Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and Verge reporter Makena Kelly talk to Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts about bringing broadband access into rural areas, the technology plights caused by the pandemic, privacy concerns over contract tracing, and the race to 5G.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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everyday life and forecasts of big energy observed this week. Keeping up our streak.
Kelly and I talked to senator Ed markey. A democrat from Massachusetts. He's got a new bill called the national broadband for the future act of two thousand and twenty that's on the
name. But it's a really interesting bills: expansion of the national broadband act. We talked a lot about
spending broadband right now during the pandemic. There's a lot of focus on world broadband, but a focus on kids
access needing computers to do their schoolwork this bill and address that we about the mechanics. Sarah marquis wants to put four billion dollars into the system to address broadband. We totally
neutrality has the sees echoing and we spent a lot of time talking about the connective tissue between
The broadband plans centre marcie work
in the nineties, in the situation today,
four interesting interview in a really candid charcoal. This add mc
did a great job asking questions, but usually when we talk of politicians there with their staff, they ve got handlers. We
gonna zoom call center marquis at his house, and he talked to us so
really candid really direct relation.
check it out center, ed markey, democrat from Massachusetts on the broadcast sen, ed markey, welcome to the broadcast bill. Thanks for having me on it,
amazing time to talk to everyone everyone's at home. How? How are you handling being at home corn,
being in managing sort of the business having centre
yeah. It's an adjustment amino zoom is now going to be like q tips or oreo, sir. You know how to cook
gonna be one word thing and you just have to
to it and I don't think people are gonna be
fully moving back to their own life had turned you try it you'll like it. That's what's happening
people realise that fighting a traffic jam,
go into a meeting downtown and then
funding of august by having the means and go on home and blow and half a day when you could do the whole meeting just as well with the same people, and I think that,
coming to be a realization for people who just didn't really want to give up the old world
but since this has forced them to, I think that we're going to see a big change after we get through this in terms of how people relate to their place of work,
and I just take its inevitable, and it was something by the way that you know
we're talking about in the hearings in the nineteen nineties? When I was the chairman of the telecommunications
the impasse in those three big bills. Back in the ninety nineties, they moved us from
I will be. We had
the hearings about tela held until
work and all of that back in eighteen. Ninety four, ninety five, but has taken in a way the pandemic
to now open people's eyes to the potential that these technologies provide for them to deal with what they felt were unavoidably
a pressure packed in person meetings with things that can now be accomplished with zoom so
of adjusting to it and and and now a bit
here, then I've ever been because we zoom does know being late. You know it is
you start at that goes down right of three thirty. We gotta have the meeting we gotta. Have they call you
nobody on or as in real life, you can. Can I think I'll go get my cup of coffee over here. I think I'll just finish. This chat with this other person in the outside room. But now you know it's it's a it's it's something that
of adapted to. I had never use it, but I think hundreds of millions of other people have done the same thing.
Unlike what you're talking about a lot of these little moments, were finding ourselves having you spinning.
at the time on all these devices, but also you've kind of
become a meme. There was this photo that went around a view in these old jordan's outside playing basketball. Maybe you can tell me
about their shoes. Well, you know
when I was drawn up, I really really wanted to be a boston. Celtic and then
mother, my mother, used to say that she was going to donate my brain to harvard medical school as a completely unused human organ and
because of the three hours four hours a day. I would spend down the park just playing basketballs. Why could make
The team in high school just sit there on that bench and I just practice and practised
practice and my mother was ever asked where's eddy. She would just say down the park. You know she thought that I should be studying calculus and trigonometry more fully than I was the angle. The geometric angle of a basketball shot off the side of the of the of the backboard, but that became
my life in plain basketball and in the congress we
a free trial, shooting contest every year and I hit
forty seven fifty three throughout
I wanted to say: hey ma ma it finally paid off my the rachel shooting contest
in the house of representatives. You know, but but I've got. These are
these are the huge he's holding of this and other. As I just took up my foot, because I guess that's what I wear
when I'm home doing these zooms and
They took a picture of me wearing wearing
he's airs and, and they become like famous normally four hundred thousand five hundred thousand people. You know
in a know like I to see these these shoes and we
follow me
young supporters. All too
variations off of the the air rebel
She said I have yourself, so it yes
taken on a life of its own, but to a certain extent I too, I am,
the extension of me, it's my identity. I never get nasty calculus, but
we throw shooting three point: shooting yeah I did
I never had the vertical or the horizontal game to go with it. But if I was open with my shot, it was gonna go:
as all good means, should be authentic right as a life of its own. It's like this data,
more young people every day who had just taking this and turning it into something that is, from my perspective, like a gift back to
because that's how I feel about basketball. You know when
drawn up the celtics one that title every single year,
and so I just wanted to be one of them more
oh then, even being sent a field or on the red sox, so to be given a little bit of recognition for that.
limited skill which I had, which was to shoot free, throws it kind of means the world to me
I have a basketball, could in my back yard here and
I actually was doing some a shooting cod,
as with any cancer of the celtic two weeks ago,
another first round, he was injured
ago, shooting I was here and we did it in all. We took ten shot
peace first round, I hit nine out of ten. He had eight out of ten seconds
He had eight out of ten. I had seven out of ten, so we call
draw. We want to gain a piece
For me, I mean like on
free, throw shooting with a boston celtic, while I'm talking about the earlier one in turkey.
