book tv is television for serious readers all weekend every weekend join us again next saturday beginning at 8:00 a.m. eastern for the best and nonfiction books. .. .. >> host: this week on "the communicators" we want to introduce you to jason oxman, president and ceo of a group called information technology industry council.

mr. mr. oxman, who do represent? >> guest: ipi is a crystallization of the technology sector. we represent 70 of the world's largest and most innovative technology companies. we've been around for 103 years, founded in 1960 at the association of business appliance manufacturers, scales and time clocks and over those 103 103 years our industry has changed and so has iti. our representation of tech sector companies is quite profitable. >> host: how did you get into the splendid work? >> guest: i been in d.c. close to 25 years. i came to work on broadband policies after the '96 act passed at the federal communications commission. i've been involved in the tech policy sector, worked at the fourth trade association. iran the payments technology industry before joining iti. >> host: as you well know there are several trade associations that represent

tech, and some of the companies that represent our members of a lot of them, dell, adobe, google, microsoft, et cetera. what is it that you do differently? >> guest: there are a lot of great technology trade associations and like a lot of other industries there are industry segment representatives within a broader industry like technology. they deal with software specific issues or semiconductor specific issues or intellectual property issues and the like. what's unique about iti is where truly the broad cross-section of the tech sector sort members include software and hardware companies, manufacture, service providers, infrastructure companies, a broad range of the industry so we are unique in that we have the opportunity to represent all segments. >> host: to help us delve into those public policy issues that iti deals with is steven overly of "politico."

>> thank thank you so much. good to chat with you again. i want to start it talked about privacy. this week maria cantwell released a deal that has some democratic support. i'm curious what you make of that bill, it being released now particularly give it the dome has? >> guest: this is an incredibly important issue. iti came out with principles to advance federal privacy legislation over a year ago. we were the first association to say i'm half of an industry we need federal privacy legislation. it's important for consumers and the components of that privacy legislation that we think are important is one, it needs to be federal. we need a unified national privacy law that allows both innovators and consumers to know what their rights are and have that fair and effective balance of both knowing those rights and having access to innovative services that consumers demand.

we appreciate the movement forward at the federal level. there are a lot of important components to federal privacy legislation that the bill will delve into. we know of the legislation will be introduced. our hope is it will be bipartisan because this is a bipartisan issue. the consumer focus needs to be on empowering consumers to know what their rights are, needs to be a focus on transparency, needs to be a focus on control. our hope is the passage of federal privacy law will have all of those components. >> do you think releasing this bill with only democratic support, does that hasten or hamper the prospect of getting to bipartisan legislation? >> guest: there is bipartisan support for this in the senate, in the house. we had seen and your coverage has shown from discussions with members from both sides of the out this is an incredibly important issue, there is a

broad understanding. there's understanding from this legislation because members have introduced it. they understand the value. bipartisan support is necessary to move everything through congress, and our expectation is that although legislation will be introduced from a variety of members, eventually we'll move toward something everyone has provisions of what agrees with. gdpr in europe has a very interesting model and, of course, california has adopted privacy legislation so there's lot to throw into the mix. >> host: you say gdpr is an interesting model. is that an overstep from the view of iti? >> guest: no. iti was supportive of gdpr at

the time it was adopted. we remain it today. two very interesting and important things that led to gdpr. one in europe at the time it was under discussion there were 28 separate national privacy regimes that made it virtually impossible for consumers to have any idea on a europewide basis what the rights were under national privacy machine. gdpr unify those 28 separate machines under one european wide reaching. second, on the enforcement side, gdpr empowers what are called national data protection authorities at the state level if you will, at the nation level, to make sure the law is enforced. those two things were very important to us as an industry. >> host: and that said, with all those different standards, california introducing its own and other states looking at that, is that an impediment to growth?

>> guest: we think it's an impediment to consumers having access to a unified body of rights so they can understand what is being done with their data and understand what they can do as a result of that knowledge. we think it's an impediment to innovation because if we have companies trying to design products that have to ascribe to 50 different privacy regimes across the country, it makes it impossible to continue to support the innovation we are looking for. that's why we think federal privacy legislation is so important. >> now that ranking member cantwell has put down a marker with this legislation that she is released what are you expecting to see from republicans, particularly roger wicker on this issue? >> guest: we appreciate the fact the ranking member and the chairman of the senate commerce committee have been in discussion and dialogue and obviously this week is a a big week for production of legislation as well. we expect and understand that dialogue will continue.

there is a broad recognition from all parties from both sides of the aisle that this legislation needs to happen, that federal privacy legislation is important and it will not move forward unless the bipartisan agreement. >> one of the provisions i know senator cantwell bill includes but is caused to be is the rights of individuals to sue technology companies if they break any of these new data privacy rules. is that an enforcement mechanism the industry can live with? >> guest: enforcement is very important and we included in our privacy principles they need to ensure that a federal privacy law is a program enforced. we have -- the federal trade commission is appropriate body to that. she includes a provision to expand the resources allocated to the bureau, recognizing they need additional resources from the federal government to take on this responsibility.

