>> to members of congress. then a discussion about the supreme court and the death penalty and the meaning of cruel and unusual punishment. after that, a perspective on u.s./iran relations from an iranian-american author and journalist. >> the house returns for a brief pro forma session today. legislative business resumes tuesday at 2 p.m. eastern. on the agenda this week, legislation to repeal the 2010 health care law and a bill requiring the securities and exchange commission conduct a cost benefit analysis before

implementing new regulations. the senate is back today at 2 p.m. for morning business only. no roll call votes are expected. on tuesday work continues on the water infrastructure bill which authorizes dozens of flood protection, sewage and waterway improvement projects around the country. later in the week, a vote on president obama's pick to head the centers for medicare and medicaid services. live coverage of the house on c-span, the senate live on c-span2. >> host: well, "the communicators" is on capitol hill where the consumer electronics association is sponsoring ces on the hill showing some technology to members of congress and staff. be and we are joined by mark bowles of ecoatm. mr. bowles, what is this machine that we're looking at here? >> guest: this is the ecoatm. this will evaluate automatically your electronics and then pay you cash on the spots for them. >> host: so is it a recycler?

>> guest: it's recycled the phones, and it resells them. we take them and resell them to channels that may use them as a phone, not just to recycle the materials. so we do a little bit of both. >> host: and is this your invention? >> guest: it is. >> host: and how'd -- >> guest: a bunch of other people helped me. >> host: right. how'd you come up with the idea? >> guest: i was reading a survey that said basically only 3% of people worldwide were recycling their phone, i'm like what happens to the rest of the 990 million whatever that is and did the classic me search, why don't i do it? it's because i didn't know where to do it, i wasn't incentivized. so i developed this idea. thought if i put it in the consumer's path and paid them what these things are worth, they're worth a lot of money, that i could inspire mass participation in it, and it's

working. >> host: what is your background? >> guest: this is my sinceth venture-backed start-up can. >> host: have you been successful? >> guest: i've been successful three times and a couple of big smoking hole, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. >> host: well, mr. bowles, if you would walk us through and show us how it works. >> guest: sure. this would be many a retail place, so you would walk up and start. and he'll do a lot of the talking here. >> host: okay. >> guest: so we can do tablets, cell phones, mp3 players. we happen to have it, so it will automatically -- >> eco atm protects the environment and your local community. to sell the device, you must be 18 years of age. provide a thumbprint. your id will be verified remotely by a human, and your device will be matched against the phone device database.

we work closely with law enforcement to -- >> guest: so we make sure no bads guys use for nefarious -- >> host: right. so when you insert your license, what happens? >> guest: so what happens is there's people back in headquarters. >> host: in san diego? >> guest: sand bay owe. we run a bunch of software, and then a person compares to see if it's the same person and so forth. if it's, we met -- we let the transaction go forward. >> host: okay. so you've been cleared. >> guest: they know me. so my phone -- so i'll say, yes. >> host: okay. >> guest: so now this particular, we ask you to put this on to track. and then we go to the next step. now, this opens up. we put it in.

>> host: are these in operation yetsome. >> guest: we have about 400, a little over 400 now in 25 different states. we're placing them at the rate of about three per day. >> host: where are they made? >> guest: right there in san diego. so now the machine artificial intelligence system is looking at the device, trying to determine what it is. >> host: and it's looking through all the different phones, right? >> guest: about 4,000 different phones, almost every phone ever made we've trained. so iphone 5 it got it right, even though it was all smashed up. it gives you a range. it's not sure yet, so we're going to say, yes, let's go fouad. >> host: okay. so i notice the prices raise from very good -- >> guest: it hasn't done all the full tests yet to know what the value is completely. it just knows what it is. >> host: okay. >> guest: now it's spun around to the right cable for the

