Gadgetory

good morning I'm congressman darrell Issa I've represented San Diego and Orange County now for almost 18 years and I'm here at the Consumer Electronics Show a place I left when I left my business career 17 plus years ago and you've been coming to the show for how long now 37 years it's interesting because in the last year the way that Congress approaches tech has changed dramatically right it feels like the honeymoon is over wait compare it you know when you take the Russian interference concerns when you take all the debate over privacy and security do you think that that like the the favorite son of the government type thing is over you know there's always been two problems the tech is faced one is they've been naive about the impact government could have on their on their business models and that's obviously coming to play every day the other one is that for a long time tech had a tendency to be all together United for common things free-trade liberal immigration of tech workers better education but now we've begun seeing various aspects of tech like you saw in net neutrality where one group is pitted against another and they go to government to argue it out that almost always means the honeymoon is over because no matter what government does they're answering one side or the other side's preferences you've announced that you're leaving Congress right you are announcing that your posts at the end of the term I will moving on without your voice and you were a point person for Trump on tech is an issue when he was president-elect right and during the transition losing that voice what do you think happens how does tech talk to the Republican establishment in charge well decades ago we moved the Supreme Court out of the Capitol and the assumption was if they move that across the street they they'd be irrelevant the court has only grown since it had an independent voice and an independent location I'm not leaving Tech and I'm not leaving being a voice and as long as the president and people advising him still listen to my view on h-1b or on quite frankly on feeding text demand to do here what we want to do here versus exporting opportunities uh I'll be there and I'm going to continue but I'm not selling my house in Washington I'm not gonna be a lobbyist but I'm certainly gonna be an advocate for the things I believe in this last year one of the other things have been going on detected Trump which a lot of the conversation is that we've seen the tech executives coming out against him in many different ways when it came to the travel bans when it came to transgender rights right we had we kept a list on CNN everyone at times they can I appreciate that liberals will never liked wrong well and and no hear me out look this is about liberals not liking Trump the travel ban had so little to do with with tech they were people especially the second one people who were were not coming to accept jobs at Apple they were not part of it it's the you know you're not you're not having that challenge but having said that those those politics are never gonna change I've never gotten a check from Apple supporting me and yet I've been one of their champions on issues and that's okay you know your politics and your policies don't have to always match so is free trade important to to the tech community yes is a Democratic Party a protectionist party yes is is tech unionized no is Democratic Party the party of unions yes so you have all those issues in which people's politics and policies don't match and I think it's important to understand that it shouldn't be about politics when it's about the best interest in American people you should be able to pick a party for whatever reason you want and pick policies if you will all occurred so in this case this administration may never be the choice of the executives of high tech but it can in fact be good for the tech community good for employment now this president probably appreciates more the building of hotels and and older technology then he fully understands what goes on in Silicon Valley or what goes on in the biotech areas of San Francisco in San Diego and yet the policies can be consistently good for those industries and I think that's where somebody in my position who perhaps agrees with the president on some things not on others can bring the alignment of the policies that are good for the United States I would certainly say that tech leaders who are officers of public companies are really ill-advised to make those statements because those statements quite frankly are required to be in the best interest of their stockholders and often they're not not neutrality we saw the vote happen there's been a lot of backlash specifically from this area of the world when it comes to the tech stuff so where are you kind of feeling at this point now that we see this debate happening again well you know obviously you have a view and it's biased because you just said there's a backlash well there's not just a backlash there's also a relief rally the the changing of the control and the managing of if you will access to bandwidth was in fact one side lobbying for a benefit to them as they saw the reality is that I I do video conferences every day over the Internet I use exclusively voice over IP and you better believe I want a prioritization and net neutrality implies that you won't give me a prioritization for those over other traffic in a typical home when your Apple iPad decides that it wants to upload two backup you know your ipad guess what your VoIP doesn't work right unless you have a prioritization which should be a smart switch that's able to differentiate that traffic so I think there's a difference between quality of service controls and neutrality well you say there is but the reality is the FCC said we will determine all of that we will rather than unfair competition rules will determine it you know for four decades we have had the Federal Trade Commission have the ability to look at both monopolistic behavior in per se and unfair trade practices and intervene if there needs to be more of that I'm all for it but the idea that you would move something that is vaguely communication to the FCC was a power grab by one chairman and so I'm absolutely on the other side of it and I think in the long run the companies and I I'm considered a friend by virtually all of them in the long run they're gonna find that enforcement of unfair competition is much more interesting way to to protect themselves you know and it's by the way it's not a new issue you know during the classic question of I'm the Outdoor Channel but I'm I'm going through a cable company that has a in-house competitor and they treat me unfairly those issues have been issues that Congress has looked at and the FTC has an obligation to look at for a long time and you know stronger enforcement maybe but just throwing it upside down because it's slightly different than the past was a mistake I'm glad it's rolled back but now the question is will we get the Federal Trade Commission to step up at the plate and be aggressive on every if you will viewed slight that