Being a serial human rights abusers.
the need for us to be able to stand up as a country for the human rights of people inside of turkey, which is where the of the family still lives of for him and it so all just a great honour for me to be able to do that within us.
Just a great citizen of the world. So I feel like I can definitely span the next forty five minutes talking about the last dance with you
Can you do that?
where its excite we re ears. I got broadband you
our meme, so that simple
you're connected to the internet through this
the image of you, weren't jordan's, you
the national broadband plan in two thousand eight
I have a new, updated approach that called the national broadband for the future act of two thousand and twenty tell us what that is. Yeah, yeah, you're right so,
back in back in two thousand and nine, I was able to include a mandate that the federal communications commission had a land, lay out a broadband plan for the united states of america and to do it in every single sector: agriculture, transportation, industry, energy, you name it education, health care,
the plan. How are we going to deploy unused broadband in the future? So I think what in that plan is kind of the blueprint for, but we have become in terms of the bride band relationship to the american people, but this new bribing bill
That of introduced to call for a new plan is to look at it in the in the context of the crown of, in the context of how
we are seeing a telescoping of the timeframe in which it's going to take time for us to move more rapidly to this new era, where the gaps
We know the forty two million americans, just don't
the access to real broadband. We know that twelve million kids in america,
I don't have access Elisabeth homework gap, which is opening up between those twelve million.
aids and the kids who do have broadband at home, and we don't
data be an education gap and, as a result, an opportunity gap which opens up in america
for the next generation because of this lack of access we actually dont.
Oh, how long it's going to take us to fully come on
of this corona virus crisis that were in and it could have a profound effect upon kids more than anyone else in the long run, because of how it's gonna be
packing their education. So it's in every area again, but let's take a look at all these things in light of what were now is
Reducing what's likely to unfold and
put in place. The policies that help us to best advance a broadband agenda for everyone in our country, sir.
contacts in two thousand and eight was obviously that
great recession. For a long time
thought I was gonna, be one of the formative moments in my life that obviously this,
gale of that curve is changed the pandemic, but
out of the great recession, we wrote some big plans. How are we going to change things for the future were obviously at a big inflection point
and now what did you learn from that process in a way that you're bringing to this moment? Well, I think it is that people still don't think as much about the broad.
and capacity in our country. How interval it is, how transformed our economy is. Our lives are the corona
This is really making it clear to everyone. The extent to which that has happened back in time
In eight in two thousand and nine what I was trying
to do was to lay out where
All of this was then in where it could go. If we put in place policies which encouraged technological the planet in each year
one of those sectors of the american economy.
today. I see it almost as the tipping point where we are fully into the broadband era now because of the growing of ours, and I don't think we're going back. I think that everything has changed. I think we did tell a health in the past, but I think we're real
Gonna do tell a house in the future. I think we did remote learning in the past, but were really gonna be doing from learning. Now I think we had work,
home in the past, but really gonna have work at home in the future.
So let's do the saudi. Let's understand what has happened so
everyone in our country can be a beneficiary of it.
As we are no longer going to be no kind of moving incrementally.
just made a wholesale leap. Everyone
adjusting to it. And now, let's see
The applications are there are, I was taught,
today, to harvard harvard pilgrim held to the tuffs held to blue cross blue shield
The eight percent of their employees are still home and that would have been unthinkable, but there still,
doing all their work, to make sure that these insurance
but these are still providing services to people, so I think for them and for many people
there's going to be a complete reevaluation of what's going on, and I think, if we are wise, will have a real plan that the federal government can construct a way of thinking it through that the federal communications commission takes the lead and lays out a thoughtful
in which people can be thinking about these issues in the years ahead, and then what is
responsibility of the federal government to make sure that we are putting the assets out there so that we don't,
behind the smallest. Businesses are the ports individual other other represented
rural america, so that everyone is a part of this of this complete revolution, which is gonna very very rapidly,
we to are completion, so he brought the fcc, that's the agency. I think I, when I think, about broadband and in terms of regulation in terms of deployment in terms of management, this
particular fcc,
pies fcc
they have very much favoured a hands off approach. I think he would even call it a hands off approach, a light touch, regulatory approach in practice. What that has meant
is he only ass, her voluntary commitments from the carriers? He has
indicated most of the agency's regulatory ability and oversight ability.
and even things like broadband maps?
a collection or transparent
reports on network management are left to the discretion of our eye s. Peace is that some
we actually need to change. It is cheaper
everybody right- that that's how it should go. Well, I think the proof is in the pudding
it's now we look at all the gaps that exist in our society at the height of the coronavirus. So that's a debate that I had with him over net neutrality. You know I introduced the first net neutrality bill.
fifteen years ago, essentially after the nineteen? Ninety six telecommunications
past, where I was the principal democratic author you no net jolly was actually baked into the personality of the internet. My non discrimination is the
another way of saying net neutrality. So if you're a young entrepreneur, you've got a new idea, you're online, you don't have to pay homage to the broadband companies if you're a smaller voice. He just want to get your point of view out there for democracy purposes.