the concern we would have about other enforcement regimes in addition to the ftc is does that really advance the consumers interest if the enforcement is taking place at the federal trade commission? we believe that ensures consumers know where they can go if they need the enforcement of the federal privacy law, insurance company knows to whose jurisdiction they are subject if you put that jurisdiction in private hands. if you put the ability of consumers to get the redress they need in private hands. we think that's less effective than a lot of the ftc to do it. >> does iti support a bill or is redline for folks in your association? >> guest: we have been focused on moving legislation forward and being part of the dialogue and part of the discussion. if there were particular provision in the bill that a member of cards want to ask industry but we would be happy to provide the input. our focus is moving legislation

forward, not on identifying any particular provision as one would stop things from happening. our goal at this point having laid the marker down we think federal privacy legislation needs to happen is to do whatever we can to move it forward. >> host: with your member groups be supportive of a gdpr like structure in the states? >> guest: i made mention for the iti principles with published and those principles borrow quite a bit from gdpr. we think it's an appropriate framework to use for discussions. discussions. the u.s. market is different from europe so that every provision necessarily carries over or translates to what would work in the u.s. market. indeed, california's privacy legislation as well, you mentioned it before. there are provisions in the california legislation really should be included in principles that advance legislation as well. >> i want to talk about some of the trade talks that happening. many in washington at the moment. we heard speaker pelosi comment

this week the congress and the trump administration are making progress on the u.s.-mexico-canada trade agreement. i know there's some digital provisions in there that are important to your members. one of which i want to ask about is sort of proposal to expand liability protections for internet meteors like facebook or google. does i.t. i still support including those provisions in the u.s. can see a trade agreement? >> guest: the a lot of provisions that address the digital economy in the usmca. this is a replacement for nafta which has a know is that it's old and has a provision entity related to the telegraph. that's how old it is. there's work that needs to be done, and the digital provisions are particularly important because cross-border data flows are uniquely important to the technology industry. we are pleased with the provisions that of a negotiated in nafta and it is one of our top priorities to do everything we can to encourage passage of

the usmca and you noted we think there's been a lot of really good progress the administration is that with the job of working openly with congress to move it forward. we're optimistic it will happen quickly. >> host: where do some of those provisions benefit your member companies? why are you pleased with him? >> guest: one of the biggest areas of coverage for digital provisions in the usmca is what we call cross-border data flows, the ability of companies to move data across borders to ensure that what are called data localization policies are not adopted by nations, policies that would require data to never cross borders. particularly advent of cloud services and other digital services it's particularly important for companies to have the ability to send data across borders. that's an important provision. it was not in nafta. it is in usmca and we think it's important to move that forward. >> the one provision in usmca a mention around what we know as

section 230, like protections. i know when iti first commented on usmca it was supportive of those provisions. since then we seen some members suggest they shouldn't be in a trade agreement, particularly ibm and oracle. has your view change at all for your support for those provisions changed at all? >> guest: section 230 is included in certain trade agreements because it is u.s. law. our advocacy was focused on the fact that provision because it is effective federal law in the united states was appropriate for inclusion in trade talks. whether those provisions will be included in trade talks going forward is unknown. it's a hypothetical. it's possible that they will be. i think it's important to ensure that our trade negotiations reflect the priorities of the u.s. economy. section 230 has been been important to the development of the internet economy if you will in the united states.

that's why he it was included n the trade talks at the time. it is currently federal law so i think it's important we include that in the discussions as well. >> elsewhere in the world we're in trade talks with china and those that showed some signs of progress. we just saw an announcement at a beijing some sort of vague guidelines permit intellectual property theft which is a paramount issue to your members when it comes to china. does that give you some confidence we might see greater punishment or greater penalties in china for ip theft? >> guest: it's a huge priority. it's why we think the top administration is doing a good job in putting pressure on china to change some fundamental flaws in the way they do business. intellectual property theft is an enormously important issue for the technology industry by china has of the policies that make it enormously difficult for

u.s. companies to compete fairly effectively in china. financial services companies, card network companies cannot offer service in china for chinese technology company can do so in the u.s. cross-border data flows are very restrictive in china. the chinese government maintains the ability to take information at will. all of these fundamental issues need to be addressed. it's important we address them in the context of the trade agreement. we remain optimistic we can get that trade agreement done. we have seen some announcements about promises of reform. those announcements have been made before and we appreciate that the administration is not just rely on public announcements out the china but looking for an actual concrete agreement to be signed. >> what should enforcement of some of these issues look like? that's been one of the criticisms or concerned in the past is that our promises or that are agreements that are

