it was wonderful to see everybody up close. such a great mixture in this race this year. >> 20 to learn most, doing this learnt -- what did you most, doing this project? ,> a new way to shoot portraits for me, and a way to capture a special moment for someone. i'm going to these foot a lot, and it is challenging to capture the moment when their smile disappeared, and that what is what i was looking for. >> there are other photographs in this series by professional photographer mark.

>> host: this become "the communicators" a look at some of the issues that will be faced by the tech community, congress and the federal government in 2016. we have a roundtable of working reporters to talk with. cory bennett is what the hell on the cover cybersecurity there are, kate tummarello works for "politico" and covers technology and lydia beyoud with bloomberg where she covers telecommunications. lydia beyoud one of the big issues coming up are the spectrum auctions in march. >> guest: march 29 is the official kickoff day for broadcasters. they will be looking to go out of business or possibly channel

sharing agreements with their colleagues and a few months after that essentially that will wrap up and we will see the wireless start and we are looking at public bidders as well, comcast announced today that they might looking for some of that hard spectrum so it will be several months of close attention on the fcc fcc. prescod you say fcc. >> host: accuse a several month so most of 2016 we will be talking about this but i'm auctions are looking at it? >> guest: fcc is looking at the auction closing sometime the third quarter. >> host: closing in the third quarter. kate tummarello is there a just, he'll? >> guest: tons of interest. a lot of lawmakers have activity necessary because all of their constituents, the house-senate committee selected the somewhat in senate commerce committee with senator thune is interested

in pushing his mobile now bill which has tons more spectrum and aggressive timeline for the federal government to relinquish some of their spectrum. hopefully he will move it in the next few weeks. >> host: why the delay? >> guest: there has been some concern in the administration that the defense department doesn't want to give up all of the spectrum. >> host: so he is looking at the government side? >> guest: once the broadcasters give up their spectrum that moves onto the federal government and the defense department has a lot of it and they tend to be quiet about what they do with it because of national security concerns so i think there has been a lot of push and pull and give-and-take between telecom community in the senate community to find a happy mediums where people can get the spectrum that they need. >> host: lydia beyoud how will these spectrum auctions change our lives as consumers?

>> guest: i think for consumers on the broadcast side you won't notice much difference in the technology developments after the tv transition but that should hopefully be fairly simple. the real real hope for innovation opportunities on the wireless side with potentially senior competitors in the wireless market where you mentioned much faster video speeds. by 2020 a lot of telecom companies are talking about bringing into existence the sixth generation networks that are going to power the internet of things and incentive auctions are viewed as the critical platform for getting that spectrum and the pipeline for them to yell to do that. >> host: cory bennett national security. 2015 we saw a lot of high-profile highly publicized security breaches. is there a solution that the federal government and a solution of the congress can

have? >> guest: is a solution that comes in many pieces. the one refrain we hear on capitol hill and the white house is no silver bullet. they took a step and 2013 backers of the major sub is a bill which was ultimately called the act of 2015 which you probably know as the cybersecurity information sharing apps but that was signed into law just before the new year, late december. it was passed there is the omnibus budget will. the 1.15 chilean dollar budget bill and the idea behind that is it's a first step in terms of allowing people to understand more about the hacking threats that the country faces. backers of the bill which the white house was on board had wrought by partisans of war. many industry groups were on board. they said we want to be able to share more information with the government and have the government share more information with us and we want legal liability protections when we are doing that. if they are able to be able to quickly see the hacking threats

that are out there perhaps one company say home depot we could mitigate the fallout from that because we could more quickly tap the government for a solution to that problem. we can also tell of the companies to look up or that. in the past companies that felt they been hindered from sharing that information because of legal concerns. so the ideas that this will help it will not stop help hack so ever. proponents of the bill are very clear about this. we are still going to see data breaches in 2016. they are probably going to be massive and they're still going to come from places such as china, such as iran and russia as well as these massive cybercrime syndicates we are seeing the hope is this will help. down the size of those breaches. >> host: is there a privacy issue involved sex. >> guest: there's a huge privacy issue involved with this. this bill in particular garnered much opposition from privacy advocates from civil