Can do so so net neutrality is just a way of saying here. Are the rules here? The regulations- and here are the things that people can rely upon to make sure that the broadband carriers don't discriminate against you and a jeep pie in all obviously took those rules off the box after the obama administration had put them on the books at last,
urging my strong urging and so
in that area, and in
Other areas yeah the fcc- takes this quote as azure saint light touch approach.
Is in many instances, no touch it all in terms
consumers are competitors to the broadband companies into.
Of ensuring that there is a full deployment of
these technologies in a way that benefits every
in our society. In after after we get through this pandemic
Look back we're gonna realise the broadband has become the equivalence of water or electricity for people they have to have it. They can
upright without it and anyone who doesn't have it's gonna, be left behind or severely impeded in terms of their ability to fully participate. So, from my perspective,
if this deception sea must be replaced with a new fcc with abiden fcc, that more fully reflects the obama FCC tom wheeler, as the german that was more activist on on on privacy. More act
based on that neutrality, more activists and ensuring that there is full
says for children in for adults too, to access to the internet. So
if only just push back, and I believe that all
business. Now that I am extremely proud net neutrality, but the push back is hey, nothing would read. Nothing went wrong.
Right, the world more dependent on the internet. Now you stuff
the services we don't see the tiered pricing-
dont really see that much paid privatisation,
There is a lot of. We don't see, throttling
A lot of bundling like eating tea, gonna, bundled streaming service, all that's happening, but the really bad stuff didn't happen and the
I espies are still spending money and the core of the network has held up in america. Even
there has been a surge of demand
I think that is. I can appropriate counter arguments that he does not hold water
Well, I guess what I would say is too, because it was in court for so long that the irish peace with careful
In wanting to do you have any evidence,
There were no anything wrong on what was a god, and so
no, unless the vision I would take away with them, I wouldn't be doing anything that was bad I'd say, look at no problem, look we're still the poor, but again they were still deploying at the same.
Right in all under the net neutrality regime of wheeler, as they are in all as they have ever been, so the evidence wasn't there the day will being harmed by it. But there was plenty.
it's in the past, that they were harming smaller companies when we didn't have net neutrality as a formal rule on the box at the federal communication. Aggression in order to protect and competitors,
Some were so well. We will see here what happened skull flawed, but I have full confidence in the bribing companies. Inability to resist temptation,
an attempt to their previous
personality, and that was the reason why net neutrality was needed in the first place. My I gonna wanna track back to what we are talking about. A fire when it came to the homework gap is something I've done. A lot of reporting on recently and when I talked to school districts and even urban cities like san Antonio, their kids, with their parents driving to buses parked around the city every night to hook up their computers because sometimes they have chrome books, and if you have a chrome book, you need to have an internet connection
Even you said most of the time, so you've you've been a very am supportive of the e rate program and for our listeners at home. The e rate program is basically the f c cs primary program when it comes to connecting schools and students to the internet, and you have a plan that just came out recently and I opened curious if you want to talk about that, would that would bolster the e rate program with billions
dollars dependent get kids in schools connected here. So when we were doing those big telecommunications laws.
I nineties and I was the lead Democrat yeah- the cable companies
to get into telephone telephone companies wanting to get a cable.
distance wanted to get into local phone and into cable everyone. What do you get into other people?
business, but they didn't want anyone in their business. So what they wanted me to do and what I wanted to do was break down all the monopolies. Everybody can do everything, one big free for all, so the
we're gonna be sovereign countries. You can live video servers, internet service phones, there was long distance. Everybody can do everything so
I knew that that was going to unleash a broadband revolution. It had two because
I was gonna have all these additional zero,
and once that they were going
trying to send out through their systems and so that your opportunity to get something good and so
What I said to them was I want a program called the e rate, the education rate, where every time some was making a full call, this a little little tax on it and that just goes into a fund and that fund then provide
It's the funding so that in roxbury are harlow, must sell central allay those kids have access to the end.
On this school desk and the reason I knew that was that I had gone over to the
be junior high school school, which is where am I
has it Mary taught math the matching runs through the film the female side of my family and she,
math at the baby.
Junior high and she had me over there and she had a computer.
I should now like twenty five kids, who are all hung round it. While she was doing a programme, a problem and at the end of it. I
the kids, how many of you have a computer at home and like five or the kid,
raise your hand. I was more than a similar malta right now, I'm still in the same a bouquet.
Our house did, I grew up in evacuees, raised a hand. Well
didn't have to worry about the kids from newton, brookline or west
just large maud that we're gonna be take care if they already had a computer at home, and it was already building a huge advantage for those kids against the kids who come from
collar and poor communities. So when I was a kid, if you took your books on my father was an old man, you can compete against the sky,
superintendent, son and daughter, you could do it just study hard, but increase
Does the technology gap a digital divide, which is what we called it back, the digital divide, and we have to close it. So that's what this programme was intended to. Do
because I had learned from my cousin mary, the math teacher, a junior high school there
Kids, who had always been a slight, is the kids in the suburbs, as long as they studied hard, without going to not be able to compete, to get it to the college of their choice, the job of their choice because they wouldn't have the technological skill set.