iphone 5, so now it's going to do an electrical inspection to complete the process. >> host: and will it be able to tell that that screen is completely smashed? >> guest: it will. that's the next thing. >> make sure your phone b is on and enter star, pound -- why do you do you want to enter that number? >> guest: it's going to show us the serial number. if someone gets a phone stolen and if criminal's coming up to sell it here, then we can match the serial number to report it and get your phone back to you. doesn't happen very often, but when it does, we give them back for free. >> host: are all phones registered individually to openers so that your license is matched to your phone? >> guest: no. it's not match today the license, but the serial number is matched to the phone, and your carrier knows your serial number and knows who you are. so if it's stolen, you rt numbel

smashed up, so it's only $87. >> host: but even with that smashed screen, it's still $87. >> guest: yes. >> host: okay. >> guest: so we're going to sell it. we're saying we're at least 18, that it's ours to sell, so on and so forth. terms and conditions. now we require a thumbprint -- >> i cannot return your twice after this step. >> guest: so we give a thumb print. >> if you want to sell your device. okay. you did the last step to sell your device. once you press continue, i will not be able to continue -- >> guest: okay, let's sell it. >> give me just a moment while i finish processing this device. >> host: mark bowles, what in the phone is valuable? what makes it $87? >> guest: that phone is probably going to be refurbished. they're going to take the glass off, probably replace the battery and then sell it=a

>> guest: copper silver and the precious metals so that you don't have to mine those. and those, that gold -- there's about a dollar's worth of precious metal in each phone, and that ends up back in the

new phone so that you don't have to get -- >> host: what's the next step? >> guest: well, if you had a bunch of phones in the drawer, you could sell some more. we're going to check out with this one phone. and then at this point we offer you an option to donate to charity. we're going to do the wounded warriors project, and we're going to give them $20, keep the rest for ourself. and so now 100% of that $20, we don't keep any of that. that goes to the charity. and then we try to get your e-mail, we're going to say no thanks. and that counts out money. >> host: and why do you ask for the e-mail? >> guest: marketing purposes. we want to keep talking to you. and then -- >> host: so, mark bowles, if you had left personal information, your contacts, photos on that phone you just recycled, what happens to those? are those -- >> guest: it gets recycled -- i mean, it gets e erased as part

of the problem. >> host: ecoatm, your company, does that? >>ste standard to a sponsor to r2, so we're certified to that, and those require data erase, downstream audits and all that of the whole process. so it does get erased. we encourage you whether you sell to us or anybody else, always erase your data yourself period. it's just a good idea. >> host: mark be bowles, so you've got your money -- >> guest: yes. >> host: and then you move on. >> guest: and then you move on. you go spend it in a store. >> host: mark bowles is the founder of ecoatm. this is "the communicators" on capitol hill. jeff pothul is from charlotte, north carolina, and he's formed a company called dock-n-lock, part the hill.

mr. poet thul, what is dock-in-lock? >> guest: preventing distracted driving accidents that are caused by cell phones. so we've taken a very simple approach to it. we believe that the cell phone should be locked away by the vehicle being driven. so what we have here is our first generation product. and, essentially, it works very similar to a breathalyzer. so in order to start the vehicle, the phone literally has to be docked and locked in our system in order to start the car. so when the -- >> host: so you physically put the phone away. >> guest: you physically put the phone, it physically locks it away. it's going to look if it's an authorized device. as you see here, it's an authorized device. what does that mean? that means that phone has a smart tag on it. so part of our technology is this smart tag that we developed that actually communicates to the locker. now, the key to this system being tamper-proof is that that

tag is weather resistant, but it's also tamper-proof in that if the tag was to be removed from the phone, it would disable the chip from the tag, you wouldn't be able to start the car. of that's why we have a tamper-proof system for any teen driver that's on the road today or any driver, for that matter. once it's been authorized, you're going to be able to start the vehicle. now, the key to the safety of the system is while the vehicle's being driven, you no longer have the physical distraction of the phone, you no longer have the visual distraction of the phone, and we've removed the cognitive distraction of the phone. so those are the three distractions that are cause, you know, all these accidents on the road today, over a million accidents last year, 5,000 depths. the numbers keep growing, they keep coming in, and, you know, we took a very proactive approach and want to change driver behavior. >> host: what if people have technology in their car where

