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2 episodes with senate commerce
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2 episodes with senate commerce
Senators continue to work on changes to a reconciliation bill. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee unveils its budget reconciliation proposal. And House appropriators try to finalize their topline spending numbers. David Higgins has your CQ Morning Briefing for Friday, June 6, 2025.
Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announces a reorganization and downsizing of his department, calling the current setup a “sprawling bureaucracy; President Donald Trump & Attorney General Pam Bondi announce the arrest in Virginia of a top leader of the MS-13 gang, who they say is an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador; Secretary of State Marco Rubio is asked about a Tufts University graduate student from Turkey in the U.S. with a student visa who was detained in Boston for allegedly for supporting Hamas; President Trump withdraws the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations over concerns about the super-thin House Republican majority and the need for every vote in upcoming legislative battles; President Trump's announcement a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and auto parts is being criticized by virtually every foreign leader. We will talk about it with Brett Samuels. (38) The Hill's White House report; Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee holds a hearing on the investigation of the midair deadly collision near Reagan National Airport between a commercial plane and Army helicopter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- ICYMI: Yesterday's post-presser commentary from Ashe & Gordon, while we wait for government to start - DOGE: Ways and Means Committee reviews resolutions on government access to finances, Social Security - President Trump welcomes Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin - CONTINUED: Ways and Means Committee reviews resolutions on government access to finances, Social Security - President Trump's Bilateral Meeting with the Taoiseach of Ireland, Irish PM Michael Martin - CONTINUED: Ways and Means Committee reviews resolutions on government access to finances, Social Security - President Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin speak at the White House Luncheon - President Trump speaks at the Business Round Table (from 3.11.25) - Senate Commerce, Science, and Technology Committee on Subpoenas - Commentary from Ashe in America - House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Hearing "Regularity Harm or Harmonization? Examining the Opportunity to Improve the Cyber Regulatory Regime" - House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee: Conflict and Persecution in Nigeria
Matthew Pearl, director of the CSIS Strategic Technologies Program, joins the podcast to discuss all things spectrum, including his recent testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on spectrum policy, how spectrum impacts our national security, actions that Congress and the administration can take to restore U.S spectrum leadership, spectrum's impact on AI innovation, and more. Read or watch Matthew Pearl's recent congressional testimony on spectrum: https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-spectrum-auction-delays-give-china-edge-and-cost-us-jobs
Producer and director Julia Thompson takes on a 48-hour challenge to track down and interview someone who witnessed the iconic September 19, 1985 Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing where Twisted Sister's Dee Snider, Frank Zappa, and John Denver defended their lyrics before Congress and the PMRC. This episode features interviews with: Larry Stein Mark Weiss Chuck Eddie Kembrew McLeod CREDITS 'You Had To Be There' is a Hi Barr production. Created by Hi Barr. 'Parental Advisory: Frank Zappa, John Denver, & Dee Snider vs. the PMRC' was written and hosted by Julia Thompson. Produced by Julia Thompson and Web Barr. Edited by Julia Thompson. Edit, Sound Mix, and engineering by Vishal Nayak. Original score by Teeny Lieberson. Artwork created by Dylan Lathrop. Special thanks to our parents, friends and chosen family. And most importantly, thank you to the artists who've inspired us because they had to do it. WANT MORE FROM HI BARR?! Sign up to receive our newsletter. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. For business inquiries, please email: contact@hibarrmedia.com. Were you at one of the events covered on the show? If so, we'd love to talk! Please get in touch via email and/or social media channels like Instagram or X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Subscribe to Unchained's new regulatory newsletter Unregulated. With the presidential race in the spotlight, it's easy to overlook the powerful role that Congress could play in shaping crypto policy in the coming years. From committee chairs to legislative allies, crypto advocates are keenly focused on the outcome of key Congressional races. Kristin Smith of the Blockchain Association and Alex Grieve of Paradigm join us today to break down which races and committees are critical for crypto, why the industry is more visible in Washington than ever, and what the chances are for lame duck legislation this year. Read more: How Congressional Committee Leadership Could Shake Out for Crypto This Election Show highlights: Why this election is “incredibly important” for crypto How the presence of Fairshake is increasingly noticed by Washington Why some committees are more important than others for the industry Why the Senate Banking Committee is key Whether Alex and Kristin are concerned about Sen. Warren becoming chair of the Senate Banking Committee What could happen to the House Financial Services Committee Who is likely to take on both of the Agricultural Committees, which is in charge of the CFTC How the Senate Commerce affects the crypto industry How the members of the House Energy Committee don't have a strong stance on crypto What the stance of the Finance Committee on crypto is Why there is an opportunity in the House Ways and Means Committee Whether crypto tax legislation is in the works Who could be the SEC Chair under a Trump or Harris presidency Who could be the next Chair of the CFTC Whether Yellen will be replaced on Treasury, with many pro-crypto options on tap Why the Federal Reserve matters much more if they get to regulate stablecoins What the odds are for crypto legislation being passed this year Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Polkadot Mantle Robinhood & Arbitrum Guests: Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association Kristin's Op-ed on Unchained: In the Ongoing SAB 121 Fight, Here's How Crypto Can Move Forward With Bipartisan Support Previous appearances on Unchained: Kristin Smith on Why Crypto Legislation Could Be Passed by Year's End Can Crypto Be a Force in the Midterms? Yes, Say Kristin Smith and Jake Chervinsky What the Crypto Industry Could See Under a Biden Administration Alexander Grieve, VP of Government Affairs at Paradigm Links Previous coverage of Unchained on the elections: With Rate Cuts and Upcoming Elections, What's the Best Play in Crypto? Why Congressman Ro Khanna Is Hopeful the Democratic Party Will Embrace Crypto Why Gary Gensler Will Likely Be Out as SEC Chair No Matter Who Wins the Election Congressman French Hill on Crypto and His Top Pick for the Next SEC Chair Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:55 Why this election is pivotal for crypto 04:50 How Fairshake's presence is catching Washington's eye 16:39 Which committees matter most for crypto? 22:49 Why the Senate Banking Committee is crucial 28:54 Concerns about Sen. Warren as potential chair? 38:15 Possible shifts in the House Financial Services Committee 41:47 Who could control the Agricultural Committees and CFTC oversight? 47:35 How the Senate Commerce Committee impacts crypto 51:04 House Energy Committee's stance on crypto 53:21 Finance Committee's crypto perspective 55:03 Opportunities in the House Ways and Means Committee 57:28 Is crypto tax legislation in the works? 1:01:23 Potential SEC Chairs under Trump or Harris 1:03:57 Who could be the next CFTC Chair? 1:05:46 Will Yellen be replaced with a pro-crypto Treasury option? 1:08:06 Why the Fed's role could be pivotal for stablecoin regulation 1:10:46 Odds of crypto legislation passing this year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Subscribe to Unchained's new regulatory newsletter Unregulated. With the presidential race in the spotlight, it's easy to overlook the powerful role that Congress could play in shaping crypto policy in the coming years. From committee chairs to legislative allies, crypto advocates are keenly focused on the outcome of key Congressional races. Kristin Smith of the Blockchain Association and Alex Grieve of Paradigm join us today to break down which races and committees are critical for crypto, why the industry is more visible in Washington than ever, and what the chances are for lame duck legislation this year. Read more: How Congressional Committee Leadership Could Shake Out for Crypto This Election Show highlights: Why this election is “incredibly important” for crypto How the presence of Fairshake is increasingly noticed by Washington Why some committees are more important than others for the industry Why the Senate Banking Committee is key Whether Alex and Kristin are concerned about Sen. Warren becoming chair of the Senate Banking Committee What could happen to the House Financial Services Committee Who is likely to take on both of the Agricultural Committees, which is in charge of the CFTC How the Senate Commerce affects the crypto industry How the members of the House Energy Committee don't have a strong stance on crypto What the stance of the Finance Committee on crypto is Why there is an opportunity in the House Ways and Means Committee Whether crypto tax legislation is in the works Who could be the SEC Chair under a Trump or Harris presidency Who could be the next Chair of the CFTC Whether Yellen will be replaced on Treasury, with many pro-crypto options on tap Why the Federal Reserve matters much more if they get to regulate stablecoins What the odds are for crypto legislation being passed this year Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Polkadot Mantle Robinhood & Arbitrum Guests: Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association Kristin's Op-ed on Unchained: In the Ongoing SAB 121 Fight, Here's How Crypto Can Move Forward With Bipartisan Support Previous appearances on Unchained: Kristin Smith on Why Crypto Legislation Could Be Passed by Year's End Can Crypto Be a Force in the Midterms? Yes, Say Kristin Smith and Jake Chervinsky What the Crypto Industry Could See Under a Biden Administration Alexander Grieve, VP of Government Affairs at Paradigm Links Previous coverage of Unchained on the elections: With Rate Cuts and Upcoming Elections, What's the Best Play in Crypto? Why Congressman Ro Khanna Is Hopeful the Democratic Party Will Embrace Crypto Why Gary Gensler Will Likely Be Out as SEC Chair No Matter Who Wins the Election Congressman French Hill on Crypto and His Top Pick for the Next SEC Chair Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:55 Why this election is pivotal for crypto 04:50 How Fairshake's presence is catching Washington's eye 16:39 Which committees matter most for crypto? 22:49 Why the Senate Banking Committee is crucial 28:54 Concerns about Sen. Warren as potential chair? 38:15 Possible shifts in the House Financial Services Committee 41:47 Who could control the Agricultural Committees and CFTC oversight? 47:35 How the Senate Commerce Committee impacts crypto 51:04 House Energy Committee's stance on crypto 53:21 Finance Committee's crypto perspective 55:03 Opportunities in the House Ways and Means Committee 57:28 Is crypto tax legislation in the works? 1:01:23 Potential SEC Chairs under Trump or Harris 1:03:57 Who could be the next CFTC Chair? 1:05:46 Will Yellen be replaced with a pro-crypto Treasury option? 1:08:06 Why the Fed's role could be pivotal for stablecoin regulation 1:10:46 Odds of crypto legislation passing this year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Amid concerns about U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Technology Committee advanced several AI-focused bipartisan bills on Wednesday. However, fault lines emerged, signaling potential growing tension between the parties. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who chairs the committee, highlighted the global stakes for AI development, noting that the technology could increase U.S. GDP growth by $1.2 trillion to $3.8 trillion per decade, while China and other countries invest heavily to gain economic and national security advantages. Cantwell emphasized the importance of public-private partnerships to drive innovation. The committee advanced nine AI bills, including the Future of AI Innovation Act, the CREATE AI Act, the NSF AI Education Act, the VET AI Act, and the TEST AI Act. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, criticized the bills, arguing they would over-regulate the U.S. AI industry and stifle innovation, enabling other countries, namely China, to take the lead. Cruz's amendment to eliminate President Joe Biden's executive order on AI was voted down, but he stressed that repealing it is a part of the Republican platform. In other news, the Pentagon's Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) has introduced a new role focused on management and business operations. Julie Cruz, a longtime strategic planner and military workforce expert, has been selected as the CDAO's new director of business operations, making her the first to hold this title. A CDAO spokesperson explained that this position is a maturation of the previous “resource management” role and is part of a broader effort to institutionalize good governance processes. Promoted to the Senior Executive Service in June, Cruz's responsibilities include overseeing HR, internal contracting, resourcing, and key mission support functions such as space planning, IT, and records management. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
Yesterday, the HEALTH CARE un-covered Newsletter arrived in my inbox, sporting the headline "Fifteen Years Ago Today I Became a Whistleblower". It was from Wendell Potter who remains a hero to all of us in the US, whether you know it or not. I was fortunate to first interview Wendell on Air America Radio in August of 2009, just two months after he testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, pulling back the curtain from around the industry for which he carried water and covered up unethical practices. A few months later, he would testify before the House and became the most important voice for the masses, just as then president Obama was helping to push through the first health care industry reforms in decades. Fifteen years ago. And though things are better for us mere mortals who will, at some point, need medical care, we're still fighting nefarious forces in the health insurance and so-called health care industries as well as in government. And Wendell continues to fight for us. Wendell Potter has been a frequent guest on this program since that first appearance 15 years ago and I'm proud to consider him a friend. I invited him back to today to talk about the problems we're still faced with and to thank him, again, for standing up for us. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nicolesandler/message
Ralph is joined by Tim Judson from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (N.I.R.S.) to discuss the growing support for nuclear power in Congress, and the persistent myths that fuel nuclear advocates' false hopes for a nuclear future. Then, Ralph pays tribute to Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who died unexpectedly this week in the middle of giving his deposition for a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against Boeing. Plus, Ralph answers some of your audience feedback from last week's interview with Barbara McQuade. Tim Judson is Executive Director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (N.I.R.S.). Mr. Judson leads N.I.R.S.' work on nuclear reactor and climate change issues, and has written a series of reports on nuclear bailouts and sustainable energy. He is Chair of the Board of Citizens Awareness Network, one of the lead organizations in the successful campaign to close the Vermont Yankee reactor, and co-founder of Alliance for a Green Economy in New York.Listeners should know that this very complex system called the nuclear fuel cycle—that starts with uranium mines out west piling up radioactive tailings, which have exposed people downwind to radioactive hazards…And then they have to enrich the uranium—and that is often done by burning coal, which pollutes the air and contributes to climate disruption. And then they have to fabricate the fuel rods and build the nuclear plants. And then they have to make sure that these nuclear plants are secure against sabotage. And then you have the problem of transporting—by trucks or rail—radioactive waste to some depositories that don't exist. And they have to go through towns, cities, and villages. And what is all this for? It's to boil water. Ralph NaderIn 2021 and 2022, when the big infrastructure bills— the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act—were being passed by Congress, the utility industry spent $192 million on federal lobbying in those two years. That's more than the oil industry spent in those two years on lobbying. These are the utility companies that are present in every community around the country. And their business is actually less in selling electricity and natural gas, and more in lobbying state and federal governments to get their rates approved…The utility industry (and the nuclear industry as a subset of that) have been lobbying Congress relentlessly for years to protect what they've got.Tim JudsonFusion is one of these technologies that's always been 30 years away. Whenever there's an announcement about an advancement in fusion research, it's still “going to be 30 years before we get a reactor going.” Now there's a lot more hype, and these tech investors are putting money into fusion with the promise that they're going to have a reactor online in a few years. But there's no track record to suggest that that's going to happen. It keeps the dream of nuclear alive— “We could have infinite amounts of clean energy for the future.” It sounds too good to be true. It's always proven to be too good to be true.Tim JudsonOne of the lines that they're using to promote theAtomic Energy Advancement Act and all of these investments in nuclear… is that we can't let Russia and China be the ones that are expanding nuclear energy worldwide. It's got to be the US that does it.Tim JudsonIn Case You Haven't Heard with Francesco DeSantisNews 3/12/241. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, has released a report claiming that “employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention [were] pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the October 7 attacks,” per the Times of Israel. These supposed admissions of guilt led to the United States and many European countries cutting off or delaying aid to the agency. The unpublished report alleges that UNRWA staffers were “detained by the Israeli army, and…experienced…severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.” The report goes on to say “In addition to the alleged abuse endured by UNRWA staff members, Palestinian detainees more broadly described allegations of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, threats, dog attacks, sexual violence, and deaths of detainees denied medical treatment.”2. Continuing the genocidal assault on Gaza, Israel has been bombing the densely populated city of Rafah in the South. Domestically, this seems to be too far for even Biden's closest allies, with the AP reporting just before the assault that “[Senator Chris] Coons…of Delaware, called for the U.S. to cut military aid to Israel if Netanyahu goes ahead with a threatened offensive on the southern city of Rafah without significant provisions to protect the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there. [And Senator] Jack Reed, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, appealed to Biden to deploy the U.S. Navy to get humanitarian aid to Gaza. Biden ally Sen. Tim Kaine challenged the U.S. strikes on the Houthis as unlikely to stop the Red Sea attacks. And the most senior Democrat in the Senate [Patty Murray of Washington] called for Israel to ‘change course.'” Hewing to these voices within his party, President Biden declared that an invasion of Rafah would be a “red line.” Yet POLTICO reports that Israeli PM Netanyahu “says he intends to press ahead with an invasion.” POLTICO now reports that Biden is threatening to condition military aid to Israel in response to Netanyahu's defiance, but it remains to be seen whether the president will follow through on this threat.3. POLITICO also reports that CIA Director Bill Burns is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying “The reality is that there are children who are starving…They're malnourished as a result of the fact that humanitarian assistance can't get to them. It's very difficult to distribute humanitarian assistance effectively unless you have a ceasefire.” This is obviously correct, and illustrates how out of touch the Democratic Party is that they are getting outflanked on peace issues by the literal director of the CIA.4. Whether unwilling – or unable – to change course on Gaza, President Biden is paying the electoral price. In last week's Super Tuesday primaries, the Nation reports “Uncommitted” won 19 percent of the vote and 11 delegates in Minnesota, 29 percent and seven delegates in Hawaii, and 12.7 percent in North Carolina. This week, the New York Times reports Uncommitted took 7.5% – nearly 50,000 votes – in Washington State. Biden also lost the caucus in American Samoa, making him the first incumbent president since Carter to lose a nominating contest, per Newsweek.5. In yet another manifestation of opposition to the genocide in Gaza, Jewish director Jonathan Glazer used his Oscar acceptance speech to “[denounce] the bloodshed in the Middle East and [ask] the audience to consider how it could ‘resist…dehumanization,'” per NBC. Glazer's award winning film “The Zone of Interest” examines how “[a] Nazi commandant…and his family…attempt to build an idyllic life right outside the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during the Holocaust.” Glazer said “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, 'Look what we did then,' rather, 'Look what we do now.' Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst…Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many people." Glazer was the most forthright in his criticism of the Israeli campaign, but NBC notes “Billie Eilish, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef wore red pins on the Oscars red carpet symbolizing calls for a cease-fire.”6. Aware that they are losing the public relations battle, pro-Israel lobbying groups like the UJA-Federation and the Jewish Community Relations Council have enlisted Right-wing messaging guru Frank Luntz to help with their Hasbara PR, the Grayzone reports. Leaked talking points from his presentation run the gamut from playing up unsubstantiated claims of systematic sexual violence committed by Hamas to acknowledging that “'The most potent' tactic in mobilizing opposition to Israel's assault…‘is the visual destruction of Gaza and the human toll'… [because] ‘It ‘looks like a genocide'.”7. Turning from Palestine to East Palestine, Ohio Cleveland.com reports that during a recent Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer L. Homendy told Ohio's junior Senator JD Vance that “The deliberate burn of rail cars carrying hazardous chemicals after last year's crash…wasn't needed to avoid an explosion because the rail cars were cooling off before they were set on fire.” In a statement, Ohio's senior Senator, progressive Democrat Sherrod Brown, called the testimony “outrageous,” and said “This explosion – which devastated so many – was unnecessary…The people of East Palestine are still living with the consequences of this toxic burn. This is more proof that Norfolk Southern put profits over safety & cannot be trusted.”8. In positive labor news, Bloomberg reports that “About 600 video game testers at Microsoft…'s Activision Blizzard studios have unionized, more than doubling the size of labor's foothold at the software giant, according to the Communications Workers of America.” This brings the unionized workforce at Microsoft to approximately 1,000. To the company's credit, Microsoft has been friendly towards unionization, a marked difference from other technology companies – namely Amazon and Tesla – which have gone to extreme lengths to prevent worker organizing.9. In not so positive labor news, Matt Bruenig's NLRB Edge reports “The ACLU Is Trying to Destroy the Biden NLRB.” In a narrow sense, this story is about the ACLU fighting its workers to preserve its internal mandatory arbitration process. More broadly however, Bruenig illustrates how the ACLU is seeking to oust Biden's NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo – arguing her appointment was unconstitutional – which “could potentially invalidate everything the Biden Board has done.” This is yet another example of the non-profit industrial complex run amok, doing damage to progressive values and opting to possibly inflict economic harm on workers nationwide rather than treat their own workers fairly.10. Finally, according to the Corporate Crime Reporter, “Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in his truck at a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina after a break in depositions in a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.” Barnett's lawyer Brian Knowles told the paper “They found him in his truck dead from an ‘alleged' self-inflicted gunshot.” Barnett had gone on record saying “[Boeing] started pressuring us to not document defects, to work outside the procedures, to allow defective material to be installed without being corrected. They started bypassing procedures and not maintaining configurement control of airplanes, not maintaining control of non conforming parts – they just wanted to get the planes pushed out the door and make the cash register ring.” The timing and circumstances of Barnett's death raise disturbing questions; we hope an exhaustive investigation turns up some answers.This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven't Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe
“The Outcue” is a 21 News journalist perspective of our top news stories.Each week, the 21 News staff, including reporters and managers, will discuss what goes on behind the scenes in covering stories for you - from the newsgathering process to getting the final product on the air, in this new video podcast. In episode three, Assistant News Director J. Breen Mitchell is joined by Senior Digital Content Manager Robert McFerren to discuss 21 News coverage of the East Palestine train derailment last February.We look at the story behind the coverage and discuss our in-depth' 101 West' and what National Transportation Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told us about her concerns about the vent and burn.This week, we also reported on a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing where Ohio Senator JD Vance asked National Transportation Board Chair Jennifer Homendy about the vent and burn conducted on the five vinyl chloride tank cars during the East Palestine train derailment, which she said lacked sufficient scientific basis, and disregarded temperature data.Turn in every Friday on our YouTube channel or listen to the audio version on all major podcast platforms. The podcast name - The Outcue - is a broadcast term that means the last few words of reporting before the package ends. We hope you enjoy it.
State Sen. Usha Reddi joined KMAN's Morning News for a weekly legislative update, and discusses activity from the Senate Commerce, Transportation and Assessment and Taxation committees.
Amid a docket of new policy proposals, a Virginia Senate panel heard a familiar one Monday when Sen. Jennifer Boysko again presented legislation to require employers to list a wage or salary range in all job postings and prohibit them from asking prospective employees for a salary history. “This is the eighth time I have introduced this legislation,” Boysko told the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee before vowing to keep reintroducing the measure until it reaches the governor's desk. Boysko has pitched Senate Bill 370 as a way to help remedy gender pay gaps by deterring employers from relying on...Article LinkSupport the show
Legislation to raise the state minimum wage to per hour by 2026 is moving briskly through the Virginia General Assembly as Democrats take advantage of their narrow majorities in both chambers to complete an effort they began in 2020. “This is a simple bill,” said Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, who chairs the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. “It just reenacts what we did before.” Carried by Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, as Senate Bill 1 and Del. Jeion Ward, D-Hampton, as House Bill 1, the legislation is a signature priority of Democrats this session and would bring the wage to...Article LinkSupport the show
This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, October 6th, 2023. Dropwave Do you have a podcast, or thinking about starting one? Does your church have a podcast feed for sermons? Then Dropwave.io is for you. Cancel culture is like walking on a thin glass bridge over the Grand Canyon. Every step you take could get you killed, I mean canceled. Since the beginning CrossPolitic has been working on being antifragile, so no matter what happens, our content can still be delivered to your tv and to your podcast. This past year, the Waterboy and his friend Jeremi, have been working on building a podcast hosting solution for rowdy platforms like CrossPolitic, so that you can be confident your podcast will never fall through that glass bridge. Dropwave offers seamless onboarding for shows that have been around for years to easy to use solutions for starting your own podcast. Dropwave will track all your show’s downloads by city, state, and country, and it offers network and enterprise packages for solutions like the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Free to speak, Free to podcast, free to start your journey now at www.Dropwave.io. https://www.theblaze.com/news/child-allegedly-shoots-two-teens-at-football-practice-over-bag-of-chips Child allegedly shoots two teens at football practice over 'bag of chips' An 11-year-old was arrested Monday after allegedly opening fire at a Pop Warner youth football practice in Apopka, Florida. Police say that while only one shot was fired, two kids were ultimately struck — one in the back and the other in the arm. The suspect is presently facing one count of attempted second-degree murder, though Apopka Police Chief Michael McKinley indicated prosecutors may pursue additional charges. WOFL-TV reported that the APD received a report of a shooting around 8:20 p.m. near a football field at the Northwest Recreation Center on Jason Dwelley Parkway where a kids' soccer game was also taking place. In the 911 call obtained by WESH-TV, one victim's mother can be heard saying, "My son got shot, miss! ... In his back!" The first officer arrived on the scene just four minutes later, finding one victim on the ground and another victim holding his grazed elbow. The two victims, both 13 years old, were taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital and are expected to make a full recovery. Surveillance footage shows juveniles crewing at the edge of the parking lot around 8:17 p.m., some still wearing their football jerseys. The first victim, a heavy-set male with red shorts, can be seen chasing the alleged shooter toward his mother's vehicle around 8:18 p.m. Seconds later, the suspect opens the front passenger door and reaches into the vehicle, where his mother was reportedly in the driver's seat. Inside and under the passenger seat was a purple handgun, according to the arrest report. Brandishing the weapon, the suspect appears to turn the tables and chase the heavy-set victim, ultimately firing one shot into the victim's back. The same round proceeded to graze the second victim's elbow. Following the shooting, WOFL indicated the alleged shooter was brought back to his mother's vehicle. He is now being held at a juvenile detention center. According to the arrest report, some witnesses claimed the victims had been "bullying" the alleged shooter. Others suggested the dispute was over "a bag of chips," reported the Orlando Sentinel. Apopka Police Chief Michael McKinley told reporters, "It's unbelievable that young kids out here to play football and have a good time would get into an altercation." McKinley indicated the APD would be pursuing second-degree misdemeanor charges against the mother for allegedly having her firearm in an unlocked box, reported WKMG-TV. Orange-Osceola State Attorney Andrew Bain, who took over for Monique Worrell after her suspension by Gov. Ron DeSantis, said his office will ensure there will be a reckoning. "The level of violence unacceptable right now, especially from our youth," said Bain. "We’re going to stand strong to deal with those cases and try to end or put a big slow-down to what’s going on in the streets right now." Apopka Pop Warner canceled its Wednesday practice, noting in a statement, "One of our players was involved in a shooting incident that resulted in the injury of two players. We are deeply saddened by this event and our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected." https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/10/04/uk-announced-new-zealand-style-plan-to-ban-smoking-altogether/ UK Announces New Zealand Style Plan to Ban Smoking Altogether The United Kingdom is to phase out smoking altogether, the government says, by banning young people from buying cigarettes at all with a minimum age to buy rising from 18 every year until there isn’t anyone left alive old enough to enjoy the habit. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced his intention to steer the UK towards becoming tobacco-free by increasing the minimum age to buy products every year from here on, so the teenagers of today will never be old enough to legally take the habit up. Sunak acknowledged restricting personal freedoms was not always an easy choice for an instinctive Conservative but — underlining the way government decisions are driven by socialised healthcare — said it was important because smokers cost taxpayers through needing more hospital care. This is about “preventative care” to keep people out of hospitals, the Prime Minister said and told his governing party’s annual conference that: “I propose that in future, we raise the smoking age by one year every year. That means a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette, and that they and their generation can grow up smoke-free”. This would work, Sunak said, because the UK’s previous experience with increasing the smoking age from 16 to 18 saw a drop in the number of people starting smoking. The Prime Minister said he would also look at cracking down on ‘vapes’, the electronic tobacco alternative. A report explaining the system as already implemented in New Zealand, which is becoming known for its draconian health interventions, stated in 2022: The law states that tobacco can’t ever be sold to anybody born on or after January 1, 2009 – and from now on, the minimum age for buying cigarettes will keep going up and up. In theory, somebody trying to buy a pack of cigarettes 50 years from now would need ID to show they were at least 63 years old. But health authorities hope smoking will fade away well before then. They have a stated goal of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. New Zealand also took other measures in its law shakeup, including making getting hold of cigarettes more difficult for those who could legally use them. They are no longer sold in regular stores, but can only be bought at specialist tobacconists, cutting the number of locations where smokes are sold nationwide from thousands of locations to hundreds. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/biden-faa-nominee-promises-end-work-from-home Biden pick to lead FAA promises hard push to end work-from-home policies President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration would prioritize ending pandemic telework policies for federal employees and bring the out-of-date agency into the 21st century. Former FAA Deputy Administrator Michael Whitaker told Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee members during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that, if approved, he would focus heavily on matters with agency employees. "I do believe that it's important to be in person for collaboration and working together," said Whitaker, a pilot and former aviation industry executive. "This has been a challenging issue for all organizations, private or public. And I think what needs to happen is after understanding the situation that we're in and the limitations that might be there, issuing very clear guidance, what the expectations are to get people in the office." In July, the FAA announced that employees would have to return to the office no fewer than three days per week starting on Oct. 9. The union pushed back against a 100% return to office, complicating the agency's attempt to reinstate the policy. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) egged Whitaker on over the work-from-home policies and claimed the federal government was the only employer that had not returned to pre-pandemic policies. "When I talk to businesses in the private sector, virtually all of them, employees are going back to work, and they're physically present. And yet, throughout the Biden administration, we have a pattern in just about every agency where large portions of the workforce have apparently decided going into the office is optional," Cruz said. "That seriously limits the effectiveness of an agency and particularly an agency whose mission is protecting people's lives and the airspace." When asked by Cruz if he would commit to "working diligently" to bring employees back into the office, Whitaker agreed. Whitaker was second in command at the FAA from 2012 through 2015. The agency has had a gap in leadership over the past 18 months. Returning to the FAA at this point, Whitaker said, would warrant three actions he would take in his five-year term as administrator. "First, I will work not just to maintain the safety record we have collectively achieved but build upon it. The two Boeing MAX crashes remind us that we must be ever-vigilant," Whitaker said. The agency ought to ensure gaps in the FAA certification process are closed so that undisclosed changes manufacturers make to aircraft can still be caught before being put into use. Second, the FAA should be more "agile and creative" and willing to "adapt quickly" and plan for the future rather than focus on the present. The FAA has but one academy that takes years to complete, and it can only accommodate 1,800 air traffic controllers at a time. Whitaker's final point was that the government should make the FAA a place where people interested in aviation careers, particularly air traffic controllers, want to work. He was tasked with hiring 6,000 air traffic controllers during his previous stint at the FAA but came up far short. https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/05/rnc-republican-presidential-primary-debates-donald-trump/ Even The RNC’s Own Members Are Admitting Trump-less Debates May Be A Waste Of Time Members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) are frustrated with the current direction of their GOP primary debates, admitting that without President Donald Trump the events may not be worth it, according to Politico. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Trump has skipped the first two presidential debates, a decision that has drawn criticism from rival candidates. After the first two debates were widely panned, some within the RNC think they need the President on the stage to make the forums worth it. “I think the only way you salvage it is if you get the frontrunner there,” Tyler Bowyer, a national committeeman from Arizona, told Politico. “Plan a debate where you get the frontrunner to agree to it.” The first GOP presidential debate, sponsored by the conservative youth organization Young America’s Foundation (YAF), was aired exclusively on Fox News, Fox Business and Rumble. The debate was moderated by Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second debate was aired by the exact same networks, in addition to Spanish-language network Univision. The moderators included Univision anchor Ilia Calderón, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Fox News host Dana Perino. That debate fell flat, with many prominent conservative media figures criticizing the moderators for asking poor questions while candidates bickered and talked over one another. The RNC previously promised in 2022 to use debates to “raise conservative media up” and incorporate other outlets, but after the first two debates, conservative media companies outside of the mainstream media told the Daily Caller that they are feeling snubbed by the committee. “You can’t put your head in the sand and pretend these debates are going to result in someone other than Donald Trump getting the nomination,” Patti Lyman, the RNC’s national committeewoman from Virginia, told Politico, adding that the debates were “embarrassing” and “reflected very poorly on our party.” Despite some members pushing for Trump to take the debate stage, top officials are reportedly not attempting to get the front runner on the debate stage, a person with knowledge of the committee’s operations told Politico. That reportedly includes RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and chairman for the RNC’s Temporary Committee on Presidential Debates David Bossie. Trump himself doesn’t think the debates should go on; the President told the Daily Caller that the RNC “has to stop the debates” because they are “bad for the Republican party.” Trump and his advisors have additionally urged the RNC to “refocus its manpower and money” on election integrity efforts rather than the debates, Politico reported.
This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, October 6th, 2023. Dropwave Do you have a podcast, or thinking about starting one? Does your church have a podcast feed for sermons? Then Dropwave.io is for you. Cancel culture is like walking on a thin glass bridge over the Grand Canyon. Every step you take could get you killed, I mean canceled. Since the beginning CrossPolitic has been working on being antifragile, so no matter what happens, our content can still be delivered to your tv and to your podcast. This past year, the Waterboy and his friend Jeremi, have been working on building a podcast hosting solution for rowdy platforms like CrossPolitic, so that you can be confident your podcast will never fall through that glass bridge. Dropwave offers seamless onboarding for shows that have been around for years to easy to use solutions for starting your own podcast. Dropwave will track all your show’s downloads by city, state, and country, and it offers network and enterprise packages for solutions like the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Free to speak, Free to podcast, free to start your journey now at www.Dropwave.io. https://www.theblaze.com/news/child-allegedly-shoots-two-teens-at-football-practice-over-bag-of-chips Child allegedly shoots two teens at football practice over 'bag of chips' An 11-year-old was arrested Monday after allegedly opening fire at a Pop Warner youth football practice in Apopka, Florida. Police say that while only one shot was fired, two kids were ultimately struck — one in the back and the other in the arm. The suspect is presently facing one count of attempted second-degree murder, though Apopka Police Chief Michael McKinley indicated prosecutors may pursue additional charges. WOFL-TV reported that the APD received a report of a shooting around 8:20 p.m. near a football field at the Northwest Recreation Center on Jason Dwelley Parkway where a kids' soccer game was also taking place. In the 911 call obtained by WESH-TV, one victim's mother can be heard saying, "My son got shot, miss! ... In his back!" The first officer arrived on the scene just four minutes later, finding one victim on the ground and another victim holding his grazed elbow. The two victims, both 13 years old, were taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital and are expected to make a full recovery. Surveillance footage shows juveniles crewing at the edge of the parking lot around 8:17 p.m., some still wearing their football jerseys. The first victim, a heavy-set male with red shorts, can be seen chasing the alleged shooter toward his mother's vehicle around 8:18 p.m. Seconds later, the suspect opens the front passenger door and reaches into the vehicle, where his mother was reportedly in the driver's seat. Inside and under the passenger seat was a purple handgun, according to the arrest report. Brandishing the weapon, the suspect appears to turn the tables and chase the heavy-set victim, ultimately firing one shot into the victim's back. The same round proceeded to graze the second victim's elbow. Following the shooting, WOFL indicated the alleged shooter was brought back to his mother's vehicle. He is now being held at a juvenile detention center. According to the arrest report, some witnesses claimed the victims had been "bullying" the alleged shooter. Others suggested the dispute was over "a bag of chips," reported the Orlando Sentinel. Apopka Police Chief Michael McKinley told reporters, "It's unbelievable that young kids out here to play football and have a good time would get into an altercation." McKinley indicated the APD would be pursuing second-degree misdemeanor charges against the mother for allegedly having her firearm in an unlocked box, reported WKMG-TV. Orange-Osceola State Attorney Andrew Bain, who took over for Monique Worrell after her suspension by Gov. Ron DeSantis, said his office will ensure there will be a reckoning. "The level of violence unacceptable right now, especially from our youth," said Bain. "We’re going to stand strong to deal with those cases and try to end or put a big slow-down to what’s going on in the streets right now." Apopka Pop Warner canceled its Wednesday practice, noting in a statement, "One of our players was involved in a shooting incident that resulted in the injury of two players. We are deeply saddened by this event and our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected." https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/10/04/uk-announced-new-zealand-style-plan-to-ban-smoking-altogether/ UK Announces New Zealand Style Plan to Ban Smoking Altogether The United Kingdom is to phase out smoking altogether, the government says, by banning young people from buying cigarettes at all with a minimum age to buy rising from 18 every year until there isn’t anyone left alive old enough to enjoy the habit. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced his intention to steer the UK towards becoming tobacco-free by increasing the minimum age to buy products every year from here on, so the teenagers of today will never be old enough to legally take the habit up. Sunak acknowledged restricting personal freedoms was not always an easy choice for an instinctive Conservative but — underlining the way government decisions are driven by socialised healthcare — said it was important because smokers cost taxpayers through needing more hospital care. This is about “preventative care” to keep people out of hospitals, the Prime Minister said and told his governing party’s annual conference that: “I propose that in future, we raise the smoking age by one year every year. That means a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette, and that they and their generation can grow up smoke-free”. This would work, Sunak said, because the UK’s previous experience with increasing the smoking age from 16 to 18 saw a drop in the number of people starting smoking. The Prime Minister said he would also look at cracking down on ‘vapes’, the electronic tobacco alternative. A report explaining the system as already implemented in New Zealand, which is becoming known for its draconian health interventions, stated in 2022: The law states that tobacco can’t ever be sold to anybody born on or after January 1, 2009 – and from now on, the minimum age for buying cigarettes will keep going up and up. In theory, somebody trying to buy a pack of cigarettes 50 years from now would need ID to show they were at least 63 years old. But health authorities hope smoking will fade away well before then. They have a stated goal of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. New Zealand also took other measures in its law shakeup, including making getting hold of cigarettes more difficult for those who could legally use them. They are no longer sold in regular stores, but can only be bought at specialist tobacconists, cutting the number of locations where smokes are sold nationwide from thousands of locations to hundreds. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/biden-faa-nominee-promises-end-work-from-home Biden pick to lead FAA promises hard push to end work-from-home policies President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration would prioritize ending pandemic telework policies for federal employees and bring the out-of-date agency into the 21st century. Former FAA Deputy Administrator Michael Whitaker told Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee members during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that, if approved, he would focus heavily on matters with agency employees. "I do believe that it's important to be in person for collaboration and working together," said Whitaker, a pilot and former aviation industry executive. "This has been a challenging issue for all organizations, private or public. And I think what needs to happen is after understanding the situation that we're in and the limitations that might be there, issuing very clear guidance, what the expectations are to get people in the office." In July, the FAA announced that employees would have to return to the office no fewer than three days per week starting on Oct. 9. The union pushed back against a 100% return to office, complicating the agency's attempt to reinstate the policy. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) egged Whitaker on over the work-from-home policies and claimed the federal government was the only employer that had not returned to pre-pandemic policies. "When I talk to businesses in the private sector, virtually all of them, employees are going back to work, and they're physically present. And yet, throughout the Biden administration, we have a pattern in just about every agency where large portions of the workforce have apparently decided going into the office is optional," Cruz said. "That seriously limits the effectiveness of an agency and particularly an agency whose mission is protecting people's lives and the airspace." When asked by Cruz if he would commit to "working diligently" to bring employees back into the office, Whitaker agreed. Whitaker was second in command at the FAA from 2012 through 2015. The agency has had a gap in leadership over the past 18 months. Returning to the FAA at this point, Whitaker said, would warrant three actions he would take in his five-year term as administrator. "First, I will work not just to maintain the safety record we have collectively achieved but build upon it. The two Boeing MAX crashes remind us that we must be ever-vigilant," Whitaker said. The agency ought to ensure gaps in the FAA certification process are closed so that undisclosed changes manufacturers make to aircraft can still be caught before being put into use. Second, the FAA should be more "agile and creative" and willing to "adapt quickly" and plan for the future rather than focus on the present. The FAA has but one academy that takes years to complete, and it can only accommodate 1,800 air traffic controllers at a time. Whitaker's final point was that the government should make the FAA a place where people interested in aviation careers, particularly air traffic controllers, want to work. He was tasked with hiring 6,000 air traffic controllers during his previous stint at the FAA but came up far short. https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/05/rnc-republican-presidential-primary-debates-donald-trump/ Even The RNC’s Own Members Are Admitting Trump-less Debates May Be A Waste Of Time Members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) are frustrated with the current direction of their GOP primary debates, admitting that without President Donald Trump the events may not be worth it, according to Politico. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Trump has skipped the first two presidential debates, a decision that has drawn criticism from rival candidates. After the first two debates were widely panned, some within the RNC think they need the President on the stage to make the forums worth it. “I think the only way you salvage it is if you get the frontrunner there,” Tyler Bowyer, a national committeeman from Arizona, told Politico. “Plan a debate where you get the frontrunner to agree to it.” The first GOP presidential debate, sponsored by the conservative youth organization Young America’s Foundation (YAF), was aired exclusively on Fox News, Fox Business and Rumble. The debate was moderated by Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The second debate was aired by the exact same networks, in addition to Spanish-language network Univision. The moderators included Univision anchor Ilia Calderón, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Fox News host Dana Perino. That debate fell flat, with many prominent conservative media figures criticizing the moderators for asking poor questions while candidates bickered and talked over one another. The RNC previously promised in 2022 to use debates to “raise conservative media up” and incorporate other outlets, but after the first two debates, conservative media companies outside of the mainstream media told the Daily Caller that they are feeling snubbed by the committee. “You can’t put your head in the sand and pretend these debates are going to result in someone other than Donald Trump getting the nomination,” Patti Lyman, the RNC’s national committeewoman from Virginia, told Politico, adding that the debates were “embarrassing” and “reflected very poorly on our party.” Despite some members pushing for Trump to take the debate stage, top officials are reportedly not attempting to get the front runner on the debate stage, a person with knowledge of the committee’s operations told Politico. That reportedly includes RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and chairman for the RNC’s Temporary Committee on Presidential Debates David Bossie. Trump himself doesn’t think the debates should go on; the President told the Daily Caller that the RNC “has to stop the debates” because they are “bad for the Republican party.” Trump and his advisors have additionally urged the RNC to “refocus its manpower and money” on election integrity efforts rather than the debates, Politico reported.