may occur so that there's a fair investigation and when appropriate action I think that's definitely something a lot of people agree with and to be clear my point of view we're talking about we're talking about sir that show overwhelmingly Americans were against that and so it's not about me yeah I know I I pretty don't want to be called bias when it's literally surveys out there saying the vast majority people are against it but you know what that's a few ask somebody if they're pro-choice they say well everyone's for choice if you ask somebody if they're in the abstract if you asked me if they're for net neutrality you've already you've already gained it if you ask are you for the government determining what priorities are a bandwidth who can or cannot get an advantage whether or not I can get a low cost low bandwidth well somebody else pays more to get more that I pay a premium to get a shorter latency time well somebody else says I'm not in I'm not as worried about that and I'd like to discount if you ask them if they want those choices of plans and different economics to go with it they're gonna say yes so yes net neutrality sounds great but if you actually break it up and say would you like to have choice to be able to if you will get a lower cost for a lower service or a higher cost so that you can get a preferred service that gives you something better people are always going to say of course I want that yeah and I think just to challenge that a little bit the surveys often actually split up net neutrality versus what was described as it we can debate why subscribe does but that was when those things changed and people were overwhelmingly supportive of not pulling you back so I'm curious then I imagine I know the answer already but the calls for Congress to cement this so that we don't end up back and forth and back and forth and Congress makes a decision that it votes on and it's over you're not you're not in favor of that you know I'm not and I'll tell you why these institutions need to be overseen they need to do their job and there needs to be if you will not a guarantee that it's their job whether they do it right or wrong the Federal Trade Commission has tried to get itself for example into every time somebody gets hacked they decide that they're going to go in and essentially tell them for 20 years how to run they're businesses that practice is prob'ly outside of the unfair competition portion they they have eventually victimized victims sometimes falsely are my old committee investigated it and found that there was excess there so at times when like uber didn't tell people for a year that it had been hacked and then you have people whose information is out on the internet and they don't know anything and the government's not stepping in to do anything about that well there's a good example where first of all there are civil remedies and those are being pursued and for an amount greater than ubers capital worth we'll see how that plays out yeah so well but you know the laws are in place to make people whole at least up to the worth of the company but you know the Federal Trade Commission is is not about finding people when they failed to disclose they've gone after people who were in fact had active break-ins mechanical break-ins were they and and they were simply victims so you know it's important when you look at the government who is by the way not told you when they've been hacked not told you accurately that my Social Security my medical records are out there with somebody so you know one of the challenges there is we can all say we should have but the question is when should Congress write a law how stringent should the law be and in fact will it accomplish anything to reduce the amount of times in which people's meant to you know personal information is made public or stolen so it's interesting because the CIA disclosure was a big discussion this year right they had the they had the vulnerabilities that were released on the web a lot of companies had to scramble to fix that so on some level it creates a question of well okay it's okay for them to try to try and figure out you know get into terrorists phones and whatever but once they find them and they hold onto them and it's something it gets released we're all in danger you know it's a dangerous world out there if the CIA doesn't do its job people will kill us people will bomb our embassies people will attack Americans so that's just a reality that we we know exist today and so there's a balancing act but there's no balancing act on the Constitution it reads as it reads and it has to be respected as it is and until three-quarters of the states in addition to a supermajority of the Congress changes that our job is to stick to it and you know particularly on the fourth amendment which is what we've been debating we've got a gun show coming up in a few weeks here - half the size less than half the size it's interesting it's like small arms industry so the interesting thing like I have many friends in the military I spent my time on a gun range like but what's curious is that smart guns technology that could potentially help save officers lives and protect other people's lives we don't see much of that here we don't we saw one gun last year you know the we obviously have a very this location has special significance considering the last few months well you know we can have all those discussions any time you want the question I'll get back to you is when our police going to only carry smart guns themselves because the greatest single hazard to a policeman whether we like it or not is his own firearm there's my point and so and so when we look at smart guns before we start saying they have to be everywhere the very expensive weapons that we're willing to buy for law enforcement should in fact be officer specific as soon as possible the technology is maturing and I would hope that we'll see that you know the same is beginning to happen in in military development not necessarily in a pistol but in the larger weapons being inherently more secure after the loss of so much weapon tree that the Iraqis had our ability to have to fight against our own equipment has taught us that there's a need to be able to neutralize I think a lot of people agree with you and so I guess the question is why hasn't detected stepped-up why haven't you written a purchase order well I'm not the military but there's a police force in San Francisco have they written a purchase order I can't speak to it but why don't--you're you live in San Francisco I do well then I suggest you lobby your police force because they could be the first in the country you can do a whole question of if the technology exists why wouldn't the San Francisco Police Department be the first in the nation that you know this this is an industry that will show you what is possible and will supply you what you're willing to buy and and so I'm not gonna be at that show you know coming up but I'm sure that each of those manufacturers tell you the same thing you give me a purchase order I'll deliver your product sure thanks a lot thank you