they can talk via their vehicle so -- >> guest: absolutely. that's a great point. so we have two versions of the product, one that actually shields that kind of connectivity, so if a parent be chooses they don't want their child to have any access to the phone at all while the vehicle's being driven so they're focused 100% on the road, we have one version of the product that can satisfy that. the other version of the product is one that's blue tooth-friendly. so simply locking the phone away removes the physical distraction, the visual distraction but allows that connectivity through the card. so you'd have access through the media, through your, you know, through your music, you'd have access to your contacts all through the integration of the vehicle itself. actually, the inception came from my father. he was a safety manager for 36 years from verizon. it was about five years ago back in 2008, fast forward a few months from when he had the

idea, my sister just got her driver's license up in connecticut. there was no laws really against texting and driving, or if there were laws, they weren't, they were very hard to enforce. so, unfortunately, she got into an accident while texting and driving. she was very lucky not to be injured, but that was the catalyst that really propelled the idea from going from just an idea on paper to actually creating a product that we could and deliver -- we could sell and deliver to parents like my father. >> host: is dock-in-lock on the market? >> guest: we're not yet. we're in the final development stage, and we'll be going to market this fall. we're looking to have a product available for a back to school campaign. >> host: many people have multiple phones or tablets, do you have a system for those as well? >> guest: right now, no. right now we're looking at the one phone. so looking at typically what teenagers have. the phone that a parent bought,

you know? be and will some parents have, or other types of drivers have multiple phones? that is something that is actually we look at in the trucking industry. so companies that have truck drivers in place, they have company-issued phones, and they have personal phones. so that's always a challenge, you know, to manage those. we can assure that one device, one distraction, especially those personal phones that a company has no way to manage up til now, that we can actually manage that personal phone and lock it away safely. >> host: have you had any interest on the car companies in installing these? >> guest: well, you know, we were at the ces show, we had a few of the oems around us, so wheal see what happens. >> host: jeff pot hull, dock-in-lock is the name of the company and the product. jennifer kuhn is with the at&t corporation.

she's up here on capitol hill demonstrating a new product. ms. kuhn, what are we seeing? >> guest: okay. what we have here is -- [inaudible] campaign which is our campaign to give education against the dangers of texting and driving. no text is worth your life. so what we've done in this campaign which we launched in about 2009, 2010 is we created this online simulator that we actually bring to high schools and events across the country. and we're trying to bring the message home in a very safe environment of how difficult it is to text and drive. >> host: this young woman here is on the simulator? >> guest: she is, indeed. she's on the simulator. so what she's doing is she's have sort of a virtual reality experience of driving through any city, usa, and she's having to obey the speed limit, the traffic signal, deal with the variables that happen in any driving situation whether it's a car coming out of their lane or traffic comes, and while she's in that, she's getting texts

sent to her, and she's being forced to reply to the text. not forced, but, obviously, she's being compelled to reply to them. so what this is driving home that as good as you think you are at it, you are not. because what you're seeing here is what you don't see behind the wheel. you're maybe not seeing yourself swerve all around, but here you are. so we built some little tricks into here. for instance, you can't go too slow. so for people who want to crawl along and do it safely, they can't do it. if you go too slow, you get dinged, if you blow through a light, you get dinged. but, actually, it's a really fun way of talking about a really serious subject. >> host: jennifer kuhn, who are the biggest violaters of the driving and texting? men, women, do we know? >> guest: you know, i think it's a problem with everyone. i mean, we've focused our campaign on teenagers because tear more at risk. they're new drivers, and they text more than we do, adults. but, you know, we just did a

study with commuters s and we found that commuters were admitting, yeah, i'm in traffic an hour away, i'm doing it more than i used to. i don't think you can say there's one greater perpetrator of it. i think it's really something that all of us in society are victims of and guilty of on occasion. so even though we're focusing on teens, we're really trying to reach out through all of our networks whether it's working to -- [inaudible] across the country, whether it's working with our 240,000 employees, but really most importantly partnering with companies and nonprofits and other institutions to try and get the message out that no text -- >> host: what's the current status of state laws against texting and driving? >> guest: rye now 39 -- right now 39 states and the district of columbia have laws. and right now that could be changing with the remainder of states, but there's a vast majority of states that have some sort of law against texting and driving. >> host: we're up here on