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Want to work on US emerging tech policy? Consider the Horizon Fellowship, TechCongress, and AAAS AI Fellowship, published by kuhanj on August 3, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. I recently learned that there are a lot of fellowships currently open for individuals interested in transitioning into US emerging tech policy careers. I shared the announcements from different websites below.Based on my reading, the Horizon Fellowship seems to be broader with placements at think tanks, executive agencies, and congress. These placements can last up to two years. TechCongress and AAAS Rapid Response STPF are only for 10-12 month congressional placements. All are only open to US citizens or individuals with the right to work in the US without employer sponsorship. Horizon Fellowship (Deadline: Sept 15th, 2023. Apply here): "Applications for the 2024 cohort of the Horizon Fellowship are now open! If you are interested in working on AI, biosecurity, or related policy areas at a federal agency, congressional office, or think tank, you can learn more about how to apply at Become a Fellow. This application round is for the third cohort of Horizon Fellows. The first two cohorts had 15 and 20 fellows respectively, and a 100% success rate in securing high-impact placements related to AI and biosecurity policy. Among many other host organizations, our fellows have placed at the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the Senate Commerce and House Science committees, and think tanks such as the Center for Security and Emerging Technology and the Center for Health Security. You can learn more about past fellows and their placements at Meet our Fellows." Eligibility (junior think tank track): Recently obtained a bachelor's or master's degree (including those graduating in the year that their placements would start; Demonstrated interest in AI, biosecurity, or related emerging technology areas Eligibility (senior track): Several years of professional experience; A credential (e.g. work experience, degree, publications, or similar) related to area of focus; A graduate degree (not required; strongly preferred for executive branch fellows) Tech Congress (Deadline: August 22nd 2023. Apply here): Applications for the January 2024 Fellowship "The Congressional Innovation Fellowship will place you among the top tech decision makers in the United States government at a time when technology is reshaping society in fundamental ways. Even if you've never considered working in government, the Congressional Innovation Fellowship will allow you to make change at the highest levels and at a scale unparalleled in the private or public sectors. We are bridging the divide between Congress and the technology sector by placing tech savvy people like you-- an early-career technologist (two - six years professional experience), including those who have recently finished, or are on track to finish a Master's program or PhD-- to work with Members of Congress and Congressional Committees. Our goals are to build capacity in Congress, train cross-sector leaders -- who can understand the challenges of government and in the technology community -- and keep Congress up to date about the latest challenges and opportunities relating to technology." Eligibility (junior track): Early-career, with between two and six years of experience, including recently finishing (or projected to finish by January 2024) a technical degree program. Tech savvy, with experience working in or studying the technology sector. Eligibility (senior track): Eight or more years of work or postgraduate study. Tech savvy, with experience working in or studying the technology sector. AAAS Rapid Response STPF Cohort in AI (Deadline: August 5th, 2023. Apply here) (Note that this is a separate program from the annual AAAS Science & Technology P...
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Office of Senator Ted Cruz, spoke recently at a conference at the Wilson Center.The one-day event was titled “Building a Competitive U.S.-Mexico Border Conference.” It was co-sponsored by the Mexico Institute and the Border Trade Alliance. The focus of Grantz's remarks was speeding up the process for building or expanding new international bridges on the Texas-Mexico border. Here are his remarks. To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.
A bipartisan bill “would give parents that toolbox that they need to help monitor what their children are seeing in the virtual space,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn says.“Kids are being exposed to things in the virtual space that we would never expose them to in the physical space, so it's important for parents to have that toolbox, and it's important to put the responsibility on these social mediaplatforms,” says Blackburn, R-Tenn., who on May 2 reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “That is what this legislation does,” Blackburn says. “It requires these platforms to open up those algorithms and make them available not only to parents, but also to researchers, so that there can be a monitoring of the harms that children are exposed to.”The legislation was initially introduced in February 2022 and unanimously passed the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in July, according to the Tennessee senator's office. However, “the clock ran out before we got it off the floor,” Blackburn says.Blackburn joins today's episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the legislation and how its requirements would be implemented. She also discusses the end of the public health measure known as Title 42, and how that will affect illegal immigration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Last week, U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ranking Member and Chairwoman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, respectively, introduced two bipartisan national weather bills aimed at modernizing the nation's weather communication and radio service to help Texans and all Americans stay safe during weather disasters. The bills are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio Modernization Act and the National Weather Service Communications Improvement Act. “When severe storms take out communications systems in Texas and other states, Americans need a reliable hazard communication system to inform them about how to stay safe,”...Article Link
The First Amendment prohibits the U.S. government from censoring speech. In this episode, drawing from internal Twitter documents known as “the Twitter files” and Congressional testimony from tech executives, former Twitter employees, and journalists, we examine the shocking formal system of censorship in which government employees are using their influence over private companies to indirectly censor speech in a way that they are clearly prohibited from doing directly. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! View the shownotes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd270-the-twitter-files Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD224: Social Media Censorship CD141: Terrorist Gifts & The Ministry of Propaganda (2017 NDAA) CD113: CISA is Law The Twitter Files "Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary.” Matt Taibbi. Jan 4, 2023. Racket News. Matt Taibbi “The Democrats' Disastrous Miscalculation on Civil Liberties.” Matt Taibbi. Mar 12, 2023. Racket News. “#1940 - Matt Taibbi.” Feb 13, 2023. The Joe Rogan Experience. Hunter Biden Laptop Story “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” “13. They did the same to Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ‘The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, “Hey... you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There's about to be some kind of dump similar to that”'” [tweet]. Michael Shellenberger [@ShellenbergerMD]. Dec 19, 2022. Twitter. Influence, Propaganda, and Censorship “From the Twitter Files: Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb secretly pressed Twitter to hide posts challenging his company's massively profitable Covid jabs.” Alex Berenson. Jan 9, 2023. Unreported Truths. “Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign.” Lee Fang. December 20, 2022. The Intercept. “Facebook, Twitter dismantle a U.S. influence campaign about Ukraine.” Aug 24, 2022. The Washington Post. Angus King Takedown Request Spreadsheet Audio Sources Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Twitter Files March 9, 2023 House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Witnesses: Matt Taibbi, Journalist Michael Shellenberger, Author, Co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition Clips 17:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): In the run up to the 2020 Presidential election, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan, in his deposition in Missouri versus Biden, said that he repeatedly, repeatedly, informed Twitter and other social media platforms of the likelihood of a hack and leak operation in the run up to that Presidential election. He did it even though there was no evidence. In fact, he said in his deposition that we hadn't seen anything, no intrusions, no hack, yet he repeatedly told them something was common. Yoel Ross, Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, testified that he had had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other folks regarding election security. During these weekly meetings, federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected a hack and leak operation. The expectations of a hack and leak operation were discussed throughout 2020. And he was told they would occur in a period shortly before the 2020 Presidential election, likely in October. And finally, he said "I also learned in these meetings, that there were rumors that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden." So what did the government tell him? A hack and leak operation was coming. How often did the government tell him this? Repeatedly for a year. When did the government say it was going to happen? October of 2020. And who did the government say it would involve? Hunter Biden. 19:35 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): How did they know? Maybe it's because they had the laptop and they had had it for a year. 21:50 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Finally, as if on cue, five days later on October 19, 51 former intel[ligence] officials signed a letter with a now famous sentence "the Biden laptop story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." Something that was absolutely false. 25:25 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): And the Republicans have brought in two of Elon Musk's public scribes to release cherry-picked, out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative, Elon Musk's chosen narrative, that is now being paroted by the Republicans, because the Republicans think that these witnesses will tell a story that's going to help them out politically. 25:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): On Tuesday, the majority released an 18 page report claiming to show that the FTC is quote, "harassing" Twitter -- oh my poor Twitter -- including by seeking information about its interactions with individuals before us today. How did the report reach this conclusion? By showing two single paragraphs from a single demand letter, even though the report itself makes clear that there were numerous demand letters with numerous requests, none of which we've been able to see, that are more demand letters and more requests of Twitter. 28:05 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, Americans can see through this. Musk is helping you out politically and you're going out of your way to promote and protect him and to praise him for his work. 28:15 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): This isn't just a matter of what data was given to these so-called journalists before us now. 31:35 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, I'm not exaggerating when I say that you have called before you two witnesses who pose a direct threat to people who oppose them. 32:30 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): We know this is because at the first hearing, the Chairman claimed that big government and big tech colluded to shape and mold the narrative and suppress information and censor Americans. This is a false narrative. We're engaging in false narratives here and we are going to tell the truth. 37:35 Michael Shellenberger: I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private companies to moderate content on their platforms and I support the right of governments to communicate with the public, including to dispute inaccurate information, but government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often these acts of censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist, Section 230. If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship, and as one law professor, it raises serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly. 41:50 Matt Taibbi: My name is Matt Taibbi, I've been a reporter for 30 years and a staunch advocate of the First Amendment. Much of that time was spent at Rolling Stone magazine. Ranking Member Plaskett, I'm not a "so-called" journalist. I've won the National Magazine Award, the I.F Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and I've written 10 books, including four New York Times bestsellers. 45:35 Matt Taibbi: Ordinary Americans are not just being reported to Twitter for deamplification or deplatforming, but to firm's like Pay Pal, digital advertisers like Xandr, and crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe. These companies can and do refuse service to law abiding people and businesses whose only crime is falling afoul of a distant, faceless, unaccountable, algorithmic judge. 44:00 Matt Taibbi: Again, Ranking Member Plaskett, I would note that the evidence of Twitter-government relationship includes lists of tens of thousands of names on both the left and right. The people affected include Trump supporters, but also left leaning sites like Consortium and Truthout, the leftist South American channel TeleSUR, the Yellow Vest movement. That, in fact, is a key point of the Twitter files, that it's neither a left nor right issue. 44:40 Matt Taibbi: We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government from the FBI, the DHS, the HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at [the Department of] State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi private entities doing the same thing, including Stanford's Election Integrity Partnership, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and many others, many taxpayer funded. A focus of this fast growing network, as Mike noted, is making lists of people whose opinions beliefs, associations, or sympathies are deemed misinformation, disinformation or malinformation. That last term is just a euphemism for true but inconvenient. Undeniably, the making of such lists is a form of digital McCarthyism. 1:01:00 Matt Taibbi: So, a great example of this is a report that the Global Engagement Center sent to Twitter and to members of the media and other platforms about what they called "the Pillars of Russian Disinformation." Now, part of this report is what you would call, I think you would call, traditional hardcore intelligence gathering where they made a reasoned, evidence baseed case that certain sites were linked to Russian influence or linked to the Russian government. In addition to that, however, they also said that sites that quote, "generate their own momentum," and have opinions that are in line with those accounts are part of a propaganda ecosystem. Now, this is just another word for guilt by association. And this is the problem with the whole idea of trying to identify which accounts are actually the Internet Research Agency and which ones are just people who follow those accounts or retweeted them. Twitter initially did not find more than a handful of IRA accounts. It wasn't until they got into an argument with the Senate Select Intelligence Committee that they came back with a different answer. 1:06:00 Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Before you became Elon Musk's handpicked journalists, and pardon the oxymoron, you stated this on Joe Rogan's podcast about being spoon fed information. And I quote, "I think that's true of any kind of journalism," and you'll see it behind me here. "I think that's true of any kind of journalism. Once you start getting handed things, then you've lost. They have you at that point and you got to get out of that habit. You just can't cross that line." Do you still believe what you told Mr. Rogan? Yes or no? Yes or no? Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Good. Now, you crossed that line with the Twitter files. Matt Taibbi: No. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk -- It's my time, please do not interrupt me. Crowd: [laughter] Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk spoon fed you his cherry-picked information, which you must have suspected promotes a slanted viewpoint, or at the very least generates another right wing conspiracy theory. 1:11:20 Matt Taibbi: That moment on the Joe Rogan show, I was actually recounting a section from Seymour Hersh's book, Reporter, where he described a scene where the CIA gave him a story and he was very uncomfortable. He said that "I, who had always gotten the secrets, was being handed the secrets." Again, I've done lots of whistleblower stories. There's always a balancing test that you make when you're given material, and you're always balancing newsworthiness versus the motives of your sources. In this case, the newsworthiness clearly outweighed any other considerations. I think everybody else who worked on the project agrees. 1:14:45 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Richard Stengel, you know who that is? Matt Taibbi: Yes, he's the former, the first head of the Global Engagement Center. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): I want the American people to hear from him for 30 seconds. Richard Stengel: Basically, every country creates their own narrative story. And, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the "chief propagandist" job. We haven't talked about propaganda. Propaganda. I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. 1:24:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): December 13, the very first letter that the FTC sends to Twitter after the Twitter files, 11 days after the first Twitter file, there have been five of them come out, the FTC's first demand in that first letter after the Twitter files come out is identify all journalists. I'm quoting "identify all journalists and other members of the media" to whom Twitter worked with. You find that scary, Mr. Taibbi, that you got a federal government agency asking a private company who in the press are you talking with? Matt Taibbi: I do find it scary. I think it's none of the government's business which journalists a private company talks to and why. I think every journalist should be concerned about that. And the absence of interest in that issue by my fellow colleagues in the mainstream media is an indication of how low the business has sunk. There was once a real esprit de corps and camaraderie within Media. Whenever one of us was gone after, we all kind of rose to the challenge and supported -- Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): It used to be, used to be the case. Matt Taibbi: Yeah, that is gone now. 1:28:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): How many emails did Mr. Musk give you access to? Michael Shellenberger: I mean, we went through thousands of emails. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Did he give you access to all of the emails for the time period in which? Michael Shellenberger: We never had a single, I never had a single request denied. And not only that, but the amount of files that we were given were so voluminous that there was no way that anybody could have gone through them beforehand. And we never found an instance where there was any evidence that anything had been taken out. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. So you would believe that you have probably millions of emails and documents, right? That's correct, would you say? Michael Shellenberger: I don't know if -- I think the number is less than that. Matt Taibbi: Millions sounds too high. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. 100,000? Matt Taibbi: That's probably closer. Michael Shellenberger: Probably, yeah. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): So 100,000 that both of you were seeing. 1:37:10 Matt Taibbi: There were a couple of very telling emails that wepublished. One was by a lawyer named [Sasha Cardiel???], where the company was being so overwhelmed by requests from the FBI and in fact they, they gave each other a sort of digital High Five after one batch, saying "that was a monumental undertaking to clear all of these," but she noted that she believed that the FBI was essentially doing word searches keyed to Twitter's Terms of Service, looking for violations of the Terms of Service, specifically so that they could make recommendations along those lines, which we found interesting. 1:48:15 Michael Shellenberger: And we haven't talked about Facebook, but we now know that we have the White House demanding that Facebook take down factual information and Facebook doing that. 1:48:25 Michael Shellenberger: And with Matt [Taibbi]'s thread this morning we saw the government contractors demanding the same thing of Twitter: accurate information, they said, that needed to be taken down in order to advance a narrative. 1:49:55 Matt Taibbi: You know, in conjunction with our own research, there's a foundation, the Foundation for Freedom Online, which, you know, there's a very telling video that they uncovered where the Director of Stanford's Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) talks about how CISA, the DHS agency, didn't have the capability to do election monitoring, and so that they kind of stepped in to "fill the gaps" legally before that capability could be amped up. And what we see in the Twitter files is that Twitter executives did not distinguish between DHS or CISA and this group EIP, for instance, we would see a communication that said, from CISA, escalated by EIP. So they were essentially identical in the eyes of the company. EIP is, by its own data, and this is in reference to what you brought up, Mr. Congressman, according to their own data, they significantly targeted more what they call disinformation on the right than on the left, by a factor I think of about ten to one. And I say that as not a Republican at all, it's just the fact of what we're looking at. So yes, we have come to the realization that this bright line that we imagine that exists between, say the FBI or the DHS, or the GEC and these private companies is illusory and that what's more important is this constellation of kind of quasi private organizations that do this work. 1:52:10 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): What was the first time that Mr. Musk approached you about writing the Twitter files? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman that would — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I just need a date, sir. Matt Taibbi: But I can't give it to you, unfortunately, because this this is a question of sourcing, and I don't give up... I'm a journalist, I don't reveal my sources. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): It's a question of chronology. Matt Taibbi: No, that's a question of sourcing — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Earlier you said that someone had sent you, through the internet, some message about whether or not you would be interested in some information. Matt Taibbi: Yes. And I refer to that person as a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you're not going to tell us when Musk first approached you? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman, you're asking me, you're asking a journalist to reveal a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You consider Mr. Musk to be the direct source of all this? Matt Taibbi: No, now you're trying to get me to say that he is the source. I just can't answer — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Either he is or he isn't. If you're telling me you can't answer because it's your source, well, then the only logical conclusion is that he is in fact, your source. Matt Taibbi: Well, you're free to conclude that. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well, sir, I just don't understand. You can't have it both ways. But let's move on because -- Unknown Representative 1: No, he can. He's a journalist. Unknown Representative 2: He can't, because either Musk is the source and he can't talk about it, or Musk is not the source. And if Musk is not the source, then he can discuss [unintelligible] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): No one has yielded, the gentlelady is out of order, you don't get to speak — Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): The gentlelady is not recognized...[crosstalk]...he has not said that, what he has said is he's not going to reveal his source. And the fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do so is such a violation of the First Amendment. Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I have not yielded time to anybody. I want to reclaim my time. And I would ask the chairman to give me back some of the time because of the interruption. Mr. Chairman, I am asking you, if you will give me the seconds that I lost. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): We will give you that 10 seconds. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Thank you. Now let's talk about another item. When you responded to the ranking member, you said that you had free license to look at everything but yet you yourself posted on your...I guess it's kind of like a web page...I don't quite understand what Substack is, but what I can say is that "in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions." What were those conditions? She asked you that question and you said you had none. But you yourself posted that you had conditions? Matt Taibbi: The conditions, as I've explained multiple times -- Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): No sir, you have not explained, you told her in response to her question that you had no conditions. In fact, you used the word licensed, that you were free to look at all of them. All 100,000 emails. Matt Taibbi: The question was posed, was I free to to write about — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Matt Taibbi: The condition was that we publish — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Yes or no? A simple question. Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): All right. Could you tell us what conditions those were? Matt Taibbi: The conditions were an attribution of sources at Twitter and that we break any news on Twitter. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But you didn't break it on Twitter. Did you send the file that you released today to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: Did I send the...actually I did, yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you send it to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread? Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): That was one of the conditions? Yes or no, sir. Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread actually did come out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But sir, you said earlier that you had to attribute all the sources to Twitter first. What you released today, did you send that to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: No, no, no, I post I posted it on Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): First. First, sir, or did you give it to the Chairman of the Committee or the staff of the Committee first? Matt Taibbi: Well, that's not breaking the story, that's giving...I did give — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you gave all the information that you did not give to the Democrats, you gave it to the Republicans first, then you put it on Twitter? Matt Taibbi: Actually, no, the chronology is a little bit confused. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well then tell us what the chronology was. Matt Taibbi: I believe the thread came out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Where? Matt Taibbi: On Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): On Twitter. So then you afterwards gave it to the Republicans, and not the Democrats? Matt Taibbi: Yes, because I'm submitting it for the record as my statement. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you give it to him in advance? Matt Taibbi: I gave it to them today. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You gave it to them today, but you still have not given anything to the Democrats. Well, I'll move on. 1:57:20 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Now in your discussion, in your answer, you also said that you were invited by a friend, Bari Weiss? Michael Shellenberger: My friend, Bari Weiss. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So this friend works for Twitter, or what is her....? Matt Taibbi: She's a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, I didn't ask you a question. I'm now asking Mr. Shellenberger a question. Michael Shellenberger: Yes, ma'am, Bari Weiss is a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I'm sorry, sir? Michael Shellenberger: She's a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): She's a journalist. So you work in concert with her? Michael Shellenberger: Yeah. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Do you know when she first was contacted by Mr. Musk? Michael Shellenberger: I don't know. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You don't know. So you're in this as a threesome? 2:00:10 Michael Shellenberger: Reading through the whole sweep of events, I do not know the extent to which the influence operation aimed at "pre-bunking" the Hunter Biden laptop was coordinated. I don't know who all was involved. But what we saw was, you saw Aspen and Stanford, many months before then, saying don't cover the material in the hack and leak without emphasizing the fact that it could be disinformation. Okay, so they're priming journalists to not cover a future hack and leak in a way that journalists have long been trained to in the tradition of the Pentagon Papers, made famous by the Steven Spielberg movie. They were saying [to] cover the fact that it probably came from the Russians. Then you have the former General Counsel to the FBI, Jim Baker, and the former Deputy Chief of Staff to the FBI, both arriving at Twitter in the summer of 2020, which I find, what an interesting coincidence. Then, when the New York Post publishes its first article on October 14, it's Jim Baker who makes the most strenuous argument within Twitter, multiple emails, multiple messages saying this doesn't look real. There's people, there's intelligence experts, saying that this could be Russian disinformation. He is the most strenuous person inside Twitter arguing that it's probably Russian disinformation. The internal evaluation by Yoel Roth, who testified in front of this committee, was that it was what it looked to be, which was that it was not a result of a hack and leak operation. And why did he think that? Because the New York Post had published the FBI subpoena taking the laptop in December of 2019. And they published the agreement that the computer store owner had with Hunter Biden that gave him permission, after he abandoned the laptop, to use it however he wanted. So there really wasn't much doubt about the provenance of that laptop. But you had Jim Baker making a strenuous argument. And then, of course, you get to a few days after the October 14 release, you have the president of the United States echoing what these former intelligence community officials were saying, which is that it looked like a Russian influence operation. So they were claiming that the laptop was made public by the conspiracy theory that somehow the Russians got it. And basically, they convinced Yoel Roth of this wild hack and leak story that somehow the Russians stole it, got the information, gave us the computer, it was bizarre. So you read that chain of events, and it appears as though there is an organized influence operation to pre-bunk.... Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Why do you think they could predict the time, the method, and the person? Why could the FBI predict it? Not only did they predict this, they predicted it, so did the Aspen Institute, seemed like everyone was in the know saying, here's what's gonna happen, we can read the future. Why do you think, how do you think they were able to do that? Michael Shellenberger: I think the most important fact to know is that the FBI had that laptop in December 2019. They were also spying on Rudy Giuliani when he got the laptop and when he gave it to the New York Post. Now, maybe the FBI agents who are going to Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Twitter executives and warning of a hack and leak, potentially involving Hunter Biden, maybe those guys didn't have anything to do with the guys that had the top. We don't know that. I have to say, as a newcomer to this, as somebody that thought it was Russian disinformation in 2020, everybody I knew thought it was Russian disinformation, I was shocked to see that series of events going on. It looks to me like a deliberate influence operation. I don't have the proof of it, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty disturbing. 2:14:30 Matt Taibbi: We found, just yesterday, a Tweet from the Virality Project at Stanford, which was partnered with a number of government agencies, and Twitter, where they talked explicitly about censoring stories of true vaccine side effects and other true stories that they felt encouraged hesitancy. Now the imp— Unknown Representative: So these were true. Matt Taibbi: Yes. So they use the word truth three times in this email, and what's notable about this is that it reflects the fundamental misunderstanding of this whole disinformation complex, anti-disinformation complex. They believe that ordinary people can't handle difficult truths. And so they think that they need minders to separate out things that are controversial or difficult for them, and that's again, that's totally contrary to what America is all about, I think. 2:17:30 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): Of course we all believe in the First Amendment, but the First Amendment applies to government prohibition of speech, not to private companies. 2:33:00 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): And even with, Twitter you cannot find actual evidence of any direct government censorship of any lawful speech. 2:33:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): I'd ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the following email from Clarke Humphrey, Executive Office of the Presidency, White House Office, January 23, 2021. That's the Biden Administration. 4:39am: "Hey folks," this goes to Twitter, "Hey folks, wanted..." they used the term Mr. Goldman just used, "wanted to flag the below Tweet, and I'm wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP." 2:35:40 Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): He said the First Amendment applies to government censorship of speech and not private companies, but what we're talking about and what the Chairman just illustrated is that what we have here and what your Twitter files show is the Federal government has partnered with private companies to censor and silence the speech of American citizens. 2:29:20 Matt Taibbi: In the first Twitter files, we saw an exchange between Representative Ro Khanna and Vijaya Gadde, where he's trying to explain the basics of speech law in America and she's completely, she seems completely unaware of what, for instance, New York Times v. Sullivan is. There are other cases like Bartnicki v. Vopper, which legalized the publication of stolen material, that's very important for any journalists to know. I think most of these people are tech executives, and they don't know what the law is around speech and around reporting. And in this case, and in 2016, you are dealing with true material. There is no basis to restrict the publication of true material no matter who the sources and how you get it. And journalists have always understood that and this has never been an issue or a controversial issue until very recently. 2:44:40 Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Would you agree that there was a black list created in 2021? Michael Shellenberger: Sorry, yes, Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford Professor, who I don't think anybody considers a fringe epidemiologist, was indeed -- I'm sorry, I couldn't, I didn't piece it together -- he was indeed visibility filtered. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Correct. And so this blacklist that was created, that really was used to de-platform, reduce visibility, create lists internally, where people couldn't even see their profiles, that was used against doctors and scientists who produced information that was contrary to what the CDC was putting out, despite the fact that we now know that what they were publishing had scientific basis and in fact was valid. Michael Shellenberger: Absolutely. And not only that, but these are secret blacklists, so Professor Bhattacharya had no idea he was on it. 43:05 Matt Taibbi: The original promise of the internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere. What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise and use machine learning and other tools to turn the Internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role. We saw the first hints and communications between Twitter executives before the 2020 election, when we read things like "flagged by DHS," or "please see attached report from FBI for potential misinformation." This would be attached to an Excel spreadsheet with a long list of names, whose accounts were often suspended shortly after. #1940 - Matt Taibbi February 13, 2023 The Joe Rogan Experience Clips Matt Taibbi: So this is another topic that is fascinating because it hasn't gotten a ton of press. But if you go back all the way to the early 70s, the CIA and the FBI got in a lot of trouble for various things, the CIA for assassination schemes involving people like Castro, the FBI for, you know, COINTELPRO and other programs, domestic surveillance, and they made changes after Congressional hearings, the Church Committee, that basically said the FBI, from now on, you have to have some kind of reason to be following somebody or investigating somebody, you have to have some kind of criminal predicate and we want you mainly to be investigating cases. But after 9/11 they peeled all this back. There was a series of Attorney General memos that essentially re-fashioned what the FBI does, and now they don't have to be doing crimefighting all the time. Now they can be doing basically 100% intelligence gathering all the time. They can be infiltrating groups for no reason at all, not to build cases, but just to get information. And so that's why they're there. They're in these groups, they're posted up outside of the homes of people they find suspicious, but they're not building cases and they're not investigating crimes. It's sort of like Minority Report there, right? It's pre-crime. Matt Taibbi: We see reports in these files of government agencies sending lists of accounts that are accusing the United States of vaccine corruption. Now, what they're really talking about is pressuring foreign countries to not use generic vaccines. Right. And, you know, that's a liberal issue, that's a progressive issue. The progressives want generic vaccines to be available to poor countries, okay? But, you know, you can use this tool to eliminate speech about that if you want too, right? I think that's what they don't get is that the significance is not who [it's used against], the significance is the tool. What is it capable of doing, right? How easily is it employed, and you know, how often is it used? And they don't focus on that. Joe Rogan: Has anything been surprising to you? Matt Taibbi: A little bit. I think going into it, I thought that the relationship between the security agencies like the FBI and the DHS and companies like Twitter and Facebook, I thought it was a little bit less formal. I thought maybe they had kind of an advisory role. And what we find is that it's not that, it's very formalized. They have a really intense structure that they've worked out over a period of years where they have regular meetings. They have a system where the DHS handles censorship requests that come up from the States and the FBI handles international ones, and they all float all these companies and it's a big bureaucracy. I don't think we expected to see that. Matt Taibbi: I was especially shocked by an email from a staffer for Adam Schiff, the Congressperson, the California Congressman. And they're just outright saying we would like you to suspend the accounts of this journalist and anybody who retweets information about this Committee. You know, I mean, this is a member of Congress. Joe Rogan: Yeah. Matt Taibbi: Right? Most of these people have legal backgrounds. They've got lawyers in the office for sure. And this is the House Intelligence Committee. Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter's Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story February 8, 2023 House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Witnesses: Vijaya Gadde, Former Chief Legal Officer, Twitter James Baker, Former Deputy General Counsel, Twitter Yoel Roth, Former Global Head of Trust & Safety, Twitter Annika Collier Navaroli, Former Policy Expert for Content Moderation, Twitter Clips 14:50 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): What's more, Twitter's editorial decision has been analyzed and debated ad nauseam. Some people think it was the right decision. Some people think it was the wrong decision. But the key point here is that it was Twitter's decision. Twitter is a private media company. In America, private media companies can decide what to publish or how to curate content however they want. If Twitter wants to have nothing but Tweets commenting on New York Post articles run all day, it can do that. If it makes such tweets mentioning New York Post never see the light of day they can do that too. That's what the First Amendment means. 16:05 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Officially Twitter happens to think they got it wrong about that day or two period. In hindsight, Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey called it a mistake. This apology might be a statement of regret about the company being overly cautious about the risks of publishing contents and potentially hacked or stolen materials, or it may reflect craven surrender to a right wing pressure campaign. But however you interpreted the apology just makes the premise of this hearing all the more absurd. The professional conspiracy theorists who are heckling and haranguing this private company have already gotten exactly what they want: an apology. What more do they want? And why does the US Congress have to be involved in this nonsense when we have serious work to do for the American people? 26:20 James Baker: The law permits the government to have complex, multifaceted, and long term relationships with the private sector. Law enforcement agencies and companies can engage with each other regarding, for example, compulsory legal process served on companies, criminal activity that companies, the government, or the public identify, such as crimes against children, cybersecurity threats, and terrorism, and instances where companies themselves are victims of crime. When done properly, these interactions can be beneficial to both sides and in the interest of the public. As you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Jordan, and others have proposed, a potential workable way to legislate in this area may be to focus on the actions of federal government agencies and officials with respect to their engagement with the private sector. Congress may be able to limit the nature and scope of those interactions in certain ways, require enhanced transparency and reporting by the executive branch about its engagements, and require higher level approvals within the executive branch prior to such engagements on certain topics, so that you can hold Senate confirmed officials, for example, accountable for those decisions. In any event, if you want to legislate, my recommendation is to focus first on reasonable and effective limitations on government actors. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 31:05 Vijaya Gadde: On October 14, 2020, The New York Post tweeted articles about Hunter Biden's laptop with embedded images that looked like they may have been obtained through hacking. In 2018, we had developed a policy intended to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials. We applied this policy to the New York Post tweets and blocked links to the articles embedding those sorts of materials. At no point to Twitter otherwise prevent tweeting, reporting, discussing or describing the contents of Mr. Biden's laptop. People could and did talk about the contents of the laptop on Twitter or anywhere else, including other much larger platforms, but they were prevented from sharing the primary documents on Twitter. Still, over the course of that day, it became clear that Twitter had not fully appreciated the impact of that policy on free press and others. As Mr. Dorsey testified before Congress on multiple occasions, Twitter changed its policy within 24 hours and admitted its initial action was wrong. This policy revision immediately allowed people to tweet the original articles with the embedded source materials, relying on its long standing practice not to retroactively apply new policies. Twitter informed the New York Post that it could immediately begin tweeting when it deleted the original tweets, which would have freed them to retweet the same content again. The New York Post chose not to delete its original tweets, so Twitter made an exception after two weeks to retroactively apply the new policy to the Post's tweets. In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the Post account immediately. 35:35 Yoel Roth: In 2020, Twitter noticed activity related to the laptop that at first glance bore a lot of similarities to the 2016 Russian hack and leak operation targeting the DNC, and we had to decide what to do. And in that moment with limited information, Twitter made a mistake. 36:20 Yoel Roth: It isn't obvious what the right response is to a suspected, but not confirmed, cyber attack by another government on a Presidential Election. I believe Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016. 38:41 Annika Collier Navaroli: I joined Twitter in 2019 and by 2020 I was the most senior expert on Twitter's U.S. Safety Policy Team. My team's mission was to protect free speech and public safety by writing and enforcing content moderation policies around the world. These policies include things like abuse, harassment, hate speech, violence and privacy. 41:20 Annika Collier Navaroli: With January 6 and many other decisions, content moderators like me did the very best that we could. But far too often there are far too few of us and we are being asked to do the impossible. For example, in January 2020 after the US assassinated an Iranian General and the US president decided to justify it on Twitter, management literally instructed me and my team to make sure that World War III did not start on the platform. 1:08:20 Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): Did the US government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to censor or moderate certain Tweets, yes or no? Vijaya Gadde: We receive legal demands to remove content from the platform from the US government and governments all around the world. Those are published on a third party website. 1:12:00 Yoel Roth: The number one most influential part of the Russian active measures campaign in 2016 was the hack and leak targeting John Podesta. It would have been foolish not to consider the possibility that they would run that play again. 1:44:45 Yoel Roth: I think one of the key failures that we identified after 2016 was that there was very little information coming from the government and from intelligence services to the private sector. The private sector had the power to remove bots and to take down foreign disinformation campaigns, but we didn't always know where to look without leads supplied by the intelligence community. That was one of the failures highlighted in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report and in the Mueller investigation, and that was one of the things we set out to fix in 2017. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): On September 8 2019, at 11:11pm, Donald Trump heckled two celebrities on Twitter -- John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen -- and referred to them as "the musician John Legend and his filthy mouth wife." Ms. Teigen responded to that email [Tweet] at 12:17am. And according to notes from a conversation with you, Ms. Navaroli's, counsel, your counsel, the White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate? Annika Collier Navaroli: Thank you for the question. In my role, I was not responsible for receiving any sort of request from the government. However, what I was privy to was my supervisors letting us know that we had received something along those lines or something of a request. And in that particular instance, I do remember hearing that we had received a request from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet, and that they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement towards the President. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): They wanted it to come down. They made that request. Annika Collier Navaroli: To my recollection, yes. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): I thought that was an inappropriate action by a government official, let alone the White House. But it wasn't Joe Biden, about his son's laptop. It was Donald Trump because he didn't like what Chrissy Teigen had to say about him, is that correct? Annika Collier Navaroli: Yes, that is correct. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): My, my, my. 1:45:15 Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH): Mr. Roth, were those communication channels useful to Twitter as they work to combat foreign influence operations? Yoel Roth: Absolutely, I would say they were one of the most essential pieces of how Twitter prepared for future elections. 2:42:35 Rep. Becca Balint (D-VA): Ms. Gadde, did anyone from the Biden campaign or the Democratic National Committee direct Twitter to remove or take action against the New York Post story? Vijaya Gadde: No. 4:15:45 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And now we forward to 2020. And earlier you had testified that you were having regular interactions with National Intelligence, Homeland Security and the FBI. Yoel Roth: Yes, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And primarily to deal with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Primarily, but I would say -- Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): But you had said earlier your contact with Agent Chang was primarily with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Yes, that's right. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And these were emails....were there meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, Twitter met quarterly with the FBI Foreign Interference Task Force and we had those meetings running for a number of years to share information about malign foreign interference. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Agents from Homeland Security or Intelligence, or just primarily the FBI? Yoel Roth: Our primary contacts were with the FBI and in those quarterly meetings, they were, I believe, exclusively with FBI personnel. 4:18:05 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Earlier today you testified that you were following national security experts on Twitter as a reason to take down the New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop. Yoel Roth: Yes, sir, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So after 2016, you set up all these teams to deal with Russian interference, foreign interference, you're having regular meetings with the FBI, you have connections with all of these different government agencies, and you didn't reach out to them once? Yoel Roth: Is that question in reference to the day of the New York Post article? Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Yeah. Yoel Roth: That's right. We generally did not reach out to the FBI to consult on content moderation decisions, especially where they related to domestic activity. It's not that we wouldn't have liked that information, we certainly would have. It's that I don't believe it would have been appropriate for us to consult with the FBI. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): In December of 2020, you did a declaration to the Federal Election Commission that the intelligence community expected a leak and a hack operation involving Hunter Biden. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the FBI warned Meta that there was a high effort of Russian propaganda including language specific enough to fit the Hunter Biden laptop security story. You're talking to these people for weeks and months, years prior to this leaking. They have specifically told you in October, that there's going to be a leak potentially involving Hunter Biden's laptop. They legitimately and literally prophesized what happened. And you didn't contact any of them? Yoel Roth: No, sir, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Did they reach out to you? Yoel Roth: On and around that day, to the best of my recollection, no, they did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): After the story was taken down and you guys did it, and you personally disagreed with it Ms. Gadde, did you contact them and say is "Hey, is this what you were talking about?" Yoel Roth: If that question was directed to me. No, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Ms. Gadde, did you talk to anybody from the FBI? Vijaya Gadde: Not to the best of my recollection. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So I guess my question is, what is the point of this program? You have constant communication, they're set up for foreign interference. They've legitimately warned you about this very specific thing. And then all of a sudden, everybody just walks away? 5:18:55 Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM): We are devoting an entire day to this conspiracy theory involving Twitter. Now, the mission of this committee is to root out waste, fraud and abuse and to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people. And if you need any evidence of waste, fraud and abuse, how about the use of this committee's precious time, space and resources to commit to this hearing? 5:58:25 Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): Back to Mr. Roth, is it true that Twitter whitelisted accounts for the Department of Defense to spread propaganda about its efforts in the Middle East? Did they give you a list of accounts that were fake accounts and asked you to whitelist those accounts? Yoel Roth: That request was made of Twitter. To be clear, when I found out about that activity, I was appalled by it. I undid the action and my team exposed activity originating from the Department of Defense's campaign publicly. We've shared that data with the world and research about it has been published. 6:07:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, I want to go back to your statement in your declaration to the FEC "I learned that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden," who did you learn that from? Yoel Roth: My recollection is it was mentioned by another technology company in one of our joint meetings, but I don't recall specifically whom. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): You don't know the person's name? Yoel Roth: I don't even recall what company they worked at. No, this was a long time ago. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): And you're confident that it was from a tech company, not from someone from the government? Yoel Roth: To the best of my recollection, yes. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did anyone from the government, in these periodic meetings you had, did they ever tell you that a hack and leak operation involving Hunter Biden was coming? Yoel Roth: No. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did Hunter Biden's name come up at all these meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, his name was raised in those meetings, but not by the government to the best of my recollection. 6:09:30 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, why were you reluctant, based on what I read in the Twitter files, why were you reluctant to work with the GEC? Yoel Roth: It was my understanding that the GEC, or the Global Engagement Center of the State Department, had previously engaged in at least what some would consider offensive influence operations. Not that they were offensive as in bad, but offensive as in they targeted entities outside of the United States. And on that basis, I felt that it would be inappropriate for Twitter to engage with a part of the State Department that was engaged in active statecraft. We were dedicated to rooting out malign foreign interference no matter who it came from. And if we found that the American government was engaged in malign foreign interference, we'd be addressing that as well. 6:13:50 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Twitter is a private company, but they enjoy special liability protections, Section 230. They also, according to the Twitter files, receive millions of dollars from the FBI, which is tax dollars, I would assume. And that makes it a concern of the Oversight Committee. Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior? October 28, 2020 Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Witnesses: Jack Dorsey, [Former] CEO, Twitter Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet and Google Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook [Meta] Clips 2:20:40 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that they're leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, they're amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy. 3:15:40 Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as I testified before, we relied heavily on the FBI, his intelligence and alert status both through their public testimony and private briefings. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Did the FBI contact you, sir, than your co star? It was false. Mark Zuckerberg: Senator not about that story specifically. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Why did you throttle it back? Mark Zuckerberg: They alerted us to be on heightened alert around a risk of hack and leak operations around a release and probe of information. Emerging Trends in Online Foreign Influence Operations: Social Media, COVID-19, and Election Security June 18, 2020 Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Watch on YouTube Witnesses: Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy at Facebook Nick Pickles, Director of Global Public Policy Strategy and Development at Twitter Richard Salgado, Director for Law Enforcement and Information Security at Google 1:40:10 Nathaniel Gleicher: Congressman, the collaboration within industry and with government is much, much better than it was in 2016. I think we have found the FBI, for example, to be forward leaning and ready to share information with us when they see it. We share information with them whenever we see indications of foreign interference targeting our election. The best case study for this was the 2018 midterms, where you saw industry, government and civil society all come together, sharing information to tackle these threats. We had a case on literally the eve of the vote, where the FBI gave us a tip about a network of accounts where they identified subtle links to Russian actors. Were able to investigate those and take action on them within a matter of hours. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)
Biden's Cabinet makes the case for spending boosts for EPA, HHS, State and Treasury. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation votes on the president's pick to lead the FAA. And Sanders grills Moderna's CEO. Megan Mineiro your CQ Morning Briefing for Wednesday, March 22.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) serves as Chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and also serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. This week he discusses the January 6 hearings and the threat domestric extremism poses to our democracy with Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison.