So that was kind of the origin of the e rate. So I built it into a bill in nineteen, ninety four and then that passed the house but was killed in the senate, but then we built it into the
in ninety six telecommunications act and it's now spent fifty four billion dollars. Fifty four billion dollars provide access for poor kids to the internet.
In their classroom. But now, as you're saying, keys in our home and
again. You say, oh, my goodness, all these kids, twelve billion of them. They don't have the same access as the kids out in this.
Europe's so what I've done as have introduced a bill that has every one of the Democrats with may have forty five democrats on with me saying that we should
four billion dollars to the programme to provide the health for all these kids at home to me
here, they get the wifi and other technologies they're gonna need so that they can keep up very name
be in situations at home with his five kids in one one device until bride be right and they all have to study and mom
they also have to use it. If I, so, how are we going to deal with us? These kids are going to wind up. You know
with real issues with regard to
they're gonna view their place in the world. If we don't make sure that that money is there to provide them
So that's what my bill will do. It's too,
deal with this issue, and I am I I look at the issue of of these kids right now and we need to make sure that there's gonna be mental. Health
access, provided that we're gonna be dealing with all of the issues that could come
from being in isolation. But you don't wanna compounded by having a homer gap, know these kids can be competitive, but what no place to go
in some cases, not as talented or ass, talented, just sprints ahead and getting kind of the plaudits
doing so well during the crisis coming back like you know that there was nothing that was missed and these other kids are gonna come back left behind and we just cannot allow that to happen. So that's what I've done.
introducing that bill. Organizing all of the Democrats with me and we're gonna fight hard to get that money into the next.
Come virus package, because this is gonna go on for a long time
right in a similar. Similar measure has been introduced in the house and even just earlier this week, a jeep pie, the chairman seemed on board for that kind of change in the law, because currently, in the e rate programme, any money has to go towards schools and libraries and cant find those children at home. Under these new circumstances that we all are, you know it, and we were all just trying to figure out how to do it now
It's a completely new world, but again I wish that he had been more generous in his interpretation of the law, and I urged him at the time to do so. The intent was to get kids access to a technology for their education and and clearly the education in that classroom, as now move to the dining room and the kitchen and- and I just felt that he should, in with the fcc interpreted it that way-
We would already be a long way toward solving this problem, but that, notwithstanding our bill, has four billion dollars in it and we're going to fight very hard to ensure it gets to the kids who need it. Tell me
mechanics, I believe, extra foregoing dollars.
Do why to give that directly to parents and students to you? Why so
was to issue chromebooks. Do you want to give it to a t and t and a t d is going to cross her heart,
It's die they're gonna give access to people. How do you want to work?
Obviously I wish that a t tee is comcast. Centers were doing all this for free. You know during the crisis, make it her. Everyone gets hooked up, making everyone has access to it. You know, but ultimately,
you don't like it? It's a damn c program right now we send the money back to the cities.
In towns they get along.
more money than they can use it in order to make sure that,
the needs and their unique community is, is taking care of so that'll be different in a small town of five thousand people died in a big city
I think you'd have, I think, would have to use the same methodology than just make sure they get the funding and now for them huh.
Use this to in order to make sure the kids have the chrome blocks on the wifi, wherever else they might need in order to be able to take advantage of the pro
How does it plan to something like the universal service funded the assisi, also, as we had
mission arose more on the past a few weeks ago in, and she made the point worth america
was able to get electricity in every home mercosur
will the guy landmine telephones every home? Somehow we have left broadband behind, even though care
promised us over and over again. They were I do it. It would be great
the iraq. Money can help kids get complex and wifi, but they dont physically have a connection there. Still in the
they're, still driving to parking lots are sold waiting outside school buses. How do you solve that problem quickly? Because that historically is not a fast problems? All right? Well, I think you know
you go back and you see that the federal communications commission was created after fdi took over you know, and
part of how's everyone gonna get telephone service in the united states universal access. How do we make sure that no we develop a national economy?
in that universal access, while thou
the authorities- and I think, we're coming up to another fdr moment here in two thousand twenty one, when Joe Biden as president and to a certain extent we're talking again about a new broadband plan for the country.
You know where which is being realistic about what we have to get down here. To make sure
that were using the governmental resources that we have in a way that provide
resources to those who need it, the mouse and- and I think that we will be in
position, because a lot of the people you know who
they're back in
nineties, when we were putting together a new telecommunications policy are the same people who are advising Joe Biden right now. The verses
people, and so I am very confident that we will have a kind of a big vision for what is possible in the future.
it feels like pinning everything on the election is hope.
That's great. I understand why you want to do that,
is happening now.
And one of the things I ve seen is there is kind of renewed bypass
listen emphasis on the problem.
It's a senator, wicker, saying: ok, we need actually think about broadband deployment. He is a republican for mississippi.