libertarians. there was a coalition on capitol hill that was very vocal that combined the far right libertarians with privacy minded democrats and came together. we have seen the ejection of bill to repeal the cybersecurity act. people are not only matter to not only met at the bill they say this information sharing their main problem is that it's going to lead to unfettered sharing of people's personal information with the government and that information because of the bill automatic sharing provisions of the bill would be widely disseminated throughout the federal government including health agencies and given the snowden leaks in the ongoing distrust of the nsa is that's very concerning to privacy advocates. >> host: kate tummarello it's an election year. any of this going to happen? >> guest: seems like people are preparing for the slowdown but comes with an election year but i think they're still a lot to get done in lawmakers and cfpb, they're not going to stop

anytime soon. privacy is actually big issue that comes up in the elections but there's a list of 6% of bullet point items that congress is they are going to get done the year before they return for the elections and surveillance is one of the things that they are talking about. last year congress passed the usa freedom act which reform the patriot act that allow them to collect the controversial phone record data. next year another provisions expiring that has to do with on line surveillance in congress is starting a conversation about for performing that los osos concerning as cory mentions about something they have to tackle in the next year and they have already started. even though it will definitely slow down some of these issues especially things like privacy that everyone knows about these things will continue to be on the front burner. >> guest: that's true. there's a privacy debate going on at the fcc with regards to

net neutrality roles and have been kicking this new rulemaking down line for the past several months perhaps in anticipation of a court ruling on a case they argued back in december. a lot of issues related to what you are talking about cory with regards to notifying consumers when a data breach has occurred and also they want the fcc to require the fcc to obtain affirmative consent before they gather and share that data later on. so that's going to be one of the next things in the oversight hearing. >> guest: it's interesting you mention the movement of the fcc because i'm a data breach bill doesn't seem like we are going to see a lot of movement. there are so many options out there. it humbles the senate side in

the house side and it doesn't seem to be much of a unifying support behind any one of the offerings. they had trouble trying to move on last year and predict when we have only seen more bills come out on this topic since then. ostensibly they want companies to be required to tell the government within a certain period of time the mail data breach and most bill set a minimum security data standard that are handling data around the country but i would imagine what i'm hearing from people i'm talking to is in an election year no movement at all. >> guest: especially with -- >> guest: they have extend a lot of political capital getting that through and i think any bipartisan privacy minded democrats who want to see the privacy privacy breach bill go for and republicans wanted extended. >> host: sudbury human to the net neutrality ruling. two things, number one what is the privacy issue involved in

net neutrality that you brought up but also help us in single -- untangle how that's going to play out. >> guest: the provision was net neutrality is how internet service is collecting data and what they do with it and you will see many rulemaking arguments that why is it okay for us to be regulated by the fcc on this issue when other companies that also collect a lot of data like facebook or google do similar things with that. the flip side is groups say well you are not just controlling where people go but controlling how they get their so that's probably going to be one of the key debates. there are a lot of policy experts out there who say you know, isps may be don't have as much data as you think they do particularly to our mobile and a computer and other wireless debates -- devices since the data may get chopped up a little bit at the fcc is

going to be looking at all of those aspects and eventually coming out with a note of proposed rulemaking that they will really get their teeth into later on. >> host: and the larger issue of net neutrality of potential ruling, when he would you expect the ruling report? >> guest: the people i've spoken with, they're putting in the end of april or around april it could be earlier or could be a little later but most people think they will be expeditious. >> host: what will change? >> guest: depending on how they rule i think the timeline is really interesting because we are seeing a lot of activity in congress on net neutrality and something we have seen for the last few years. as long as it's been an issue congress has been interested that but recently the house energy and commerce committee started moving piecemeal net neutrality bills. they moved it chair -- bill from chairman walden that makes an exemption for small businesses and they moved the bill that