GOP Fights Back Against BIG TECH Censorship in Tennessee - And YOU Can Help!Conservatives in Tennessee are being targeted and discriminated against for one reason: We hold strong views on traditional American values like faith, freedom and capitalism.In this interview, Representative Dennis Powers talks about legislation that would restore freedom of speech in our state, but the BIG TECH lobbyists are working overtime to kill the bill.First, listen to this interview... THEN scroll down to call, email and even WRITE these committee members TODAY!If you support HB2369/SB2161, be sure to contact the House Republican subcommittee members (who hold the supermajority vote) listed below to voice your support before their meeting on Wednesday, March 16th and the Senate Republican committee members before Tuesday, March 15th.Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Members:Paul Bailey (Chair) – sen.paul.bailey@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3978Art Swann (1st Vice-Chair) – sen.art.swann@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-0981Frank Niceley (2nd Vice-Chair) – sen.frank.niceley@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2061Jack Johnson – sen.jack.johnson@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2495Shane Reeves – sen.shane.reeves@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1066Steve Southerland – sen.steve.southerland@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3851Bo Watson – sen.bo.watson@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3227Ken Yager – sen.ken.yager@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1449House Business and Utilities Subcommittee Members:Clark Boyd (Chair) – rep.clark.boyd@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-7086Rebecca K. Alexander – rep.rebecca.alexander@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2251Kent Calfee – rep.kent.calfee@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-7658Patsy Hazlewood- rep.patsy.hazlewood@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2746John B. Holsclaw, Jr. – rep.john.holsclaw@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-7450Curtis Johnson – rep.curtis.johnson@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-4341Eddie Mannis – rep.eddie.mannis@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2287Kevin Vaughan – rep.kevin.vaughan@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1866Greg Vital – rep.greg.vital@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3025Jason Zachary – rep.jason.zachary@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2264Watch the interview here >> https://bit.ly/3q4ttLX
Much of this episode is devoted to new digital curtain falling across Europe. Gus Horwitz and Mark-MacCarthy review the tech boycott that has seen companies like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Adobe pull their service from Russia. Nick Weaver describes how Russia cracked down on independent Russian media outlets and blocked access to the websites of foreign media including the BBC and Facebook. Gus reports on an apparent Russian decision to require all servers and domains to transfer Russian zone, thereby disconnecting itself from the global internet. Mark describes how private companies in the U.S. have excluded Russian media from their systems, including how DirecTV's decision to drop RT America led the Russian 24-hour news channel to shutter its operations. In contrast, the EU officially shut down all RT and Sputnik operations, including their apps and websites. Nick wonders if the enforcement mechanism is up to the task of taking down the websites. Gus, Dave and Mark discuss the myth making in social media about the Ukrainian war such as the Ghost of Kyiv, and wonder if fiction might do some good to keep up the morale of the besieged country. Dave Aitel reminds us that despite the apparent lack of cyberattacks in the war, more might be going on under the surface. He also he tells us more about the internal attack that affected the Conti Ransomware gang when they voiced support for Russia. Nick opines that cryptocurrencies do not have the volume to serve as an effective way around the financial sanctions against Russia. Sultan Meghji agrees that the financial sanctions will accelerate the move away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency and is skeptical that a principles-based constraint will do much good to halt that trend. A few things happened other than the war in Ukraine, including President Biden's first state of the union address. Gus notices that much of the speech was devoted to tech. He notes that the presence in the audience of Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, highlighted Biden's embrace of stronger online children's privacy laws and that the presence of Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger gave the president the opportunity to pitch his plan to support domestic chip production. Sultan and Dave discuss the cybersecurity bill that passed out of the Senate unanimously. It would require companies in critical sectors to report cyberattacks and ransomware to the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). They also analyze the concerns that companies have about providing information to the FBI. Dave thinks the bills that were discussed in this week's House Commerce hearing to hold Big Tech accountable, respond to wide-spread public concerns about tech's surveillance business model, but still he thinks they are unlikely to make it through the process to become law. Gus says that Amazon's certification that it has responded to the Federal Trade Commission's inquiries about its proposed $6.5 billion MGM merger triggers a statutory deadline for the agency to act. It is not the company's fault, he says, that the agency has a 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans that will likely prevent them opposing the merger in time. I take the opportunity to note that the Senate Commerce committee sent the nominations of Alvaro Bedoya for the Federal Trade Commission and Gigi Sohn for the Federal Communications Commission to the Senate floor, but that it would likely be several months before the full Senate would act on the nominations. Finally, Nick argues that certain measures in the European Commission's proposed digital identity framework, aiming to improve authentication on the web, would in practice have the opposite effect of dramatically weakening web security. Download the 397th Episode (mp3) You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets.
Much of this episode is devoted to new digital curtain falling across Europe. Gus Horwitz and Mark-MacCarthy review the tech boycott that has seen companies like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Adobe pull their service from Russia. Nick Weaver describes how Russia cracked down on independent Russian media outlets and blocked access to the websites of foreign media including the BBC and Facebook. Gus reports on an apparent Russian decision to require all servers and domains to transfer Russian zone, thereby disconnecting itself from the global internet. Mark describes how private companies in the U.S. have excluded Russian media from their systems, including how DirecTV's decision to drop RT America led the Russian 24-hour news channel to shutter its operations. In contrast, the EU officially shut down all RT and Sputnik operations, including their apps and websites. Nick wonders if the enforcement mechanism is up to the task of taking down the websites. Gus, Dave and Mark discuss the myth making in social media about the Ukrainian war such as the Ghost of Kyiv, and wonder if fiction might do some good to keep up the morale of the besieged country. Dave Aitel reminds us that despite the apparent lack of cyberattacks in the war, more might be going on under the surface. He also he tells us more about the internal attack that affected the Conti Ransomware gang when they voiced support for Russia. Nick opines that cryptocurrencies do not have the volume to serve as an effective way around the financial sanctions against Russia. Sultan Meghji agrees that the financial sanctions will accelerate the move away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency and is skeptical that a principles-based constraint will do much good to halt that trend. A few things happened other than the war in Ukraine, including President Biden's first state of the union address. Gus notices that much of the speech was devoted to tech. He notes that the presence in the audience of Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, highlighted Biden's embrace of stronger online children's privacy laws and that the presence of Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger gave the president the opportunity to pitch his plan to support domestic chip production. Sultan and Dave discuss the cybersecurity bill that passed out of the Senate unanimously. It would require companies in critical sectors to report cyberattacks and ransomware to the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). They also analyze the concerns that companies have about providing information to the FBI. Dave thinks the bills that were discussed in this week's House Commerce hearing to hold Big Tech accountable, respond to wide-spread public concerns about tech's surveillance business model, but still he thinks they are unlikely to make it through the process to become law. Gus says that Amazon's certification that it has responded to the Federal Trade Commission's inquiries about its proposed $6.5 billion MGM merger triggers a statutory deadline for the agency to act. It is not the company's fault, he says, that the agency has a 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans that will likely prevent them opposing the merger in time. I take the opportunity to note that the Senate Commerce committee sent the nominations of Alvaro Bedoya for the Federal Trade Commission and Gigi Sohn for the Federal Communications Commission to the Senate floor, but that it would likely be several months before the full Senate would act on the nominations. Finally, Nick argues that certain measures in the European Commission's proposed digital identity framework, aiming to improve authentication on the web, would in practice have the opposite effect of dramatically weakening web security. Download the 397th Episode (mp3) You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets.
ACTION ALERT! STOP TN Social Media Censorship!Have you ever been censored on social media?If you are a Conservative, the answer is yes.BIG TECH is waging war against Free Speech in our country. Right now, our Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly have an opportunity to fight back.Listen to this eye-opening interview with James Taylor then email and call these committee members below now. Tell them enough is enough!...Be sure to contact the Senate Republican committee members listed below to voice your support before their meeting on Tuesday, March 8th and the House Republican subcommittee members before Wednesday, March 9th.Senate Commerce and Labor Committee MembersPaul Bailey (Chair) – sen.paul.bailey@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3978Art Swann (1st Vice-Chair) – sen.art.swann@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-0981Frank Niceley (2nd Vice-Chair) – sen.frank.niceley@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2061Jack Johnson – sen.jack.johnson@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2495Shane Reeves – sen.shane.reeves@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1066Steve Southerland – sen.steve.southerland@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3851Bo Watson – sen.bo.watson@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3227Ken Yager – sen.ken.yager@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1449House Business and Utilities Subcommittee MembersClark Boyd (Chair) – rep.clark.boyd@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-7086Rebecca K. Alexander – rep.rebecca.alexander@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2251Kent Calfee – rep.kent.calfee@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-7658Patsy Hazlewood- rep.patsy.hazlewood@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2746John B. Holsclaw, Jr. – rep.john.holsclaw@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-7450Curtis Johnson – rep.curtis.johnson@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-4341Eddie Mannis – rep.eddie.mannis@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2287Kevin Vaughan – rep.kevin.vaughan@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-1866Greg Vital – rep.greg-vital@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-3025Jason Zachary – rep.jason.zachary@capitol.tn.gov – (615) 741-2264Watch the interview here >> https://tennesseeconservativenews.com/action-alert-stop-tn-social-media-censorship-interview-with-heartland-institutes-james-taylor/
Welcome to an appropriately named month, one that marks the beginning of meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s a phrase I’ve not known until today, nor did I know that the equinox in three weeks marks the beginning of vernal spring. There is so much to be learned about the world around us, and every installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement seeks to bring a little of it to your attention. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs.Sign up for free to make sure you get all of the information, and decide whether to pay later! On today’s program:Governor Youngkin issues his first veto, and a round-up of bills that have not passed the General Assembly The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority agrees to issue $23 million in bonds for a California firm to renovate Midway Manor An international panel releases new information about the efforts to slow the rise in global temperaturesFirst shout-out goes to the Rivanna Conservation AllianceIn today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out, the Rivanna Conservation Alliance wants wildlife and nature photographers to enter their first-ever photography contest! They want high-resolution photos related to the Rivanna watershed and the winning entries will be displayed at the 2022 Riverfest Celebration on May 1. The two categories are 16 and under, and those over the age of 17. You can send in two entries, and the work may be used to supplement Rivanna Conservation Alliance publications. For more information, visit rivannariver.org.Governor Youngkin vetoes Arlington police auditor billArlington County will not be able to appoint an independent auditor to monitor the police department with the same powers as a civilian review board. Governor Glenn Youngkin has vetoed HB670 which would have granted the Arlington County Board that ability. The measure passed the House of Delegates on a 65 to 35 vote and the Senate on a much closer 21 to 19 vote. In his veto statement, Youngkin said such a move would grant too much power without appropriate protections for law enforcement officers. “Investing in a single politically-appointed individual the power of judge, jury, and executioner without any input from law-enforcement officers or delineated qualifications for such [an] individual constitutes an undue burden for those who protect and serve the community,” Youngkin wrote in his statement. More on the General Assembly later on in this newsletter. IPCC releases new reportA new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that rising global temperatures are causing disruptions for nature and humanity across the planet. A working group of scientists from 195 nations gathered for two weeks to review and approve Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. “The world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F),” reads a press release for the report. “Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. Risks for society will increase, including to infrastructure and low-lying coastal settlements.”The report urges continued work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and suggests ways this can be done while improving people’s lives, but also points out that growing urbanization and social inequality will hasten the problem. The full report is 3,675 pages long but the technical summary is a bit more manageable at 96 pages. I suspect most readers and listeners will opt for the 36-page summary for policymakers. “This report has a particular focus on transformation16 and system transitions in energy; land, ocean, coastal and freshwater ecosystems; urban, rural and infrastructure; and industry and society,” reads the introduction to that summary. “These transitions make possible the adaptation required for high levels of human health and wellbeing, economic and social resilience, ecosystem health, and planetary health.” For more information on what local and state governments are doing to meet their greenhouse reduction goals, here are some resources:Albemarle Climate Protection webpageCharlottesville Climate Protection webpageUniversity of Virginia SustainabilityVirginia Coastal Resilience Master PlanYesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case that challenges the power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Read the transcript of the argument here or listen to the oral arguments. Read one account of how it went on Bloomberg Law. CRHA approves $23 million in bonds for Midway Manor renovations The Board of Commissioners for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority has taken the first step toward issuing up to $23 million in bonds for a California-based company to renovate Midway Manor in a way that will keep existing affordability requirements in place. “This is a 98-unit elderly affordable housing development on Ridge Street very close to the Greyhound station and the proposal is to issue some bonds to assist with the financing of a comprehensive renovation of this project,” said Delphine Carnes, the legal counsel for the CRHA.Standard Communities closed on their $16.45 million acquisition of Midway Manor on January 13. They say that the current affordability levels will be maintained, and common spaces and amenities will be upgraded. They’re asking the CRHA to issue “exempt facility” bonds to renovate the 98 units. No new market-rate units would be added. “The role of the housing authority in this particular project is as a conduit bond issuer,” Carnes said. That means the CRHA would not have any obligations for the property, and neither CRHA or the City of Charlottesville would be responsible for paying back the bonds. Carnes said there were benefits to issuing the bonds. “First, they ensure the continued renovation and redevelopment of affordable housing units in the City of Charlottesville which is very complementary to your own mission but it doesn’t cost you a dime,” Carnes said. “As a matter of fact, it creates some revenue to you because you are receiving a fee for being the issuer of these bonds.” Carnes did not have a number on hand at the public hearing, but said the funding could be used for any purpose by the CRHA. The CRHA will need to approve the project once more after the bond documents are finalized. Steven Kahn is a director with Standard Communities. During the public hearing, he acknowledged that many do not know what his company does. “We’ve got about 13,000 units of affordable housing across the country in 19 different states,” Kahn said. “This will be our first project in Charlottesville but hopefully not our last as we see to it that we try to do our business the right way and always get invited back for repeat performances and we’ve done that very successfully across the country.”Kahn called Midway Manor a tremendous asset that has served a population in need of housing and a need for certainty. The current affordability requirements are running out. “And our intentions with Midway Manor are to take the federal rental subsidy contract that does expire in a couple of years and renew that for as long as the [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] to do so which is at present is a 20-year contract,” Kahn said. “And in partnership also work with [Virginia Housing Development Authority] to receive an allocation of four percent low-income housing tax credits which will allow us in partnership with these bonds to do a very extensive renovation of the property.” Kahn said the renovations would be expansive with full upgrades of interiors as well as an energy-efficient retrofit of heating and cooling systems and electric systems. The specifics of how renovation will work are not yet available, but Kahn said the hope is to not relocate tenants while the work is done over an 18-month period. “We’ve got a tremendous amount of experience doing that,” Kahn said. “North of ten thousand units completing renovations without displacing residents, even during the renovation process.” The executive director of the Public Housing Association of Residents asked for careful consideration of the issuance of the bonds. “I’ve spoken with two resident leaders at Midway Manor and their desire is to come to an answer as expeditiously as possible about the status of the building,” said Shelby Marie Edwards. “To be clear, I know CRHA does not own the building. And if anybody can help them make sure the units are affordable and that the building is upgrade and becoming of our citizens they would be grateful for the help. They are looking for the answer to the question: What’s going to happen to the resident. Where are we going?”Kahn said Standard Communities is a “high-touch” organization when it plans for these projects to make sure residents know what is going on. He said there will be a kickoff meeting for residents when the project is closer to moving forward. “Miscommunication or misinformation spreads very quickly through communities and we try to make sure that it is not something we are a part of,” Kahn said. Kahn said they are hoping to close the sale of the bonds this summer and get started with construction soon after. In the meantime, he said there were a number of issues that Standard Communities know need to be fixed. “There are a lot of things that we became aware of during our due diligence of the property that need some attention before then,” Kahn said. “We’ve put those underway. Elevator modernization is one of them. I know there [are] some concerns with the intercom system at the entryway.” The five CRHA Commissioners who were present on the virtual meeting voted unanimously to authorize the bond issuance. It is important to note that the Low Income Housing Tax Credits are in a separate category than the competitive ones that are being sought for other projects in the area. “The four percent LIHTC pool is noncompetitive while the nine percent pool is very competitive,” said John Sales, executive director of the CRHA. Sales said Council will also have to approve the issuance of the bonds. More from the CRHA meeting in a future version of the program.Second shout-out goes to an arboreal event at the Virginia Festival of the Book In today’s second subscriber-supported Public Service Announcement, the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards wants to draw your attention to a Virginia Festival of the Book event coming up on March 16. Michelle Nijhuis will lead a virtual conversation on “Seeing Trees, Saving the Great Forests”. Nijhuis will speak with forest scientists and preservationists Meg Lowman and John Reid. Lowman is the author of The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Planet in the Trees Above Us. Reid is the co-author of Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Earth. The event on March 16 begins at noon. To register, visit vabook.org. General Assembly update: Divided government edition The 2022 Virginia General Assembly has just over two weeks left to go, and the pattern remains much of the same. Many bills that narrowly passed in one House of the bicameral legislature are now being defeated in committees of the other, a clear sign of divided government. Let’s go through some of those today. A Senate bill (SB27) to expand the Education Improvement Scholarships Tax Credit was tabled by the House Appropriations Committee. A Senate bill (SB290) to require local and state government agencies to construct energy efficient roofs on new public buildings failed to report out of the House General Laws Committee on a 10 to 12 vote. A Senate bill (SB559) to require more disclosure from registered lobbyists was tabled in the General Laws Committee on a 12 to 9 vote. Senate Bill 576 would have allowed betting on Virginia college sports, but it was tabled in the House General Laws Committee on an 18 to 4 vote. A Senate bill (SB310) that would have prohibited plastic guns and made their sales or posession a Class 5 felony was tabled in the House Public Safety Committee on a 12 to 10 vote. This had passed the Senate on a 22 to 18 vote. Now over to the Senate. House Bill 1301 would have directed the Department of Environmental Quality to withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It passed the House of Delegates on a 52 to 48 vote, but was tabled in the Senate Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural Resources Committee on an 8 to 7 vote.Another bill that would have watered down the Air Pollution Control Board’s requirements for renewable energy had passed the House of Delegates on a 53 to 47 vote, but was passed by indefinitely in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on a nine to five vote. (SB81)A bill that would have required parental notification of the use of any sexually explicit materials in public school failed to report from the Senate Education and Health Committee on a 7 to 8 vote. (HB1009)A bill to advance Governor Glenn Younkgin’s Lab School initiative was passed by indefinitely by the Senate Education and Health Committee on a 9 to 6 vote. (HB356)House Bill 539 would have required public colleges and universities to notify would-be students that they could be disqualified by “certain criminal convictions.” That bill was passed by indefinitely in the Senate Education and Health Committee. Localities would not have been allowed to require contractors to provide certain benefits if HB58 had passed. The Senate General Laws and Technology Committee passed this by indefinitely on an 8 to 7 vote.Virginia’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will retain that name. HB1300 would have required the renaming to Director of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion was passed by indefinitely on an 8 to 7 vote. Currently law-enforcement officers who are in a community with a police civilian review board are subject to a different interpretation of the Law-Enforcement Officers Procedural Guarantee Act. HB70 would have changed that, and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed that by indefinitely on a 9 to 6 vote. Law enforcements will continue to not be allowed to stop motorists for minor infractions. House Bill 79 would have removed those provisions passed by a Democrat-led General Assembly and it passed the Republican-run House of Delegates on a 52 to 45 vote. The Cemocrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee passed this by indefinitely on a 9 to 6 vote.Currently if you have a firearm stolen from you, you must report that to a law-enforcement agency. House Bill 325 would have dropped that requirement by the Senate Judiciary Committee passed this by indefinitely on an 8 to 7 vote. Other House bills related to firearms were also defeated. One would have repealed a recently passed law that allows firearms to be removed from the possession of people deemed to be a risk (HB509). Localities will also continue to be able to prohibit firearms in public places (HB827). Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe
Two is the only even prime number, an odd fact to point out on this February 22, 2022. We are twenty days past the predictions of large rodents and less than a month away from the spring equinox. Time does move fast, but we’re still only 14.5 percent of the way through the year. Oh, the things you’ll learn in every installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement! I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. On today’s program:Albemarle County Supervisors discuss incentives for developers to build housing units below market rateMidway Manor may have a new future in which part of the downtown Charlottesville property will remain age and income restrictedA round-up of planning for other affordable housing projects in Charlottesville Albemarle County wants state regulators to require CenturyLink’s successor to maintain old copper telephone linesAnd Charlottesville wants the public to get a zoning 101Patreon-fueled shout-out to LEAPWhen you think of romance, you might not immediately think of energy efficiency - but the folks at LEAP think keeping your family comfortable at home is a great way to show you care during the month of love. Your local energy nonprofit wants to make sure you are getting the most out of your home all year round, and LEAP offers FREE home weatherization to income- and age-qualifying residents. If someone in your household is age 60 or older, or you have an annual household income of less than $74,950, you may qualify for a free energy assessment and home energy improvements such as insulation and air sealing. Sign up today to lower your energy bills, increase comfort, and reduce energy waste at home!Pandemic update: Percent positivity below ten percentThe waning of the omicron surge of COVID-19 continues as the Virginia Department of Health reports a seven-day average of positive PCR tests of 9.6 percent, below ten percent for the first time since December 21. Case loads are still high, with a seven-day average of 2,423 new cases a day. Today the Blue Ridge Health District reports another 168 new cases. Deaths associated with the omicron surge continue to be recorded. As of today there have been 401 total COVID deaths in the Blue Ridge Health District and 18,230 statewide over the past 23 months. Albemarle County offers comments on transfer of CenturyLink assets to LumenThis week, the State Corporation Commission is holding two meetings on a petition from Lumen Technologies to take over control of CenturyLink. Among the public comments submitted so far is the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors who sent a letter on February 10 summarizing concerns they made to Lumen officials at a January 12 meeting. As part of the deal, the new company would acquire copper-based assets and the county wants to make sure that service continues. (hearing webpage)“Many of our vulnerable communities live in the rural areas of our county, where topography and distance often preclude cellular coverage,” the letter reads. “For these residents, this copper-plant is a vital lifeline for accessing 911 service, particularly during and after severe weather events.” The letter also includes dozens of complaints about CenturyLink service for “terrible and ineffective customer service” and for a lack of maintenance of older equipment. (letter and complaints) (second set of complaints)For anyone interested in learning more, there is a whole repository of documents available for public review, including Lumen’s petition to the SCC. Midway Manor subject of new affordable housing developmentThe Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority will hold a public hearing next Monday on the issuance of up to $23 million in bonds that would be used by a California-based company to redevelop Midway Manor. In January, the property sold for $16.5 million, more than double its 2022 assessment of $7.5 million. According to a legal notice published in the Daily Progress, the new company has requested the CRHA issue up the exempt facility bonds “to assist the Applicant in financing or refinancing a portion of the costs of acquiring, constructing, renovating, rehabilitating and equipping an age restricted affordable housing development to be known as Midway Manor Apartments, to consist of 94 one-bedroom units and 4 two-bedroom units.”The notice states in capital letters that taxpayer funds will not be sought to pay back any of the debt that Standard Midway Manor Venture LP will incur. To learn more about exempt facility bonds, visit the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School. Since February 1, Midway Manor is now under management by the Franklin Johnston Group. Financing of the houses is provided by the U.S. Department of Housing through the Section 8 program, which bases rents on the income of tenants. In an email this morning, CRHA Executive Director John Sales said the agency’s only role will be to issue the bonds. Low-Income Housing Tax Credit applications underwayWe are in the season when providers of affordable housing are preparing applications for Low Income Housing Tax Credits in advance of a March deadline. Summaries have been sent to the agency formerly known as the Virginia Housing Development Authority and that’s required notifications to localities. (read all of the summaries)Piedmont Housing Alliance is seeking credits for 30 rental units at the Monticello Area Community Action Agency property on Park Street. These will be four one bedroom units, 22 two bedroom units, and four three bedroom units. The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority seeks credits from the housing authority pool for 60 units for Phase 1A of the Sixth Street redevelopment with half of them being one bedroom and the other half being two bedroom units. This is separate from Phase 1 of the Sixth Street redevelopment, for which CRHA is seeking credits from the housing authority pool for 44 units with eight of them one bedroom, 20 two bedroom units, and 16 three bedroom units. CRHA is also seeking credits for 113 units in the second phase of redevelopment of South First Street. These would replace existing units and would consist of 19 one bedroom units, 38 two bedroom units, 26 three bedroom units, 15 four bedroom units, and 15 with more than four bedrooms. Last week, the company that is constructing the development of Friendship Court issued a press release announcing the groundbreaking from January. The firm Harkins is based in Columbia, Maryland. “Friendship Court’s redevelopment will be the largest construction of low-income housing for the area in over 20 years,” reads the release. “A multi-phased project, Phase 1 will consist of 106 units with buildings 1 and 2 totaling 35 stacked townhome-style units, while building 3 will include a one-level structured parking garage and three levels as a wood-framed, center corridor apartment building.” The project is being built to Passive House standards and will be Harkins’ third such project. Charlottesville releases Zoning 101 presentationThe next new information in Charlottesville’s rewrite of the zoning code won’t be available until mid-April when staff and Rhodeside & Harwell will publish a document with an inventory of the existing housing stock versus what could be built under the new future Land Use Map. This will take the form of a Diagnosis report and an Approach report. In the meantime, the city and the Cville Plans Together team has published a new page to provide an education on what the zoning process is all about. “Today’s zoning also has a number of flaws and barriers to development previously identified by City planning staff, elected and appointed officials, and others,” reads the Cville Plans Together website. “This process is an opportunity to cure these flaws and remove the barriers to the kind of development that is described in the updated Comprehensive Plan.” In January, a group of anonymous Charlottesville property owners filed suit in Charlottesville Circuit Court seeking to overturn the validity of the Comprehensive Plan. Read more in my January 12, 2022 story on that lawsuit. Shout-out to the Charlottesville Jazz Society In today’s second subscriber-supported public service announcement: The Charlottesville Jazz Society at cvillejazz.org is dedicated to the promotion, preservation, and perpetuation of all that jazz, and this Sunday the Society is sponsoring the return of Jane Bunnett and her all-female band from Cuba, Maqueque. A concert will be held at 7 p.m. at Unity of Charlottesville where Maqueque will play music from their latest release On Firm Ground/Tierra Firme. Get tickets online with discounts for students or members of the Charlottesville Jazz Society.Albemarle Supervisors discuss incentive package for housing Last July, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors adopted a housing plan that seeks to increase the number of units guaranteed to be rented or sold below the market rate. Housing Albemarle was adopted without a system of incentives to developers to keep those prices lower than they otherwise would be. That came back to the Board on February 16. Albemarle Housing Coordinator Stacy Pethia has suggested creation of an overlay district in the zoning code that would allow for reduced fees and other waivers in exchange for creating lower-priced units. “We did engage with developers and we had four meetings with developers between June and October of last year,” Pethia said. “During the first two meetings, staff listened to developer concerns and discussed housing policy goals. Based on that feedback collected during those meetings and research into incentive programs implemented in localities within Virginia and across the country, staff developed a list of potential incentives that could be in a package.”The overlay would be restricted to Albemarle’s development areas and would be optional, meaning developers would not have to participate. If they did, there would be the possibility of many ways their bottom line could be assisted. “They would offer a bonus density, reduction in building permit fees, and flexibility in design and parking standards,” Pethia said. The overlay would also allow developers to bypass the zoning process in some places if they build to the maximum density allowed in the Comprehensive Plan. At a minimum, twenty percent of units would need to be kept below market rate at levels identified in Housing Albemarle. “And the number of affordable units to be required would be calculated prior to applying the density bonus,” Pethia said. “This would provide developers with additional market rate units to help offset the cost of making the affordable units available. The incentive plan will also address a gap in Albemarle’s current policy by creating a waiting list of people who will qualify for below-market opportunities based on their income. “It’s really difficult to market the affordable units to income-qualified households and that’s really an important issue,” Pethia said. “It has meant that many of our for-sale units in particular have turned market-rate without being purchased by income-qualified households.” In public comments before the discussion, Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum wanted waivers for affordable housing projects to be mandatory rather than at the discretion of staff. “The reality is that Albemarle’s fast diminishing development areas where the easiest parcels to develop have been developed,” Williamson said. “That means parcels left to develop will likely require a special use permit. While the policy anticipates this reality, the opportunity for staff denial is too great.” Williamson also said he wanted more robust incentives such as expansion of the development area as well as the county paying the hook-up fees to the Albemarle County Service Authority for water and sewer. “Considering the importance of affordable housing to the community, certainly providing $20,000 per affordable unit is not too much to ask,” Williamson said. That would be expensive to the county. Pethia said the recent approval of Premier Circle, Rio Point, and RST Residences created 414 below-market units. If the developers were to be 100 percent reimbursed, that would cost the county $5.6 million. Supervisors were asked if they supported the idea of an overlay. Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley said she did, but not want to expand past a certain area.“I for one do not want to see development go into the rural areas and to keep development in the development area,” LaPisto-Kirtley said. Supervisor Chair Donna Price (Scottsville District) said there will come a point in time when that boundary will be adjusted, but not yet.“We’re already at the point where we have to fill in more, build up higher, or we have to expand the development areas so it’s important for community members to understand we have to look at ways to try and achieve all of our objectives which includes as long as possible limiting the amount of the development area,” Price said. Price was also skeptical of reducing parking standards at this time. “We do not have a comprehensive transportation system that can get everyone throughout the community wherever they need to do,” Price said. Supervisors approved the Rio Point on 27 acres in late December which will see a total of 328 units in an apartment complex on land that is currently undeveloped. That’s in the Rio District which is represented by Supervisor Ned Gallaway. He had looked at the draft calculation for bonus density. “So Rio Point, if I’m understanding the answer, would have allowed 1,300 units the way the math was done?” Gallaway asked Pethia.“That is correct,” Pethia said. That would be based on provisions in other programs that grant a 45 percent increase in density based on the gross density. The actual calculations will change as the incentive package is further tweaked.Gallaway suggested having the overlay apply only in certain parts of the county, such as those already identified in small area plans such as the Rio Road plan. However, he added he is not opposed to any ideas at this point in the development of the incentives. Supervisor Jim Andrews (Samuel Miller District) said he wanted staff to take a deeper look into the results that have happened in other communities that have created developer incentives. “I would be really interested in hearing more about looking not only at what they’re doing but how successful they are at what they’re doing,” Andrews said. “Loudoun County’s proposals for example, their program I guess has been in place long enough to have a little bit of history. It looks to me like it’s having some success. Those are the ones we want to emulate if we can, if they work for our circumstances.”Supervisor Ann Mallek (White Hall) said she needed more information and for detail. “I am very concerned about an overlay that applies to every piece of direct because there is a great difference between the capability of one lot versus another to actually accomplish something and have a product where people would want to live,” Mallek said. Staff will return to the board with more information at a later date but Supervisor Gallaway pointed out that the package’s adoption will take until after the one year anniversary of the adopting of Housing Albemarle. General Assembly updateWith just over three weeks to go, action is moving fast in the General Assembly, with bills that passed in one house with a close partisan vote now meeting their fate in committee meetings. These include:The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee killed a bill yesterday to cap the minimum wage at $11 an hour. The vote was 11 to 4. (HB296)That committee also defeated a bill to not move forward with subsequent increases mandated by a previous General Assembly. That vote was 12 to 3. (HB320)A bill to allow employers to pay less than the minimum wage if they have fewer than ten employees was also defeated 12 to 3. (HB1040)Bills to restrict collective bargaining by public employees were also defeated. (HB336) (HB337) (HB341) (HB883)The Senate Committee on Education and Health ended consideration of a bill that would made it easier for School Boards to dismiss new teachers by extending probationary periods. (HB9)The Senate Judiciary Committee defeated a bill that would have reduced penalties for violating the state’s concealed weapon laws on a 10 to 5 vote. (HB11)On a 8 to 7 vote, the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee ended consideration of a bill that would have required the parole board to review the transcript of the trial for each incarcerated person up for parole. (HB435)Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe
We have already been through seven Saturdays in 2022, and this is the eighth. There are 45 left until 2023, but so much more has to happen before we get there. For now, it’s perhaps best to take a breath, take a look at the horizon, and figure out ways to make whatever time we have count. Charlottesville Community Engagement appears to be obsessed with counting, and determined to make sense of as many of the variables as possible. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. On today’s program:Governor Youngkin wants to return $4.5 billion to Virginia taxpayersThe omicron chapter of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wane as temperatures warm and the days get longerIf you want to report some crimes to Charlottesville police, you’ll have to do it onlineNelson County’s administrator is set to retire after 24 years in the position A quick look at the General Assembly First shout-out goes to Camp AlbemarleToday’s first subscriber-supported public service announcement goes out to Camp Albemarle, which has for sixty years been a “wholesome rural, rustic and restful site for youth activities, church groups, civic events and occasional private programs.”Located on 14 acres on the banks of the Moorman’s River near Free Union, Camp Albemarle continues as a legacy of being a Civilian Conservation Corps project that sought to promote the importance of rural activities. Camp Albemarle seeks support for a plan to winterize the Hamner Lodge, a structure built in 1941 by the CCC and used by every 4th and 5th grade student in Charlottesville and Albemarle for the study of ecology for over 20 years. If this campaign is successful, Camp Albemarle could operate year-round. Consider your support by visiting http://campalbemarleva.org/donate.Pandemic update: Omicron cases continues to recedeA new approach to the public health response to the pandemic is now with us in Virginia, as a new administration continues to undo the previous one had taken to take public steps to try to stop the spread of COVID-19. On Friday, the waning of the omicron surge is reflected in the latest snapshot of numbers. The seven-day average was 2,846 a day on Friday, down from a high of 26,175 on January 8. As of today, Virginia hospitals report 1,334, down from a high of 3,948 on January 18. Dr. Costi Sifri, the director of hospital epidemiology at the University of Virginia, said omicron is the dominant strain at the moment. “The majority of people have some level of immunity to it,” Dr. Sifri said. “We can anticipate that we should continue to see this downward trend of cases. The open questions after this are: How long is that immunity? How robust is it? Is there a difference in it if you’ve been infected with omicron or if you maybe have had omicron infection and have been vaccinated? And finally, what other variants may read their heads?”Another question is if there will need to be a booster for omicron. A lot of it depends on how long immunity will last. “And that’s going to be not clear and there may be some differences depending on different populations,” Dr. Sifri said. “If the at-risk factor is for severe infections, maybe that is going to be different if you don’t have those risk factors.” On March 1, new legislation goes into effect that will allow parents of public school students to opt out of mask mandates. Dr. Sifri said as omicron continues to wane, there are multiple mitigation measures such as vaccination. “I think it really is important to remember that the virus has humbled us along the way but we also understand that two years into this pandemic there is probably a right-sizing that needs to occur as we combat the challenges of this virus,” Dr. Sifri said. Dr. Sifri acknowledged that vaccination is still not available for people under the age of 5 and the immunocompromised are also more at risk. On Wednesday, the Virginia Safety and Health Codes Board voted 7 to 3 to rescind workplace safety rules adopted in July 2020 to protect employees. That according to a report from Bloomberg Law. Governor Youngkin issued an executive order on January 15 directing the board to study the rules with an eye toward removing them. Read through the agenda to get a deeper sense of what was discussed. (meeting page)The death toll from that surge has been slowly increasing. Fatalities from COVID often take some time to be fully recorded. On Friday, the Virginia Department of Health reports there have been 18,016 deaths in Virginia over the past 23 months. On January 18, that number was at 15,822. In the Blue Ridge Health District, the death toll stands at 386 for its six localities. When the second anniversary of the pandemic arrives, I’ll still be counting out the numbers. Youngkin wants to return tax money to VirginiansGovernor Glenn Youngkin has sent a letter to the chairs of the General Assembly’s money committees that signals another different approach to government. “The bottom line is taxes paid to the government are soaring and the revised revenue forecasts estimates the Commonwealth will collect $1.25 billion more in the current fiscal year,” Youngkin wrote to Delegate Barry Knight and Senator Janet Howell. Knight chairs the House Appropriations Committee and Howell chairs the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee. Youngkin said that is on top of the $3.3 billion that was added to the state’s revenue forecast in December under former Governor Ralph Northam. An agreement on the budget is needed by March 12, and Youngkin wants the General Assembly to “return” $4.5 billion to taxpayers. “The stunning amount of money being collected from taxpayers is the direct result of over taxation,” Youngkin wrote. In all, the economic forecast states that there is around $13.4 billion in unanticipated revenue, and Youngkin said that would still allow $9 billion to “invest in schools, teachers, law enforcement, behavioral health” and other priorities. Youngkin’s letter also casts doubt on the actual health of the economy and states that these revenue increases should not be seen in a positive light. He made several claims to back this point including:Virginia has seen a net out-migration of 100,000 over the past eight years, citing the U.S. Census Bureau’s State to State Migration FlowsVirginia has lost 74,000 jobs over the past five years, citing data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis but no specific source. “Virginia is 42nd in the country when it comes to the recovery” but the claim does not link to a specific source. “We have a labor shortage due to lack of population growth and too many people sitting on the sideline while there are 300,000 job openings, nearly 100,000 more than when we entered the pandemic,” citing the November 2021 Virginia Job Openings and Labor Turnover report produced by the Virginia Employment Commission. “Virginia is 30th in cost of living overall,” according to the 2021 Missouri Economic Research and Information Center’s Cost of Living Data SeriesThere are a lot of statistics that can be used to describe the economy and the people who live and work in a civilization. Virginia had a 2.9 percent increase in gross domestic product (GDP) between the second and third quarter of 2021, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The nationwide average was 2.3 percent and Virginia outperformed North Carolina, Kentucky, and South Carolina. Nelson County administrator stepping down Nelson County is now looking for people to run two of its top positions. The county is already looking for a new School Superintendent, but there’s vacancy at the top of the general government. County Administrator Stephen Carter will retire on July 31 after 24 years in the position. During that time, two elementary schools and a middle school were built, and the high school on U.S. 29 was renovated. According to a press release, other achievements include construction of the Piney River Water and Sewer project, construction of the Blue Ridge Railway Trail, and establishment of the universal broadband commitment and accompanying involvement in the Regional Internet Service Expansion (RISE) project. In addition, since 1998 the county has begun paying for some emergency rescue personnel to supplement volunteers, a business park was established in Colleen, and Nelson became the first rural tourism program in the Commonwealth to be accredited by the Virginia Tourism Corporation. Charlottesville Police Department to adjust service callsStaffing shortages in the Charlottesville Police Department have led to a decision to change responses to some service calls. According to a release sent out yesterday, people will need to fill out an online form for several non-emergency requests including annoying phone calls, littering, lost property, suspicious activity, and vandalism. Some forms of larceny and fraud will also need to be reported online rather than through a phone call. “Officers will continue to respond to emergency calls and crimes in progress,” reads the release. “As it relates specifically to past larcenies, officers will still respond in person to larcenies of firearms and vehicles.” The release states the department is down 24 percent in personnel. “Shift supervisors are making every effort to manage the resources available and prioritize calls for service based on the severity of the incident and impact on the community,” the release continues. Meanwhile, officers in the department do continue to make arrests. A review of open data in the past week shows arrests for violation of an emergency protective order, a domestic assault, credit card larceny, burglary, contempt of court, and a fourth incident of a specific individual driving while intoxicated. Shout-out to the National Sporting Library and MuseumIn today’s subscriber-fueled shout-out, if you’re interested in learning more about the birds around us, the National Sporting Library and Museum has a virtual event for you coming up on February 24. Jennifer Ackerman, the author of the Genius of Birds, will explore the brilliance of birds and delve into the mysteries of the avian brain. Ackerman as she shares her global adventures into the genius of birds. Learn how birds make and use tools, teach each other skills, count, navigate, create art, perform astonishing feats of memory, communicate, and even pass along cultural traditions. The author will be joined by two top officials from the Wildlife Center of Virginia, an organization that has helped nearly 90,000 wild animals from every corner of Virginia. Center President Ed Clark and Senior Vice President Amanda Nicholson will bring along Ambassador Animals. The program is free and available via Zoom or Facebook like. Drop a line to info@nationalsporting.org for a link, or visit the National Sporting Library and Museum on Facebook. General Assembly check-inThere is less than a month to go before the close of the 2022 General Assembly. Since my last quick check-in, several more bills that passed the House of Delegates have passed the Senate, and Governor Youngkin has signed one additional piece of legislation. Bills that will go to Youngkin’s desk include:HB165 would allow issuance of over $100 million in bonds for “revenue-producing capital projects” at Virginia Tech and James Madison University. Localities would be able to convey real estate with outstanding debts and liens to a land bank under HB298. Currently that land must go to a public auction. HB971 would bring Virginia’s taxation system into conformity with the Internal Revenue Service. Governor Youngkin has signed a bill (HB828) that expands eligibility for a program that helps subsidize producers of dairy products. Several bills have passed the House of Delegates and await action in the Senate.A bill preventing public school teachers from teaching “divisive concepts” (HB787) passed the house on a 50 to 49 vote. It will now go before the Senate Committee on Education and Health. A bill that would prohibit drop-off boxes for absentee ballots passed the House on a 52 to 47 vote and will now go before the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee. (HB34)A bill to reduce the window for voting absentee in person passed the House on a 52 to 48 vote and is also before that Senate committee. (HB39)A bill to get a patient’s written consent before an abortion passed the House 52 to 48 and is before Senate Committee on Education and Health. (HB212)A bill to allow religious exemptions to vaccination mandates passed 52 to 45. (HB306)A bill to exempt religious institutions from state declarations of emergency passed 51 to 46 and will go before the Senate General Laws and Technology committee. (HB775)A bill to alter the rules for collective bargaining for public employees passed 53 to 47. (HB336)A bill to allow public colleges and universities to create lab schools passed 52 to 48. (HB346)A bill to exempt businesses under ten employees from Virginia’s minimum wage requirements passed 54 to 46 and will go to the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. (HB1040)A bill that would prohibit public schools from denying participation in extracurricular activities due to nonpayment of school meals passed 75 to 25. (HB583)A bill to exempt food for human consumption and personal hygiene from sales tax passed the House on 80 to 20 vote. That now goes to the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee. (HB90)A bill that would create a program to educate hotel operators and staff on anti-human trafficking measures passed unanimously. (HB258)Bills from the Senate in the next edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. This is a public episode. 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President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was easily approved by the U.S. Senate Commerce committee on Feb. 2. Steven Cliff, presently NHTSA's deputy administrator, was cleared by a voice vote. His nomination will now move to the Senate floor, where Democratic leaders will schedule a vote to confirm his appointment as early as this month.Cliff has indicated he intends to focus the agency's efforts on boosting safety programs as well as managing the adoption of vehicle technologies.
