, from taxpayer organizations and from conservative groups that we are still very open to having discussions with the state to work this out. I frankly felt when this issue for started coming up more than two decades ago that the state would Work Together and form a compact where they would find a way to share the revenue without having the congress having to give them the authority to regulate business outside of their jurisdiction and they come to the congress and they have to vote to flip the switch. 20 to 25 states have engaged in discussions with a lot of states including big key states have not been so thats why this has come back to the congress with you fix fix it for us but fix fn a way that we like. I think we should fix fix it fie should fix fix it in a way that protects the american taxpayer and protects the American Consumer and protect our Economic System thats built upon having businesses be able easily to do business across boundaries without being regulated by a multitude of different states. You see this not just a sales tax issue but california right has regulate in the production of eggs by telling the fata and you talk and in a state that wants to ship eggs into california if you want to sell eggs in our state you got to raise the chickens and eggs in a way that meets our regulations. All 50 states decided to get into that and had regulation that doesnt make sense. Thats why we have the Commerce Clause and its why we must make sure that as we try to follow the states we dont do it in such a way that it gives states the ability to regulate their states. Host chairman goodlatte is cochair of the congressional internet caucus and another issue thats important is immigration h1b visas. Whats your thinking on this this in the news and the political news . First of all any immigration in the country should be founded on the couple of principles. One that its fair to American Workers and second that encourages the education of americans said they can get as many of these jobs as possible but also to recognize there are certain areas in our economy where there are shortages of workers and where if you dont meet the shortages you run the risk of businesses locating their entire enterprise in canada come in europe anywhere in the world china india and forever so it makes sense to make sure that companies are able to get the workers they need in order to maintain their Business Operations in the United States. The Hp One Program which has existed for a long time is an important program. Its in need of reform and in the last congress would pass on the house Judiciary Committee legislation that reforms h1b program and similar legislation will be introduced again in their future this congress most likely by congressman darrell i so who is the congress the author of that and we look forward to examining that very closely to make sure that we are doing everything we can to encourage Economic Growth and our connie in the Hp One Program done properly does just that so thats where we are on the issue many people have been extremely disappointed with the president s lack of enforced maneuver immigration laws and therefore the committee has also spent a lot of time on enforcement legislation and i would say that most people in the public want to see those enforcement measures and want to see a president enforce immigration laws before they see action taken on Legal Immigration matters he caused the fact of the matter is if you dont trust the enforcement of the lie law you are going to be very worried that your job is at stake with the government not protecting you from unfair competition by people simply entering the country, not just acrosstheboard but entering the country legally through visas and simply overstaying. So this is a situation where the United States is a nation but we are also nation of laws and if we are going to have a successful economy in the future we are going to have to have respect for the rule of law and thats not occurring under the leadership of the Current Administration and i think that lack of effort in that regard makes it more difficult to pass legislation that is needed addressing some are reforms by Legal Immigration programs so we do the enforcement for first. Host we have talked about three issues in potential legislation. Its an election year. Is it going to happen . Guest i would say that there is always the possibility of these things happening when you have bipartisan efforts to do so. I think for example we were talking about the issue related to Internet Sales tax collection that issue is one thats when we have the right solution that will be the right time to move and i dont think the political environment will play a major role in that. Immigration is a very hotly contested controversial issue and until we address the enforcement issues first its going to be difficult to address some of the other things that i certainly acknowledge need to be addressed in the process. With regard to ask the at a pub that is a bill that has more cosponsors than any bill in the house right now, over 300 so i think again if we find the right solution to that, that has every prospect of passing the house. I hesitate to speak for the United States senate on any of these issues but before policy because lott also has the past. Guest another privacy issue that is on everyones mind is private reform because certain are expired at the end are expired at the end of any kickstarted the consideration of reform in your committee. What changes do you see being made to that authority and this is going to come down to the wire . Guest well at may. It didnt come down to the wire in the house. Fact we have been working on it for a long time and we passed it in a timely fashion. The Senate Leadership did not agree with the legislation passed by the house but they could not come up with any alternative that came even close to getting majority support much less the 60 votes to cut off debate so they were forced to take the hospital put on the floor but when they did that it passed the senate with a very strong bipartisan vote so again i dont want to predict what will happen with the senate but in the house we dont want to get up against a deadline so we are hard at work on that. I wouldnt want to predict at this point what changes need to be made. We are still in the process of learning what the impact of making changes would have on the ability to gather intelligence regarding foreign nationals who could be a threat to United States. Thats obviously a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is designed to gather information to keep us safe. When you gather information about foreign nationals it intersects with u. S. Semacode with someone outside the country and therefore you have this pay close attention to making sure the Citizens Rights are properly protected under any laws that we pass because they are entitled to be productive protected and should be protected as provided in our bill of rights. So i look forward to continuing to work on that reagan made a commitment at the time we did usa freedom act which ended the governments mass metadata collection not just for telephone metadata but any kind of metadata and not just under that particular section of the patriot act but under whole host of different government statue so i think that was well handled and an enhanced or National Security and u. S. Citizens privacy. We have to handle the same one. Guest another judiciary issue that i know we have been following closely is patent reform. There hasnt been any floor action since your committee and the senate Judiciary Committee passed a sweeping patent reform bill last year they think there is some sense of worry and the <