He is not usually one for the government to provide surface
in this way. There d c,
to be a little bit more by partisan energy around things like we're all broadband the homework
Is this something gettin can get done
for an election and a huge shift in power well again, and I'm hopeful that we can do that, I'm hopeful. I think that these
Problems are going to be even more exacerbated in red states, which tend to be more rural. I think that they are going to be there
is that really see an impact in terms of the lack of accessibility. In again, it was by partisan back in nineteen and ninety six when we passed it for the first time, and I think the same thing has to be a true here,
We're going to need red state senators who realise the necessity of of having this technology deployed end up in a vacuum.
It is a funny little story. I did the nineteen ninety two law which
created the eighteen inch satellite dish, not one. We didn't have a inch in satellite dishes before than eighty nine. So silly
Thirty, five million people now have the eighteen inch satellite dish, but we had to give
satellite dish, access to see an added hbo in those companies that want to do it. The cable companies didn't want to provide access to the programming too.
tina satellite dish, and I needed to do so.
Everyone, no matter where they were in the more rural parts of the country are in densely populated cities. Where you know, people you know might not have access to affordable cable
So the interesting thing was george bush, the first judge which he vetoed the bill. Well, who was my on? Well, my ally was jack, danforth republic for missouri, or an hatch from you
why? Because they have huge rural areas. President bush
Was it understanding this problem, and so
we voted and they all voted to override his veto and that's the only veto override of the four years of the first bush administration. He vetoed thirty five bills.
better for leaders were
stay by the Republicans, and one was not guess it was that technology is you so this is the politics of technology aspect to this, and I think it's
The unfolding, even as you mentioned, senator wicker, my good friend from the city that they can see it. They can see the the broadband disparities they can see. The light at the end
the hearing from their own mayors from their own constituents. So I cannot think we're back
What eighty satellite dish issue here once people see it and they said,
I could have access than in the cable companies, not gonna
coming. All the way out here, one more mile.
They are why to reach my house and they never will so only the eighteenth satellite. This solves my problem, while I think we're going to have the same thing for broadband, because I think
that does rural areas more in republican than democratic states and it
give us a coalition where we can move forward successfully,
by the way, the asian satellite issue you keep referencing, I feel, like our audience, might be a little younger. That's a satellite dish, directv and dish network use to build their companies,
exactly as we talk about which didn't really didn't exist, they didn't they
got even just one directive, nfl sunday take as a very compelling political issue. You're welcome, you're welcome,
and if you want to get the m b a picture, you only get that so so you're welcome, so that the I'll be glad to do it and again you want to create competition, cells
at these companies I'll say? Oh, my goodness. If they're doing that, and we don't do it, then we're going to lose customers. So so I think that is a rural component of this, the broadband issue that is very powerful, and if we talk about an infrastructure bill this year, the president's been promising an infrastructure bill for three and a half years. I'm on the infrastructure committee that we're going to build in a big bay.
Peace, tens of billions of dollars for broadband deployment, because that's stuff, you can do you can see where the need is. You can put people to work and I think that's something that we can include on a on a bi, partisan basis, hey I'm ryan, reynolds at mid mobile. We like to do the opposite of what big wireless. Does they charge you a lot? We charge you a little so naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided
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sorry actually to satellite dish. Comparison actually brings up a kind of big phil.
The article way the united states has thought about broadband competition,
which, as we have facilities based competition, it's the technical phrase where the deer
no provider is going to run copper wires and the broadband writers going to run a co x, wire and they're going to compete at that level instead of the way that it works in europe, where there's a shared fibre line and differ,
serious writers can use it or have a cable one running away right. Nobody wants dsl, they all want cable robin because it's faster or they'll want. Fiber has faster
right now, potentially, what's coming up, is five g deployments. I have a lot of talk about this, but people
ok, fine, she's gonna, take away the cable monopoly.
See eighteen to directly compete with a calm the world views.
That playing out is a new front of competition or
it still necessary
do the wireless internet competition regulation that we ve been talking for years now, while our technological agnostic, I have no idea
you know back in nineteen. Ninety six people will say well, you know, with broadband, there's going to be so much information out there. You know they won't even really be broadcast television by the year. Two thousand and ten. It's all gonna be gone, that's what they were all in it saying about the future as they were.
in the future, so it would be okay, in other words, for a b c to by NBC, wouldn't make any difference in the long run, because it's going to be so much information out there when
any difference. So what I always said was why don't we wait and see
if we still have a b c c b has had pc twenty ten, then will decide how to change the rules right
if, as I said, but that's not anticipate changes, did these prognosticate
think, you're gonna happen in
the rules before it happens before it happens? So I'm a kind of a belt and suspend is kind of a guy involved
Five g great shows where you got, shows you loved,
Let me know what I gotta them. I had learned when I you know,
Let me see what what
this should all stupendous benefits. You know that,
gonna have but is
gonna be, in other words, the difference between a black rotary food in an iphone. I don't you know, is it going to be the difference, retain this flip phone than I have. That was you know, and nineteen
any six technology and this I phone you know, which is like
with the apollo mission. Computer in your pocket is going to be more like oh apple's announced the most recent iphone and tries to market you to dump the one from just two years.