2022 ends its third week today, and this edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement is intended to capture where we are as of January 21. Listeners and readers do not need to know that this is Squirrel Appreciation Day, National Cheesy Socks Day, National Hugging Day, and One-Liners Day. But, now you do, and that is information you may find useful. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs, and now here’s something I hope you’ll really like.In the 318th edition:The Blue Ridge Health District hits another one day record for COVID-19 with 800 casesA quick snapshot of where the General Assembly was as of this morning And the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership takes a look at “missing middle” housingFirst subscriber-supported public service announcement - #MLKCVILLEThe commemoration in Charlottesville of the life, times, and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. continues on Sunday with the 37th Community Celebration put on by the Mount Zion First African Baptist Church. Beginning at 4 p.m., a panel discussion will be held virtually on the topic of “The Urgency of Creating the Beloved Community.” Nancy O’Brien will moderate the event which will features speakers Bitsy Waters, Sarad Davenport, and Cameron Webb. Community members will be recognized and the winners of the local MLK essay contest will be announced. Visit and bookmark the YouTube mlkcville page to review last year’s celebration while you wait for Sunday at 4 p.m. New one-day record of new COVID cases in the Blue Ridge Health DistrictThe Virginia Department of Health reports another 800 new cases of COVID-19 in the Blue Ridge Health District. That’s the highest one day total so far. Those cases are among 17,027 reported across the Commonwealth today. The seven-day average for percent positivity statewide continues to decrease and is at 30.9 percent today. Kathryn Goodman of the Health District confirmed the numbers.“It is important that people follow multiple mitigation strategies to help prevent spreading COVID-19, which include staying home when sick, getting COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, wearing masks in public settings,” Goodman said. The highest plateau of hospitalization numbers so far continues with 3,836 new cases according to the Virginia Healthcare and Hospitalization Association. There are 632 patients in intensive care units and 387 are on ventilators. Today the UVA Health System has the most number of COVID patients then at any time of the pandemic to date. Wendy Horton is the Chief Executive Officer for UVA Health and said there are 114 in-patients today.“And of those 114 COVID patients, 36 are in our ICU’s and six of them are pediatric patients,” Horton said. Some of those COVID patients are asymptomatic and had gone to the hospital for other reasons. We’re now in the third year of the worldwide pandemic, and the Associated Press reports some countries across the world are opting to shift their public health strategy towards accepting COVID-19 as a continuing condition. More of an endemic rather than a pandemic. Dr. Costi Sifri is the director of hospital epidemiology at UVA Health he cautions against making that conclusion.“Many people have predicted the ending of the pandemic at various interactions through this and we think that we’re all a little bit concerned about doing that prematurely,” Dr. Sifri said. “We don’t know what things may look like after Omicron and if there are other variants that we’ll have to deal with. We may see some of the old variants come back and cause problems.”So far, Dr. Sifri said the omicron variant does not cause as many fatalities per infection. “There are reasons for that that seem to be bearing out based on studies,” Dr. Sifri said. “Things like the fact that it causes upper respiratory tract infections compared to pneumonia and lower respiratory tract infections.” Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order Two declared that mask usage in public schools was optional. One stated reason is that the omicron variant “results in less severe illness.” Dr. Sifri said it’s still a serious issue.“Omicron still really can cause very, very serious illness and we’re still seeing patient deaths and we’re seeing them almost on a daily basis,” Dr. Sifri said. Vaccination continues to be a protection against serious disease. The seven-day average for doses administered per day is at 20,915 today and 68.6 percent of the total Virginia population is fully vaccinated and around 2.3 million have received a third dose or a booster. Horton said it is a misnomer to state that omicron is not a threat. “It does cause quite a bit of disease especially in immunocompromised individuals so far our health systems a lot of strain on the intensive care units and caring for those individuals,” Horton said. Later in the week, Youngkin issued another executive order to declare a limited state of emergency to provide hospitals and health care with “flexibility” in the work against COVID-19. (Executive Order 11)“For a health system it really is an acknowledgment of where we’re at and really garners additional resources,” Horton said. “I was really so pleased to see an emphasis on making sure that people have access to vaccination. So that is really very, very important.” Horton said this allows hospitals the ability to increase bed capacity and increase staffing. “We are very fortunate here at UVA that we haven’t had to activate those special accommodations, but it is really great that we know that we have them if we ever need to activate or use any special resources available,” Horton said. Regional group briefed on “missing middle” housingChanges to land use rules are being made across the region to allow for additional density to create what planners and developers refer to as “missing middle” housing. The term was coined by Dan Parolek in 2010. “His focus is on small units and making them feasible to build in neighborhoods where only large single-family houses currently exist,” said Emily Hamilton is a senior research fellow and director of the Urbanity Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.Hamilton was one of the speakers at the latest discussion run by the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership on Thursday. She said additional flexibility to allow more housing can lead to units becoming more affordable. (watch the video)“In some of the cases where we see lots of small in-fill construction happening there is that increased flexibility where for example large duplex units or townhouses can be built in places where exclusively detached single family houses would have been permitted previously,” Hamilton said.The recent adoption of the Crozet Master Plan as well as the Future Land Use Map in the Charlottesville Comprehensive Plan are both intended to encourage the production of these units and developers have responded. Many community members have pushed back, as seen this week in Scottsville when community opposition may have led to a deferral of two special use permits.However, Hamilton said this is how houses in communities used to be built.“Historically in an era before zoning we saw that what we would now call missing middle was often times the bread and butter housing of working and middle income Americans because it has lower per-foot construction costs compared to a large multi-family building,” Hamilton said. The topic comes up a lot in the community. Here are two examples I’ve not yet had the chance to review completely: The Places29-North Community Advisory Committee was introduced to the new Middle Density Residential category at its meeting on January 13. (watch the video)The Crozet Community Advisory Committee discussed a planned residential community within that designated growth area on January 12. (watch the video)Second subscriber-supporter public service announcement goes to Shift/EnterDo you or someone you know want to find a job in the tech community? On this upcoming Saturday, there will be another Shift/Enter workshop in which participants can go through directed sessions with knowledgeable volunteers on resume feedback, interview advice, and perspectives on the tech landscape. For an $8 ticket, you'll have three different interview sessions with people to have a career conversation, to review your resume, or to have a mock interview. To learn more and to sign up, visit shiftenter.org. General Assembly update: Charlottesville sales tax referendum moves close to passage in the SenateToday is Day Nine of the Virginia General Assembly, and we’re at the point where the first pieces of legislation have made their way out of Committee and await a vote in either the House of Delegates or the Senate. There’s a lot of these, but here are some of note. For starters, a bill from Senator Creigh Deeds that would allow Charlottesville to levy a one-cent sales tax increase for capital education costs has been reported out of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee on a 14-2 vote. Senators Steve Newman and Emmet Hanger voted against the measure. (SB298) Today, the bill was read for the second time by the full Senate. Delegate Sally Hudson has similar legislation in the House of Delegates. It is currently within a subcommittee of the House Finance Committee (HB545)If signed into law, voters would have to approve the measure in a referendum. The funding would be earmarked for the school reconfiguration project. Here’s the status on more legislation. A bill (HB28) from Delegate Ronnie Campbell (R-2) to increase the length of the Maury River’s Scenic River status by 23.2 miles was approved by the Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee on a 19-2 vote. One of the two to vote against it was Delegate Chris Runion (R-25). The full House had first reading today. A bill (HB828) from Delegate Tony Wilt (R-26) to expand eligibility in the Dairy Producer Margin Coverage Premium Assistance Program was reported out of the same committee on a unanimous vote. Learn more about the program here. The full House had first reading today. Delegate John McGuire (R-56) has a bill (HB358) would direct the Virginia Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs and the Secretary of Commerce and Trade to examine the feasibility of waiving fees for small businesses owned by veterans. The House Commerce and Energy Committee unanimously recommended adoption. A bill (HB8) from Delegate Tim Anderson (R-83) would allow veterans hired by school boards to be school security officers to perform any other duty they are requested to do so. The House Education committee reported that out unanimously. The full House had first reading today. Another bill (HB9) carried by Delegate Lee Ware (R-65) would allow school boards to extend probationary period for teachers and would appear to make it easier for school boards to dismiss teachers by reducing the period of notice of a dismissal hearing from ten days to five days. That was also reported out of the House Education Committee unanimously. The full House had first reading today. A tax credit program for “major business facilities” is currently slated to sunset this July 1, but a bill from Delegate Kathy Byron (R-22) would extend that to July 1, 2025 (HB269). The House Finance Committee reported that out on a 20-1 vote. Delegate Nick Frietas was the lone vote against this action. The full House had first reading today. The Attorney General would be required to report every year the number of fraudulent Medicaid claims on a public website if HB232 from Delegate Bobby Orrock (R-54) becomes law. The House Health, Welfare, and Institutions unanimously reported this out unanimously. The full House had first reading today. Over in the Senate, a bill (SB8) from Senator Chap Petersen (D-34) to permit hunting on Sunday reported out of the Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural Resources on a 9 to 4 vote, with two abstentions. Second Here are some other bills of note:A bill from Senator Barbara Favola (D-31) that would allow roof replacement projects at for public buildings to enter into a energy performance-based contract (SB13). The Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural Resources committee reported this out and it has been rereferred to the General Laws and Technology Committee. Another bill from Senator John Edwards (D-21) would remove the ability of the Department of Wildlife Resources to charge a fee for boat ramps that the agency manages but doesn’t own. (SB141) The same committee reported this out, and rereferred it to the Finance and Appropriations Committee. Currently localities with combined stormwater and sewer systems have until 2036 to have replacement systems in place. Under a bill from Richard Stuart (R-28), that would be moved up to 2030. This reported out of the same committee by an 11 to 4 vote, and the bill will go to the Finance and Appropriations Committee. (SB534)A bill has passed the full Senate that would add the City of Chesapeake to a list of localities that require an analysis of drinking water. Albemarle County already has this ability. (SB53)Localities would be allowed to require broadband be installed as part of a residential development if a bill from Senator Jennifer Boysko (D-33) is approved. The Senate Commerce and Labor reported that out and it now goes before the Local Government committee. (SB446)Boysko has another bill to be known as Adam’s Law to require private and public higher education facilities to develop anti-hazing policies (SB439). This was reported unanimously from the Education and Health Committee but with one abstention. Legislation is also pending to require the Department of Education to develop guidelines on policies to inform student athletes and their coaches about the dangers of heat-related illness. SB161 was reported out of the Senate Education Committee and is now before the Finance and Appropriations Committee. The Virginia Arts Foundation would be eliminated and its powers transferred to the Virginia Commission of the Arts under one bill (SB597) from Senator Todd Pillion (R-40). The Education and Health Committee unanimously reported this out. A bill from Siobhan Dunnavant (R-12) would allow certain pharmacists to dispense cannabis products until such time as retail sale licenses are available. (SB621) The Education and Health Committee reported this bill out, and it’s now been assigned to the Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee. A bill from Senator Richard Stuart would require cyclists riding two abreast to not impede vehicular traffic passed out of the Transportation Committee on an 11-4 vote. (SB362)Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. 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A US Senate hearing has questioned top executives of social media giants Youtube, Snapchat and Tik Tok about the safety measures for children. The Senate Commerce subcommittee is investigating how tech companies treat young audiences and how algorithms and product design choices can amplify harms, addiction and privacy intrusions.
The Verge - Everything you need to know from the Facebook whistleblower hearing: https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/5/22710539/facebook-whistleblower-hearing-instagram-child-safety-congress NBC News - Facebook Whistleblower tells Congress the Social Network "is accountable to no one" - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/facebook-whistleblower-tell-congress-social-network-accountable-no-one-n1280786 My latest carousel - Parents Being Cautious with Teens on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CUubMCirrz3/ Leave a Review: https://alxa.me/insta Support the Show: https://buymeacoffee.com/igstories --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/danielhillmedia/message
The Verge - Everything you need to know from the Facebook whistleblower hearing: https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/5/22710539/facebook-whistleblower-hearing-instagram-child-safety-congress NBC News - Facebook Whistleblower tells Congress the Social Network "is accountable to no one" - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/facebook-whistleblower-tell-congress-social-network-accountable-no-one-n1280786 My latest carousel - Parents Being Cautious with Teens on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CUubMCirrz3/ Leave a Review: https://alxa.me/insta Support the Show: https://buymeacoffee.com/igstories
Bitcoin value, rights for vaccine but not women's bodies, "To Build Back Better, Tax Ultra-Wealthy Families Like Ours", Pandora Papers, 3 things we learned from covid, and Facebook whistleblower will urge U.S. Senate to regulate company. Quick clips - Bitcoin value Freedom to have the right to not get vaccinated but women don't have a right to their own body. Doesn't add up for me. To Build Back Better, Tax Ultra-Wealthy Families Like Ours - source Liesel Pritzker Simmons and Ian Simmons are the co-founders and principals of Blue Haven Initiative, a family office invested in public and private assets in the United States and around the world. The wrote an article for TIME.com about taxing rich families like theirs. The Pandora Papers - source The Pandora leaks come from confidential records at 14 different offshore wealth service firms in Switzerland, Singapore, Cyprus, Samoa, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, as well as wealth managers in well-known tax havens such as Belize, Seychelles, The Bahamas, and the British Virgin Islands. What do the Pandora Papers show? The leak of 11.9 million confidential documents names heads of state, billionaires and celebrities who use offshore companies to acquire mansions, private jets and stakes in companies, with little or no transparency. Dubbed the Pandora Papers, the landmark probe, published on Sunday, was conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – an ensemble of 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries. 3 things we learned from covid - 1. Our economy collapses as soon as it stops selling useless shit to over-indebted people 2. It's perfectly possible to reduce pollution 3. The lowest paid people in the country are essential to its functioning Facebook whistleblower will urge U.S. Senate to regulate company - source Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is going to deliver testimony to Congress: "When we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action. When we figured out cars were safer with seatbelts, the government took action," said Haugen's written testimony to be delivered to a Senate Commerce subcommittee. "I implore you to do the same here." "The company's leadership knows ways to make Facebook and Instagram safer and won't make the necessary changes because they have put their immense profits before people. Congressional action is needed," she will say. "As long as Facebook is operating in the dark, it is accountable to no one. And it will continue to make choices that go against the common good." Produced by The Wild 1 Media - www.thewild1media.com. Check out our other podcasts- https://darksidediaries.sounder.fm https://anchor.fm/ttmygh https://crypto101.sounder.fm/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Frances Haugen, who revealed her identity during a Sunday interview on CBS' "60 Minutes," has been cooperating with a Senate Commerce subcommittee as part of its ongoing efforts to assess potential regulation of the platform. Haugen told lawmakers the company intentionally ignored proof of its potentially harmful impact on users. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Facebook whistleblower who released tens of thousands of pages of internal research and documents indicating the company was aware of various problems caused by its apps, including Instagram's potential "toxic" effect on teen girls, called on Congress to take action against the social media platform in testimony before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old former Facebook product manager who worked on civic integrity issues at the company, faced questions from a Commerce subcommittee about what Facebook-owned Instagram knew about its effects on young users, among other issues."I am here today because I believe that Facebook's products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy," she said during her opening remarks. "The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed. They won't solve this crisis without your help."She emphasized that she came forward "at great personal risk" because she believes "we still have time to act. But we must act now."Urging Congress to take actionHaugen's identity as the Facebook whistleblower was revealed on "60 Minutes" Sunday night. She previously shared a series of documents with regulators and the Wall Street Journal, which published a multi-part investigation showing that Facebook was aware of problems with its apps, including the negative effects of misinformation and the harm caused by Instagram, especially to young girls."When we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action," she said in her opening remarks. "When we figured out cars were safer with seat belts, the government took action. And today, the government is taking action against companies that hid evidence on opioids. I implore you to do the same here."Following the hearing, Facebook issued a statement attempting to discredit Haugen. "Today, a Senate Commerce subcommittee held a hearing with a former product manager at Facebook who worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports, never attended a decision-point meeting with C-level executives — and testified more than six times to not working on the subject matter in question," the statement, tweeted by spokesperson Andy Stone, read. "We don't agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about. Despite all this, we agree on one thing; it's time to begin to create standard rules for the internet."Facebook is no stranger to scandals, and it's not the first time the company has been the subject of Congressional hearings. Nor is it the first time Facebook's public image has been shaken by a whistleblower. But Haugen's documents and upcoming testimony come amid broader scrutiny of Facebook's power and data privacy practices, and have already spurred bipartisan criticism of the company's influence on children. It remains to be seen, however, if it will create momentum for any meaningful regulation.From outage to outrageThe testimony came after a tumultuous day for the company. Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram went down for about six hours on Monday.In her testimony, Haugen said, "Yesterday, we saw Facebook get taken off the internet. I don't know why it went down, but I know that for more than 5 hours Facebook wasn't used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies, and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies."She added: "It also means that millions of small businesses weren't able to reach potential customers and countless photos of new babies weren't joyously celebrated by family and friends around the world. I believe in the potential of Facebook. We can have social media we enjoy, that connects us, without tearing apart our democracy, putting our children in danger and sowing ethnic violence across the world. We can do better."Beyond the documents, there's also the power of Haug...
Our anchors have been tracking Facebook's fallout since The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles “The Facebook Files,” detailing that Facebook knows it causes harm through its platforms. The reports were based on documents provided by whistleblower and Former Facebook Product Manager Frances Haugen who revealed her identity Sunday night on “60 Minutes.” Today, Haugen testifies before the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection following last week's testimony by Facebook Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis. Tune in to hear our anchors' coverage of the hearing and reactions from The Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel, Arjuna Capital Managing Partner Natasha Lamb and The New York Times Tech Correspondent Mike Isaac.
Facebook suffered its biggest outage ever on Monday, but, the damage done via configuration changes on backbone routers may pale in comparison to the damage control Facebook does in an effort to not become regulated.Amazon held its Fall Product Event and announced several new devices including 15” Echo Show, a $1000 two-foot-tall robot that can bring you drinks, and an autonomous flying security drone called the Always Home Cam.Twitter is back on in Nigeria after being banned by the country back in June after taking down one of President Buhari's Tweets. And we dive into what receipts Facebook Whistle Blower, Frances Haugen has provided to the SEC and what she might say before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
On Cool Science Radio , Bill Nelson, NASA's 14th administrator comes on the show. In March of 2021, President Biden nominated Nelson to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was confirmed by unanimous consent by the United States Senate on April 29, 2021, and sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on May 3, 2021. Nelson chaired the Space Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives for six years and later served as the Ranking Member on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, where he was recognized as the leading space program advocate in Congress. We speak with Nelson about his top priorities for NASA.
In 2009, Mattel's Fisher-Price started selling the Rock and Play Sleeper, a recklessly designed baby bed. During the ten years that it was sold to parents around the world, dozens of babies died and thousands were injured due to the design of the Rock and Play Sleeper. In this episode, learn the results of a congressional investigation into how the Rock and Play Sleeper was invented, why Mattel and Fisher-Price refused to recall their their dangerous but profitable product, what the government did - or didn't do - about it, and why we desperately need Congress to change to our product safety laws as soon as possible. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD231: Lights Out: What Happened in Texas? CD224: Social Media Censorship Bills H.R.3716 - To require agencies to analyze how certain rules impact children, and for other purposes. June 4, 2021 Articles/Documents Article: Capitol riot arrests: See who's been charged across the U.S. by Dinah Pulver, Rachel Axon, Josh Salman, Katie Wedell and Erin Mansfield, USA Today, June 22, 2021 Article: 532 people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection so far. This searchable table shows them all. by Madison Hall , Skye Gould, Rebecca Harrington, Jacob Shamsian, Azmi Haroun, and Taylor Ardrey, Insider, June 22, 2021 Article: Ex-police chief, 5 others charged in Capitol riot conspiracy by Alanna Durkin Richer, az central, June 10, 2021 Document: Fisher-Price's Rock ‘n Play Reveals Dangerous Flaws in U.S. Product Safety by Committee on Oversight and Reform U.S. House of Representatives, June 2021 Article: WHAT FEDERAL CRIMES ARE PEOPLE GETTING CHARGED WITH FOR STORMING THE CAPITOL? by Michael Humphreys, The Federal Defenders, March 31, 2021 Article: Seditious Conspiracy? Rebellion? Insurrection? Whatever the Charge, Federal Law Will Not Be Kind to the Pro-Trump Mob. by Colin Kalmbacher, Law & Crime, January 6, 2021 Article: Guide to Recalled Infant Inclined Sleepers, Nappers, and Loungers By Rachel Rabkin Peachman, Consumer Reports, December 17, 2020 Recall Notice: Graco Recalls Inclined Sleeper Accessory Included with Four Models of Playards to Prevent Risk of Suffocation United States CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, December 16, 2020 Article: New Evidence Shows More Infant Deaths Tied to Inclined Sleepers Than Previously Reported By Rachel Rabkin Peachman, Consumer Reports, March 11, 2020 Recall Notice: Dorel Juvenile Group USA Recalls Inclined Sleepers Due to Safety Concerns About Inclined Sleep Products United States CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, July 31, 2019 Recall Notice: Fisher-Price Recalls Rock ‘n Play Sleepers Due to Reports of Deaths United States CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, April 12, 2019 Article: Mattel Recalls 19 Million Toys Sent From China The New York Times, August 15, 2007 Additional Resources Global ad spending of Mattel from 2013 to 2020 Sound Clip Sources Hearing: House Committee on Oversight and Reform, House Committee on Oversight and Reform, June 7, 2021 Watch on Youtube Watch on C-SPAN Witnesses Ynon Kreiz CEO of Mattel Inc. Chuck Scothon Senior Vice President and General Manager of Fisher-Price, Global Head of Infant and Preschool at Mattel Inc. Transcript: 00:01 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: In 2019, this committee launched an exhaustive investigation and to how the Rock 'N Play was developed, marketed and later recalled. Our staff conducted interviews and reviewed 1000s of pages of documents. This morning we are going to be releasing this report, which you can get on the core website or on my congressional website. What we found was absolutely shocking. It is a national scandal. 01:37 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: When Mattel released the Rock 'N Play in 2009, it was the only product of its kind on the market. pediatrician said advice for years that infants should sleep on a firm flat crib mattress to prevent death or injury. But Rock 'N Play was a padded seat holding infants at a 30 degree angle. Even though this new design conflicted with safety guidelines, our investigation shows that Mattel did not consult with a single pediatrician or conduct a single scientific study to find out if it was safe for babies to sleep at an angle. Internal documents also show that over the decade this product was sold, but Mattel repeatedly ignored urgent warnings from international regulators, pediatricians, and even its own customers that the Rock 'N Play was unsafe. 02:34 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: For example, in 2010, a regulator in Australia warned Mattel that using this product as a sleeper "is at odds with widely accepted and promoted best practices." In quote, in 2011, the company was banned from marketing the rockin play as a sleeper in Canada because of safety concerns. 03:13 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: Mattel also received a steady drumbeat of reports that infants as young as two months old, had stopped breathing or even died in the rockin play. Mattel employees admitted to the committee that the company knew about these deaths and injuries, but Mattel claimed that its product was not the problem. 04:35 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: In fact, Mattel only agreed to recall it after it became clear that the Consumer Reports was about to publish a very damning evidence that dozens of infants died using the rock in play. 05:07 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: On Friday, we learned that Mattel is recalling two more inclined infant infant products that the company marketed for sleep. The Rock 'N Glide Soother and Sooth 'N Play Glider after four infants rolled over in the Rock 'N Glide and suffocated. In other words, they died because of the exact same dangerous product design as the infants who died in Rock 'N Play. 25:58 Chuck Scothon: Around our headquarters in Buffalo, New York. After the product launch, Fisher Price regularly examined and analyzed any safety incident that was reported and regularly shares the reports of fatalities and serious incidents with the CPSC for its own analysis. We asked two top doctors to evaluate the safety of the product specifically related to observing the breathing of infants sleeping in an incline in the product. These doctors confirmed the Rock 'N Play Sleeper was safe when used in accordance with the warnings and instructions. In 2018, we had extensive discussions with the CPSC about the rockin play. And as one of the top engineering firms to assess independently whether infants were at risk of rolling over when using the product. We are confident that all of our products are safe when uses intendance and intended in accordance with the warnings and instructions. At the same time, we take into account reports of injuries that are associated with other patterns of use. In light of the risks of accidents and the use of inclined sleepers, the safety restraints were not used. We decided two years ago to recall the rock and play voluntarily is the best way to reduce this risk. 27:14 Chuck Scothon: Recently we considered a similar situation with a 4-in-1 Rocking Glide Soother. Although this is not a sleeping product, the data indicated a risk of accidents if the safety restraints were not used, or children were left unsupervised. Based on this, we decided to recall the glider, which we announced last Friday. We also recall the 2-in-1 Soothe 'N Play Glider, even though there are no reported fatalities associated with this product, because it is similar to the 4-In-1 glider. Importantly, with these two actions, we no longer make any products in either the inclined sleep category, or the glider category and we have no intention of doing so in the future. 28:11 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: Mr. Kreiz, the report that the committee released today is based on interviews and internal documents from your company, Mattel, and these internal sources are damning. They show Mattel did not do any independent research. As to the safety to see if rockin play was safe for sleeping before starting to sell it in 2009. They show that Mattel did not consult a single licensed pediatrician to make sure that the product was safe. And they show that rockin play. After it came to market. They ignored Mattel ignored a pediatricians warning and writing and brushed off reports from mothers who had lost their children that babies had stopped breathing and even died from the product. They were worn from foreign countries that had taken it off the market. And the documents show that after the Consumer Product Safety Commission, raise concerns with Mattel in 2018, your company fought back for nearly a year. Even though you knew at least 14 infants had died in your product. 14 babies lost. This is a national scandal. It is breathtakingly irresponsible. It is corporate conduct that cannot be tolerated. And it has to change in the future. Mr. Kreiz, on behalf of Mattel Will you accept responsibility for this tragedy and apologize to the dozens of families whose children died using your product? Ynon Kreiz: Well, let me first say that our hearts go out to every family who suffered the loss. The Rock 'N Play Sleeper was safe when used in accordance with its instructions and safety warnings. The Sleeper was designed and developed following extensive research, medical advice, Safety Analysis, and more than a year of testing and reviews. The product met or exceeded all applicable regulatory standards as recent as 2017. The CPSC proposed to adopt the SDM standard for 30 degree Sleeper as a federal law. After the product launched different independent medical and other expert analysis verified that it was safe when use in accordance with instructions and warnings. Two studies confirmed that the rock and play sleeper was as safe or safer than other slip environment such as cribs, and bassinets. And one of these studies found that the product Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: Reclaiming my time, The bottom line is 50 children, infants died 50. You did not conduct any studies. You didn't even you didn't even talk to a licensed pediatrician. You didn't even talk to the medical profession. You didn't do anything. But pump it out there and sell it. 35:19 Rep. Michael Cloud (TX): Okay, previously there had been pushback from authorities in Canada, UK and Australia. Do you think aggressively in retrospect, aggressively marketing the Rock 'N Play as a sleeper in the US was the right thing to do? Ynon Kreiz: We consult with all regulators in all jurisdictions and meet or exceed every every standard. In the US The product was was approved. We met rather we met we met all their standards, all applicable standards. 44:35 Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC) : Do you think that Mattel took Dr. Benner-Roach's warning seriously enough? Ynon Kreiz: I'm aware of that interaction and I know we took his considered his recommendation and consider those seriously. That said, As my colleague just mentioned, we did not see an issue with what he raised because with the product did meet the bassinet standard. And while we did consider his his observation, we did not agree with them. 45:00 Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC) : Mattel's decision not his head Dr. Benner-Roach's warning seriously seems to me to be inexcusable. It also demonstrates why it is important that we repeal section 6B of the Consumer Product Safety Act and stop letting corporations hide behind the law to hide deaths associated with their products from the public. Dr. Benner-Roach knew in 2013 the Rock 'N Play was dangerous. At that time, Mattel also knew that infants had died and Rock 'N Pay. Perhaps if the public knew as well. Dr. Benner-Roach's warning would not have fallen on deaf ears. 51:26 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : A July 2020 Consumer Reports found that 96% of American people believe that products that they buy for their home are governed by mandatory safety standards that are set by the government. But, as we know, on this committee for the vast majority of products on the market, that is simply not true. Most products, including the Rock 'N Play are only governed by voluntary standards set by an organization called ASTM. International, the formally the American Society for Testing and Materials. 52:09 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Mr. Scothon, I understand that the Rock and Play and Glide and Sooth glider were all subject to a voluntary standards set by ASTM International, is that right? Chuck Scothon: They were... Yes, they were set by the ASTM standards, as well as the CPSC guidelines where appropriate. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Right. And ASTM is comprised of and again, I hate to use acronyms, but the American Society for Testing Material International, is comprised of a bunch of different groups and individuals, including product manufacturers, like shelves, testing labs, some consumer advocates and others. But what many consumers don't know that, Is that the ASTM committees, manufacturers, like yourself, can influence the voluntary standards that are set for their own products, is that correct? Chuck Scothon: We are involved in those standards. It's a consensus based organization, which takes into account all of the different expertise from all of the different individuals. So that consensus is really designed to ensure that no single company or group can influence Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Right but Mattel employees, including the people who helped design the rock and play actually sit on the ASTM committees that design standards foot for infant products, don't they? Chuck Scothon: They are involved in the asdm standard setting process. Correct? Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Right. And when they participate in AFC ns work to set safety standards they are doing so as representatives of the company and not as independent individuals. Is that correct? Chuck Scothon: Well, they are representatives of the company, but typically their roles are to facilitate the process to focus on getting the groups together to aggregating and putting all the information together and coming back with consensus points of view. 1:00:04 Chuck Scothon: The incident rate up until approximately February we're looking at we were aware of approximately 14 in 2018. We are aware of 14 incidents through 2018. That is when we filed the 15B report with the CPSC. Throughout the course of those previous years, we were notifying the CPSC upon learning of any incident immediately, right? Rep. Glenn Grothman (WI): How many children have died totally in this toy or whatever, how many total died? Chuck Scothon: Today we are aware of approximately believe it is the numbers currently 97. Although those numbers change, as we are also finding that some of the products that have been attributed to the Rock and Play, we're not Fisher Price or incline sleep. So the data one of the things are in it's why it's making it more difficult is typically when we find into report the data is very inconsistent. It is sometimes inaccurate or incorrect. That is why we investigate things individually. And that is what we did. Rep. Grossman: Sorry, the only give us five minutes here, is 97. Is that for all over the world or just United States? Chuck Scothon: I believe that as a US number. Rep. Glenn Grothman (WI): Okay, so it could be significantly more how many other condoms is marketed. Chuck Scothon: I'd have to get back to it specifically on that. And by the way, I believe that actually is a worldwide number. I apologize, but it was a worldwide number. 1:14:15 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL): I think that the statement was made Mr. Scothon and you said that essentially the rockin play comported with the bassinet standard, didn't you? Chuck Scothon: That's correct at the time of launch, it was part of the bassinet standard. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL): And I'm looking at I'm looking at the CPSC website right now and the final rule clearly states that the standard limits the allowable angle to 10 degrees incline, so your Rock 'N Play absolutely did not did not comport with the bassinet final rule. 2:16:12 Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Now it's been well established at this point that incline sleep can be harmful even deadly to infants. And today Mr. Scothon, Fisher Price and Mattel are no longer selling any inclined sleeper products. Is that correct? Chuck Scothon: That is correct. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): And you've recalled all inclined sleeper incline sleepers and you've notified parents that they're dangerous Is that correct? Chuck Scothon: The Rock and Play was our inclined sleeper product that was recalled in 2019. And we have done all the outreach to try to bring the product back. Yes. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): You mentioned, I asked about all inclined sleepers and you responded about the Rock 'N Play? Do you have other inclined sleepers on the marketplace today? Chuck Scothon: No, once again, to clarify, there is an inclined sleeper which is something that is considered for long term or overnight sleep. And then there are other products that are intended where a baby may fall asleep. But we suggest that are then move to a hard flat surface. So the rock Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Babies, babies like exhausted moms can fall asleep anywhere because they need sleep. But Mr. Scothon and you're a marketing expert. So I want to ask you a marketing question drawing on your expertise. If you wanted to sell someone a product related to sleep, would you mention things like counting sheep, catching some Z's having Sweet dreams? This sleeping and dreaming are pretty closely tied together and folks minds you can't dream while you're awake. Correct? Chuck Scothon: Yes. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay, so I want to ask you about a fisher price product that I found on target's website. It is called the Fisher Price, The Sweet Snug-A-Puppy Dreams Deluxe Bouncer. What a baby sleeping in this fell asleep in this dreams. Deluxe bouncer has been an incline. Chuck Scothon: If a baby fell asleep, yes, they would be at an incline. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay, and they would be asleep in this incline situation. It's marketed as dreams Deluxe bouncer. But nowhere in your sales information on your website on target's website or Amazon's website. Does it say that a child should not be allowed to sleep in it? In fact, in response to a question in a on the Mattel's website, it just says it shouldn't be used for prolonged periods of sleep. What is prolonged mean? Chuck Scothon: Well, the way the fact is, we know that babies with the amount of hours that they sleep in a year will occasionally fall asleep wherever they might be. And that's why we recommend in the warning statements, state to not leave them unsupervised to move them and don't use it for prolonged sleep. And it's why we bought... Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Reclaiming my time. How long can my child safely sleep at an incline? Chuck Scothon: Again, if you're I don't have that specific number I you know, what I would say is that if you are when you're a child, Rep. Katie Porter (CA): But spending my time how long can they have sweet snuggle puppy dreams? Why are you marketing this as a product that will give people dreams? If it's not for sleeping? Chuck Scothon: Again, we referenced that as as a product where a baby will sit and play and Susan and I understand your point. But Rep. Katie Porter (CA): You market it, just reclaiming my time, Mr. Scothon, you market it as a product where babies will dream, aka sleep. And yet it is not safe for a baby to sleep in this position. So I have two questions for you. Will you commit to parents, consumers right now to change the name of this product to avoid and remove any mention of dreams or sleep from the name. Chuck Scothon: Back in 2019, we removed any reference to sleep on all those products, I will commit to going back through all of our current offering evaluating everything and to ensure that we are as clear because again, our commitment is to safety. And I will commit to going back through every item to make sure that we're sending the right message. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay, last question. Will you commit to including in all future bouncer or similar products like this, clear information for their parents that their children should never be allowed to sleep in these products because right now the only way you can find that is visiting the Fisher Price Q&A. Will you put it on the product and in the description of the product that it is not shown and should never be allowed to sleep? I will, we will, we do put that there. We have also committed to the safe start campaign which is an educational video campaign to help parents understand this just goes on Rep. Katie Porter (CA): It does not say on the target webpage not to allow your baby to sleep on this product. And it's called the Dreams Bouncer. Look at it. Look how cute the snuggle puppy is. I feel like taking a nap right now. Mr. Scothon, please don't market things about dreams or sleep or counting sheep or catching some Z's. If the product isn't safe to sleep in, I'm sure it's a wonderful bouncer. I raised my kids and Fisher Price products. I care about your company. I counted on your company. Please commit to taking action so that other parents can count on their kids getting safely to the teen years like mine have. Thank you very much and I yield back. 2:31:08 Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney: I want to be clear that I hold the federal government to the very same standard. And just this last week I reintroduced 3716 along with Congresswoman Presley with whom I've worked on the Children's Protection Act. Right now, federal agencies are not required to analyze or disclose the impact of regulatory changes on children, and they rarely provide evidence that their policies do no harm to America's youth. 2:32:16 Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney: HR 3716 would require federal agencies to undertake a childhood trauma impact study, before a rule is finalized to ensure the health and well being of all children are prioritized. These analysis would be conducted by review panels with expertise in children's health and education, as well as experience in advocating for the health and welfare of all children. It is absolutely crucial that the actions of industry and government alike are informed by expert analysis when it comes to the health and well being of children before it is too late. Hearing: Hazardous Products and Consumer Safety, Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Manufacturing, Trade, and Consumer Protection, June 20, 2019 Watch on C-SPAN Witnesses Ann Marie Burkle Acting Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission Robert Adler Commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission Elliot Kaye Commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission Transcript: 16:45 Robert Adler: I must caution that much of our work has been stymied by several statutory roadblocks. When the agency was established in 1973, we promulgated numerous critical safety rules, dealing with hazards that ranged from flammable children's sleepwear, shattering glass panes and unsafe toys. And we did it under the traditional rulemaking approaches in the Administrative Procedure Act. by my count, the agency wrote 24 safety rules in its first eight years or about three per year. In 1981, however, Congress imposed a set of cumbersome procedures on CPSC that have had the effect of stalling and lengthening our rulemaking efforts. And here's a statistic in the following 38 years since 1981, we've managed to eke out only 10 safety rules under these procedures, and that's about one every three and a half years versus three per year. And we've really written only one safety rule using these procedures in the past 10 years. Let me be blunt. I have little doubt that lives have been lost in injuries incurred because of these delays in our rulemaking, with no particular improvement in the quality of the standards that we write. 18:00 Robert Adler: I'd also must mention the owners information disclosure restrictions under which CPSC must operate. I refer to the provisions of Section 6B. Unlike any other federal Health and Safety Agency when CPSC wants to warn consumers about a particular hazard associated with the company's product, we first have to run our press release past the company to see whether they have any objections to it. And especially in recalls, that means companies can object to our proposed hazard warning, can threaten to sue us unless staff waters down the release. 32:33 Elliot Kaye: As I stated during our house oversight hearing earlier this year, people die because of Section 6B. It is that simple. 59:24 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): Don't you agree that the public is better informed when you use the word recall rather than information campaign, they have no idea what an information campaign is, especially when products are sold secondhand on the internet. Ann Marie Burkle: I think that you're absolutely correct. Recall a certain clear than an information campaign. However, our recalls, mostly all of our recalls are voluntary. And so whenever we put out a press release, it has to be the parties have agreed to this press release and the language in it. In the event in the Britax. situation, the decision was made, we need to get this information out, and rather than suing it and be in prolonged litigation, as we have been, in other cases, the Magnus case in particular, where the consumer ends up with no remedy. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): But this lawsuit itself is a warning to consumers, correct. It's a public act. Ann Marie Burkle It can be. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): It's saying this product is unsafe. Ann Marie Burkle: But it isn't clear, it certainly raises the issue, but it isn't clear to the consumer what their remedies, and the lawsuit doesn't provide any remedy to the consumer. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): It eventually can provide remedies, but the lawsuit itself sends a signal when you allege as the CPSC that a product is unsafe. That's much more informative and dramatic to consumers then saying that this company has an information campaign, wouldn't you agree? Ann Marie Burkle: I agree, except for the the concern of the agency has to get unsafe products out of the marketplace. And is it in the magnets case that we get that case was sued and for six and a half years, we had no remedy for the consumer and the product is this in the marketplace to this day. And so the concern with britax or any other product where we've identified an issue with it, how we can get that out of the market quickest and away from the consumer to avoid any additional injuries or incidents is really the goal. 1:02:55 Sen. Ed Markey (MA): Instead of issuing recalls to protect the public, CPSC has increasingly relied on voluntary settlement agreements. And it has not even tracked whether the companies that have entered into these settlement agreements are adhering to them. Instead of loving civil penalties against bad actors, CPSC has been turning a blind eye to their wrongdoing, and instead of finalizing mandatory safety standards CPSC has continued to kick the can down the road allowing products like dangerously inclined infant newborn sleepers to proliferate. 1:03:42 Sen. Ed Markey (MA): Chairman Berkel since 2012, The CPSC has been aware of spontaneous crashes caused by the popular Bob jogging stroller made by Britex. crashes resulting in broken bones, torn ligaments and smashed teeth. After months of investigating the CPSC staff recommended the stroller be recalled. And in 2018 the commissioners voted in support of that recall with you Chairwoman Burkle being the lone dissenter. After the CPSC shifted to a Republican majority, the commission drastically changed his position instead of a recall. It decided on a voluntary settlement agreement with a stroller company, which centered on a one year public safety campaign. We are now almost halfway through the year. What evidence, Madam Chair, do you have that this information campaign has adequately addressed the hazard? Ann Marie Burkle: Sir, if I could, I would just like to correct the record. It wasn't a recall that I voted against it was a lawsuit because the company refused to do a recall and the recalls that we do at CPSC for the most part are voluntary. We reach an agreement with a company to get that product as quickly as we can out of the consumers hands to avoid any additional injuries or deaths. 1:06:15 Elliot Kaye: It is anticipated by Commissioner Adler and I that this education campaign would be a total debacle. I think that that has played out. And I think consumers have been very poorly served by it. And I've seen zero evidence that what has been done to date has been even remotely effective. 1:08:00 Elliot Kaye: But I do think the culture of the agency has changed from in my experience from one that was driven hard to try to take these products off the market, to making sure that industry was not upset with whatever is being done. Fight Club - The Recall Coordinator's Formula, Montag Beeblebrox, December 28, 2009 Warren G - Regulate (Official Music Video) ft. Nate Dogg, Warren G, December 24, 2009 Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)
The adoption of legislation designed to improve connectivity across commercial corridors and ensure long-term funding for highway programs would benefit the country's freight supply chain. That was the assessment American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear gave during a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing yesterday. Spear called on lawmakers to adopt highway policy legislation and related measures that would facilitate how agencies and industries manage the flow of freight at distribution centers. Doing so, he said, would result in robust, well-functioning commercial corridors that promote economic competitiveness and prosperity. Spear said, “America's supply chain yields tremendous potential. It's a catalyst for economic growth, beyond that of any other nation.”