would prohibit the fcc from using a net neutrality rule for net regulation. these are all small things that chip away at the net neutrality order but obviously the court strikes it down or the court holds that the that changes the game entirely for the slated game around net neutrality and you have people saying they're working on the net neutrality bill which we have heard for over a year but he is insistent that they are getting close to an appeal but if the court upholds the rules there's no reason for democrats to come to the table on a deal. there is no reason for republicans to come to the table on the net neutrality bill so this will change a lot in terms of the dynamics on the hill regarding net neutrality. >> guest: one of the key dynamics as well is might perhaps uphold the reclassification or for your cable companies or your wire lines but maybe not wireless so you could end up with split regulation possibly and the fcc

might have to go back and render the rules. >> host: cory bennett when it comes to election 2016 and some of the issues you cover how will it affect that? >> guest: it's interesting if you haven't seen much on the issue of cybersecurity. it's been an issue to people been afraid to wade into potentially revealing a lack of understanding and knowledge. ben carson issued a cybersecurity policy paper recently that was -- critically by the tech community. what you have seen his encryption come to the forefront in the wake of the terrorist attacks in both paris and san bernardino. encryption has become the one element of cybersecurity that is brought up constantly as part of the national security but also a privacy discussion. we were talking earlier about privacy encryption is an issue that many people feel very strongly about in the privacy community and the tech community that we need all robust

impeccable encryption in order to protect basic on line activities, on line banking and on line shopping come everyday activities of people don't realize are reliant on encryption. they say any access to encryption, any type of guarantee to ask us to encryption inherently introduces some type of vulnerability that would expose all of the data not only to the good guys investigators and government officials but also nefarious hackers, those kinds of people. obviously though the pendulum has somewhat swung in the wake of the terrorist attacks. law enforcement and many the republican presidential candidates as well as the democratic presidential candidates. we have seen a lot of tough talk from both of them in the sense that they want law enforcement have some type of access to that data whether it's when they are served at a court order or whether they are required to buy a bill passed through congress. aa lot of that on the republican

side and on the democratic side we have seen talk about well we need to work with them on a voluntary basis. we don't want to mandate anything. we don't want to mandate a technical backdoor here but we want to work with them so if they can give us data voluntarily. >> host: what is the view from congress? >> guest: one of the interesting things about the encryption debate is how global the perspective is because a lot of members will argue a ksa we mandate that apple give us imax which is currently encrypted, what if the terrorist groups move to a russian-based company where there is no backdoor and we just kind of are playing whack-a-mole at that point in not solving the problem? this will come down to a think a lot of corporations within the u.s. but also on a global scale and we are just beginning these conversations and is the kind of thing that the administration has a cohesive perspective on this.

different branches in different people so this is definitely an adjusting conversation i think it's just starting. >> guest: what's interesting about that decision meant to the white house is not put its foot down on this and we can expect the white house to do that perhaps in the coming weeks. this is something they said in december that they were going to an issue in updated stamp on encryption policy and they said around the new year. the new year is coming ghonim this is february we have not seen it but it can be expected soon and a lot of people are looking to the white house lawmakers privacy advocates are looking at the white house to be the debate because congress i don't think is going to go anywhere on this. there are perhaps multiple proposals some for guaranteed access some for a national commission to discuss the issue but really i think everyone comes to the white house to put their foot down. we can see that update a policy stance in the coming weeks. >> guest: as you mentioned there's a lot of debate at the higher level within the government itself. there's a lot of ongoing effort between the justice department

and other agencies, the state department to view not only information sharing but also with their counterparts abroad so while the and lawmakers continue to work on this there is quite a bit of action being done at the agency level. >> guest: i think it's interesting, just kind of going off that we have seen with the safe harbor deal, there there ie privacy shield now which is a wonderful rebranding. we have seen that and we have also seen even the law enforcement agreement between the e.u. and the u.s. to share more data about transatlantic. so we have seen a number of these data-sharing agreements and they are often contingent on the u.s. strengthening its own privacy laws. >> with that is going to have to vote on the judicial redress act which is a huge condition. it will be interesting to see if europe ends up being happy with