I dont know the answer to that, and no one else does either. I hope it does, and if it does, we can change the rules
do you buy the idea that it's a race to five g and if so, what happens if we come in? Second, ask everybody. This question, I'm very curious. Rants again, I am just going to come back again saying yeah, we should be first, we should always
First, you know america should always have a plan in the plan should be to be first and that, when the laws that I got the opportunity to
author in an ip nineties, all dead. You know we move rapidly in owen nineteen
isri and nineteen. Ninety two, it was eighteen and satellite is nineteen. Ninety three I was able to move over two hundred megahertz of spectrum for the third fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh cell phone license. That's what gu does from analog to digital. That's what moved us from ten cents from fifty cents, a minute to ten cents a minute and then, ultimately, all that spectrum is what steve jobs could look at. So I know that because
we have a plan, and- and on top of that was the nineteen ninety six telecom act when we broke down all the monopolies and let everyone do what they wanted. So we had a dotcom bubble by the year two thousand, but I would just call it kind of a broadband bubble right, we'd get it everyone had it. Some companies lost pets, dot com didn't make it no sorry about pets, dot com.
with their water losers of losers. It was on winds and over five hundred other people in space. They did not. That's, who cares made from the perspective of the country which you wanted was a problem
evolution. While we want a five g revolution, we want a plan. We want to be forest if we can be first. Ok,
but it has to be something that I take violated at the highest levels of the federal government. Believe me, when I met
the AL gore and bill Clinton in the white house in the nineties? They knew what they wanted to accomplish chosen for refuge.
I'm not sure those conversations are going on in this office. I'm just not sure. As he's watching fox news and in
but without latest weirdos in terms of where is he here
interestingly powerful because of the ninety six celica that he can tweet in facebook. You know he can,
Did he can ever so little narrow slice of fox?
it will lose. All of it is all possible because of that revolution, not that he knows it, but but that's kind of the reality.
So I guess the long way around is saying young. You know he'd be good to be first, but at the same time, there's still a big, a big debate out there as to whether it's incremental know or it's you know, geometric in terms of the differences it's going to make in our society. So we've just spent all this time talking about how to get people online, but a lot of your work in the senate over the past couple of decades has been work on privacy too, and what we do once we do get people online. So, just last week you voted no on the patriot act,
reauthorization bill, why did you cast that vote? Will, amongst other things, it gives the federal government access to everyone's browsing history I mean
that necessary without going to a judge and saying that person over there is someone who we suspected.
way something. Can you give us an ability to crack in and get that information? Are we just did
on an emergency basis and knowledge
We too you, but we found tat. It was urgent, much less cut across the board. Access to everyone's browsing history does not make any sense whatsoever and
oh back in making ninety six the lass provision they got knocked out,
was something that I had built into that the house version of the bill, which was a privacy bill of rights
americans across all technology platforms and because you could see we're gonna go broadband, so let's build in the privacy of
So that was the last thing that the republicans in the senate demanded be taken out and what that build, pretty
please said was number one. You have a right to knowledge that information is being gathered about you
You have a right to notice that is being reuse for purposes other than that which you unintended and third
You have a right to say no knowledge notice, not, and so that was kind of frightening to the big companies, so they got that knocked out. Last night lament our got knocked out. I was able, in nineteen ninety eight to create a children's privacy bill of rights for kids.
under four twelve and under I could get that done that still the law, that's called the child on my privacy protection, like that's my law from eighteen, ninety eight and we need to upgrade debt up to sixteen. In my opinion, because we can now see the invidious impact that it has a month. Thirteen fourteen fifteen urals, but once also happening here, is that its replay of the debates that we used to have back in the mid nineties as to whether or not the f b, I should have liked unfettered backdoor access to every
computers and and everyone everyone's computer, that they purchase should automatically be climate f b. I read well we're just replace
It's not a sticker. Anybody wants. I know, I agree with you. Ok, so the privacy and security- it's like it's the government doing or is it a private sector company, but either way we've got like
american writer privacy rights. You know we have this- we have to the aid should be by partisan. The libertarian right in the liberal left should be able to agree on this
stay out of my life unless there's a reason- and the recent should be that there's a court
do obtain warrants to kind of gain access to this information. You just shouldn't be able to blast through and take all of our information so yeah. I voted no, I want to know and and again there's a dickensian quality to the
It's the best of wires in the worst of wires can enable it can ennoble, noble.
And the raid it kinda base and so
Obviously the company's always go. Look at this is this great look. What we can
Why do you sign up right now? You know get this new, sir!
So then, when you say well, hovels and privacy, are you have no idea? That's all I got you just, don't know how complicated that would be.
And the same thing is true for the government, while under the
sensible guise of protecting our liberties, they compromised on you? Don't they put they put all of this information. You know in a situation right now where they can browse peep.
Browsers and is just not right. So I absolutely cast the very, very, very strong. No on that bill.
so. The patronize happened in two thousand want after nine eleven another.