The adoption of legislation designed to improve connectivity across commercial corridors and ensure long-term funding for highway programs would benefit the country’s freight supply chain. That was the assessment American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear gave during a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing yesterday. Spear called on lawmakers to adopt highway policy legislation and related measures that would facilitate how agencies and industries manage the flow of freight at distribution centers. Doing so, he said, would result in robust, well-functioning commercial corridors that promote economic competitiveness and prosperity. Spear said, “America’s supply chain yields tremendous potential. It’s a catalyst for economic growth, beyond that of any other nation.”
The surveillance state is nothing new, the difference is that Covid-19 has given the surveillance state what it need's to develop into it's own pandemic. Bibliography/Footnotes: • Clearview has failed to demonstrate that it can be trusted to protect Americans' privacy," Markey, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said in a statement. "I'm concerned that if this company becomes involved in our nation's response to the coronavirus pandemic, its invasive technology will become normalized, and that could spell the end of our ability to move anonymously and freely in public." • https://www.cnet.com/news/senator-questions-clearview-ai-over-coronavirus-tracking-plans/ • The company has developed technology that can match faces to a database of more than three billion images indexed from the Internet, including social media applications.[1] Founded by Hoan Ton-That and Richard Schwartz, the company maintained a low profile until late 2019, when its usage by law enforcement was reported on. • In China, people were required to wear a digital wristband and download the StayHomeSafe app, which worked together to enforce quarantine requirements. Travelers returning to India and Bangladesh received hand stamps that marked them as meant to be in quarantine. • https://apnews.com/article/ab4cbfb5575671c5630c2442bc3ca75e (covid19 data shared with police) • We oppose automated contact tracing based on phone location data. It is insufficiently granular to identify when two people were close enough together to transmit the virus, but it will expose where we've been and what we've been doing. • https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/13/mobile-location-data-and-covid-19-qa • https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/27/nyregion/nypd-robot-dog.html Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/wine-jar-cynics/donations
Mike Michot, Senior Director of State Affairs for the Picard Group, a leading governmental affairs and lobbying group in Louisiana and Washington DC, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss his career of public service and community engagement. Mike previously served the Acadiana area for 16 years, serving 12 years in the Louisiana State Senate after his initial one-term stint as Lafayette's District 43 member of the House of Representatives. In his final term in the State Senate, he was chair of the Senate Finance Committee which directs funding for all aspects of state government; he also served on various committees including the Louisiana State Bond Commission, Senate Natural Resources, Senate Revenue & Fiscal Affairs, Vice-Chair of Senate Commerce, Consumer Protection and International Affairs, and House Labor and Industrial Relations. Left: Senator Mike Michot pictured center, with Representative Page Cortez (now Senator) and Senator Fred Mills. Right: Senator Mike Michot, with his wife Monique, after having been presented LegisGator of the Year Award by the Southwest Louisiana Chamber of Commerce Mike has also been active in private business, having previously owned and operated Premier Medical Equipment in Lafayette for 20 years. Generous with his time, he has served as a volunteer for many community service organizations, including the Community Foundation of Acadiana, American Heart Association, Boys & Girls Clubs of Acadiana, United Way of Acadiana, the Academy of the Sacred Heart School, and the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette’s Opus Christi Magnum fundraiser. Mike is also a graduate of Leadership Lafayette and Leadership Louisiana. The seventh of eight children of the late Louis and Patricia Ann Smith Michot, Mike grew up watching his father accomplish great business and political success with a mindset focused on hard work and giving back to others. As a young boy, Mike remembers his father flying off in his own plane to take care of business, whether it was tending to his 45 Burger Chef restaurants or heading off across the state when he was elected to the Louisiana State Board of Education in 1968 and later elected in 1971 as Louisiana Superintendent of Education. The elder Michot also was involved in various endeavors as diverse as opening the first drive-in theatre in Lafayette on Pinhook Road to running the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce to serving Lafayette Parish as a State Representative to lobbying for the National Air Transport Association in Washington DC. For a wonderful look at the many accomplishments of Louis Joseph Michot Jr.'s storied life, please visit this Legacy site. Left: Louis Michot, Jr., Louisiana State Superintendent of Education, reading "A Cajun Night Before Christmas." Right: Rep. Louis Michot, Jr. serving a Burger Chef shake and burger to Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Jewell. Mike Michot jumped into politics in 1995 when State Representative Don Higginbotham announced he would not run for re-election. After having grown up around his father's influence in the political realm and having helped older brother, Rick Michot, run a three-parish race for 15th Judicial District Judge, Mike had valuable experience in campaigning. He won that race and then after one term, ran against sitting Senator Max Jordan and was also successful in that effort with the encouragement of the business sector. His early time of service was during Governor Mike Foster's regime with a pro-business bent. Mike looked back with pride on the many accomplishments during the first term of Gov. Foster when he was honored to serve, including passage of the TOPS program, teacher pay raises to the Southern average, and other business-friendly measures. This era also brought in term-limits which limit legislators to three terms in a particular office. During our interview, Mike spoke of the good and bad that comes along with a loss of political experience when seasoned legislators ar...
Mar. 10, 2021 - Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck), chair of the Senate Commerce, Economic Development and Small Business Committee, weighed in on the Governor's proposed budget.
In The Moment ... February 5, 2021 Show 986 Hour 1 The Legislature is debating Senate Bill 34, establishing funding to bring high speed internet access to all parts of the state. The bill also would declare an emergency so that, if passed, the funding would be available as soon as the bill is signed by the Governor. For todays "In Their Own Words" segment, we take you to the Senate Commerce and Energy committee as the members hear testimony on Senate Bill 34. Find the In the Moment on Apple or Spotify .
Everyone who uses Facebook, Google, and Twitter has probably noticed the disappearance of posts and the appearance of labels, especially during the 2020 election season. In this episode, hear the highlights from six recent House and Senate hearings where executives from the social media giants and experts on social media testified about the recent changes. The incoming 117th Congress is promising to make new laws that will affect our social media experiences; these conversations are where the new laws are being conceived. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Episodes CD196: The Mueller Report CD186: National Endowment for Democracy Articles/Documents Article: President Trump’s latest claims about Wis. absentee ballots debunked by election officials WTMJ-TV Milwaukee, November 24, 2020 Article: Don’t Blame Section 230 for Big Tech’s Failures. Blame Big Tech. By Elliot Harmon, Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 16, 2020 Article: Biden, the Media and CIA Labeled the Hunter Biden Emails "Russian Disinformation." There is Still No Evidence. By Glenn Greenwald, November 12, 2020 Article: Ad Library - Spending Tracker: US 2020 Presidential Race Facebook, November 3, 2020 Article: What’s the deal with the Hunter Biden email controversy? By Kaelyn Forde and Patricia Sabga, Aljazeera, October 30, 2020 Article: Congress Fails to Ask Tech CEOs the Hard Questions By Elliot Harmon and Joe Mullin, Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 29, 2020 Article: With the Hunter Biden Expose, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than The Actual Story, by Matt Taibbi, TK News, October 24, 2020 Article: Read the FBI's letter to Sen. Ron Johnson The Washington Post, October 20, 2020 Article: DNI Ratcliffe: Russia disinformation not behind published emails targeting Biden; FBI reviewing, by Kevin Johnson, USA Today, October 19, 2020 Article: Twitter changes its hacked materials policy in wake of New York Post controversy By Natasha Lomas, Tech Crunch, October 16, 2020 Article: Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad By Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge, New York Post, October 14, 2020 Article: The Decline of Organic Facebook Reach & How to Adjust to the Algorithm By Sophia Bernazzani, HubSpot, May 3, 2020 Article: Facebook launches searchable transparency library of all active ads By Josh Constine, TechCrunch, March 28, 2019 Article: MAERES Alumna Nina Jankowicz Awarded Fulbright-Clinton Fellowship to Ukraine SFS, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, June 21, 2016 Article: Organic Reach on Facebook: Your Questions Answered By Brian Boland, Facebook for Business, June 5, 2014 Article: NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program The Washington Post, October 4, 2013 Additional Resources General Guidelines and policies: Distribution of hacked materials policy, Twitter, October 2020 Business Help Center: Fact-Checking on Facebook Facebook Business Business Help Center: Rating Options for Fact-Checkers Facebook Business Commit to transparency — sign up for the International Fact-Checking Network's code of principles, IFCN Code of Principles Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Electronic Frontier Foundation Mission Statement: OUR MISSION Open Markets About News Media Alliance Leadership News Corp Clint Watts Foreign Policy Research Institute About FPRI Foreign Policy Research Institute Nina Jankowicz Wicszipedia Sound Clip Sources Hearing: Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression and the 2020 Election, Senate Judiciary Committee, November 17, 2020 Witnesses: Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Inc. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Inc. Transcript: [30:50] Jack Dorsey: We were called here today because of an enforcement decision we made against New York Post, based on a policy we created in 2018. To prevent Twitter from being used to spread hacked materials. This resulted in us blocking people from sharing a New York Post article, publicly or privately. We made a quick interpretation, using no other evidence that the materials in the article were obtained through hacking, and according to our policy, we blocked them from being spread. Upon further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours. We informed the New York Post of our air and policy update and how to unlock their account by deleting the original violating tweet, which freed them to tweet the exact same content and news article again. They chose not to, instead insisting we reverse our enforcement action. We do not have a practice around retro actively overturning prior enforcement's, since then it demonstrated that we needed one and so we created one we believe is fair and appropriate. [35:13] Mark Zuckerberg: At Facebook, we took our responsibility to protect the integrity of this election very seriously. In 2016, we began to face new kinds of threats and after years of preparation, we were ready to defend against them. We built sophisticated systems to protect against election interference, that combined artificial intelligence, significant human review, and partnerships with the intelligence community, law enforcement and other tech platforms. We've taken down more than 100 networks of bad actors, we're trying to coordinate and interfere globally, we established a network of independent fact checkers that covers more than 60 languages. We made political advertising more transparent on Facebook than anywhere else, and including TV, radio and email. And we introduced new policies to combat voter suppression and misinformation. Still, the pandemic created new challenges, how to handle misinformation about COVID and voting by mail, how to prepare people for the reality, the results would take time, and how to handle if someone prematurely declared victory or refused to accept the result. So in September, we updated our policies again to reflect these realities of voting in 2020. And make sure that we were taking precautions given these unique circumstances. We worked with local election officials to remove false claims about polling conditions that might lead to voter suppression. We partnered with Reuters and the national election pool to provide reliable information about results. We attach voting information to posts by candidates on both sides and additional contexts to posts trying to de legitimize the outcome. We lock down new political ads and the week before the election to prevent misleading claims from spreading when they couldn't be rebutted. We strengthened our enforcement against militias and conspiracy networks like QAnon to prevent them from using our platforms to organize violence or civil unrest altogether. I believe this was the largest election integrity effort by any private company in recent times. [40:50] Jack Dorsey: We have transparency around our policies, we do not have transparency around how we operate content moderation, the rationale behind it, the reasoning. And as we look forward, we have more and more of our decisions of our operations moving to algorithms, which are, have a difficult time explaining why they make decisions, bringing transparency around those decisions. And that is why we believe that we should have more choice in how these algorithms are applied to our content, whether we use them at all so we can turn them on or off and have clarity around the outcomes that they're projecting and how they affect our experience. [45:39] Mark Zuckerberg: We work with a number of independent organizations that are accredited by the Poynter Institute. And they include Reuters, the Associated Press. AJans France presse, United States, USA Today, factcheck.org, Science Feedback, PolitiFact, Check Your Fact, Leadstories and the Dispatch in the United States. [48:54] Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Do both of you support change to 230? Reform of Section 230? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator I do. Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Mr. Dorsey? Jack Dorsey: Yes. Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Thank you. [54:10] Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): How many times is Steve Bannon allowed to call for the murder of government officials before Facebook suspends his account? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as you say, the content in question did violate our policies and we took it down. Having a content violation does not automatically mean your account gets taken down. And the number of strikes varies depending on the amount and type of offense. So if people are posting terrorist content or child exploitation content, then the first time they do it, then we will take down their account. For other things. It's multiple, I'd be happy to follow up afterwards. We try not to disclose these... Sorry, I didn't hear that. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): Will you commit to taking down that account? Steve Bannon? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, no, that's not what our policies would suggest that we should do in this case. [1:07:05] Jack Dorsey: What we saw and what the market told us was that people would not put up with abuse, harassment and misleading information that would cause offline harm, and they would leave our service because of it. So our intention is to create clear policy, clear enforcement that enables people to feel that they can express themselves on our service, and ultimately trust it. Sen. John Cornyn (TX): So it was a business decision. Jack Dorsey: It was a business decision. [2:56:34] Mark Zuckerberg: We do coordinate on and share signals on security related topics. So for example, if there is signal around a terrorist attack or around child exploitation imagery or around a foreign government, creating an influence operation, that is an area where the companies do share signals about what they see. But I think it's important to be very clear that that is distinct from the content moderation policies that we or the other companies have, where once we share intelligence or signals between the companies, each company makes its own assessment of the right way to address and deal with that information. [3:59:10] Sen. Mazie Hirono (HI): I don't know what it what are both of you prepared to do regarding Donald Trump's use of your platforms after he stops being president it? Will he still be deemed newsworthy? And will he still get to use your platform to spread this misinformation? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, let me clarify my last answer. We are also having academic study, the effective of all of our election measures and they'll be publishing those results publicly. In terms of President Trump and moving forward. There are a small number of policies where we have exceptions for politicians under the principle that people should be able to hear what their elected officials are saying and candidates for office. But by and large, the vast majority of our policies have no newsworthiness or political exception. So if the President or anyone else is spreading hate speech, or inciting violence, or posting content, that delegitimizes the election or valid forms of voting, those will receive the same treatment is anyone else saying those things, and that will continue to be the case Sen. Mazie Hirono (HI): Remains to be seen. Jack Dorsey: So we do have a policy around public interest, where for global leaders, we do make exceptions in terms of whether if a tweet violates our terms of service, we leave it up behind an interstitial, and people are not allowed to share that more broadly. So a lot of the sharing is disabled with the exception of quoting it so that you can add your own conversation on top of it. So if an account suddenly becomes, is not a world leader anymore, that particular policy goes away. [4:29:35] Sen. Marsha Blackburn (TN): Do you believe it's Facebook's duty to comply with state sponsored censorship so it can keep operating doing business and selling ads in that country? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator in general, we try to comply with the laws in every country where we operate and do business. Hearing: BIG TECH AND SECTION 230 IMMUNITY, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, October 28, 2020 Witnesses: Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Inc. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Inc. Transcript: [10:10] Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): In policing, conservative sites, then its own YouTube platform or the same types of offensive and outrageous claims. [45:50] Jack Dorsey: The goal of our labeling is to provide more context to connect the dots so that people can have more information so they can make decisions for themselves. [46:20] Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): I have a tweet here from Mr. Ajit Pai. Mr. Ajit Pai is the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. And he recounts some four tweets by the Iranian dictator, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which Twitter did not place a public label on. They all four of them glorify violence. The first tweet says this and I quote each time 'the Zionist regime is a deadly cancerous growth and a detriment to the region, it will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.' That's the first tweet. The second tweet 'The only remedy until the removal of the Zionist regime is firm armed resistance,' again, left up without comment by Twitter. The third 'the struggle to free Palestine is jihad in the way of God.' I quote that in part for the sake of time, and number four, 'we will support and assist any nation or any group anywhere who opposes and fights the Zionist regime.' I would simply point out that these tweets are still up, Mr. Dorsey. And how is it that they are acceptable to be to be there? Alan, I'll ask unanimous consent to enter this tweet from Ajit Pai in the record at this point that'll be done. Without objection. How Mr. Dorsey, is that acceptable based on your policies at Twitter? Jack Dorsey: We believe it's important for everyone to hear from global leaders and we have policies around world leaders. We want to make sure that we are respecting their right to speak and to publish what they need. But if there's a violation of our terms of service, we want to label it and... Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): They're still up, did they violate your terms of service? Mr. Dorsey? Jack Dorsey: We did not find those two violate our terms of service because we consider them saber rattling, which is, is part of the speech of world leaders in concert with other countries. Speech against our own people, or a country's own citizens we believe is different and can cause more immediate harm. [59:20] Jack Dorsey: We don't have a policy against misinformation. We have a policy against misinformation in three categories, which are manipulated media, public health, specifically COVID and civic integrity, election interference and voter suppression. [1:39:05] Sen. Brian Schatz (HI): What we are seeing today is an attempt to bully the CEOs of private companies into carrying out a hit job on a presidential candidate, by making sure that they push out foreign and domestic misinformation meant to influence the election. To our witnesses today, you and other tech leaders need to stand up to this immoral behavior. The truth is that because some of my colleagues accuse you, your companies and your employees of being biased or liberal, you have institutionally bent over backwards and over compensated, you've hired republican operatives, hosted private dinners with Republican leaders, and in contravention of your Terms of Service, given special dispensation to right wing voices, and even throttled progressive journalism. Simply put, the republicans have been successful in this play. [1:47:15] Jack Dorsey: This one is a tough one to actually bring transparency to. Explainability in AI is a field of research but is far out. And I think a better opportunity is giving people more choice around the algorithms they use, including to turn off the algorithms completely which is what we're attempting to do. [2:15:00] Sen. Jerry Moran (KS): Whatever the numbers are you indicate that they are significant. It's a enormous amount of money and an enormous amount of employee time, contract labor time in dealing with modification of content. These efforts are expensive. And I would highlight for my colleagues on the committee that they will not be any less expensive, perhaps less than scale, but not less in cost for startups and small businesses. And as we develop our policies in regard to this topic, I want to make certain that entrepreneurship, startup businesses and small business are considered in what it would cost in their efforts to meet the kind of standards to operate in a sphere. [2:20:40] Sen. Ed Markey (MA): The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that they're leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, they're amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy. [3:04:00] Sen. Mike Lee (UT): Between the censorship of conservative and liberal points of view, and it's an enormous disparity. Now you have the right, I want to be very clear about this, you have every single right to set your own terms of service and to interpret them and to make decisions about violations. But given the disparate impact of who gets censored on your platforms, it seems that you're either one not enforcing your Terms of Service equally, or alternatively, to that you're writing your standards to target conservative viewpoints. [3:15:30] Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Okay for both Mr. Zuckerberg and Dorsey who censored New York Post stories, or throttled them back, did either one of you have any evidence that the New York Post story is part of Russian disinformation? Or that those emails aren't authentic? Did anybody have any information whatsoever? They're not authentic more than they are Russian disinformation? Mr. Dorsey? Jack Dorsey: We don't. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): So why would you censor it? Why did you prevent that from being disseminated on your platform that is supposed to be for the free expression of ideas, and particularly true ideas... Jack Dorsey: we believe to fell afoul of our hacking materials policy, we judged... Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): They weren't hacked. Jack Dorsey: We we judge them moment that it looked like it was hacked material. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): You were wrong. Jack Dorsey: And we updated our policy and our enforcement within 24 hours. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Mr. Zuckerberg? Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as I testified before, we relied heavily on the FBI, his intelligence and alert status both through their public testimony and private briefings. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Did the FBI contact you, sir, than your co star? It was false. Mark Zuckerberg: Senator not about that story specifically. Sen. Ron Johnson (MA): Why did you throttle it back. Mark Zuckerberg: They alerted us to be on heightened alert around a risk of hack and leak operations around a release and probe of information. And to be clear on this, we didn't censor the content. We flagged it for fact checkers to review. And pending that review, we temporarily constrained its distribution to make sure that it didn't spread wildly while it was being reviewed. But it's not up to us either to determine whether it's Russian interference, nor whether it's true. We rely on the fact checkers to do that. [3:29:30] Sen. Rick Scott (FL): That's becoming obvious that your that your companies are unfairly targeting conservatives. That's clearly the perception today, Facebook is actively targeting as by conservative groups ahead of the election, either removing the ads completely or adding their own disclosure if they claim that didn't pass their fact check system. [3:32:40] Sen. Rick Scott (FL): You can't just pick and choose which viewpoints are allowed on your platform an expect to keep immunity granted by Section 230. News Clip: Adam Schiff on CNN, CNN, Twitter, October 16, 2020 Hearing: MISINFORMATION, CONSPIRACY THEORIES, AND `INFODEMICS': STOPPING THE SPREAD ONLINE, Committee on the Judiciary: Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, October 15, 2020 Watch on Youtube Hearing Transcript Witnesses: Dr. Joan Donovan: Research Director at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School Nina Jankowicz: Disinformation Fellow at the Wilson Center Cindy Otis: Vice President of the Althea Group Melanie Smith: Head of Analysis, Graphika Inc Transcript: 41:30 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): And I should acknowledge that we're pretty careful. We understand that we shouldn't be in the business of fighting misinformation that's probably inconsistent with the First Amendment. So what do we do? We ask that it be outsourced to people that we otherwise are pretty critical of like Mark Zuckerberg, and Jack Dorsey, we say you do it, which strikes me as a pretty lame way to address what may or may not be a problem. 42:00 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Miss Jankowicz said that misinformation is dismantling democracy. I'm skeptical of that. And that will be my question. What evidence is that is out there that this is dismantling democracy, I don't mean that millions of people see QAnon I actually want to see the evidence that people are seeing this information, and are in a meaningful way, in a material way, dismantling our democracy through violence or through political organizations, because if we're going to go down that path, I need something more than eyeballs. So I need some evidence for how this is dismantling our democracy. And secondly, if you persuade me that we're dismantling our democracy, how do we get in the business of figuring out who should define what misinformation or disinformation is? Nina Jankowicz: To address your first question related to evidence of the dismantling of democracy. There's two news stories that I think point to this from the last couple of weeks alone. The first is related to the kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. And the social media platforms played a huge role in allowing that group to organize. It allowed, that group to, it ceded the information that led them to organize and frankly, as a woman online who has been getting harassed a lot lately, lately, with sexualized and gender disinformation, I am very acutely aware of how those threats that are online can transfer on to real world violence. And that make no mistake is meant to keep women and minorities from not only participating in the democratic process by exercising our votes, but also keeping us from public life. So that's one big example. But there was another example just recently from a channel for in the UK documentary that looked at how the Trump campaign used Cambridge Analytica data to selectively target black voters with voter suppression ads during the 2016 election. Again, this is it's affecting people's participation. It's not just about fake news, stories on the internet. In fact, a lot of the best disinformation is grounded in a kernel of truth. And in my written testimony, I go through a couple of other examples of how online action has led to real world action. And this isn't something that is just staying on the internet, it is increasingly in real life. Rep. Jim Himes (CT): I don't have a lot of time. Do you think that both examples that you offered up Gov the plot to kidnap governor, the governor of Michigan, and your other example passed the but for test? I mean, this country probably got into the Spanish American War over 130 years ago because of the good works of William Randolph Hearst. So how do we, we've had misinformation and yellow journalism and terrible media and voter suppression forever. And I understand that these media platforms have scale that William Randolph Hearst didn't have. But are you sure that both of those examples pass the buck for they wouldn't have happened without the social media misinformation? Nina Jankowicz: I believe they do, because they allow the organization of these groups without any oversight, and they allow the targeting the targeting of these messages to the groups and people that are going to find the most vulnerable and are most likely to take action against them. And that's what our foreign adversaries do. And increasingly, it's what people within our own country are using to organize violence against the democratic participation of many of our fellow citizens. Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Okay, well, I'm out of time I would love to continue this conversation and pursue what you mean by groups being formed quote, without oversight, that's language I'd like to better understand but I'm out of time, but I would like to continue this conversation into, well, if this is the problem that you say it is, what do we actually do about it? Hearing: ONLINE PLATFORMS AND MARKET POWER, PART 2: INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, Committee on the Judiciary: Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, July 16, 2020 Watch on Youtube Witnesses: Adam Cohen: Director of Economic Policy at Google Matt Perault: Head of Global Policy Development at Facebook Nate Sutton: Associate General Counsel for Competition at Amazon Kyle Andeer: Vice President for Corporate Law at Apple Timothy Wu: Julius Silver Professor of Law at Columbia Law School Dr. Fiona Scott Morton: Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics at Yale School of Management Stacy Mitchell: Co-Director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Maureen Ohlhausen: Partner at Baker Botts LLP Carl Szabo: Vice President and Gneral Counsel at NetChoice Morgan Reed: Executive Director at the App Association Transcript: [55:15] Adam Cohen: Congresswoman we use a combination of automated tools, we can recognize copyrighted material that creators upload and instantaneously discover it and keep it from being seen on our platforms. [1:16:00] Rep. David Cicilline (RI): Do you use consumer data to favor Amazon products? Because before you answer that, analysts estimate that between 80 and 90% of sales go to the Amazon buy box. So you collect all this data about the most popular products where they're selling. And you're saying you don't use that in any way to change an algorithm to support the sale of Amazon branded products? Nate Sutton: Our algorithms such as the buy box is aimed to predict what customers want to buy, apply the same criteria whether you're a third party seller, or Amazon to that because we want customers to make the right purchase, regardless of whether it's a seller or Amazon. Rep. David Cicilline (RI): But the best purchase to you as an Amazon product. Nate Sutton: No, that's not true. Rep. David Cicilline (RI): So you're telling us you're under oath, Amazon does not use any of that data collected with respect to what is selling, where it's on what products to inform the decisions you make, or to change algorithms to direct people to Amazon products and prioritize Amazon and D prioritize competitors. Nate Sutton: The algorithms are optimized to predict what customers want to buy regardless of the seller. We provide this same criteria and with respect to popularity, that's public data on each product page. We provide the ranking of each product. [3:22:50] Dr. Fiona Scott Morton: As is detailed in the report that I submitted as my testimony, there are a number of characteristics of platforms that tend to drive them toward concentrated markets, very large economies of scale, consumers exacerbate this with their behavioral biases, we don't scroll down to the second page, we don't. We accept default, we follow the framing the platform gives us and instead of searching independently, and what that does is it makes it very hard for small companies to grow and for new ones to get traction against the dominant platform. And without the threat of entry from entrepreneurs and growth from existing competitors, the dominant platform doesn't have to compete as hard. If it's not competing as hard, then there are several harms that follow from that. One is higher prices for advertisers, many of these platforms are advertising supported, then there's higher prices to consumers who may think that they're getting a good deal by paying a price of zero. But the competitive price might well be negative, the consumers might well be able to be paid for using these platforms in a competitive market. Other harms include low quality in the form of less privacy, more advertising and more exploitative content that consumers can't avoid. Because, as Tim just said, there isn't anywhere else to go. And lastly, without competitive pressure, innovation is lessened. And in particular, it's channeled in the direction the dominant firm prefers, rather than being creatively spread across directions chosen by entrance. And this is what we learned both from at&t and IBM and Microsoft, is that when the dominant firm ceases to control innovation, there's a flowering and it's very creative and market driven. So the solution to this problem of insufficient competition is complimentary steps forward in both antitrust and regulation. Antitrust must recalibrate the balance it strikes between the risk of over enforcement and under enforcement. The evidence now shows we've been under enforcing for years and consumers have been harmed. [3:22:50] Stacy Mitchell: I hope the committee will consider several policy tools as part of this investigation. In particular, we very much endorse the approach that Congress took with regard to the railroads, that if you operate essential infrastructure, you can't also compete with the businesses that rely on that infrastructure. [3:45:00] Morgan Reed: Here on the table, I have a copy of Omni page Pro. This was a software you bought, if you needed to scan documents. If you wanted to turn it into a processor and you could look at it in a word processor. I've also got this great review from PC World, they loved it back in 2005. But the important fact here in this review is that it says the street price of this software in 2005 was $450. Now, right here, I've got an app from a company called Readdle, that is nearly the same product level has a bunch of features that this one doesn't, it's $6. Basically now consumers pay less than 1% of what they used to pay for some of the same capability. And what's even better about that, even though I love the product from Readdle, there are dozens of competitors in the app space. So when you look at it from that perspective, consumers are getting a huge win. How have platforms made this radical drop in price possible? Simply put, they've provided three things a trusted space, reduced overhead, and given my developers nearly instant access to a global marketplace with billions of customers, before the platforms to get your software onto a retail store shelf. companies had to spend years and thousands of dollars to get to the point where a distributor would handle their product, then you'd agree agree to a cut of sales revenue, write a check for upfront marketing, agree to refund the distributor the cost of any unsold boxes and then spend 10s of thousands of dollars to buy an end cap. Digging a little bit on this, I don't know how many of you know or aware that the products you see on your store shelf or in the Sunday flyer aren't there because the manager thought it was a cool product. Those products are displayed at the end of an aisle or end cap because the software developer or consumer goods company literally pays for the shelf space. In fact, for many retailers the sale of floor the sale of floor space and flyers makes a huge chunk of their profitability for their store. And none of this takes into consideration printing boxes, manuals, CDs, dealing with credit cards if you go direct translation services, customs authorities if you want to sell abroad in the 1990s it cost a million dollars to start up a software company. Now it's $100,000 in sweat equity. And thanks to these changes, the average cost for consumer software has dropped from $50 to three. For developers. Our cost to market has dropped enormously and the size of our market has expanded globally. [3:48:55] Stacy Mitchell: I've spent a lot of time interviewing and talking with independent retailers, manufacturers of all sizes. Many of them are very much afraid of speaking out publicly because they fear retaliation. But what we consistently hear is that Amazon is the biggest threat to their businesses. We just did a survey of about 550 independent retailers nationally, Amazon ranked number one in terms of being what they said was the biggest threat to their business above, rising healthcare costs, access to capital, government, red tape, anything else you can name. Among those who are actually selling on the platform, only 7% reported that it was actually helping their bottom line. Amazon has a kind of godlike view of a growing share of our commerce and it uses the data that it gathers to advantage its own business and its own business interests in lots of ways. A lot of this, as I said, comes from the kind of leverage its ability to sort of leverage the interplay between these different business lines to maximize its advantage, whether it's promoting its own product because that's lucrative or whether it's using the manufacturer of a product to actually squeeze a seller or vendor into giving it bigger discounts. [3:53:15] Rep. Kelly Armstrong (ND): When we recognize, I come from very rural area, the closest, what you would consider a big box store is Minneapolis or Denver. So and so when we're talking about competition, all of this I also think we've got to remember, at no point in time from my house in Dickinson, North Dakota have I had more access to more diverse and cheap consumer products. I mean, things that often would require a plane ticket or a nine hour car ride to buy can now be brought to our house. So I think when we're talking about consumers, we need to remember that side of it, too. Hearing: EMERGING TRENDS IN ONLINE FOREIGN INFLUENCE OPERATIONS: SOCIAL MEDIA, COVID–19, AND ELECTION SECURITY, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, June 18, 2020 Watch on Youtube Hearing transcript Witnesses: Nathaniel Gleicher: Head of Security Policy at Facebook Nick Pickles: Director of Global Public Policy Strategy and Development at Twitter Richard Salgado: Director for Law Enforcement and Information Security at Google Transcript: [19:16] Nathaniel Gleicher: Facebook has made significant investments to help protect the integrity of elections. We now have more than 35,000 people working on safety and security across the company, with nearly 40 teams focused specifically on elections and election integrity. We're also partnering with federal and state governments, other tech companies, researchers and civil society groups to share information and stop malicious actors. Over the past three years, we've worked to protect more than 200 elections around the world. We've learned lessons from each of these, and we're applying these lessons to protect the 2020 election in November. [21:58] Nathaniel Gleicher: We've also been proactively hunting for bad actors trying to interfere with the important discussions about injustice and inequality happening around our nation. As part of this effort, we've removed isolated accounts seeking to impersonate activists, and two networks of accounts tied to organize hate groups that we've previously banned from our platforms. [26:05] Nick Pickles: Firstly, Twitter shouldn't determine the truthfulness of tweets. And secondly, Twitter should provide context to help people make up their own minds in cases where the substance of a tweet is disputed. [26:15] Nick Pickles: We prioritize interventions regarding misinformation based on the highest potential for harm. And the currently focused on three main areas of content, synthetic & manipulated media, elections and civic integrity and COVID-19. [26:30] Nick Pickles: Where content does not break our rules and warrant removal. In these three areas, we may label tweets to help people come to their own views by providing additional context. These labels may link to a curated set of tweets posted by people on Twitter. This include factual statements, counterpoint opinions and perspectives, and ongoing public conversation around the issue. To date, we've applied these labels to thousands of tweets around the world across these three policy areas. [31:10] Richard Salgado: In search, ranking algorithms are an important tool in our fight against disinformation. Ranking elevates information that our algorithms determine is the most authoritative, above information that may be less reliable. Similarly, our work on YouTube focuses on identifying and removing content that violates our policies and elevating authoritative content when users search for breaking news. At the same time, we find and limit the spread of borderline content that comes close but just stops short of violating our policies. [53:28] Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): Mr. Gliecher, you may or may not know that Facebook is headquartered in my congressional district. I've had many conversations with Sheryl Sandberg. And I'm still puzzled by the fact that Facebook does not consider itself a media platform. Are you still espousing that kind of position? Nathaniel Gleicher: Congresswoman, we're first and foremost a technology company. We may be a technology company, but it's your technology company is being used as a media platform. Do you not recognize that? Congresswoman, we're a place for ideas across the spectrum. We know that there are people who use our platforms to engage and in fact that is the goal of the platform's to encourage and enable people to discuss the key issues of the day and to talk to family and friends. [54:30] Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): How long or or maybe I should ask this when there was a video of Speaker Pelosi that had been tampered with - slowed down to make her look like she was drunk. YouTube took it down almost immediately. What did Facebook do and what went into your thinking to keep it up? Nathaniel Gleicher: Congresswoman for a piece of content like that, we work with a network of third party fact checkers, more than 60 3rd party fact checkers around the world. If one of them determines that a piece of content like that is false, and we will down rank it, and we will put an interstitial on it so that anyone who would look at it would first see a label over it saying that there's additional information and that it's false. That's what we did in this context. When we down rank, something like that, we see the shares of that video, radically drop. Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): But you won't take it down when you know it's false. Nathaniel Gleicher: Congresswoman, you're highlighting a really difficult balance. And we've talked about this amongst ourselves quite a bit. And what I would say is, if we simply take a piece of content like this down, it doesn't go away. It will exist elsewhere on the internet. People who weren't looking for it will still find it. Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): But it you know, there will always be bad actors in the world. That doesn't mean that you don't do your level best to show the greatest deal of credibility. I mean, if YouTube took it down, I don't understand how you couldn't have taken down but I'll leave that where it lays. [1:40:10] Nathaniel Gleicher: Congressman, the collaboration within industry and with government is much, much better than it was in 2016. I think we have found the FBI, for example, to be forward leaning and ready to share information with us when they see it. We share information with them whenever we see indications of foreign interference targeting our election. The best case study for this was the 2018 midterms, where you saw industry, government and civil society all come together, sharing information to tackle these threats. We had a case on literally the eve of the vote, where the FBI gave us a tip about a network of accounts where they identified subtle links to Russian actors. Were able to investigate those and take action on them within a matter of hours. [1:43:10] Rep. Jim Himes (CT): I tend to be kind of a First Amendment absolutist. I really don't want Facebook telling me what's true and what's not true mainly because most statements are some combination of both. [1:44:20] Nathaniel Gleicher: Certainly people are drawn to clickbait. They're drawn to explosive content. I mean, it is the nature of clickbait, to make people want to click on it, but what we found is that if you separate it out from the particular content, people don't want a platform or experience, just clickbait, they will click it, if they see it, they don't want it prioritized, they don't want their time to be drawn into that and all emotional frailty. And so we are trying to build an environment where that isn't the focus, where they have the conversations they want to have, but I agree with you. A core piece of this challenge is people seek out that type of content wherever it is. I should note that as we're thinking about how we prioritize this, one of the key factors is who your friends are the pages and accounts that you follow and the assets that you engage with. That's the most important factor in sort of what you see. And so people have direct control over that because they are choosing the people they want to engage. Hearing: ONLINE PLATFORMS AND MARKET POWER, PART 1: THE FREE AND DIVERSE PRESS, Committee on the Judiciary: Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, June 11, 2020 Watch on Youtube Witnesses: David Chavern: President of the News Media Alliance Gene Kimmelman: President of Public Knowledge Sally Hubbard: Director of Enforcement Strategy at the Open Markets Institute Matthew Schrurers: Vice President of Law and Policy at the Computer and Communications Industry Association David Pitofsky: General Counsel at News Corp Kevin Riley: Editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Transcript: [55:30] David Chavern: Platforms and news organizations mutual reliance would not be a problem, if not for the fact that the concentration among the platforms means a small number of companies now exercise an extreme level of control over the news. And in fact, a couple of dominant firms act as regulators of the news industry. Only these regulators are not constrained by legislative or democratic oversight. The result has been to siphon revenue away from news publishers. This trend is clear if you compare the growth in Google's total advertising revenue to the decline in the news industry's ad revenue. In 2000, Google's US revenue was 2.1 billion, while the newspaper industry accounted for 48 billion in advertising revenue. In 2017, in contrast, Google's US revenue had increased over 25 times to 52.4 billion, the newspaper industry's ad revenue had fallen 65% to 16.4 billion. [56:26] David Chavern: The effect of this revenue decline in publishers has been terrible, and they've been forced to cut back on their investments in journalism. That is a reason why newsroom employment has fallen nearly a quarter over the last decade. One question might be asked is if the platforms are unbalanced, having such a negative impact on the news media, then why don't publishers do something about it? The answer is they cannot, at least under the existing antitrust laws, news publishers face a collective action problem. No publisher on its own can stand up to the tech giants. The risk of demotion or exclusion from the platform is simply too great. And the antitrust laws prevent news organizations from acting collectively. So the result is that publishers are forced to accept whatever terms or restrictions are imposed on them. [1:06:20] Sally Hubbard: Facebook has repeatedly acquired rivals, including Instagram and WhatsApp. And Google's acquisition cemented its market power throughout the ad ecosystem as it bought up the digital ad market spoke by spoke, including applied semantics AdMob and Double Click. Together Facebook and Google have bought 150 companies in just the last six years. Google alone has bought nearly 250 companies. [1:14:17] David Pitofsky: Unfortunately, in the news business, free riding by dominant online platforms, which aggregate and then reserve our content has led to the lion's share of online advertising dollars generated off the back of news going to the platforms. Many in Silicon Valley dismissed the press as old media failing to evolve in the face of online competition. But this is wrong. We're not losing business to an innovator who has found a better or more efficient way to report and investigate the news. We're losing business because the dominant platforms deploy our news content, to target our audiences to then turn around and sell that audience to the same advertisers we're trying to serve. [1:15:04] David Pitofsky: The erosion of advertising revenue undercuts our ability to invest in high quality journalism. Meanwhile, the platforms have little if any commitment to accuracy or reliability. For them, a news article is valuable if viral, not if verified. [1:16:12] David Pitofsky: News publishers have no good options to respond to these challenges. Any publisher that tried to withhold its content from a platform as part of a negotiating strategy would starve itself of reader traffic. In contrast, losing one publisher would not harm the platform's at all since they would have ample alternative sources for news content. [1:36:56] Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA): So Miss Hubbard, let me start with you. You were an Assistant Attorney General for New York State's antitrust division. You've also worked as a journalist, which online platforms would you say are most impacting the public's access to trustworthy sources of journalism? And why? Sally Hubbard: Thank you for the question. Congresswoman, I think in terms of disinformation, the platforms that are having the most impact are Facebook and YouTube. And that's because of their business models, which are to prioritize engagement, engaging content because of the human nature that you know survival instinct, we tend to tune into things that make us fearful or angry. And so by prioritizing engagement, these platforms are actually prioritizing disinformation as well. It serves their profit motives to keep people on the platforms as long as possible to show them ads and collect their data. And because they don't have any competition, they're free to pursue these destructive business models without having any competitive constraint. They've also lacked regulation. Normally, corporations are not permitted to just pursue profits without regard to the consequences. [1:38:10] Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA): The Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly declined to interfere, as Facebook and Google have acquired would be competitors. Since 2007, Google has acquired Applied Semantics, Double Click and AdMob. And since 2011, Facebook has acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. What do these acquisitions mean for consumers of news and information? I think sometimes antitrust is seen and regulation is seen as something that's out there. But this has very direct impact for consumers. Can you explain what that means as these companies have acquired more and more? Sally Hubbard: Sure, so in my view, those, of all of the acquisitions that you just mentioned, were illegal under the Clayton Act, which prohibits mergers that may lessen competition. Looking back, it's clear that all of those mergers did lessen competition. And when you lessen competition, the harms to consumers are not just high prices, which was which are harder to see when in the digital age. But its loss of innovation is loss of choice, and loss of control. So when we approve anti competitive mergers, consumers are harmed. [1:55:48] Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL): Section 230, as I understand it, and I'm happy to be corrected by others, would say that if a technology platform is a neutral public platform, that they enjoy certain liability protections that newspapers don't enjoy, that Newscorp doesn't enjoy with its assets. And so does it make the anti competitive posture of technology platforms more pronounced, that they have access to this special liability protection that the people you represent don't have access to? David Chavern: Oh, absolutely. There's a huge disparity. Frankly, when our contents delivered through these platforms, we get the liability and they get the money. So that's a good deal from that end. We are responsible for what we publish, we publishers can and do get sued. On the other hand, the platforms are allowed to deliver and monetize this content with complete lack of responsibility. Hearing: Election Interference: Ensuring Law Enforcement is Equipped to Target Those Seeking to Do Harm, Senate Judiciary Committee, June 12, 2018 Watch on C-SPAN Witnesses: Adam Hickey - Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at the Department of Justice Matthew Masterson - National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security Kenneth Wainstein - Partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP Prof. Ryan Goodman - New York University School of Law Nina Jankowicz - Global Fellow at the Wilson Center Transcript: [9:00] Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA): We know that Russia orchestrated a sustained and coordinated attack that interfered in our last presidential election. And we also know that there’s a serious threat of more attacks in our future elections, including this November. As the United States Intelligence Community unanimously concluded, the Russian government’s interference in our election—and I quote—“blended covert intelligence operations, such as cyber activity, with overt efforts by the Russian government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social-media users or trolls.” Over the course of the past year and a half, we’ve come to better understand how pernicious these attacks were. Particularly unsettling is that we were so unaware. We were unaware that Russia was sowing division through mass propaganda, cyber warfare, and working with malicious actors to tip scales of the election. Thirteen Russian nationals and three organizations, including the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency, have now been indicted for their role in Russia’s vast conspiracy to defraud the United States. Hearing: Facebook, Google and Twitter Executives on Russian Disinformation, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, October 31, 2017 Watch on Youtube Witnesses: Colin Stretch - Facebook Vice President and General Counsel Sean Edgett - Twitter Acting General Counsel Richard Salgado - Google Law Enforcement & Information Security Director Clint Watts - Foreign Policy Research Institute, National Security Program Senior Fellow Michael Smith -New America, International Security Fellow Transcript: [2:33:07] Clint Watts: Lastly, I admire those social-media companies that have begun working to fact-check news articles in the wake of last year’s elections. These efforts should continue but will be completely inadequate. Stopping false information—the artillery barrage landing on social-media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced. Silence the guns, and the barrage will end. I propose the equivalent of nutrition labels for information outlets, a rating icon for news-producing outlets displayed next to their news links and social-media feeds and search engines. The icon provides users an assessment of the news outlet’s ratio of fact versus fiction and opinion versus reporting. The rating system would be opt-in. It would not infringe on freedom of speech or freedom of the press. Should not be part of the U.S. government, should sit separate from the social-media companies but be utilized by them. Users wanting to consume information from outlets with a poor rating wouldn’t be prohibited. If they are misled about the truth, they have only themselves to blame. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)