a bill that congress turned out. it's definitely very much a transatlantic at debate is one that i think there's a lot of seeping past each other because they're so much difference. >> host: all right, we have 10 minutes but read what are some topics that interest you and what do you foresee? >> guest: i think 2016 is going to be an interesting year for internet governance. we have been talking about this plan, the u.s. government to step back from its oversight role of the domain system for a long time now. this is the year i think it could all come to a head. a lot of the domain names administrative roles will propose to the u.s. government for increased accountability and the transition in the coming weeks supposedly and then it will be up to the government to facilitate that transition plan however congress has set in the past it doesn't want this happening. republicans in congress hate this plan and they don't want to

go forward or they haven't even seen it yet but they don't like the idea in general so they have had funding limitations through the preparation's process on the ntia in the commerce department for years now. this will be the gear that it matters. if they continue to put those funding limitations on that could limitations on that could hurt the transition and more importantly that could hurt the way the internet governance works around the world. they assert that the u.s. deserves a bigger role in governance than other countries who would like to have so we will see the proposal soon we will see how lawmakers react. >> host: there was a delay put in last year wasn't there? >> guest: they have taken longer to come up with this transition proposal then they thought it would be. it's a very large sometimes unruly type of character. there are a lot of people involved so you know they say they are coming down to it. they have it. they have reached agreements it. they have reached agreements in their formalizing it and are they're going to propose a bit if congress continues these funding limitations it will be

up to the administration to work with congress to get over that hurdle. >> host: there is a there is aurora locked in's, sent there? >> guest: there is and it's interesting the energy and commerce department passed its version of the.com act which is basically letting the go forward with a plan that would give congress a think 30 legislative days to review the plan. the house passed it overwhelmingly but in the senate it got held up by senator ted cruz who is as we know running for president and it's ironic because that could end up costing congress and the oversight. they don't keep these funding limitations in place and don't pass the dot.com act that congress can do whatever it wants so we will see of cruz moves the bill. if ted cruz becomes president all bets are off. >> host: lydia beyoud another topic? >> guest: the fcc has set up a controversial proceeding later

this month at its next meeting with the set-top box market and that is the updating your cable system and will probably be a fraught issue. they have talked about making it so other companies would be able to use existing technologies and hardware to make it easier to navigate for your cable channels through your netflix are your hulu and there started than a coalition of companies from the industry and that's everything from dish to at&t and many others who are opposing it but google meanwhile is really trying to push this as a good idea. they have been doing demonstrations most recently for fcc staff and there is a little bit of he said she said going on right now between people who have this equipment ready when actually the whole proceeding

took place because of the acceleration working group report that came out in 2015 and now we are sort of seeing it all come to a head as the fcc is about to unveil what really is new. >> host: michael powell was on this program a month or so ago. the head of the cable industry lobbying group and he said they loved it. >> guest: the cable industry has said we can do almost all of that with the box box and it necessarily need the box but consumer groups say the top boxes are major revenue stream for cable providers. it's been estimated that the average consumer spends $230 a year on multiple cable boxes in their homes but you know it's a question of where is the market market going in while the fcc be able to do something that truly opens it up in a competitive way and how will the different

industries be able to sort of massage the rules into something that benefits them and the average consumer as well? >> host: at this point are cable companies, broadcast companies, netflix, apple tv, google tv and crumb tv are they regulated different or unregulated? >> guest: i would think they would say that they are. it depends on what base you are talking about in the cable market. cable and satellite companies are subject to different regulations and then also compared to providers. when you get into things like google fiber that is the cable company so it seems like there's a little bit of redrawing of how these different companies are regulated as more and more combined. >> host: cory bennett another topic? >> guest: think the u.s. and china the cyber relations between the two countries will continue to be interesting. it has fallen out of the