capitol hill. what's the reaction of members of congress to this demonstrator? >> guest: yeah, they have been, we've had a few members come in and sit down and try their hand at it, which has been really interesting. and we've had a really fantastic response from members of congress and state elected officials who see the danger of in this and who want to be part of the education. so it's been really important. we had several hundred states and cities actually issue problem la rations calling for texting and driving awareness day and such. so we've been really happy with the response from the elected officials and playing with it. >> host: jennifer kuhn is with the at&t corporation. this is their demonstrator on no text onboard. you're watching "the communicators" on c-span. we want to introduce you to blake hall. he is with a group called troop id. before we find out what troop id is, mr. hall, give us your background. >> guest: sure. third generation soldier, grew up in a military family.

9/11 happened, i was in vanderbilt university's rotc program. decided i wanted to be an airborne ranger. ultimately ended up leading a scout trooper platoon in iraq hunting high of value targets. had a wonderful group of guys, and we were taking apart some of the vehicle bomb networks over there affiliated with al-qaeda. when i was getting out, had a commander that refused to write me a letter of resignation unless i applied to around saturday business school. i told him he was crazy, but he said a deal's a deal and ended up at harvard business where i met my cofounder. >> host: first of all, did you graduate from harvard? >> guest: i did. i managed to finish it. i did all right, too, so i guess he saw something that i didn't. >> host: all right. after that, how did -- what is troop id, and how did the idea come about? is. >> guest: sure. yeah, we noticed in 2009 that brands were trying to give

different benefits to service members and veterans, but microsoft was giving away free learning vouchers to veterans, but in order to claim it, the veteran had to bring physical paperwork that verified their service to department of labor office to claim an e-learning voucher. so, you know, we went to them and said doesn't that defeat the entire point of an e-learning voucher? and talked to under armour who was offering 10% off in stores but not online -- >> host: for vets. >> guest: for service members and veterans. correct. and the consistent refrain we heard was we would love to, but we don't have a way to verify the credentials of a customer who's on our web site or possibly app. and once we understood that verification was what was preventing a channel from forming between brands and the military, you know, i think it was bed bath and beyond said, look, if i put a -- [inaudible] to take 10% off your military, all of a sudden magically half

of my customers will claim to have served. so we thought of all the relationships with government agencies and -- [inaudible] the net effect of which is we can verify anybody who's served in the military from 1950 until present. and be on the front end, we build a product that works a lot like paypal, instead of an e-mail and password, we tie your military service to your e-mail and password that has your accessing discounts across the network. you can rapidly authenticate your -- [inaudible] some of the stuff we've got right here, this is overstock.com. they give 5% off and free shipping to current and former service members. we power overstock's -- >> host: and right here is the small id that says -- >> guest: that's correct. get started with troop id. so just like you would see a

paypal or connect logo, it's the exact same process. so once you've created your account, you can go ahead and verify. we also power programs for under armour, i'm blocked from getting up there right now. but, you know, if you -- if a service member or veteran is just shopping on under armour.com, they're going to see the military discount with troop id. it's a free service to service members and to veterans, and they can rapidly, you know, go ahead and log in and claim that 10% by clicking on that button. >> host: all right. i think this is backwards. there we go. so if you click on verify military status -- >> guest: yep. >> host: what pops up? >> guest: so there you go. >> host: okay. >> guest: if you've got the account, you literally just log in with your credentials, and you can go ahead and verify your status. i mean, i'd be happy to show you. >> host: so you signed up for this, obviously -- >> guest: yeah. >> host: do you charge a fee for people to join? >> guest: it's always free to

the users. so we think that service members, veterans have earned their benefits by virtue of their service to the military. the brand -- [inaudible] makes sure they're protected from fraud. >> host: are there privacy concerns with this product? enev wht: private always plays a talk about identity. our stance is very aggressive in that we consider the information to always be the property of the users. and what that means is tthe under armour wants access to information, it's the user's decision whether or not they want to share that information with the marketer in exchange for the discount. so, you know, we say under armour wants your name, your e-mail and your military status, they're not going to opt you into a marketing list. that's what they want in exchange for the 10% off. it's totally up to you to decide whether or not you want to give permission for them to have of that or not. we think that's really the future of what the web should be.