We revisited a conversation with Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck), chair of the Senate Commerce, Economic Development, and Small Business Committee, in which we discuss New York's economic recovery and the steps the state can do to help New Yorkers through this tough time. (originally aired 10/28/20)
LLN (11/24/20) – Massachusetts’ governor wants tougher rules for trucks, while New Jersey tries to fix problems at its Motor Vehicle Commission. Also, your tires dislike the winter weather about as much as you do, but there are plenty of ways to make sure they keep running in the snow, sleet and cold. And a U.S. senator with a background in transportation may take over the Senate Commerce and Transportation Committee – just as work will start on a new highway bill. 0:00 – Newscast. 10:13 – More winter prep for tires. 25:05 – Electric vehicles and paying for roads. 40:04 – New transportation leader in Senate?
US equity markets modestly weaker as investors digested another slew of quarterly corporate earnings releases - Dow down -222-points or -0.80%. The broader S&P500 -0.30% to 3,390.68, logging its first close below 3,400 since 6 October. Industrials (down -2.18%) and Financials (-1.91%) led eight of the eleven primary sectors lower. The technology-centric Nasdaq outperformed with a +0.64% gain. The chief executives of Alphabet Inc’s (up +0.87%) Google, Facebook Inc (+2.23%) and Twitter Inc (+4.68%) testify in front of a U.S. Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing titled, “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behaviour?” tonight AEST. The focus will be on how tech’s largest companies decide what content users can post on their platforms. In merger and acquisition (M&A) news, Advanced Micro Devices Inc (down -4.07%) announced an agreement to acquire Xilinx Inc (up +8.56%) in an all-stock deal valued at US$35B. Xilinx shareholders Will receive 1.7234 share of AMD for each share owned, equal to $US143 in cash.
US equity markets modestly weaker as investors digested another slew of quarterly corporate earnings releases - Dow down -222-points or -0.80% . The broader S&P500 -0.30% to 3,390.68, logging its first close below 3,400 since 6 October. Industrials (down -2.18%) and Financials (-1.91%) led eight of the eleven primary sectors lower. The technology-centric Nasdaq outperformed with a +0.64% gain. The chief executives of Alphabet Inc's (up +0.87%) Google, Facebook Inc (+2.23%) and Twitter Inc (+4.68%) testify in front of a U.S. Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing titled, “Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behaviour?” tonight AEST. The focus will be on how tech's largest companies decide what content users can post on their platforms. In merger and acquisition (M&A) news, Advanced Micro Devices Inc (down -4.07%) announced an agreement to acquire Xilinx Inc (up +8.56%) in an all-stock deal valued at US$35B. Xilinx shareholders Will receive 1.7234 share of AMD for each share owned, equal to $US143 in cash.
A mixed performance for US equity markets to close out the week, leaving all three benchmark indices nursing weekly losses as uncertainty over the timeline of the coronavirus relief legislation continued to weigh on sentiment - Dow slipped -28-points or -0.10% . The broader S&P500 rose +0.34%, with Communication Services (up +1.08%) leading nine of the eleven primary sectors higher. Energy (down -0.55%) and Information Technology (-0.12%) were the only primary sectors to close lower. Intel Corp dropped -10.58% (logging the steepest percentage decline in the index) after the chip maker posted a larger-than-expected decline in third quarter revenue after the closing bell of Thursday’s (22 October) session. The Nasdaq added +0.37%. The chief executives of Alphabet Inc’s (%) Google, Facebook Inc (+2.39%) and Twitter Inc (+0.31%) will testify in front of a U.S. Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing titled, “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behaviour?” on Wednesday night AEST (28 October). The focus will be on how tech’s largest companies decide what content users can post on their platforms.
A mixed performance for US equity markets to close out the week, leaving all three benchmark indices nursing weekly losses as uncertainty over the timeline of the coronavirus relief legislation continued to weigh on sentiment - Dow slipped -28-points or -0.10% . The broader S&P500 rose +0.34%, with Communication Services (up +1.08%) leading nine of the eleven primary sectors higher. Energy (down -0.55%) and Information Technology (-0.12%) were the only primary sectors to close lower. Intel Corp dropped -10.58% (logging the steepest percentage decline in the index) after the chip maker posted a larger-than-expected decline in third quarter revenue after the closing bell of Thursday's (22 October) session. The Nasdaq added +0.37%. The chief executives of Alphabet Inc's (%) Google, Facebook Inc (+2.39%) and Twitter Inc (+0.31%) will testify in front of a U.S. Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing titled, “Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behaviour?” on Wednesday night AEST (28 October). The focus will be on how tech's largest companies decide what content users can post on their platforms.
In this two-part episode series, David Skorton, MD, AAMC president and CEO, talks with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) about how health care policy will change for patients, the research community, and the workforce in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic.Episode Guest:Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) serves as Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. He also chairs the Senate Rules Committee and serves on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, among other committee assignments. Sen. Blunt has supported the Paycheck Protection Program and the Health Care Enhancement Act. Credits:Hosted by David Skorton, MD, president and CEO of the AAMCProduced by Stephanie Weiner, AAMC manager of digital strategy; Erica Froyd, AAMC senior director of advocacy and engagement; and Kathy Gambrell, AAMC senior digital content strategistEdited by Laura Zelaya, AAMC production managerIn Case You're Interested:Podcast: Season 1, Episode 1: Who Gets That Ventilator? Bioethics in the Era of COVIDPodcast: Season 1, Episode 2: Accelerating Transformation in Times of CrisisPodcast: Season 1, Episode 3: A Pivotal Moment for Science: A Conversation with Dr. Francis CollinsPodcast: Season 1, Episode 4: Preserving Well-being in a Pandemic
Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Senate Judiciary and Senate Commerce committees yesterday. My initial thoughts. A campaign dog & pony show for many Senators. Senator Kennedy (R-LA) says Facebook's user agreement sucks - and that Congress should write it. They'd turn that agreement into a 1,900 page document in the blink of an eye! First Amendment. Difference between government censorship & business policies/procedures. Zuckerberg basically asking to be regulated by government. This just doesn't jibe with my way of thinking. Zuckerberg, from what I saw, did a good job. This shouldn't be misconstrued to mean I think they are running Facebook properly or that they are using their user data properly. Or that I approve of the way they police Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Senate Judiciary and Senate Commerce committees yesterday. My initial thoughts. A campaign dog & pony show for many Senators. Senator Kennedy (R-LA) says Facebook's user agreement sucks - and that Congress should write it. They'd turn that agreement into a 1,900 page document in the blink of an eye! First Amendment. Difference between government censorship & business policies/procedures. Zuckerberg basically asking to be regulated by government. This just doesn't jibe with my way of thinking. Zuckerberg, from what I saw, did a good job. This shouldn't be misconstrued to mean I think they are running Facebook properly or that they are using their user data properly. Or that I approve of the way they police Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Senate Judiciary and Senate Commerce committees yesterday. My initial thoughts. A campaign dog & pony show for many Senators. Senator Kennedy (R-LA) says Facebook's user agreement sucks - and that Congress should write it. They'd turn that agreement into a 1,900 page document in the blink of an eye! First Amendment. Difference between government censorship & business policies/procedures. Zuckerberg basically asking to be regulated by government. This just doesn't jibe with my way of thinking. Zuckerberg, from what I saw, did a good job. This shouldn't be misconstrued to mean I think they are running Facebook properly or that they are using their user data properly. Or that I approve of the way they police Facebook.
Recently the Senate Commerce committee approved the nomination of Ray Martinez to head the FMCSA. Terry Scruton talks about what happens next – as well as the acting FMCSA administrator stepping down – with OOIDA Manager of Federal Affairs Jay Grimes.
If you are an American adult, there is a good chance that criminals now have the ability to match your name and social security number, greatly increasing your risk of becoming a victim of identity fraud. In this episode, hear highlights from Congressional hearings about the Equifax breach that exposed the personal information of 145.5 million Americans as we explore the key role that credit reporting companies play in our society. Please Support Congressional Dish Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Bills H.J.Res.111: Providing for congresional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule... H.R. 624: Social Security Number Fraud Prevention Act of 2017 H.R. 2622 (108th): Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 Additional Reading Blog Post: The USS senate is preventing companies like Equifax being held accountable for major screw-ups by Tim Fernholz, Quartz Media, October 24, 2017. Article: The IRS gave Equifax a $7.25 million contract, and a congressman thought it was a joke from The Onion by Aaron Mark, Slate, October 4, 2017. Article: Equifax suffered a hack almost five months earlier than the date it disclosed by Michael Ray, Anita Sharpe, & Jordan Robertson, Bloomberg Technology, September 19, 2017. Article: The Equifax data breach: What to do by Seena Gressin, Federal Trade Commission, September 8, 2017. Article: Wells Fargo uncovers up to 1.4 million more fake accounts by Matt Egan, CNN Money, August 31, 2017. Article: Wells Fargo forced unwanted auto insurance on borrowers by Gretchen Morenson, The New York Times, July 27, 2017. Blog Post: U.S. cities with the best & worst credit scores by Mike Brown, Lend EDU, April 12, 2017. Article: Two major credit reporting agencies have been lying to consumers by Gillian B. White, The Atlantic, January 4, 2017. Report: CFPB orders TransUnion and Equifax to pay for deceiving consumers in marketing credit cores and credit products, CFPB, January 3, 2017. Article: Class-action suits target Experian over T-Mobile breach by Andrew Blake, The Washington Times, November 11, 2015. Article: The long, twisted history of your credit score by Sean Trainor, Time, July 22, 2015. Publication: Data point: Credit invisibles by Kenneth P. Brevoort, Philipp Grimm, & Michelle Kambara, CPFB, May 2015. Blog Post: 4 things to do when your credit score reaches 'good' or 'excellent' by Simple.Thrifty.Living, Huffpost, April 14, 2015 Article: What's the difference between a fraud alert, credit freeze, & credit lock? by STAFF, Lexington Law, January 26, 2015. Article: Revealed: One in four of the UK's top companies pay no tax while we give them millions in credits by Alex Hawkes and Simon Watkins, The Mail, March 2, 2013. Article: The high cost of a 'free credit report' by Stephanie Clifford, The New York Times, August 4, 2008. Article: Credit scores - what you should know about your own by Malgorzata Wozniacka & Snigdha Sen, Frontline, November 23, 2004. Publication: An overview and history of credit reporting by Mark Furletti, Discussion Paper, June 2002. Article: Witness says credit bureaus invade privacy and asks curb by Roy Reed, New York Times, March 13, 1968. References Bill Actions Tracking: H.J.Res.111 Credit Report Website: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action Experian: ChoiceScore Info FTC Consumer Response Center: A summary of your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act Identity Theft Website: https://identitytheft.gov/ Open Secrets: Experian Client Profile Summary Open Secrets: Trans Union Corp Client Profile Summary Senate Vote Summary: H.J.Res.111 Sound Clip Sources Senate Session: US senate approves disaster relief bill; Senate; October 24, 2017. 3:57:20 Sen. Sherrod Brown (OH): Studies show that Wall Street and other big companies win 93 percent of the time in arbitration. Ninety-three percent of the time in arbitration the companies win. No wonder they are fighting like hell. No wonder they have lobbied this place like we have never seen. No wonder every Wall Street firm is down here begging their Senators to stand strong with Wall Street and pass this CRA, pass this resolution to undo the rule stopping forced arbitration. 4:05:00 Sen. Mike Crapo (ID): The real issue is whether we will try to force the resolution of disputes in financial resolution into class action lawsuits. This is a question about whether we should force dispute resolution mechanisms into class actions. In fact, let me read the actual language of the rule that we are debating. It doesn’t say anything about forced arbitration clauses. In fact, the rule doesn’t stop arbitration clauses in contracts. It stops protections in arbitration clauses against class action litigation. Let’s read what the actual rule says: The CFPB rule prohibits a company from relying in any way on a predispute arbitration agreement with respect to any aspect of a class action that concerns any consumer financial product or service. In other words, the entire purpose of this rule is to promote class action litigation and to stop arbitration resolution when there is a dispute. Hearing: Equifax Sen Banking Hearing; Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law; October 4, 2017. Witness: Richard Smith: Former Chairman & CEO of Equifax 27:20 Sen. Chuck Grassley (IA): Additionally, we must appreciate that fact that not all data breaches are the same. The information and risk of harm can greatly vary from one breach to another. For example, the past breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus, which this committee held a hearing to examine, involved financial information such as credit and debit cards. Of course, this is information that absolutely must be protected and secured. If it falls in the wrong hands, it can create a lot of problems for individuals. But in the Equifax data breach, I think that’s different. It’s important that consumers and policymakers recognize this distinction because the threat landscape has changed. The information hackers obtained or gained access to in the Equifax breach is the most sensitive personal information used by thieves to commit identity theft. So, we should let that sink in very definitely. A credit card number or bank account information can be changed with a phone call, but you can’t change your social security number and your date of birth. Anyone who’s ever applied for a loan, a credit card, a job, or opened a bank account knows you have to provide a social security number, date of birth to verify your identity. Thus, if someone has this information they can do the same and take over your identity. They can become you. And you won’t know it happened until it’s too late. 38:30 Sen. Jeff Flake (AZ): In your testimony before the House yesterday, you stated that Equifax’s “traditional business model is with companies, not with 400 million consumers.” What portion of Equifax’s business is consumer facing? Richard Smith: Mr. Chairman, roughly 10% of our revenues around the world come from what we call B to C—business to consumer. Flake: That’s 10%. Then, what is the main source of Equifax’s revenue stream? Smith: The vast majority, the remaining, is largely doing analytics, insights, and providing solutions to banks, telecommunications companies, credit card issuers, insurance companies, and the like around the world. Flake: So, if only 10% of the revenue is consumer facing, what is the company’s incentive for keeping consumer data secure when it has no meaningful interaction or limited meaningful interaction with the accountability of consumers? Smith: We are clearly viewed as a trusted steward of that information, and losing that information violates the trust and confidence not only of the consumer but also of the companies we do business with as well. 1:01:52 Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT): You spent a lot of money lobbying against as consumer-protection act that might require you to notify consumers immediately in such breaches. Are you still going to fight and still spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to stop that kind of a consumer-protection bill from going through? Richard Smith: Senator, I can tell you as a company we do have a government-relations team. In the scheme of things, it’s relatively small. We’re a company with expenses of well over $2 billion. I think our entire lobbying budget, which includes association fees, is a million dollars or less. Leahy: I could care less what your budget is for lobbying. The fact is you opposed legislation that might require notifying consumers, might actually give consumers the ability to respond when they’ve been hurt. Are you going to—is Equifax going to continue to fight consumers’ right to know? Smith: One, I’m unaware of that particular lobbying effort you’re referring to. I can talk to the company, but I’m unaware of that particular lobbying effort. Leahy: It was in your report that you have to file on your lobbying expenses. 1:03:30 Sen. Mazie Hirono (HI): Do consumers have the right to find out what kind of information data brokers like Equifax has on them? Richard Smith: Do they have the right? Hirono: Yeah, yes. Can they call Equifax up and say, what do you have on me? Smith: Every consumer has the right to a free credit report from us, from the industry, and that credit report would detail all the information that the credit file would have on them. Hirono: But that’s just their credit, but you have a lot of other information on everybody besides just their credit information, do you not? Smith: Yes, we do. Hirono: So, if—and my understanding is that you get all this information free. You don’t pay anybody for the information you gather on 145 million people, which is more than one out of three people in our entire country. Smith: It’s largely free. There are exceptions, obviously, but this business, as you know, we’re 118 years old. We’re part of a federally regulated ecosystem that enables consumers to get access to credit. Hirono: Yes. Smith: So that data’s there, and it’s used at their consent, by the way. Regardless of the type of data we have—if it’s your employment data or your income data or your credit data—that data can only be accessed if you as a consumer give the consent for someone to access that. Hirono: How does one give consent— Smith: If you— Hirono: —if you’re selling the information that you have on them? Smith: So, if you as a consumer go to your bank and want to get a credit card, for example, when you sign a contract with the bank for the credit card, you’re allowing the bank the access to approve your credit, in this particular case, to give you the best rate and the best line. 1:17:52 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): Can you guarantee this committee that no consumer will ever be required to go to arbitration? Richard Smith: I cannot, sir. Blumenthal: Why? Smith: Well, one, I’m no longer with the company. I can talk to the management team. Blumenthal: Well, that’s what I mean by the designated fall guy. You know, you’re here, you can’t speak for the company. I’m interested in looking forward. How will consumers be protected? Will arbitration be required of them? Will they be compensated for the sense of security that has been lost? Will there be a compensation fund? Will there be insurance against that kind of loss? And I’m talking about a compensation fund that applies to them because of that loss of privacy. These kinds of questions, which you’re unable to answer because you’re no longer with the company, are as profound and important as any investigative effort looking back, and I recognize you’re here without the authority to make these decisions, but I think someone from the company has to make them. Hearing: Equifax Senate Banking; Senate Banking Committee; October 4, 2017 Witness: Richard Smith: Former Chairman & CEO of Equifax 6:03 Sen. Sherrod Brown (OH): But security doesn’t generate short-term profits. Protecting consumers apparently isn’t important to your business model, so you gather more and more information, you peddled it to more and more buyers. For example, you bought a company called TALX so you could get access to detailed payroll information—the hours people worked, how much they were paid, even where they lived—7,000 businesses. You were hacked there, too, exposing the workers of one proud Ohio company—400,000 workers at Kroger—and an unknown number of people’s information to criminals who used it to commit tax fraud. 26:35 Sen. Ben Sasse (NE): Your organization has committed to providing identity-monitoring services for the next year, but I’m curious about whether or not Equifax and your board have deliberated. Do you think your responsibility ends in one year, in two years, in five years, in 10 years; and if you think it ends at some point, have you tried to think about the goodwill and balance sheet impact of all this? How can you explain to an American whose identity might be stolen later because of this breach why your responsibility would ever end? Does it end? Richard Smith: I understand the question. And it extends well beyond a year, Senator. The first step we took was the five services we mentioned to the chairman a minute ago, which gets the consumer through one year. The ultimate control for security for a consumer is going to the lifetime lock. The ability for a consumer to lock down his or her file, determine who they want to have access for life— Sasse: But isn’t this—just to interrupt—isn’t that about people who might be breached in the future. I’m talking about the 145 million whose data has already been stolen. Does your responsibility end, or what do you think your legal obligations are to them? Smith: I think the combination of the five services we’re offering combined with the lifetime lock is a good combination of services. Sasse: I actually think the innovation of some of the stuff you proposed for the big three going forward is quite interesting, but why does any of that five really do much for the data that’s already been stolen? Smith: Senator, again, the combination of the five offerings today plus the lifetime lock we think is the best offering for the consumer. Sasse: Okay, I don’t think you’ve really answered the question about whether or not you’re exposure legally ends for the 145 million. 29:13 Sen. Ben Sasse (NE): I want to open, at least, the allegations that Equifax executives engaged in insider trading relating to knowledge of this cyber breach. One of the clearest times in definitions of insider trading occurs when a business executive trades their company stock because of confidential knowledge that they have gained from their job. I’m sure you can imagine why Americans are very mad about the possibility that this occurred here. While insider trading is going to be discussed a lot more later in this hearing, I wish you could just very quickly give us a timeline of the first steps. When did Equifax first learn of the May 2017 breach, and when did you inform the FBI of that breach? Richard Smith: Thank you. I’ll answer as quickly as I can. We notified the FBI cybersecurity forensic team and outside global law firm on August 2. At that time, all we saw was suspicious activity. We had no indication, as I said in my oral testimony, of a breach at that time. You might recall that the three individuals sold stock on August 1 and 2. We did not have an indication of a breach until mid- to late August. Sasse: So you’re saying that those three executives—Mr. Chairman, I’ll stop—you’re saying those three executives had no knowledge of a breach on August 1 or 2. Smith: To the best of my knowledge, they had no knowledge and they also followed our protocol to have their stock sales cleared through the proper channels, which is our general counsel. 32:00 Sen. Jon Tester (MT): Let’s fast forward to the 29th of July, and you learned for the first time that your company has been hacked—don’t know how big the hack is, but it’s been hacked—and it was preceded by this notification from US-CERT. Three days after, as Senator Sasse pointed out, you had three high-level execs sell $2 million in stock. That very same day, you notified the FBI of the breach. Can you tell me if your general counsel was held accountable for allowing this stock sale to go forward? Or did he not know about the breach. Richard Smith: Senator, clarification: On the 29th and 30th, a security person saw suspicious activity, shut the portal down on the 30th. There was no indication of a breach at that time. The internal forensics began on the 30th. On the 2nd we brought in outside cyber experts—forensic auditors, law firm, and the FBI. The trades took place on the 1st and the 2nd. At that time, the general counsel, who clears the stock sales, had no indication—or to the company—of a security breach. Tester: Well, I’ve got to tell you something, and this is just a fact, and it may have been done with the best of intentions and no intent for insider trading, but this really stinks. I mean, it really smells really bad. And I guess smelling bad isn’t a crime. But the bottom line here is that you had a hack that you found out about on the 29th. You didn’t know how severe it was. You told the FBI about the breach. On that same day, high-level execs sell $2 million worth of stock, and then you do some investigation, evidently, and you find out at the end of the month that—or, at least, by the first part of September—that this is a huge hack, and you finally notify the public. And as was pointed out already in this committee, these are people that didn’t ask for your service. You’ve gathered it. And now it’s totally breached. And then, as Senator Sasse said, what’s the length of exposure here, and you said, we’ll be doing these five things. That’s proactive, and I think we can all applaud those efforts. But I’ve got to tell you, that doesn’t do a damn thing for the people who have had their identity stolen and their credit rating stolen. So let me ask you this: So their credit rate goes up a little bit, and they go buy a house for 250,000 bucks on a 30-year note, and it costs them 25 grand. Are you liable for that? Smith: Senator, I understand your anger and your frustration. We’ve apologized for the breach, we’ve done everything in our power to make it right for the consumer, and we think these services we’re offering is a right first step. 53:57 Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA): In August, just a couple of weeks before you disclosed this massive hack, you said—and I want to quote you here—“Fraud is a huge opportunity for us. It is a massive, growing business for us.” Now, Mr. Smith, now that information for about 145 million Americans has been stolen, is fraud more likely now than before that hack? Richard Smith: Yes, Senator, it is. Warren: Yeah. So the breach of your system has actually created more business opportunities for you. For example, millions of people have signed up for the credit-monitoring service that you announced after the breach—Equifax is offering one year of free credit monitoring—but consumers who want to continue that protection after the first year will have to pay for it, won’t they, Mr. Smith. Smith: Senator, the best thing a consumer could do is get the lifetime lock. Warren: I’m asking you the question. You’re offering free credit monitoring, which you say is worth something, and you’re offering it for only one year. If consumers want it for more than one year, they have to pay for it. Is that right? Smith: Yes, Senator. But the most, the best thing a consumer can do is the lock product. It’s better than monitoring. Warren: Okay, but, they’re going to have to pay after one year if they want your credit monitoring, and that could be a lot of money. So far, seven and a half million people have signed up for free credit monitoring through Equifax since the breach. If just one million of them buy just one more year of monitoring through Equifax at the standard rate of $17 a month, that’s more than $200 million in revenue for Equifax because of this breach. But there’s more. LifeLock, another company that sells credit monitoring, has now seen a 10-fold increase in enrollment since Equifax announced the breach. According to filings with the SEC, LifeLock purchases credit monitoring services from Equifax; and that means someone buys credit monitoring through LifeLock, LifeLock turns around and passes some of that revenue directly along to Equifax. Is that right, Mr. Smith? Smith: That is correct. Warren: That’s correct. Okay. The second Equifax announced this massive data breach, Equifax has been making money off consumers who purchased their credit monitoring through LifeLock. Now, Equifax also sells products to businesses and government agencies to help them stop fraud by potential identity thieves. Is that right, Mr. Smith? Smith: Yes, Senator. There’s one clarification. You’d mentioned the LifeLock relationship— Warren: Uh-huh. Smith: —which was accurate. At the same time, the majority of that revenue we normally generate is direct to consumer. We’ve shut that down. We’re no longer selling consumer product directly. Warren: I’m sorry. My question is, every time somebody buys through LifeLock—and they’ve seen a 10-fold increase since the breach—you make a little more money. We actually called the LifeLock people to find this out. So, I asked you the question, but I already know the answer. It’s true. You’re making money off this. So, let me go to the third one. Equifax sells products to businesses and government agencies to help them stop fraud by potential identity thieves, right? Smith: To the government, yes. Not to the business. Warren: You don’t sell to businesses? Just small businesses? Smith: We sell business, but it’s not to prevent fraud. That’s not the primary focus or business. Warren: But to stop identity theft, you don’t have any products that you’re touting for identity-theft purposes? Smith: Senator, all I’m saying is the vast majority we do for businesses is not fraud. Warren: Look, you’ve got three different ways that Equifax is making money, millions of dollars, off its own screw up, and meanwhile, the potential costs to Equifax are shockingly low. Consumers can sue, but it turns out that the average recovery for data breaches is less than $2 per consumer, and Equifax has insurance that could cover some big chunk of any potential payment to consumers. So, I want to look at the big picture here. From 2013 until today, Equifax has disclosed at least four separate hacks in which it compromised sensitive personal data. In those four years, has Equifax’s profit gone up? Mr. Smith? Smith: Yes, Senator. Warren: Yes, it has gone up, right? In fact, it’s gone up by more than 80% over that time. You know, here’s how I see this, Mr. Chairman. Equifax did a terrible job of protecting our data because they didn’t have a reason to care to protect our data. The incentives in this industry are completely out of whack. Because of this breach, consumers will spend the rest of their lives worrying about identity theft. Small banks and credit unions will have to pay to issue new credit cards, businesses will lose money to thieves, but Equifax will be just fine. Heck, it could actually come out ahead. Consumers are trapped, there’s no competition, nowhere else for them to go. If we think Equifax does a lousy job protecting our data, we can’t take our data to someone else. Equifax and this whole industry should be completely transformed. Consumers—not you—consumers should decide who gets access to their own data. And when companies like Equifax mess up, senior executives like you should be held personally accountable, and the company should pay mandatory and severe financial penalties for every consumer record that’s stolen. Mr. Chairman, we’ve got to change this industry before more people are injured. 1:22:00 Sen. John Kennedy (LA): It just seems incongruent to me that you have my information—you don’t pay me for it; you don’t have my permission — you make money collecting that information, selling it to businesses — and I think you do a service there; don’t misunderstand me — and you also come to me—you can’t run your business without me; my data is the product that you sell — and you also offer me a premium service to make sure that the data you’re collecting about me is accurate. I mean, I don’t pay extra in a restaurant to prevent the waiter from spitting in my food. You understand my concern? Richard Smith: I understand your point, I believe, but another way to think about that is the monitoring part that you’re referring to, Senator? Kennedy: Uh-huh. Smith: In the future, it’s far less required if you as a consumer have the ability to freeze, or lock as we call it, and unlock your file. And that is free for life. Kennedy: But it’s not just the freeze part. What if you had bad information about me? Have you ever—has an agency ever had bad information about you, and you had to go through the process of correcting it? Smith: Yes, Senator. There’s a process that if— Kennedy: It’s a pain in the elbow, isn’t it. I mean, the burden’s kind of on – you have my data, which you haven’t paid me for. You’re earning a good living, which I don’t deny you. I believe in free enterprise. I think this is a very clever business model you’ve come up with. But you’re earning your money by selling my data, which you get from me and don’t pay me for, to other people, but if the data is wrong that you have about me, I would think you would want to make it as easy as possible to correct it, not as hard as possible. Smith: I understand your point, and it’s an important point for the entire industry to make the process as consumer-friendly as possible if there’s an error on your utility bill, if there’s an error on your bank bill, your credit card statement, to work with consumers to make— Kennedy: Well, can you commit to me today that Equifax is going to set up a system where a consumer who believes that Equifax has bad information about him can pick up the phone and call a live human being with a beating heart and say, here’s this information you have about me that you’re selling to other people—you’re ruining my credit, and it’s not true, and I want to get it corrected. How are you going to correct it, what information do you need from me to prove that it’s incorrect, and when are you going to get back to me, and give me your name and phone number so I can call you. Smith: Senator, I understand your point. There is a process that exists today. More than half— Kennedy: Yeah, and it’s difficult, Mr. Smith. Smith: Be more than happy to get the company to reach out to your staff, explain what we do, and what we’re doing to improve that process. I hear you. Hearing: House Equifax CEO Hearing; House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; October 3, 2017 Witness: Richard Smith: Former Chairman & CEO at Equifax 5:13 Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL): The Equifax data breach was massive in scale: 145.5 million American victims as of yesterday. I would call it shocking, but is it really? We have these under-regulated, private, for-profit credit reporting agencies collecting detailed personal and financial information about American consumers. It’s a treasure trove for hackers. Consumers don’t have a choice over what information Equifax or, for example, TransUnion or Experian, have collected, stored, and sold. If you want to participate in today’s modern economy; if you want to get a credit card, rent an apartment, or even get a job often, then a credit reporting agency may hold the key. Because consumers don’t have a choice, we can’t trust credit reporting agencies to self-regulate. It’s not like when you get sick at a restaurant and decide not to go there anymore. Equifax collects your data, whether you want to have it collected or not. If it has incorrect information about you, it’s really an arduous process—I’ve tried it—to get it corrected. When it comes to information security, you are at the mercy of whatever Equifax decides is right; and once your information is compromised, the damage is ongoing. Given vast quantities of information and lack of accountability, a major breach at Equifax, I would say, would be predictable if not inevitable. I should really say breaches. This is the third major breach Equifax has had in the past two years. From media reports and the subcommittee’s meeting with Equifax officials after the breach, it’s clear to me that the company lacked appropriate policies and practices around data security. This particular breach occurred when hackers exploited a known vulnerability that was not yet patched. It was months later before Equifax first discovered the breach, and it was another several weeks before Equifax shared news with consumers, this committee, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Senior officials at the company are saying they weren’t immediately aware that the breach occurred, and yet, by the way, there were executives who sold over a million dollars in stock just days after the breach was discovered but, yet, not reported. And for a lot of Americans, that just doesn’t pass the smell test. 22:45 Richard Smith: We know now that this criminal attack was made possible because of combination of human error and technological error. The human error involved the failure to apply a software patch to our dispute portal in March of 2017. Technological error involved a scanner which failed to detect that vulnerability on that particular portal. Both errors have since been addressed. On July 29 and July 30, suspicious activity was detected, and a team followed our security-incident protocol. The team immediately shut down the portal and began our internal security investigation. On August 2, we hired top cybersecurity, forensic, and legal experts, and at that time, we notified the FBI. At that time, to be clear, we did not know the nature or the scope of the incident. It was not until late August that we concluded that we had experienced a major breach. 47:53 Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): All right, during your tenure at Equifax, you expanded the company’s business into packaging and selling other people’s data, and in that August 17 speech, you explained that having free data with a gross margin of profit of about 90% is—and I quote—“a pretty unique model.” And I get that this unique model is a good deal for Equifax, but can you explain how it’s a good deal for consumers? Richard Smith: Thank you, Congressman. I think I understand the question. Our industry has been around for a number of years, as you know. In fact, Equifax is a 118-year-old company. We’re part of a federally regulated ecosystem that enables consumers to get access to credit when they want access to credit and, hopefully, at the best rates available to them at that time. So we’re very vital to the flow of economy, not just in the U.S. but around the world. Pallone: All right, I want to turn to what Equifax is offering consumers in the wake of this breach, specifically the free credit-lock service that is supposed to be introduced next year. We’ve been told that this free credit-lock service could require consumers to consent to Equifax sharing or selling the information it collects from the service to third parties with whom the individual already has a business relationship for marketing or other purposes. Is that true? Smith: This product will be a web-enabled, mobile-enabled application that will allow a consumer at a time he or she, if they decide they want access to credit, can simply toggle on, toggle off that application to give the bank, credit card issuer, auto lender, access to their credit file to approve their loan. Pallone: Well, by agreeing to use the Equifax’s lock service, will consumers also be opting in to any additional marketing arrangements, either via Equifax or any of its partners? Smith: Congressman, we’re trying to change the paradigm. What I mean by that is, this will be in an environment viewed as a service, a utility, not a product. But we know cross-selling, upselling, or any products available to the consumer, when they go to get and sign up for the lock product, it’s a service to them, and that’s the only product—this service they’ll be able to get. Pallone: Will Equifax give consumers an easy and free method to choose not to share their data in this way, even if the consumer already has a business relationship with the third party? Smith: Yeah, Congressman, I’d envision as this evolves over time, the consumer will have the ability to invite into their world who they want to have access and who they do not. It’ll be their choice, their power, not ours, to make that decision. Pallone: Now, last week, the interim CEO announced that by January 31 of 2018 Equifax would make locking and unlocking of a person’s Equifax credit report free forever. A credit-report lock is already included in TrustedID Premier and other services like credit monitoring and identity-theft insurance. Will that still end after one year? Smith: Congressman, a couple of differences. Number one, the product we offer today for consumers protects the consumer at the same-level protection they’d get January 31. The difference is, today is a browser-enabled product, or service; the 31 of January it’ll be an application, much simpler and easier for the consumer to use. The protection is largely the same. So they get this free service when they sign up for one year. At the end of the one year, effective January 31 of 2018, it goes into the new lock product. Pallone: I guess the difference, other than not expiring, between the credit-report lock that is part of TrustedID Premier and the credit-locking tool that will be available in January, why not just extend the freeze program? Smith: There’s a difference between the freeze product, which came to pass with FACTA back in 2003, passed into law in 2004, that is now governed by state laws in all states, and it’s a cumbersome process for a consumer. In many cases, some states require you to mail in your request for a freeze and that we must mail you a PIN, so your ability to get access to credit when you want credit is encumbered. A consumer could go to a car dealer or to a bank to get a credit card, forget his or her PIN on a freeze product, have to go back home, look for the PIN, mail the PIN in, so it’s a cumbersome process. The lock product we’re offering today is a big step forward; lock product for the 31 of January is an even further step forward. 53:00 Rep. Joe Barton (TX): Mr. Smith, what’s the market value of Equifax? What’s your company worth, or your former— Richard Smith: Congressman, last time I checked it’s somewhere close to 13 billion. Barton: Thirteen billion. I’m told by my staff that this latest data breach was about 143 million people. Is that right? Smith: We were informed yesterday from the company that is typical in a forensic audit, there was some slight movement and the numbers adjusted. Press release came out from the company last night. It’s 145.5. Barton: A hundred—well, okay, I appreciate your accuracy there. But under current law, you’re basically required to alert each of those that their account has been hacked, but there’s really no penalty unless there is some sort of a lawsuit filed and the Federal Trade Commission or state attorney general files a class-action lawsuit against your company. So you really only notify—you’re just required to notify everybody and say so sorry, so sad. I understand that your company has to stay in business, has to make money, but it would seem to me that you might pay a little bit more attention to security if you had to pay everybody whose account got hacked a couple thousand bucks or something. What would the industry reaction be to that if we passed a law that did that? Smith: Congressman, I understand your question. I think the path that we were on when I was there and the company’s continued is the right path, and that’s a path, a line that the consumers to control the power of who and when accesses a credit file going forward, taking the— Barton: Well, a consumer can’t control the security of your system. Smith: That is true, sir, but they can control— Barton: And your security people knew there was a problem, and according to staff briefings that I’ve been a part of, they didn’t act in a very expeditious fashion until the system had already been hacked. And, I mean, you’re to be commended for being here. I don’t think we subpoenaed you. I think you appeared voluntarily, which shows a commendable amount of integrity on your part, but I’m tired of almost every month there’s another security breach, and it’s okay, we have to alert you. I checked my file to see if I was one of the ones that got breached, and apparently I wasn’t. I don’t know how I escaped, but I didn’t get breached, but my staff person did, and we looked at her reports last night, and the amount of information that’s collected is way beyond what you need to determine if she (audio glitch) for a consumer loan. Basically, her entire adult history, going back 10 years, everywhere she’s lived, her name, her date of birth, her social security number, her phone numbers, her addresses, her credit card, student loans, security-clearance applications for federal employment, car insurance, even employment history of jobs that she worked when she was in high school. That’s not needed to determine whether she’s worthy of getting a five-thousand-dollar credit card loan or something. And now it’s all out in the netherworld of whoever hacked it. I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but I think it’s time at the federal level to put some teeth into this and some sort of a per-account payment—and, again, I don’t want to drive credit bureaus out of business and all of that, but we could have this hearing every year from now on if we don’t do something to change the current system. 