headline somewhat in the last few months following in september president obama and president xi agreed to this deal to incorporate taxing up the kind of cyber espionage we saw with the opm hack but the kind of hacking were a country steals another company's intellectual property and perhaps gives it to it domestic competitor. all analysts have said that the u.s. economy is losing hundreds of millions, billions of dollars every year because of this type of hacking and they struck a deal to end this type of cyber attack. we don't know yet how that has worked. the white house has said it doesn't necessarily have a metric ready to show people to prove whether china is her is not appearing to the deal but we should see the white house and a couple months, but some indication of whether or not china has gone along with its promise and the result is that could actually be very telling for the future of u.s.-china

cyber relations. where before the deal was struck there were many reports at the white house was pretty open about this that they were planning to sanction china, sanction companies and individuals within china for these types of cyberattacks. they have since come back and declined to do that but most people imagine that they will eventually wields the sanctions and i will come from an infringement of this deal. so i think it's going to be interesting to watch as these countries meet every six months to flush out this deal which was very big one is initially announced and decide how we are going to measure whether or not you are hearing to it. what are we going to do if you want to -- this agreement so that something perhaps to something perhaps you will see in the next three to six months, movement in that and it speaks to the entire future of the u.s. china cyber relations which many see as normalizing that have the potential to change course is very quickly. >> host: kate tummarello i'm

going to be awkward in my phrasing i guess but how tech-savvy are campaigns these days and how much technology is being used in this election cycle? >> guest: i think compared to 12 years ago very very tech-savvy. everyone talks about the obama campaign revolutionary and -- revolutionizing the way people use data and there's more more information on line about people's activity every day so it only makes the campaign step into that to take out who they should be reaching out to and foods they should have campaigning on behalf of them so it's something that is definitely increased dramatically. tech seven s. in general and campaigns and i can only imagine what 12 years from now will look like especially if we all have google glasses and have campaign ads growing by his 24/7. it will be definitely very interesting advance. >> guest: also to add to that

if you look at the facebook in addition to proprietary databases and proprietary software facebook is a very powerful data collection that allows campaigns to drill down to a very granule love for -- granular level on what persuasion of republican or democrat might you be. i think we have seen a lot of it over all put election campaigns are often on the cutting-edge. >> host: facebook in fact has republicans and democrats working on staff to help the campaigns, don't they? >> guest: yeah and it's interesting to see companies like google and facebook have got involved. the last republican debate on fox every commercial break visit if you google fox republican debate you can be taken to a special google page that provides the data. there such a synthesis right now between the message that the pit

campaigns and parties want to get out of the way to companies like facebook and google can get their the message out so that's something we will see a lot more of. >> host: in the last three years has there have been an increase in activity between tech companies and their presence in washington? >> guest: absolutely. i think it's astronomical. we have seen a major silicon valley's businesses open up businesses. they are setting new records almost every quarter. it's across all issues that we have talked about today and it will be interesting to see where that goes because some may argue that there hasn't necessarily been in a lot of wins on capitol hill to this point so they are increasing funding but they haven't necessarily seen that commensurate results on capitol hill. one might argue the other way it certainly consumer groups would do so but that will be something interesting to watch as they continue to increase lobbying

spending. >> guest: yeah it's definitely been interesting to watch the industries grow up innocents in washington and sub to his right. the tech industry didn't get the patent bill or information -- immigration reform to a lot of open things on her dockets. >> guest: the cybersecurity bill. >> guest: exactly. they don't have these track record that i'm sure they wish they had. it's interesting how individual people within companies are playing a larger and larger role apple will come out and meet with members or no gates and that has a lot of benefits i'm sure. i think they are trying to figure out the best way to get what they need from washington. >> guest: perhaps there will be this encryption debate we talked about. tim cook is at the forefront leading the fight for the tech of indian terms of pro-and break of the encryption so that could

be a bellwether we will see bellwether we will see in and 2016. >> guest: it's not just capitol hill but the regulatory level and by figuring out how to better get their message to individual policymakers and their staff and working heavily on some of the issues that they are most concerned about. plus car wreck roundtable, lydia beyoud lunenburg did dna and kate tummarello of pluto and cory bennett. with one day before the hampshire primary are road to the white house continues with governor john kasich at a town hall in windham.