the web is kind of a seedy place. they stalk you, today try to figure out what you're buying, who you are, they sell your data back and forth be. our contract is much different. we will never sell or otherwise transfer information to a third party unless we are just audited your identity not for personal purposes. front end, the only time your data's released is when you have given explicit permission for that data to go to the other brands. and if you change your mind later, you can log in and revoke access for that particular brand to have access to your information. so we're really turning what is right now, everybody's trying to get to you, we're just saying have an interaction like -- [inaudible] let a marketer come up to a user and say, hey, peter, i'm willing to give you a benefit if you're willing to tell me about who you are, and it's up to you to decide whether or not you want to do that. >> host: where's the business model? where's the profit? where do you make the money in.

>> guest: yeah. so there's a few different ways we monetize. we monetize every time we verify that particular identity attribute because we're protecting the program from fraud. we open up new channel opportunities. so, you know, the different brands that drive traffic back through these programs that we protect, they are willing to give us a commission on the actual, on actual program. and then the third component, identity and -- [inaudible] are very closely linked. so we basically have an affinity group in the military that has a strong incentive to use our services in order to authenticate on the checkout. and be if you combine payment processing relationships, we're talking with a few payment processers about riding tear rails -- their rails, they would basically pay us a percentage of the fee because they would become the preferred -- [inaudible] 10% off discount. >> host: are you working with the veterans administration at:.

we're integrated into the department of veterans affairs innovation center. we protect programs. right now, you know, for some of the membership programs and training programs the va funds, they were hiring veterans to -- [inaudible] to the vendor or to e-mail it in. so the problem with that is that the ddt-14's got your name, your social, your address, even your blood type. everything that a bad guy would need to steal your identity if there was a break inn at the vendor -- breakin at the vendor. we fundamentally change that by just giving the vendor what they need to know which is, yes, this person is eligible for the program, or, no, they're not. and in order to become eligible, they need to pass this criteria. but it becomes a much more secure process with us involved. so part of the thing that motivates is us is we realize

veterans are at elevated risk for identity theft because the only you ubiquitous form of credentials for veterans is their ddp-14. and it's a lille t like carrying your birth certificate around with you. the only card that veterans have go to retirees who have served 20 years or more. for guys like matt who served for 12 years, for guys like me, we were at a disadvantage when it comes to proving our identity unless we pull out our photo album and show pictures. >> host: blake hall, how many members? >> guest: we have over 140,000 members. we launched with under armour, veterans affairs and telluride ski resort on november of last year, signed up 48,000 new members between november 12th and december 31st. we recently had overstock -- [inaudible] and right now we've got 10 or 11

fortune 500 and national telecom, national airline on the schedule. so we think we're on a trajectory to hit somewhere between one behalf and three million users. we're talking to some of the biggest names in e-commerce. >> host: blake hall is the ceo of troop id. troopid.com is the web site. >> guest: thank you very much. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> just ahead, an examination of the death penalty and the origins of the 8th amendment that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. then an historical look at u.s. relations with buy an iranian-american author and journalist. and later the senate returns at 2 p.m. eastern for general speeches. no roll call votes are expected today.

>> also today the heritage foundation hosts current and former deputy assistant defense secretaries from the obama and george w. bush administrations to talk about guantanamo bay prison in cuba and its detainee policy. president obama recently renewed his push to close the facility which he's described as lingering problem that will worsen if it remains open. his comments came amid a growing hunger strike at guantanamo that's spread in recent weeks to include about 100 of its 166 inmates. you can watch the discussion live over on c-span or listen to it on c-span radio at noon eastern. >> she's the first first lady to earn a college degree, and during the civil war soldiers serving under her husband called her the mother of the regiment. opposing slavery, she influences her husband to switch from the whig party to the anti-slavery republican party. and she hosts the fist annual white house -- first annual white house easter egg roll. meet lucy hayes, wife