58:42 Rep. Ben Lujan (NM): Will Equifax be willing to pay for this freeze at Experian and TransUnion for consumers whose information was stolen? Richard Smith: You’re referring to the freeze or the lock? Lujan: You said they’re the same, so… Smith: Yeah, right now we offer a free lock product, as you know, for one year, and then a free lifetime lock product for life, starting January 31, 2018. Smith: And that also extends to Experian and TransUnion? Smith: No, sir, it does not. Lujan: Would Equif—let me repeat the question. Will Equifax be willing to pay for that freeze, for that lock, at Experian and TransUnion for consumers whose information was stolen by it—through Equifax? Smith: Congressman, the company’s come out with what they feel is a comprehensive five different services today and a lifetime lock. I would encourage, to be clear, I would encourage TransUnion and Experian to do the same. It’s time we change the paradigm, give the power back to the consumer to control who accesses his or her credit data. It’s the right thing to do. Lujan: Okay, I’m down to limited time, Mr. Smith. I apologize. I’ll take that as a no that Equifax will not pay for Experian and TransUnion consumers. 1:26:09 Rep. Debbie Dingell (MI): Why do consumers have to pay you to access their credit report? Why should that data not be free? Richard Smith: Congresswoman, the consumer has the ability to access the credit report for free from each of the three credit reporting agencies once a year, and you combine that with the ability to lock your credit file for life for free. Again, it’s a step forward. 2:00:40 Rep. Larry Bucshon (IN): Is it possible people who never signed up or used Equifax directly could have been impacted by the breach? Richard Smith: Yes, Congressman. Bucshon: Okay, so how does Equifax get the information on people who’ve never directly associated with Equifax at all? I mean, I’m not familiar with that. Smith: Yeah, we get it from banks, telecommunications companies, credit card issuers, so on and so forth. Bucshon: So just like we go to apply for a loan, they send you the information, because they want to get a data—they want to get the information on my credit rating, for example. Smith Correct. As I define it, we are part of the federally regulated ecosystem— Bucshon: Yeah. Smith: —that enables banks to loan money to consumers. Bucshon: Right. So, it’s up to the banks, at that point, to notify the individual which credit agencies they’re utilizing to assess their credit risk? Or is it up to the credit agencies? Smith: Traditionally, the contributors of data—in that case, Congressman, the banks would give their data to all three. That’s the benefit of the system is you get a holistic view of an individual’s credit risk. Bucshon: Yeah. My point is, I guess, because a lot of people I talk to back in Indiana, southern Indiana, have no idea who Equifax is, right? And many of those people have applied for home loans and other things. And a matter of fact, probably at some point you have their information, but they may or may not have been notified who sent the information to them—probably the bank or other agency—and that’s something I think that is also maybe an issue, that people don’t understand or have not been told who is being used to assess their credit risk and, hence, something like this happens, they have no idea whether or not their information has been compromised. Smith: I understand your point. Bucshon: Yeah. 2:09:20 Rep. Gene Green (TX): Mr. Smith, Equifax customers or businesses who purchase data and credit reports on consumers, the American public is essentially Equifax’s product. How many times per year on average does Equifax sell access to a given individual’s credit file to a potential creditor, and how much do they make every time they sell it? Richard Smith: If I understand the question, Congressman, we take the data that is given to us by the credit ecosystem of the U.S., add analytics to it, and then when a consumer wants credit—again, through a credit card, home loan, a car—the bank then comes to us for that data and for that analytics, and we charge them for that. **Green: Okay. Well, the question was, how many times does Equifax receive payment for that individual credit file? Every time—if my local car dealer contacts Equifax, and so they pay a fee to Equifax for that information. Smith: Yes, Congressman. If you as an individual want to go to that car dealership and get a loan for a car, they come to us or to competitors, and when they take your data, access your data, we do get paid for it, correct. 2:47:40 Richard Smith: If there’s one thing I’d love to see this country think about is the concept of a social security number in this environment being private and secure, I think it’s time as a country to think beyond that. What is a better way to identify consumers in our country in a very secure way, and I think that way is something different than an SSN, a date of birth, and a name. 2:56:28 Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL): What if I want to opt out of Equifax? I don’t want you to have my information anymore. I want to be in control of my information. I never opted in, I never said it was okay to have all my information, and now I want out. I want to lock out Equifax. Can I do that? Richard Smith: Congresswoman, that requires a much broader discussion around the rules of credit reporting agencies because that data, as you know today, doesn’t come from the consumer; it comes from the furnishers, and the furnishers provide that data to the entire industry. Schakowsky: No, I understand that. And that’s exactly where we need to go, to a much larger discussion, because most Americans really don’t know how much information, what it is that you have it, and they never said okay. Video: Circle Jerk, YouTube, December 3, 2015 Hearing: Credit Privacy Hearing; Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; December 18, 2013 Witnesses: Tony Hadley: Senior VP of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Experian 47:13 Sen. Jay Rockefeller (retired) (WV): So, Mr. Hadley, what does your company—or why does it single out and sell lists of economically vulnerable groups like immigrants, widows, and military personnel? 48:03 Tony Hadley: Thank you, Senator. We would be very concerned if lenders were using that information for scamming purposes, too. And we have processes and procedures in place to ensure that nobody gains access to that score for that purpose. Now— Sen. Jay Rockefeller: And how does that work? Hadley: We have an onboarding system by which we take on a client that gets our information to know who they are, and we also have a mail-piece review process to know what they’re going to offer the consumer. And if it’s anything that looks discriminatory or predatory, we will not provide our list to them. Now— Rockfeller: And this is your self-regulation. Hadley: This is our self-regulation under DMA standards. So if we were to violate that, we’d be in violation of our self-regulatory standards as well as our contractual standards with our clients. Now, what’s important here is that there are somewhere between 45 and 50 million Americans who are outside the mainstream of the credit markets in the United States. These are underbanked, underserved consumers who financial institutions cannot reach through credit scoring and credit report. They don't have financial identities or a big enough or even the presence of a credit file in order to bring them into the mainstream of financial markets. But that doesn't mean that they don't need access to financial services. So banks use this data to try to reach out to consumers who they can help to empower them, not to scam them. We don't want to do business with financial institutions who are trying to scam people, only to empower them. And this is their best way to find those individuals who are outside the mainstream—immigrants; new to credit, like recent college graduates, exactly what we’re talking about here—to give them an offer, an invitation to apply, so that then they can make an eligibility determination regarding that application under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. But this is marketing literature, not eligibility determination. Rockefeller: Who— Hadley: Can I add to that for you? Rockefeller: Not entirely. Can you tell me which are the companies that buy this ChoiceScore product from you? We’ve asked you that. Hadley: Yeah. They would be banks and financial institutions and members of the financial community. Rockefeller: That’s what’s called a general answer. Hadley: Yeah. I can't tell you who our clients are. That’s a proprietary list of ours. It’s like our secret ingredient. The ones who would want that most are our competitors. And our counsel has informed me that they don't believe that our ability to give that to you can be shielded from disclosure through the rules of the Senate. If we thought they could be—for example, under a law enforcement action, where it could be shielded and protected from FOIA or other disclosures, we could do that, but not under the situation—under the rules of the Senate. And we’re very sorry about that, but we just simply can't do that. Our counsel won't let us. 1:25:49 Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO): The case, Mr. Hadley, of Experian and Superget. You purchased the company Court Ventures in 2012, in the spring of 2012. For more than a year after the time you purchased this company that had all this data, you were taking monthly wire transfers from Singapore, and your company did nothing. And as it turns out, those wire transfers were coming from a man in Vietnam who specialized in identity theft and was marketing the information that you owned to criminals to ruin people's lives. So my first question to you is, you were quoted as saying, “We would know who was buying this.” You were getting wire transfers from Singapore on a monthly basis, and no one bothered to check to see who that was? Hadley: Now, I want to be clear that this was not Experian marketing data; this was Experian authentication data. So it’s under a different company, a different use. So that’s just—I want you to know that it’s not marketing data. McCaskill: I don't understand the distinction. I think it’s a distinction— Jay Rockefeller: Nor do I. McCaskill: —without a difference. I believe it was data that you owned, Experian owned. You’d purchased this data from Court Scan, and they had, in fact— Hadley: No. Let me clarify. McCaskill: —sold it to someone else. Hadley: Yeah, let me clarify that for you, because we’ve provided a full response to that question to the Committee, and it’s part of the eight submissions that we’ve given. And I do have to say that it’s an unfortunate situation, and the incident is still under investigation by law enforcement agencies. So I’m really extremely limited in what I can say publicly about it, but I do want to say this. The suspect in the case obtained data controlled by a third party—that was U.S. Info Search. That was not an Experian company—through a company we bought, Court Ventures— McCaskill: Okay. Let— Hadley: —prior to the time that we acquired that company. And to be clear, no Experian data was ever accessed in that deal. McCaskill: Well, I understand what you’re saying. Here’s what happened: You had U.S. Info Search— Hadley: No, we did not own— McCaskill: No, no; I’m— U.S. Info Search existed, and Court Ventures existed. Hadley: And they had a partnership. McCaskill: —they decided, for commercial reasons, to make more money, to combine their information. Hadley: To resell their information. McCaskill: And so they had a sharing agreement, those two companies, correct? Hadley: Right, right. McCaskill: Okay. So these two companies had a sharing agreement. Then you bought one of those companies. Hadley: Court Ventures. McCaskill: Correct. So now you owned it. Now you stood in their place. Are you a lawyer? Hadley: I’m not a lawyer, but I understand we stood in their place, right. McCaskill: Are there any lawyers on the panel? Okay; she’ll back me up. You stand in their place when you buy this. So now you’re there. Now, you said in your earlier testimony, we would know who was buying this. So you now are part of their transactions. Hadley: During— McCaskill: And you were receiving the benefit of these monthly wire. Hadley: So, during the due-diligence process, we didn't have total access to all the information we needed in order to completely vet that. And by the time we learned about the malfeasance, I think nine months had expired. The Secret Service came to us, told us of the incident, and we immediately began cooperating with the Secret Service to bring this person to justice. McCaskill: Okay. Hadley: And we’re continuing to cooperate with law enforcement in that realm. This was—we were a victim and scammed by this person. McCaskill: Well, I would say the people who had all their identity stolen were the victims. Hadley: And we know who they are, and we’re going to make sure that they’re protected. There’s been no allegation that any harm has come, thankfully, in this scam. McCaskill: Okay. Hadley: And we’ve closed that down, and— Rockefeller: Let Senator McCaskill continue. Hadley: —and we’ve modified our processes to ensure that [unclear]— Rockefeller: Let Senator McCaskill continue. McCaskill: Okay. So let's talk about that process. This person got—this man who they lured to Guam to arrest and who is now facing criminal charges in New Hampshire, they posed as an American-based private investigator. What is your vetting process when people want to buy your stuff? Hadley: That would’ve been Court Ventures who would have vetted that prior to our acquisition. McCaskill: Okay, but I’m talking about now, you. What is your vetting process? Hadley: Right now, before we would allow acc—first, let me say that that person would have not gained access to Experian or this data if they had gone through our vetting processes prior to the acquisition. McCaskill: And what would’ve stopped him? Hadley: We would’ve known who that company is. We would’ve had a physical onsite inspection of that company. We would’ve known who that business is and what that business's record is. We would’ve known exactly why they wanted that data and for what purposes. And that would have been enshrined in our contract. And we would’ve known the kinds of systems they have in place to protect the data that they gained. Those are all incumbent upon us under the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act and the FCRA. McCaskill: Well, listen, I understand that this was not a crime that began under your watch. Hadley: Thank you. McCaskill: But you did buy the company, and you did keep getting the wire transfers from Singapore, and the only reason you ever questioned them is because the Secret Service knocked on your door. I don't know how long those wire transfers from Singapore would’ve gone on until you caught them. I don't have confidence that it would’ve stopped at all. So I guess what my point is here, I maybe do not feel as strongly as others on this panel that behavioral marketing is evil. I believe behavioral marketing is a reality, and, frankly, the only reason we have everything we have on the Internet for free is because of behavioral marketing. So I don't see behavioral marketing as an evil into itself. What I do see is some desperate need for Congress to look at how consumers can get this information, what kind of transparency is there, and whether or not companies that allow monthly wire transfers into their coffers from Singapore from a criminal who is trying to rip off identity theft, whether or not they should be held liable for no due diligence on checking those wire transfers from Singapore until the Secret Service knocked on their door. And that’s what I think we need to be looking at. And I don't think there’s enough—I mean, I know that some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, you say trial lawyers, and they break out in a sweat. But the truth is that if there was some liability in this area, it would be amazing how fast people could clean up their act. And, unfortunately, in too many instances there’s not clear liability because we haven't set the rules of the road. Video: FreeCreditReport.com all 9 commercials, YouTube, October 3, 2009. Hearing: Credit Scoring System; House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; July 30, 2008. Witnesses: Thomas Quinn: Vice President of Global Scoring at Fair Isaac Business Consulting Stan Oliai: Experian Decision Analytics Consulting Senior Vice President Chet Wiermanski: Transunion Credit Services Analytical Systems Vice President Richard Goerss: Equifax Credit Services Chief Privacy Officer Evan Hendricks: Privacy Times Publisher and Editor 26:42 Thomas Quinn: A FICO score is a three-digit number ranging from 300 to 850, where the higher the score, the lower the risk. Lenders use the score, along with other information, to decision the request for credit, set the credit line and pricing terms. Creating the FICO score model requires two samples of credit reports, two years apart, for the same randomly selected depersonalized set of consumers provided by one of the national credit reporting agencies. Those credit factors found to be most powerful and consistent in predicting credit performance, individually and in combination, form the basis for the complex mathematical algorithm which becomes the score. The traditional FICO score model evaluates five broad types of data elements from the consumer credit report. These include, and listed in order of importance, previous credit payment history, about 35 percent contribution; level of outstanding debts, about 30 percent contribution; length of credit history, 15 percent contribution; pursuit of new credit, 10 percent contribution; and mix of type of credit, about 10 percent contribution. FICO scores were first introduced to the marketplace in 1989 and have been consistently redeveloped and updated throughout the years to ensure their predictive strength. 34:00 Stan Oliai: A credit score is a numerical expression of risk of default, based on a credit report. The score is produced by a mathematical formula created from a statistical analysis of a large representative sample of credit reports. The formula is typically called a “model.” The credit score is calculated by the model, using only information in the credit report. These reports include the following types of information: The credit account history—such as was the account paid, was it paid on time, how long has the account been open, and what’s the outstanding balance; the type of account—is it a mortgage, is it an installment, is it revolving; the public record information—liens, judgments, bankruptcies, for example; inquiries in the credit file that represent applications for new credit and other consumer-initiated transactions. A credit report does not include information such as income or assets. It also does not include demographic information such as race or ethnicity. Demographic factors are not used in the calculation of a credit score. 35:05 Stan Oliai: Regulatory oversight of credit scores is accomplished through routine bank examinations for compliance, with a number of laws that govern fair lending, such as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. This makes sense because the lender chooses the scoring model to assist in this proprietary underwriting process. The lender is ultimately responsible for demonstrating to regulators that the scoring model it has chosen complies with the lending laws. 46:20 Chet Wiermanski: There is strong evidence to suggest that consumers would benefit from the increased reporting of nontraditional credit information. For example, consumers with thin credit files and, in particular, minorities, immigrants, young and old, all experience a net benefit from full-file reporting by energy companies and telecommunication providers. Consumers with impaired credit histories also obtain a net benefit from full-file reporting by these companies. We are presently engaged in a follow-up study to learn more about the impediments to full-file reporting faced by the utilities and telecommunication industry. It may be very well that Congress may have a role to play in removing roadblocks to encourage voluntary full-file reporting. 2:01:30 Richard Goerss: There are a lot of thing—different activities—that a consumer can do to protect themselves if they feel they are victims or might be victims of identity theft. Certainly, one of the things that they can do is to place a fraud alert on their credit file. They can receive a free disclosure of their credit file to see if there has been any inappropriate activity or inquiry to their credit file. They can provide an identity-theft report and identify the account information that they feel, or that they say, was opened fraudulently. And under the requirements of the FACT Act, the consumer reporting agencies are going to delete that information, and the consumer reporting agency that receives that identity theft with the information-removal request is going to refer it to the other two consumer reporting agencies, who are also going to remove that information. 2:24:30 Evan Hendricks: Right now, you take it for granted that we know about credit scores, but you have to remember it was, like, 12 years ago, in the mid-1990's, when credit scores started being widely used. They were a complete secret; the industry did not even acknowledge their existence. Then, when they found out about it and reporters like Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post started reporting on it, then they would not disclose the score to you. So, California led the way with a state law, and now we have the FACT Act, which means that you can get one—you can buy a credit score for a fair and reasonable price. 2:54:55 Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): We call these credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus, which gives the average consumer the impression that they are dealing with some federal entity, when in fact they are not—we heard this afternoon they’re private or publicly traded companies—and yet this information is so critical, and to Mr. Barrett's comments, who suggested that the consumer needs to be educated, needs to know what goes into their FICO score and what they can do to improve their FICO score, we can't give those kinds of answers, because, for all intents and purposes, it is a proprietary formula. It’s sort of like secret sauce; we don't know what it is. Now, there’s something wrong when the government can't articulate what should be considered in a FICO score. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in this Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)
In this episode, Robert and Zaira discuss the SELF DRIVE Act as well as various other pending state rules and regulations in California and New Hampshire. In September 2017, the House of Representatives passed "The Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution Act", H. R. 3388 (The SELF DRIVE Act for short). This bill establishes the federal government's role in providing safety measures for driverless cars. Among other things, it allows for driverless car manufacturers to apply for an exemption to federal motor vehicle safety standards. The bill passed the House of Representatives unanimously and received bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats. The bill then went to the Senate for approval. It passed the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and is now awaiting approval from the entire chamber. If it passes the Senate, it will then go to the President for approval to become a law. Similarly, states like California and New Hampshire are also considering driverless and self-driving regulations.
In 2012, Congress created a new government agency called FirstNet and tasked it with building a high-speed wireless network that would allow all first responders in the United States to communicate with each other daily and in times of emergencies. In July, FirstNet awarded AT&T with a 25 year contract to do the actual work. In this episode, hear highlights from a recent hearing about this new network as we examine the wisdom of contracting such an important part of our public safety infrastructure to the private sector. Please visit Podchaser.com to nominate your favorite Congressional Dish episode. Password: Patreon Please support Congressional Dish: Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Additional Reading Article: PayPal, GoFundMe, And Patreon Banned A Bunch Of People Associated With The Alt-Right. Here's Why. by Blake Montgomery, Buzzfeed News, August 2, 2017. Article: U.S. Virgin Islands becomes first territory to 'opt-in' to FirstNet by Donny Jackson, Urgent Communications, August 1, 2017. Article: New Mexico becomes eighth state to 'opt in' to FirstNet by Donny Jackson, Urgent Communications, August 1, 2017. Article: FirstNet Becoming a Reality as the Number of States Opting in Grows to Seven by Adam Stone, GovTech, July 27, 2017. Interview: Executive Spotlight: Interview with Mike Leff, VP for Strategy and Operations for AT&T Global Public Sector by Andy Reed, Executive Biz, July 27, 2017. Article: AT&T in Early Talks With U.S. Officials for Time Warner Approval by David McLaughlin, Gerry Smith and Scott Moritz, Bloomberg, July 24, 2017. Article: FirstNet Gets its Teeth: Implications for Turf, Tech, and Tower Vendors by Daniel Vitulich, Wireless Week, July 21, 2017. Article: National Cell Network For First Responders Could Mean Better Coverage For Vermonters by Amy Kolb Noyes, VPR, July 14, 2017. Article: Some may be kept in the dark on future of public safety telecom by Dave Gram, VTDigger, July 9, 2017. Article: States Deserve A Complete Picture In Evaluating FirstNet/AT&T Coverage Plans by Al Catalano, Keller and Heckman LLP, Lexology, June 29, 2017. Article: Leidos and AT&T to Implement Software Defined Networking for the Defense Information Systems Agency by Leidos, PR Newswire, June 26, 2017. Article: State, Territory Plans and Next Step in FirstNet Build-Out Arrive Ahead of Schedule by Theo Douglas, GovTech, June 19, 2017. Report: FirstNet Has Made Progress Establishing the Network, but Should Address Stakeholder Concerns and Workforce Planning, U.S. Government Accountability Office, June 2017. Article: AT&T and Maxwell Air Force Base Pilot IoT Connected "Smart Base", AT&T Newsroom, April 4, 2017. Article: FirstNet Taps Telecom Giant AT&T for First Responder Network Buildout by News Staff, GovTech, March 30, 2017. Article: Incident Management Teams and FirstNet: A Perspective on the Future by Lesia Dickson, GovTech, January 26, 2017. Article: AT&T Powers NASA's Deep Space Network, AT&T Newsroom, December 14, 2016. Article: Wilbur Ross: From 'king of bankruptcy' to face of American business by Paul Davidson, USA Today, November 30, 2016. Article: AT&T and NASA Collaborate on Drone Traffic Management System, AT&T Newsroom, November 10, 2016. Article: AT&T Agrees to Buy Time Warner for $85.4 Billion by Michael J. de la Merced, The New York Times, October 22, 2016. Article: FirstNet Makes Progress, But Cost and Quality Concerns Remain by Colin Wood, GovTech, May 18, 2016. Website: AT&T's History of Invention and Breakups, The New York Times, February 13, 2016. Article: AT&T Completes Acquisition of DIRECTV, AT&T Newsroom, July 24, 2015. Article: FirstNet: Is Opting Out an Option? by Adam Stone, GovTech, November 17, 2014. Article: FirstNet Hires Friends, Skirts Competitive Bidding by Greg Gordon, McClatchy News Service, GovTech, September 26, 2014. Article: Millions in federal emergency communications funding lost, diverted by Greg Gordon, McClatchy DC Bureau, July 14, 2014. Article: How AT&T got busted up and pieced back together by Jose Pagliery, CNN, May 20, 2014. Article: FirstNet Explained by Tod Newcombie, GovTech, April 17, 2014. Article: FirstNet: Anwsers to Key Questions by David Raths, GovTech, October 10, 2012. Article: FirstNet Board Filled by Public Safety Officials, Telecom Execs by Sarah Rich, GovTech, August 20, 2012. Article: Communications Giant: The Deal; With Cable Deal, AT&T Makes Move to Regain Empire by Seth Schiesel, The New York Times, June 25, 1998. Article: Communications Bill Signed, And the Battles Begin Anew by Edmund Andrews, The New York Times, February 9, 1996. Article: Company News; AT&T Completes Deal To Buy NcCaw Cellular by Edmund Andrews, The New York Times, September 20, 1994. Article: AT&T Buying Computer Maker In Stock Deal Worth $7.4 Billion by Eben Shapiro, The New York Times, May 7, 1991. Article: U.S. Settles Phone Suit, Drops I.B.M. Case; AT&T to Split Up, Transforming Industry by Ernest Holsendolph, The New York Times, January 9, 1982. Article: No. 1 U.S. Utility Is Investor Favorite by Gene Smith, The New York Times, November 21, 1974. References Website: FirstNet FirstNet Board Members Website: National Telecommunications & Information Administration Offices GovTrack: H.R. 3630 (112th): Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 House Vote Senate Vote Document: FirstNet Partnership Factsheet Infoplease: Top 50 Cities in the U.S. by Population and Rank YouTube: Patreon CEO on Content Policy, Lauren Southern, and IGD YouTube: Lauren Southern: Patreon Banned My Account?? Visual References Image Source Image Source Image Source Sound Clip Sources Hearing: National Public Safety Network; Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Communications; July 20, 2017. Witnesses: Curtis Brown: Virginia Deputy Secretary of Public Safety & Homeland Security Dr. Damon Darsey: University of Mississippi Medical Center Professor Mark Goldstein: GAO Physical Infrastructure Issues Director Chris Sambar: AT&T FirstNet, Senior Vice President Michael Poth: FirstNet CEO Timestamps & Transcripts 1:10 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): In 2012 Congress created the First Responder Network Authority to lead the development of a nationwide interoperable public-safety broadband network in the United States. Following the communication’s failures that plagued recovery efforts during 9/11 and other national emergencies, including Hurricane Katrina, there was and still is a clear need for a reliable communications network to support the essential work of our public-safety officials. Such a network would improve coordination among first responders across multiple jurisdictions and enhance the ability of first responders to provide lifesaving emergency services quickly. 6:37 Sen. Brian Schatz (HI): With FirstNet, firefighters will be able to download the blueprint of a burning building before they enter; a police officer arriving at a scene can run a background check or get pictures of a suspect by accessing a federal law enforcement database; most importantly, emergency personnel will not be competing with commercial users for bandwidth. They will have priority on this network, which will be built and hardened to public-safety specifications. It will have rugged eyes and competitive devices and specify public-safety applications. 9:40 Curtis Brown: Last week the governor was proud to announce that Virginia was the first state in the nation to opt in to FirstNet. Virginia opted in to provide current AT&T public-safety subscribers with the benefit of priority services now at no cost to the Commonwealth, as well as the green light to build out of Virginia’s portion of the national public-safety broadband network. We believe that decision to opt in will promote competition within the public-safety communications marketplace, that will reduce costs and drive innovation across all carriers. Opting out was _____(00:31-verily) considered, but the unknown cost and risk associated with deploying and operating a network was not feasible. 19:45 Mark Goldstein: In March 2017 FirstNet awarded a 25-year contract to AT&T to build, operate, and maintain the network. FirstNet’s oversight of AT&T’s performance is very important, given the scope of the network and the duration of the contract. Among GAO’s findings in the report are the following: first, FirstNet has conducted key efforts to establish the network, namely releasing the requests for proposal for the network and awarding the network contract to AT&T. As the contractor, AT&T will be responsible for the overall design, development, production, operation, and evolution of the network. 24:35 Chris Sambar: The AT&T team that I lead is dedicated exclusively to FirstNet. I expect this group to grow to several-hundred employees by this year’s end as we hire people across the country with a broad range of skill sets to help us ramp up our network build out. Overall, AT&T expects to spend $40 billion over the lifetime of this contract and to build an operating unique, nationwide, interoperable, IP-based, high-speed mobile network, encrypted at its core, that will provide first responders priority, primary users with preemption and all other users during times of emergency and network congestion. The First Responder Network will be connected to and leverage off AT&T’s world-class telecommunications platform, valued at nearly $180 billion, including a wireless network that reaches 99.6% of the U.S. population. In addition, AT&T will support first responders 24 by 7 by 365 with a dedicated security-operation center and help desk. We will provide first responders with a highly secure application ecosystem as well as a highly competitive flexible pricing on equipment and services that they select for their unique needs. One of the most important resources that AT&T brings to bear on the new First Responder Network is our best-in-class national disaster-recovery team. We have spent more than a 130,000 working hours on field exercises and disaster-recovery deployments over the last two decades. This team combines network infrastructure, support trailers, recovery engineering-software applications, and boots on the ground filled by full-time and volunteer AT&T disaster-response team members. In order to support the First Responder Network, AT&T will increase its disaster-recovery fleet by adding 72 new custom-designed vehicles, just for the FirstNet mission. 26:55 Chris Sambar: Possibilities include near real-time information on traffic conditions, which can help determine the best route to an emergency for a first responder; wearable sensors and cameras for police and firefighters to help give them better situational awareness and camera-equipped drones and robots that will be able to deliver real-time imagery. Our FirstNet efforts are expected to create 10,000 U.S. jobs over the next two years as well as significant public-private infrastructure investment. 30:25 Michael Poth: We’ve created and delivered state plans on June 19 to 50 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia three months ahead of schedule, and as mentioned, the five governors from five great states have already opted in. None of this could be possible, though, without the public-private framework that Congress established for the FirstNet network, by leveraging private-sector resources, infrastructure, cost savings, public-private partner synergies to deploy, operate, and maintain the system. FirstNet can be now deployed quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively. 36:10 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): Dr. Darsey mentioned that the Mississsippi wireless communications commission has expressed concerns about FirstNet’s commitment to hardening the network. You mentioned this in your testimony, the need for FirstNet infrastructure to be hardened. Can you discuss why that’s important, and is it more important in the rural areas, and also, in your experience, how do broadband needs differ between urban and rural communities with respect to providing emergency medical services? Dr. Damon Darsey: Sure. Thanks for the question. I’ll give you an example. Couple years ago we had a tornado, as you well remember, that took out a hospital in the northeast part of our state. And the medical center has got a pretty robust program to respond to that, and we did. The challenge in that was it took out a couple of commercial towers, but it did not, after a fairly close hit, take out one of our hardened public-safety communication towers. What that did for us is we lost all ability to communicate data out of that area, which was vital in moving and evacuating the hospital, nursing home, and recovering the people that were there. That’s the piece that is the concern that I think we share, all of us here, of how do we make that as hardened as possible. In terms of rural and urban, from a medical perspective we can do a lot more, as our team is showing in Mississippi and other states, if we know about the patient well before they get close to a hospital. If we can reach out and touch the stroke patient in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, we can dramatically increase their chances of survival and meaningful use after arrival to the hospital. Currently, we’re doing that over radio, and it’s working really well, but now imagine that in the rural areas. In urban areas, it’s vital in the medical world, but here we’re five minutes from multiple hospitals. Now take that as a 45 or 50 minutes away, and what we can do with broadband data in that time is truly life saving and saving of healthcare dollars. There’s a nexus here that FirstNet can combine both of those. 41:00 Michael Poth: Numerous bids were in, and they were analyzed with a great level of detail, and through that process that the Department of Interior assisted us with as the acquisition experts, AT&T came out as the prevailing solution and prevailing company provider. Sen. Bill Nelson (FL): The question is why. Poth: Well, the value that they’re bringing with their existing infrastructure, their ability and size, their financial sustainability to be able to take on something of this nature, and their lowest-risk approach to implementing this in the shortest time was truly some of the value propositions that made them more competitive than some of the other bids that were analyzed. 42:13 Chris Sambar: The initial RFP that FirstNet released contemplated building out a public-safety broadband network using just band class 14, and we responded accordingly. But through discussions, we decided we would extend it beyond just the band class 14, which is the spectrum that was allocated for first responders in 2012. We said we would open up all of the spectrum bands within AT&T. So, essentially, what that means is the day that a state opts in, they have immediate access to AT&T’s entire network, all spectrum bands, and they will see the benefits of FirstNet on all spectrum bands, all wireless towers, from AT&T that are LTE enabled. So I think that’s a tremendous benefit that FirstNet was not expecting when they contemplated the original RFP. But when we brought that, I think they were very pleased with that, and that helped us. Sen. Bill Nelson (FL): So, you’re going to have a level playing field for all device manufacturers. Sambar: Absolutely, sir. 43:15 Sen. Bill Nelson (FL): There must have been some folks in Virginia that suggested that you opt out of the network and chart your own path. Tell me the benefits to Virginia’s first responders of the governor’s decision to opt in. Curtis Brown: Thank you, Senator. The decision to opt in was really based on looking at the benefits that comes with opt in, the immediate priority and preemption services that would come for those who are subscribers to the network. And a major thing, Senator, is to the fact that it comes at no cost to the Commonwealth. We have been disproportionately impacted by sequestration and other aspects—the governor had to close a 300-million-dollar budget deficit—and so looking at the cost it would take to build a network and sustain it, it just was not feasible. 47:45 Chris Sambar: We initially envisioned, when we launched the State Plan portal on June 19, that we would have roughly 50 user IDs and passwords per state. That would be 50 individuals who would access the portal. We immediately got feedback that states wanted more, and we are offering more. So, we have a state right now, as a matter of fact, 227 login and user IDs have been issued. So, it shouldn’t be an issue for a state if they have additional people. The only requirements we have, Senator, is that, as Mr. Poth said, that it’s an official email address, somebody in the state who works for the state— Unknown Senator: Right. Sambar: —or an authorized consultant. Either of those is fine. We just don’t want, like, a @gmail, @hotmail, someone that we don’t know who they are. Unknown Senator: Right, okay. 53:14 Michael Poth: How do the states hold us accountable? As FirstNet shifts gears from developing a proposal and making an award, for the next 25 years we are going to be in a position to work with the states, continuous and public safety in all of those states, to make sure that all of their expectations, both from the State Plans and in the future, are being met and translated. If appropriate, we back into contractual actionable items. Or if AT&T, for example, is not meeting the requirements or the expectations, FirstNet will, on behalf of public safety and those states, enforce the terms of the contract. 54:55 Michael Poth: Canada is using the same exact spectrum that we’ll be utilizing with AT&T, so there’s a lot of synergies. We’ve spent a great deal of time coordinating and comparing notes with Canada and the public-safety entities in that country as to what we’re doing so that there is the inoperability between the countries will also be realized. 1:08:50 Chris Sambar: So we have had a number of states as well as federal agencies we’ve been in communication with, and some of the states have been very direct that they’re interested us putting our LTE equipment on state-, city-, municipal-owned assets. That would give them the benefit of revenue from AT&T through a lease agreement. It would also give us a benefit of being able to build out the network faster. 1:24:20 Michael Poth: AT&T’s already been doing this, as mentioned, for years with their fleet of 700 deployables. Now with the 72 dedicated, which are much smaller units which is going to give us the ability to maybe get those into areas that are a little tougher to get to, we’re very excited about that. That is an absolute addition to the solution that we’re going to be able to bring to public safety quickly. 1:25:50 Chris Sambar: So, we will be building out band class 14 over the coming five years across a significant portion of our network. In the meantime, before band class 14 is built out, we will be using our commercial network. There are requirements in the contract with FirstNet over how quickly we need to build out band class 14, and we have to hit those milestones in order to receive the payments due to us from FirstNet. If we don’t hit those milestones, we don’t receive the payments, so we will be aggressively building out band class 14 for first responders. Again, in the meantime, they will have access to all of AT&T’s bands. So to say it simply, if you are a first responder, Senator, you will not know whether you’re on band class 14 or any other AT&T band, but you will have the exact same experience regardless of what band you are on on AT&T network. Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): Your position isn’t the service that’s provided, and the consumer and the public-safety user, to them it will be immaterial where it’s coming from. Sambar: The way I like to say— Exactly. The way I say it is this: public safety has been told for many years that the magic of FirstNet happens on band class 14, and we’ve changed that. That’s not correct anymore. The magic happens on the AT&T network period, and it doesn’t matter where you are, you’re going to have the exact same experience. So we’ve extended it far beyond the band class 14 to our entire network. Wicker: Will you build out the class 14 spectrum only where it is economically viable, or will you build it out where there is written requirement in the arrangement between you and FirstNet? Sambar: We are building band class 14 where we need the capacity in our network. So in order to provide priority and preemptive services to first responders and have enough capacity for everyone that’s on the network, including the first responders, there are places where we will need additional capacity; that’s where we’re building— Wicker: And you will determine that need. Sambar: AT&T, based on capacity triggers—obviously, we’ve been doing this for a long time—based on capacity triggers that we see in the network, we build out band class 14 as additional capacity on individual—and this is done on a tower-by-tower basis. 1:28:00 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): Are you able to say what approximate percentage of the lower 48 landmass will be covered by band class 14 build out? Chris Sambar: Unfortunately, I am not, Senator. That’s proprietary between FirstNet and AT&T. I would say, again, it’s a significant portion, though. Wicker: Can you be more specific than “significant”? Sambar: That would be proprietary, Senator. I apologize. Wicker: And what makes it proprietary? Sambar: The specific details of the contract between FirstNet and AT&T. There’s a number of specific details that are proprietary, Senator. Wicker: That is proprietary and not available to the public— Sambar: That’s correct, Senator. Wicker: —or to the Congress. Sambar: That’s correct, Senator. 1:29:35 Sen. Roger Wicker: Then in terms of this coverage, which you said really shouldn’t matter what band it’s coming over— Chris Sambar: Mm-hmm. Wicker: —are you able to say what percentage of the lower 48 landmass will be covered in one way or the other? Sambar: One way or the other? Wicker: Yes. Apart, of course, from the deployables. Sambar: So, 99.6% of the U.S. population will be covered by AT&T’s network. 1:39:05 Chris Sambar: The vast major—as we understand it, based on our research and FirstNet’s research—the vast majority of firefighters, for example, are not issued devices for their daily use at work, especially volunteer firefighters. Greater than 70% of police officers are in the same situation: they are not provided a device. They’re using their personal devices. We are going to make available the FirstNet network to all of those first responders, regardless of whether you’re a volunteer, whether your agency provides you a device, or whether you bring your own personal device. They will have access to the FirstNet network. Once we can verify their credentials and ensure that we have the right people on the network, they will have access to all of those features and benefits, and it will come at a significantly lower price than they’re paying today for their personal or commercial service. So it’s a tremendous benefit to all first responders. 1:39:55 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): On user fees, will they cost the same for all network users, or will they vary by regions, public-safety agencies, or states? Chris Sambar: It’s difficult to answer because there are different use cases, so it depends. If you’re a large department and you want unlimited data and you have a number of applications that you want preinstalled on the device and you have mobile-device management software, that would be one use case. There may be a rural department that wants to connect body cameras and dashboard video camera from a police department. It will depend on the use case. Wicker: So it’s use case and not regions and states. Sambar: That’s correct, sir. Wicker: That would be the variable. Sambar: That’s correct. Hearing: Public Safety Communications; House Committee Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, September 29, 2005. Witnesses: David Boyd: Homeland Security Dept SAFECOM Program Director Timothy Roemer: Member of the 9/11 Commission, Director of the Center for National Policy Art Botterell: Emergency Information Consultant Timestamps & Transcripts 30:44 David Boyd: Interoperability’s not a new issue. It was a problem in Washington, D.C. when the Air Florida flight crashed into the Potomac in 1982, in New York City when the Twin Towers were first attacked in 1993, in 1995 when the Murrah Building was destroyed in Oklahoma City, and in 1999 at Columbine. Too many public-safety personnel cannot communicate by radio, because their equipment is still incompatible, or the frequencies they are assigned to are different and they haven’t got bridging technologies available. They operate on 10 different frequency bands, and they run communication systems that are often proprietary and too often 30 or more years old. Over 90% of the nation’s public-safety wireless infrastructure is financed, owned, operated, and maintained by the more than 60,000 individual local jurisdictions—police, fire, and emergency services—that serve the public. 1:43:00 Timothy Roemer: Let me give you a couple examples of what the 9/11 Commission found as to some of these problems. We found all kinds of compelling instances of bravery and courage, people going into burning buildings and rescuing people. They might have rescued more. We might have saved more of the fire department chiefs, officers, police officers, emergency personnel, if they would have had public-radio spectrum to better communicate. At 9:59 in the morning on 9/11 four years ago, a general evacuation order was given to firefighters in the North Tower. The South Tower had collapsed. A place that held up to 25,000 people had been diminished to cement, steel, and ash. The people, then, in the North Tower, many of the chiefs in the lobby, didn’t even know that the other tower had collapsed, or else they might have been able to get more people out more quickly. We had comments from people saying such things as, we didn’t know it had collapsed. Somebody actually said, Mr. Chairman, that people watching TV had more information than we did in the lobby on 9/11 in the North Tower. People on TV in Florida or California knew more than our first responders on site in New York City. 1:45:10 Timothy Roemer: Mr. Chairman, then we had a disaster happen in the southern part of our country in New Orleans where we had other communication problems. In New Orleans, there’re three neighboring parishes were using different equipment on different frequencies. They couldn’t communicate. We had National Guard in Mississippi communicating by human courier, not by radio frequencies; and we had helicopters up in the air looking at our own citizens on the roofs of their homes in New Orleans, screaming and yelling for help, but they couldn’t talk in the helicopters with the boats in the water to try to find out who was rescued, who wasn’t, and who needed help. 1:55:45 Art Botterell: Third, we can no longer afford to rely on vendor-driven design of our emergency-communications infrastructure. Businesses are responsible for maximizing shareholder value, not for protecting the public welfare. We need independent sources of information and planning for our future emergency infrastructure lest we continue to get updated versions of the same old thing. Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio) Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations
In today's Federal Newscast, a bill authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration gets through the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee without plans to privatize the nation's air traffic control system like it's House counterpart.