Meant that I thought would be the defining informant.
even if my life in certainly is one. But I remember the debate then was the patriot act is temporary,
we are now in the twenty. Twenty just does not seem to be temporary
there is a similar debate happening around contact tracing which we will now.
To do as a country in order to reopen safely apple,
Google are building a contract tracing exposure notification facility
into their operating systems. Actually, the first version is it
it was yesterday is we're talking
There are some push back, hey where's
collect more data from these phones to make it effective and its
like another inflection point in privacy where, in order to reopen safely we're gonna need
some data from phones in some fashion. To do effective contact tracing, do you
think it's the same kind of moment as with the patriot act, where
to make this concession now, because it seems like an emergency and might last forever again, you have to build in the safeguards up from a health care crisis is something we have to deal with, but the long term privacy concerns of all americans is also very important. Now I played a big role in constructing a hip up the hell's privacy laws for the country back in the nineteen nice and again, that was all part of kind of the technological change which would make it possible to have information.
Both the health of all americans aggregated in ways that never was able to be aggregated before and so yeah? When I was when I was a boy you'd go to see DR macdonald, DR mcdonald's, the nurse for Dr Donald go over to the cabinet, unlocked a cab.
pull it out going Marcie eddie pull up your file and then the nurse would handed over to doktor mcdonald and
the document donald and that nurse knew my healthcare, and so now
everyone says you don't be great if we just,
big computer somewhere that abdul everything that was in everybody's healthcare file,
was always in these little cabin instead, doctors, all across the country, guarded with their life right,
and so this another one of these moments, so I guess what I would say to you is: we have to make sure that any information which is gathered in order to do the contact tracing has strong privacy and security protections built around it, so that the information
is not able to be compromised, are again reuse for purposes other than that which had been originally intended.
and so in the name of fighting one crisis. Another problem gets created a big problem and it is kind of a hidden problem
People don't focus on immediately because you're saying they focus on the issue of the day, but I've put out a kind of up a ten point programme for what should be.
In a corona virus, belated contact racing programme
so that we use these traditional principles,
data minimization to make sure that,
Don't see a wholesale compromise of the healthcare privacy of all americans and
can very easily happen
just seeing it in the eyes of debate with regard to the browser if mission, so I don't think people should think for a second that it couldn't be easily caught measly made just a part of our culture. If we allow
tab and without any questions asked. Are you satisfied with the proposal you ve seen from apple and go around their system? I think it still evolving. I think they're trying to respond to criticism and dumb and also hopefully they will- I mean
We are in contact with them out of my office and talking to them about our concerns, and, and hopefully we can reach kind of of an agreement with regard to the protection which should be put in place. So
I'm still working towards echo. One of things is really interesting to me about it is europe. Does
gdp. Are they haven't much stronger privacy regime
as of it, and you are seeing european governments, like the french government, push back again sapling google and say we actually need more
which is a total reversal of the french government's attitude towards Google? His story
Clearly, do you see a similar sort of reversal happening here? We have not had
a great privacy regime, and now we had suddenly have won because we're way to what these companies coordinator, while again the reason that as a european privacy code, is that in many ways they have a different history than we have. They still have family members who lives when the nazis occupied their country or your identity was a big part of who who was punished, who got arrested, and so they feel very strongly about it, and that's why the european privacy policy was so strong and dumb. California has adopted a version of that, and I
I think that california version is going away. I think that the more people learn about these technologies that the more privacy they're going to want and what usually then happens is then another liberal state says we're going to pass a law. Then another liberal states.
we're gonna, pass a law. Finally, companies all come in and they say
we need a national law. We need to pre empt preempt, all of them.
it lies in individual states and then you say to them: okay, what's the standard? Well, the first inclination is to point to like the weakest state and say that should be the law when you go. No, no, no, no we're not preempting california. In order to put in a state
privacy protection which are weaker. You have to say we're gonna have the strongest protectionist, but for the sake of europe,
normally they'll be at all fifty states because
already doing business in europe and the large companies in the united states. So if that's what you want then come to you don't come to us. We'll cut a deal with you will preempt
it will be up here with a very, very high standard that people can rely upon and- and I think they're still kind cannot work in net through there-
to see, if maybe there's some way that they might make it, you know a weaker standard, but if they can't do it with donald trump as president and what Mitch Mcconnell is a majority leader in the senate, then it's not going to happen, because people will just revolt if you take away their privacy protections right over the last couple of weeks that we've seen a lot of republicans authoring, ipads lamenting the fact that some Democrats are asking for specific concessions
national privacy law. They want to have that preemption clause in there and for our listeners, that's getting rid of all those. What could be weaker or even stronger laws at the state level, but they're also asking for a lot of the proposals from Democrats have had to do with a private right of action. So if you could sue these companies if they do violate whatever privacy rights we decide, people have in the future. Is it
crowds having a hard time coming to terms with like prior right of action. Are these things are Democrats and republicans are what's going on? Do we see like a national privacy law coming into place anytime soon
yeah. I think it's a larger issue in all for many of the companies that they just don't like the idea that the business model is based on the compromise about privacy.