Transportation: We all need it, and Congress funded it. In this episode, we take a detailed look into the FAST Act, which funds our national transportation network for the next five years. Please support Congressional Dish: Click here to contribute with PayPal or Bitcoin; click the PayPal "Make it Monthly" checkbox to create a monthly subscription Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! H.R. 22: FAST Act ("Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act) Bill Highlights Division A - Surface Transportation Title I - Federal-Aid Highways Funding level Highways will get an average of 41 billion per year. Private Freight Grants: $500 million can go to private rail freight companies to upgrade rail infrastructure; the Federal share of these projects is capped at 60%. Acceleration of Projects Creates a pilot program that will allow States to conduct environmental reviews, using their own State laws, instead of using the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Capped at 5 States The State can only be approved if the Secretary of Transportation determines the laws of the State are at least as stringent as the Federal requirements. No lawsuits will be allowed, challenging the permit approval, after 2 years. The program will sunset in 12 years Miscellaneous The Department of Transportation will identify national corridors for installation of electric car charging stations and hydrogen, propane, and natural gas refueling stations by the end of 2016. The goal is to have the charging and refueling stations deployed by September 30, 2020. Allows the Department of Transportation to move swallows from under bridges that need fixing until the Interior Department issues final rules. The Secretary of the Interior can suspend the authorization to move the swallows. Title III - Public Transportation Funding level The Mass Transit Account will provide and caps expenditures at an average of $9.7 billion per year. $199 million for positive train control installation, which can be used to pay for up to 80% of the cost. Buy American Requires American steel, iron, or manufactured goods to be purchased, when possible. Title IV - Highway Traffic Safety Provides grants to States in return for their establishment of laws that prohibit texting and driving. Prohibits Federal grant money from funding for State & local programs for checking for motorcycle helmet usage or checkpoints for motorcycle monitoring. Impaired Driving Provides grants to States for implementation of drunk driving laws. Orders a study and report to Congress on marijuana-impaired driving by the end of 2016. Title V - Motor Carrier Safety Drug Test Expansion Allows companies to conduct preemployment and random tests of commercial drivers for alcohol and controlled substances using hair testing as an alternative to urine testing. Allows for religious exemptions Title VI - Innovation Highway User Fees Grants will be provided to States that create user-fee programs for funding the Highway Trust Fund. The goal is to test the design and public acceptance of two or more user fee systems. Private vendors can be used to operate the fee collection systems. The fees collected will not be considered "tolls" Public Access to Research A database of all Department of Transportation research projects will be available on a public website and updated once per year. Title VII - Hazardous Materials Transportation Special permits Speeds up the decision time for special permits for transporting hazardous material by 60 days The decisions will be available to the public "Wetlines" Requires the Secretary of Transportation to kill a proposed rule that would have prohibited the transportation of flammable liquids in the pipes underneath tankers Transportation of flammable liquids by rail Within a year, the Secretary of Transportation has to create regulations to require railroads to report accurate, real-time information about hazardous liquids being transported to the local fusion centers, who will share the information with State and local first responders. Tank cars that do not meet Federal standards can still be used to transport oil and ethanol until 2018 or May 2025, depending on the type of tank car. The Secretary of Transportation can extend the deadlines for up to 2 years The Secretary of Transportation will have 180 days to create regulations to make sure that tank cars modified to meet Federal standards be equipped with insulating blankets that have been approved by the Secretary. Title XI - Rail Funding Levels Amtrak, which owns the tracks and passenger cars operating in the Northeast, will get an average of $519 million per year. For Amtrak operations in the rest of the country, where private freight companies own our tracks, Amtrak will receive an average of $1 billion per year. Food and Beverage Reform Amtrak will have 90 days to develop a plan to eliminate the operating loss associated with offering food and beverages on Amtrak trains in a way that doesn't eliminate any Amtrak employee positions Amtrak will be cut off from Federal funds to cover food and beverage related operating losses in December 2021. Pets on Trains Amtrak will have one year to launch a pilot program allowing dogs and cats on trains Gulf Coast Rail A working group will be created and have nine months to develop a recommendation for the best option for restoring intercity rail passenger transportation between New Orleans, LA and Orlando, FL. Privatizing long distance routes The Secretary of Transportation will have to create a pilot program by mid-2017 that will allow non-Amtrak companies to operate up to 3 long distance passenger rail routes. The non-Amtrak operator will have control of the route for four years and it can be renewed once for an additional four year period. The operator will be given an operating subsidy for up to 90% of what the government is giving Amtrak. The non-Amtrak operator can be the private company that owns the tracks, another private company that has an agreement with the track owners or the States. The non-Amtrak operator will be given access to Amtrak's reservation system, stations, and operations facilities and will be required to give hiring preferences to the Amtrak employees laid off because of the transfer. Cameras on Trains By the end of 2017, the Secretary of Transportation must create regulations requiring inward and outward facing cameras in the control cabs on all passenger trains Liability Cap Amtrak can not be held liable for more than $295 million for the fatal accident that occurred on May 12, 2015. Title XXIV - Motor Vehicle Safety Recall Information The Secretary of Transportation will have until the end of 2017 to create a public website for easily accessible information on vehicle safety recalls. Information about recalls will have to be sent to consumers electronically in addition to first class mail. There will be a two year pilot program testing the idea of States informing customers of recalls when they register their vehicles. Doubles the amount of time consumers get to have their recalled tires replaced from 60 days to 180 days. Rental Car Safety Rental car companies with more than 35 cars can sell, lease, or rent out cars only after they have fixed whatever was recalled. They can continue to rent out the cars until the solution is available, if it is not immediately available at the time they are notified. Motor Safety Violation Penalties Increases the penalties from $5,000 per violation to $21,000 per violation, capped at $105 million. Driver Privacy Information from a car's event data recorder can only be accessed by someone other than the owner or lessee if it's authorized by a court, is provided willingly by the owner/lessee, is needed for emergency response purposes, or is for traffic safety research and the personally identifiable information is hidden. Tires The Secretary of Transportation will create regulations for tire fuel efficiency minimum performance standards, taking steps to ensure that wet traction functionality is not effected. Creates a publicly searchable electronic database for tire recall information Whistleblowers If a whistleblower gives credible and unique information about a safety problem to the Secretary of Transportation that results in sanctions, the whistleblower can get between 10 and 30 percent of the award. Title XXXII - Offsets Passport Denials for Tax Delinquencies If a person has a seriously delinquent tax debt over $50,000, the Secretary of State must deny new passports and can revoke, or limit existing passports. Privatize Tax Collection Forces the Treasury Secretary to issue at least one contract for tax collection services by April 2016. Customs Fees Increases a list of customs fees every year with inflation. Federal Reserve Funds Limits the amount of money that can be held by the Federal Reserve banks to $10 billion and transfers the remainder to the general fund of the Treasury. Adjusts dividends for Federal Reserve stockholders to the lower of the rate of the 10 year Treasury notes or 6 percent Strategic Petroleum Reserve Requires the Secretary of Energy to sell at least 66 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and deposit the money into the general fund of the Treasury. The amount sold may be increased at the discretion of the Energy Secretary until the revenue totals $6.2 billion. Crop Insurance Profits Repeals a part of the Bipartisan Budget Act that caps the returns for crop insurance providers at 8.9% Oil & Gas Royalties Eliminates interest payments that oil and gas companies could accrue on overpayments. PAYGO Scorecard The effects of this law on the budget will not be counted Title LI - Taxpayer protection provisions and increased accountability Export-Import Bank Reauthorizes the Export-Import bank until September 30, 2019 and reduces the amount of loans, guarantees, and insurance the Export-Import bank can have outstanding to $135 billion (from $140 billion). Requires the Export-Import bank to hold 5% of it's funds in reserve to protect against losses. Requires independent audits of the Export-Import bank's portfolio Creates a pilot program that allows the Export-Import Bank to enter into contracts to "share risks". The amount of liability allowed to be transferred is capped at a total of $10 billion. Title LV - Other Matters Environmental Law Waivers In an emergency during which there is a sudden increase in energy demand - which includes during a war that the United States is involved in - "any party" that follows an order to generate electricity can not be sued for violating "any Federal, State, or local environmental law or regulation". The order that allows immunity for breaking environmental laws will expire in 90 days, but the order can be renewed as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission "determines necessary to meet the emergency and serve the public interest." If the emergency order is set aside by a court, the immunity remains. Strategic Transformer Reserve The Secretary of Energy will have one year to create a plan to store spare large power transformers and substations that are critical infrastructure or support military installations. Title LXXI - Improving Access to Capital for Emerging Growth Companies Makes it easier and faster for a company that makes under $1 billion per year to offer stock to the public. Title LXXII - Disclosure Modernization and Simplification Reduces paperwork for companies that make under $1 billion per year and want to offer stock to the public. Title LXXIII - Bullion and Collectible Coin Production Efficiency and Cost Savings Removes the requirement that collectable coins be 10% copper Title LXXIV - SBIC Advisors Relief Investment advisors who solely advise small business investment companies will be able to be excluded from registration requirements even if they are managing assets over $150 million (current limit for exemption from registration requirements). Title LXXV - Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Banks will not have to mail privacy notices to their customers if they haven't changed their policies since the last disclosure was sent. Title LXXVI - Reforming Access for Investments in Startup Enterprises Allows privately held shares to be sold to "accredited investors" without registering the securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Title LXXXII - Capital Access for Small Community Financial Institutions Allows privately insured credit unions to become members of Federal Home Loan Banks if they are FDIC eligible or are certified by the State If the State doesn't get to it in under 6 months, the application is deemed approved. Title LXXXIII - Small Bank Exam Cycle Reform Doubles the size of a bank that counts as a "small bank" from banks that have less than $500 million to banks that have less than $1 billion for the purpose of allowing those banks to have on-site examinations by regulators every 18 months instead of every year. Sound Clip Sources Hearing: House Rules Committee Meeting on Highway Bill Amendments-Part 1, November 3, 2015. Hearing: House Rules Committee Meeting on Highway Bill Amendments, Part 2, November 3, 2015. Hearing: Federal Railroad Administration Confirmation Hearing, Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, September 17, 2015 Hearing: Positive Train Control, House Transportation Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, June 24, 2015. Hearing: Amtrak Derailment, House Transportation and Infrastructer Committee, June 2, 2015. Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Congressional Dish Episode 99: April Takes a Turn By Jennifer Briney, June 27, 2015 Congressional Dish Episode 73: Amtrak, By Jennifer Briney, June 24, 2014 Congressional Dish Episode 62: The Farm Bill By Jennifer Briney, February 8, 2014. Reports Federal Public Transportation Program: In Brief By William J. Mallett, December 28, 2015. Congressional Budget Office: H.R. 22, the FAST Act, December 2, 2015. Additional Reading Article: Rental companies now have to repair recalled cars By Chris Isidore, CNN Money, June 1, 2016. Article: NTSB: Philly Amtrak crash engineer’s fault By Bill Cummings, CtPost, May 17, 2016. Article: With RAISE Act, Congress Paves Way For Private Secondary Markets By Shriram Bhashyam, TechCrunch, December 20, 2015. Article: Highway Bill Restores Crop Insurance Funding Cut in Budget Deal, Insurance Journal, December 4, 2015. Article: Fewer Taxpayer Giveaways Would Cut The Fat, Not ‘Cripple’ Crop Insurance By Shannon Van Hoesen, Environmental Working Group, December 3, 2015. Article: FAST Act (H.R. 22): Surface Transportation Conference Report Released By Robert S. Kirk, December 2, 2015. Article: $305B highway bill taps Fed, oil reserves By Keith Lang, The Hill, December 1, 2015. Article: Congress votes to delay rail safety mandate by 3 to 5 years, fund transportation programs By Joan Lowy, U.S. News and World Report, October 28, 2015. Article: Ag Committee Leaders Stand United Against Reopening Farm Bill to New Crop Insurance Cuts By Meghan Cline, United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, October 27, 2015. Article: 'Devastating' crop insurance cut sends lawmakers scrambling By Philip Brasher, Agri-Pulse, October 27, 2015. Article: Rail-safety deadline extension hitched to must-pass bill on transit funding By Ashley Halsey III and Michael Laris, The Washington Post, October 27, 2015. Article: Deadline for train safety technology undercut by industry lobbying By Ashley Halsey III and Michael Laris, The Washington Post, October 25, 2015. Article: Stop pretending you know what the Export-Import Bank is By Simone Pathe, PBS, September 15, 2014. Article: REUTERS SUMMIT-U.S. Ex-Im bank would back Airbus sales -Hochberg By Alwyn Scott and Tim Hepher, Reuters, September 10, 2014. Article: CARGO TANK TRUCKS: Improved Incident Data and Regulatory Analysis Would Better Inform Decisions about Safety Risks By Susan A. Fleming, U.S. Government Accountability Office, September 11, 2013. Article: How the cult of shareholder value wrecked American business By Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post, September 9, 2013. Article: NTTC Asks LaHood to Halt Rulemaking On Wetlines Procedures, Tanker Design By Timothy Cama, Transport Topics, October 10, 2011. Article: Hazardous Materials: Safety Requirements for External Product Piping on Cargo Tanks Transporting Flammable Liquids By Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, January 27, 2011. Additional Information U.S. Department of Homeland Security Budget-in-Brief Fiscal Year 2016 U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration Budget Estimates, Fiscal Year 2016 Metra Website: Positive Train Control Joint Explanatory Statement explaining the FAST Act OpenSecrets: Profile of National Tank Truck Carriers Inc OpenSecrets: Top Contributors to Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Bill Shuster OpenSecrets: Top Contributing Industries for Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Bill Shuster OpenSecrets: Career Profile for Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio's 15th district Website: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Website: Export-Import Bank of the United States Website: Risk Management Agency/U.S. Department of Agriculture: Crop Insurance Providers List for 2016 Website: Department of Transportation Fact Sheet Website: United States Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Transportation Fatalities by Mode YouTube: 9/11 hijackers at Dulles Airport, October 3, 2008. Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio) Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations
Dr. Mark Green is a conservative Christian, veteran, father, husband and businessman. As the Tennessee State Senator for District 22, Mark serves as the Vice-Chair of the Senate Commerce and Insurance Committee as well as a member of the Agriculture and Natural Resources, and The State and Local Government committees… Mark is the president/CEO of Align MD, an emergency department staffing company, which provides leadership and staffing to emergency departments and hospitalist services in thirty hospitals in six states. Mark founded Align MD Foundation, which provides healthcare to under-served populations throughout the world, and operates a free medical clinic in his hometown. Currently Mark serves on the Board of Directors for American Physician Partners, and the Rural Physician Partners Company PLLC. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Middle Tennessee Boy Scouts of America, as well as a Board Member of Soldiers and Families Embraced and Reboot for Recovery, two not-for-profit organizations focused on caring for soldiers and their families as they return with the unseen scars of war. Mark came to Tennessee as an army special operation flight surgeon assigned to the 160th Special Ops Aviation Regiment. There he planned and flew on some of the war on terror's most covert operations. His most memorable mission was the capture of Saddam Hussein. Dr. Green interviewed Saddam for six hours on the night of his capture and wrote a book detailing the interview and his service with our military's “Jedi Nights,” as he calls them. During this time Mark was selected as the Army Aviation Association Flight Surgeon of the year. His military awards include the Bronze Star, The Air Medal, The Air Medal with “V” device for valor under heavy enemy fire, and numerous other medals for service. He also was awarded the Combat Medical Badge, the US Army Ranger Tab, and Expert Infantryman's Badge.
The Aurora Flight Sciences unmanned VTOL X-plane, shore-to-ship package delivery, Senate FAA reauthorization bill impacts UAS, more proposed local drone legislation, a new DJI Phantom, and high-altitude sUAS flying. News Aurora Wins Darpa Contract to Build Novel Drone Demonstrator The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded second- and third-phase contract awards to Aurora Flight Sciences for the “LightningStrike” technology demonstrator. Aurora plans to start flight testing the vertical takeoff and landing experimental plane (VTOL X-Plane) in 2018. The LightningStrike features two large rear wings and two smaller front canards. The same Rolls-Royce AE 1107C turboshaft engine used in V-22 Osprey tiltrotor is mounted in the fuselage and powers three Honeywell generators which drive 24 ducted fans on the wings and canards. The wings and canards rotate to direct the fan thrust for hovering, transition, and forward flight. Aurora's LightningStrike VTOL X-Plane http://youtu.be/LylpcttuQ_U Maersk Tankers Claims First Drone Delivery to Ship at Sea A French Xamen Technologies drone dropped a small package onto a Maersk tanker in Denmark as a test to see if drones could be used to deliver spare parts, mail, or medicine to a ship. Compared to traditional means of delivery, the potential cost savings is significant. Bipartisan Senate FAA bill shuns Shuster's ATC proposal The U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has introduced a bipartisan FAA reauthorization bill that does not include any proposal for air traffic control privatization. However, under the Senate bill, the US National Institute of Standards (NIST) and the FAA would “develop risk-based, consensus industry standards on [UAV] aircraft safety.” “The FAA would also establish a process for the airworthiness approval of small [UAVs] based on the consensus standards, in lieu of the more cumbersome certification process used for the approval of other aircraft. These standards … approved by FAA would ultimately improve safety by prescribing which safety technologies would be built into unmanned aircraft systems sold in the United States.” Drone-Mounted Handgun, Flamethrower Reignite Lawmaker Debate Reacting to the well-publicised drone weaponization exploits of a Connecticut teen, state legislators have conducted public hearings and proposed legislation to outlaw certain activity. One bill would make it a class C felony, punishable by one to ten years in prison, to use a drone to release tear gas or other substances, or to control a deadly weapon or explosive device. Another bill would also limit how law enforcement and state agencies can use drones. But Peter Sachs, author of the Drone Law Journal, says one version of the bill exempts police from the ban on weaponized drones. Proposed Utah legislation would allow cops to shoot down drones Utah is not fooling around when it comes to drones. The recently introduced Senate Bill 210 would designate certain drone activity as aerial trespassing, and create guidelines for enforcement, including an option for police to shoot down rogue UAVs. State Senator Wayne Harper wants to address three issues: privacy, non-interference with airports and aircraft, and non-interference with emergency situations. The bill would ban drones within 500 feet of correctional institutions or within three miles of a wildfire, and make it illegal to use a drone in the surveillance of large crowds or for stalking someone in a voyeuristic way. Violating drones could be neutralized by first responders or law enforcement officers. DJI's New Phantom 4 Drone Is Smarter, More Expensive and Available From Apple DJI introduced the Phantom 4 which can dodge obstacles and track humans. The Phantom 4 features two sensors that allow it to react to and avoid obstacles in its path. The TapFly mode lets you tap on the live view on your smart device screen to direct the Phantom 4 in that direction.
Do you want to know where your food comes from? Well, Congress is in the process of repealing our Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) law because the World Trade Organization says our meat labels are internationally illegal. In this special episode, we take a look at the World Trade Organization: What is it? Where did it come from? How is it possible that it is determining our laws? Please support Congressional Dish: Click here to contribute with PayPal or Bitcoin; click the PayPal "Make it Monthly" checkbox to create a monthly subscription Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Please Support GovTrack's Kickstarter Upcoming Meet-Ups Orinda, September 2, 2015 6:30pm - 8:00pm: Rep. Mark DeSaulinier's Town Hall Meeting Orinda Library Auditorium 8:15pm - ?: Piccolo Napoli The Bills H.R. 2393: Country of Origin Labeling Amendments Act of 2015 Removes beef and pork from the list of items that must have mandatory country of origin labels Removes ground beef and ground pork from the list of items that must have mandatory country of origin labels. Removes "chicken, in whole or in part" from the list of items that must have mandatory country of origin labels. Eliminates voluntary programs for labeling the country of origin of beef. Passed the House of Representatives 300-131 Sponsored by Rep. Michael Conaway of Texas's 11th district 4 pages S. 1844: Voluntary Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) and Trade Enhancement Act of 2015 Removes beef and pork from the list of items that must have mandatory country of origin labels Removes ground beef and ground pork from the list of items that must have mandatory country of origin labels. Removes "chicken, in whole or in part" from the list of items that must have mandatory country of origin labels. Creates a voluntary program for packers who want to include country of origin labels for beef, pork, or chicken. Has not passed the House of Representatives or the Senate Sponsored by Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota 5 pages Information Presented in This Episode Country of Origin Labels USDA fact sheet on the country of origin labels World Trade Organization documents related to the case the United States lost regarding our country of origin labels. Panel Members for the country of origin label WTO case: Chairman: Dr. Christian Haberli of Switzerland Was a trade negotiator for Switzerland during the Uruguay round and has been a WTO panelist since 1996 Manzoor Ahmad of Pakistan He’s a Senior Executive at World Trade Advisors Regional Trade Advisor for Deloitte Consulting, the self-proclaimed “world’s largest consulting firm”, Joao Magalhaes of Portugal World Trade Organization World Trade Organization has 161 member countries The House of Representatives voted 288-146 to create the World Trade Organization on November 29, 1994. The U.S. Senate voted 76-24 to create the World Trade Organization on December 1, 1994. The World Trade Organization's creation became law when signed by President Clinton on December 8, 1994. Additional Information European Commission fact sheet on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) International Monetary Fund: Frequently asked questions regarding Greece International Monetary Fund wants Greece to sell of their banks, rails, ports, utilities and airports in return for loans. Article: Greece approves first privatisation deal under Syriza, EurActiv.com, August 19, 2015. Article: For most workers, real wages have barely budged for decades by Drew Desilver, Pew Research Center, October 9, 2014. Speech: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Singapore Management University, November 2012 (transcript) Article: Courting Unions, Hillary Clinton Says She Didn't Work on Trans-Pacific Partnership by Josh Eidelson of Bloomberg, July 30, 2015. Sound Clip Sources Panel Discussion: GATT Treaty Negotiations, C-SPAN, April 15, 1994 Ralph Nader, founder of Public Citizen James Sheehan, analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute Hearing: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, October 18, 1994 Laurence Tribe, Professor at Harvard Law School Ralph Nader, founder of Public Citizen Panel Discussion: Beyond NAFTA and Gatt, Southern Center for International Studies, April 20, 1994. Arthur Dunkel Former Director General of the United Nations Wrote the “Dunkel Draft” in 1991, a 500 page general outline of what became the WTO 3 years later “Retired” from GATT in 1993, became a “trade consultant”, and served on the board of Nestle Was a registered WTO dispute panelist Alejandro Orfila Former Secretary General of the Organization of American States 1953: Director of Information at the Organization of American States right after it was formed 1962: Created a lobbying firm, specializing in the interests of U.S. firms investing in or trading with Latin America 1964: Political advisor to the Director of the Adela Investment Company, the largest multinational development corporation in Latin America 1975: Became Secretary General of the Organization of American States until 1984 James Callaghan Former Prime Minister of the UK Andreas von Agt Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Press Conference: Country of Origin Labeling, U.S. Capitol, January 7, 2004 Former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota Tom Buis, Vice President of the National Farmers Union Hearing: H.R. 2393 & H.R. 2685 Markup, House Rules Committee, June 9, 2015. Rep. Michael Conway of Texas Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio) Globalisation: The Pirate Song
Dropping Off The Grid: A Growing Movement In AmericaNow is your chance to flee society. Drop off the grid. Pull a Thoreau. Be you a survivalist, an environmentalist or a cheapskate-ist, you can join the growing movement of Americans embracing off-grid living."There's a desire to step out of the rat race, and in America, that goes very deep in the national psyche," says Nick Rosen, author of "Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America" and editor of www.off-grid.net. "You know, the pioneering spirit and sturdy self-reliance -- these things which define the American character."For some off-griders, it's a matter of having little or no impact on the environment -- literally living off the power grid. This lifestyle has been championed by celebrities Daryl Hannah and Ed Begley Jr. Then there are those who no longer want to be a blip on the societal radar."Off-grid living is a spectrum that unites greens and survivalists," says Rosen, referring to those who choose to escape city life because they either don't trust the government or don't want it meddling in their affairs.Whether you’re a Civil libertarian or just want to be private, you can relax and worry less about the intrusive State with its Big Brother databases, at least in the UK. Civil servants running the new systems are so incompetent (e.g. the Ministry of Defence stolen laptop) that the biggest fear is them losing your data. But private industry is another matter. From Facebook to Microsoft, They are watching You. Now the US Senate is considering a “do not track” command that could be issued by individual internet users.The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing Wednesday to debate what – if any – privacy protections Internet users should be given. Most of the senators on hand agreed that consumers know little about who or what is tracking their browsing behavior.The UK government is burning $500m a year to build a national ID database that will duplicate the passport system and only cover those of us law abiding enough to register under our real names. Corporate databases will create their own parallel versions, or license government data for their own security checks.But you can take a few steps to protect your privacy. Follow these simple tips, and Big Brother will be no bother:1. How to Get an Anonymous CellphoneGo to a town you have never visited before, to an area with no CCTV cameras and pay a homeless person to buy a pay-as-you-go mobile phone for you. That way no shop will have your image on its CCTV. You will also have an anonymous mobile.In order to keep your anonymity, top it up in a shop with no CCTV outside. Or dispense with the phone altogether and return to the humble payphone, now the preserve of tourists and the super-poor.Even if you stick to your traceable phone, leave it switched off whenever possible to avoid having your movements tracked. Many phones are still traceable, so you need to take the battery out to be certain. If you have a Bluetooth phone, keep the service switched off because this is now being tested for advertising and other marketing activities.2. Hide Your EmailIf you use one of the free, web-based services like Gmail, your communications are being stored to build up a picture of your interests. Instead, you can use a service called Hushmail to send encrypted emails. Or work out a private code with friends you want to communicate with.You do not need an email address of your own. One hacker I spoke to sends emails from cybercafes via The Observer website, using the service which allows anyone to send any article to a friend. He embeds his message into the covering note which goes with the article.Others with their own computer use the free XeroBank browser (in preference to Explorer or Firefox), which includes several privacy-enhancing add-ons and sends all data through a network ‘cloud’ which hides most of the data you normally give away as you use a computer, but at the cost of reduced speed.3. Protect Your Computer FilesThere is sophisticated software that deletes all traces of your activities from your computer. Assuming you don’t have access to this, it is still worth remembering the data about you contained inside each file. Many digital photos, for example, contain within them the serial number of the camera that took them. Word documents contain the name of the author as well as traces of previous drafts.4. Stay Off Spam Mailing ListsEach time you submit your email address to register for a new website, create a special address, either on a free webmail service or on your own email server so you have control over it. Then, if the company later sells your email address or loses it through poor security, you will know exactly who to blame. And you will be able to close the account or block all email to that particular address. Again, Hushmail is useful for this. You can set it up to create these aliases for you.5. Stop Supermarkets Snooping on Your ShoppingSwap your supermarket loyalty card with a friend or acquaintance every few months, after having cashed in any points you have accumulated (treat Oyster and other local transport cards the same way). You lose no benefits and it prevents tracking of specific purchasing patterns (or journeys) tied to your name and address. Use cash more often – save your credit card for emergencies.6. Mess Up Utility Companies’ Marketing PlansLive off-grid, unplugged from the system with solar panels and rainwater harvesting. There are thousands of people living without mains power, water or sewerage, all over the UK and the US, in isolated cottages, behind hedgerows in caravans or in groups of yurts in country fields. And this is not just a movement for tree huggers and climate campers. Many live on boats in towns and cities, and if you live in a flat or house, you can still unplug.Get a laptop with wireless capability. There are plenty of hot spots where you can check your email or browse for free.Thunderbird Mail transfer agent is available free from the same folks that brought you Firefox. The Enigmail plug-in allows encrypted email and file transfer with up to a 4096 bit key. I’ve tested it with Windows, Mac and UNIX for interoperability. Combined with a Gmail account that be configured for TLS (Similar to HTTPS) connections, it makes for a fairly secure package and it’s all free. It won’t stop NSA from reading your mail but will for most everyone else.How does one just disappear off the face of the earth? Is it as simple as moving away to another country? First you have to understand who you are running from. If you are running from an abusive partner, know that they have limited resources and might have a problem if you move out of state or out of the country. If you are running from the FBI for example, understand that these people have unlimited resources and will do everything in your power to hunt you down even if you move to another country.Before going underground, you have to do a few things in order to throw your opposition away from your trail. You have to destroy the "old" you and build a new you. Destroy all photographs you can get possession of. Some of your friends or relatives might be hesitant to give you their photographs but let them understand that the people chasing you might go after them, too, because of their connection to you. They will threaten your loved ones with physical or other forms of abuse if they refuse to hand over photographs. If it is not possible; destroy all the most recent pictures of yourself and leave the old ones. Of course you don't want your face plastered all over the state but if it is an artist's rendition or just an old photo, chances are high that people won't recognize you.Destroy or throw away all your credit cards and ATM cards. Government authorities can pinpoint your location within seconds if you use your magnetic cards. Before going underground, be sure to withdraw all your money from the bank and max out all your credit cards with the things you'll need or you can resell for cash. Do not bring your car with you. That will be the first thing that the opposition will look for. Leave your car in place where car thieves will be and let them strip your car clean to remove any trace of it. If you need transportation, there are a lot of places where you can simply give money and get a new car without any identification required. Just make sure you aren't buying a stolen car or the car itself doesn't violate any safety rules. The last thing you want as you are making your escape is to be pulled over for a simple safety violation.if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('66f56d16-759e-496f-bc83-6083e68c5e3d');Get the Surveillance and Security Video Library widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? 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