it's taking our information and selling it to advertisers. Let me that's the business model, so the whole idea here is antithetical to them and it goes back to
killing my privacy bill of rights in nineteen. Ninety six in all that was so they can great, does business one. You know now, they're in the blue, perfect form of their business.
so as democrats, we're just gonna, be pushing them in order to make
good that we have from my perspective, op in from my perspective, a super duper privacy bill of rights for you for kids up to sixteen, you know with a right to erase it with a right to say to the company just race, all this stuff about like thirteen year old daughter. I don't know what she was thinking about, what we don't want to come up on her college application. We don't want it to come up when she's, you know applying for a job sometime. Let's give immunity to these kids
skip kids, the right to be young, the right to bring up the right to make mistakes still went. That's what kind of a saying across the board that we just need to be realistic about how pervasive? In all this intrusion is but again last week,
the vote was not helpful. To me is that was unnecessary. That was produced. We will go along with you saying.
What we want to go through that person's browser. Come you don't waiting
A person is a heinous individual who is has committed. A crime are, is potentially gonna commit a guy. We know that that's fine, but.
this wholesale compromise of people's privacy is
now increasingly a part of the culture wired magazine had that favours cobbled back in nineteen? Ninety five privacy get over it? You don't have to
and so that's kind of the motto of the federal government and the private sector so getting a deal coming back to your crashing, getting a deal
It's not going to be easy, not going to be easy, because you know it. It has to be strong enough. You know that people get the protections which,
As we talk to the sea is the big companies does occur, works we just gotta sooner pretrial, one or two points
sit. Mark Zuckerberg in particular makes a lot is at least that this is an american company, and I need to be this way
Faced with to this, this big needs this big to export american rise. If you don't, let us up
the size and regulate us at this scale,
what you will see as chinese companies take over the global internet? What does,
the need, for example, is tik tok, which is enormously popular among teenagers in this country. Now they just hired the former
It is dizzy streaming service to be there to see other odyssey barking up here,
Do you see that, as a as an actual solid argument that we need to
basically regulate the american internet giants into place to keep out sort of particularly chinese interference with their absence and services and they're gonna collected in total differently as well
If I heard what you just said, you said his argument is: we need facebook to be big so that we can export american values, and one of those values will be that we compromise your privacy on a minute to minute basis. So I'm not sure that's an american values that we want to be exporting. I think that we want. You know we want to be thinking more like the europeans and the californians, and then when on who we are and who we are. We have to have the strength of our own convictions that the american values of the best values and you can't compromise to a lowest common denominator, because you feel that there's some kind of marketplace disadvantage to you. You have to have just the confidence in your own ideas and your own ideals and that's my hope for our internet industry that they realize that. That's really what makes us great and the chinese
We plan and we need our own plan, what it should be, an american plan with american values, ultimately that we will be able, you know to have convinced the rest of the world that we are right. So that would be my answer and I would say that it would be good if facebook stepped up and just said, here's here's, what the privacy bill of rights should be in america for everyone. Sixteen and under just be the leader, here's his proposal. Here's what we want! No here's what the proposal should be for privacy for adults as well. You know then, and I think, to a certain extent, that would then become something that was american, born, bred and ultimately marketed to the rest of the world. So no the answer is no. You know we, we don't have to compromise who we are. We have to be more like us in order
with the chinese we have to be more like us, have to stand up for what we believe in. We can already see that china wanted to be part of the w t o, but not part of the w h o, while the second common responsibility is trade and tourism increases. You know if you're going to be a
that the you then have to notify the world right up front. It is a health care prices coming. They don't want that responsibility
I do have one last question for you just to wrap things up.
Here a sitting you senator? There is an enormous conversations country about reopening getting back to work lighting up the economy. Again
What is your position on that and what is the Senate need to do that to actually make that happen outside
Or the patrick approaches were were seeing right now. Is
I shouldn't have when we open. There is no date. It's only data not update it's life. When we open its, how we'll see you can open without massive testing because can- and we don't have it- you can't open without massive contact tracing. We don't have it. You can't open without massive amounts of personal protective equipment for everyone in every workplace. That's effective, we don't have it, so I think we have to be very cautious at the fall of the sites.
We don't want to have a boomerang effect where people move too fast in too many areas of our economy, and then we just wanna write back where we started, because we had a lack of caution. So from my perspective, we can do it, but it's only if we put in place all of those protections which we know
We are going to be necessary and also then ultimately be realistic, that until we find a treatment or a virus, we hope it happens soon. You know that we're not going to have a novel that we're going to have to be
careful and again, as I said to you, when pilgrim house and and toughs have ninety percent of the employees at home, that you can say, go back to work with people looking at it objectively, they're not going to go back unless they're sure that they're safe and that's testing contact, tracing and personal protective equipment, and it's still not
sufficient quantities? That's when we will start to see the recovery must honour. He. Thank you. So much of the time it was great conversation last I'll, be back soon.
Data me. I love it.
all right. My thanks to senator Marcie, also my thanks mechanically and should agree on that.
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Transcript generated on 2023-08-26.