made that there is no backing that up. if you were to draft an ideal trade agreement with china what enforcement would be in place for those measures? >> guest: enforcement is incredibly important. with china in particular this is been an issue. even with china's entry into the wto we see enforcement challenges. our view is the top administration is on the right path in ensuring those enforcement mechanisms are in there as you know from having this issue. that's been one of the holdups. it's been china's unwillingness to include concrete enforcement mechanisms in the agreement. some accounts of the challenges and what caused china to walk away earlier this you was because of our insistence on including those important provision in the agreement. we agreed have to be in their and we are looking forward to china moving on the issue. >> host: just to build up on what stephen was talking about, intellectual property theft, the

chinese governments involvement in the tech sector. are we getting to a point where the world wide web and the internet are going to be bifurcated, different internets for different people? >> guest: i certainly hope not. we've seen china take steps in that direction. we so russia announced a couple weeks ago their desire to create a russian internet. that moves us in the wrong direction. we are the global economy, a global people. the technology industry is particularly focus on deploying innovative products and services that connect us all. i fear that in some circumstances as you said we are moving in that direction. china and russia the two examples of that. i hope we don't end up there. that's not what we want to be but the risk of that is very real. >> a lot of your members do business in china, whether that's manufacturing, selling. has it become harder under this

administration to do business with china because of the concerns with national security and cybersecurity and issues we've seen raised by trump but also by congress? >> guest: u.s. companies pay very close attention to national security issues but it's not just the u.s. issue. it's an issue around the world. every nation is charged with protecting its citizens and different nations take different approaches. what we seen from the trump administration that is laudable is a move toward using a a trae agreement is way to address these issues. if we can get a good trade agreement with china site that should address the issues related to cybersecurity, related to trade, supply chain. the are two important things to remember as we continue these discussions. one we have global supply chain and that means u.s. manufacturers even rely on components that are manufactured around the world. we want to continue the global flow of products and services,

data and physical as well. the second thing is 95% of the world consumes live outside of the united states. so for technology company products and services it's important to have global addressable market. we need to see that address as well. on the national security issues, that is a very important role of government. we have been encouraged by the way which the trump administration have sought to address these issues, having rakers fact-based analysis to ensure that if action is going to be taken on the security grounds, it's done because there is a national security threat to address. >> i know we seen announcement out of the commerce department that the want to look at these issues on a case-by-case basis. do you believe that rakers canalis is happening? in some who suggested that some penalties this administration has opposed like on huawei are more motivated by trade talks and economic interest the

national security? >> guest: given those concerns that's why we do support the way the trump administration has moved this forward. the announcement you are referencing is one that implements the mate executive order. the way the commerce department is implementing it is we think very positive. it does put into place a rigorous case-by-case fact-based analysis, reflecting that national security concerns are what we should be examined, not ancillary issues. the second thing is it opens over making proceeding to provide opportunity for comment from industry and other stakeholders to make sure the rules are put in place, are actually going to address this national security concerns. this is what government does. it protects citizens so these are important issues to address. >> host: before we went at a time i want to make sure we turn to antitrust. there's been talk of breaking up the facebook's, google's of the

world. what are your thoughts? >> guest: antitrust is an important body of law that has been used over the history of the country, the 100 your history of the antitrust laws to address serious marketplace failures. what's important to remember is when we look back at where government has stepped in to address market issues, the best example being the breakup of at&t the starting in 1982. that was to address a monopoly telecom market. i think we're all benefited. consumers, industry and the government itself from the opening of local telecom markets to competition. but that was a very rare case. it was close to 40 years ago. it was a very long process that played out over the course of decades. antitrust matters of law enforcement matters. there's been speculation about what is being looked into. we don't have a lot of facts but it's important to remember that our primary goal should be to ensure consumers can benefit from the best most robust most

innovative technologies and how important this is to our economy, the technology industries 10% of u.s. economy, generates $2 trillion in economic activity. more than 12 million americans work in the tech industry. that's important to remember as law enforcement does its work. >> host: but when facebook ties up a whatsapp or instagram, et cetera, et cetera, isn't that slowing or quashing the competition? >> guest: those companies would say those acquisitions have been successful and the fact the government did approve those applications but putting aside individual companies interaction with the government, the broader issue is we need to remember the antitrust as a body of law is a law enforcement matter, and those investigations sometimes play out over decades. there have been many companies in history that it had 12, 13 year interactions that ended with no action by the government. the same day the government

announced the breakup of at&t the and and still dropping investigation into ibm. it's important to look at that. it's important to remember atmospherically that antitrust carries a big weight. people think about as a very heavy action and, indeed, it is. we need to remember as with national security issues that a case-by-case basis based on rigorous analysis of facts and law is what we should be looking at these issues. >> i want ask because we've been to china. now i would like to take us to france if we could. france is looking at a digital services tax that could impose a tax on compass a like google or facebook that you electronic-commerce or information services. that's a concern of your members and of your association. have you heard any development on out talks between the u.s. and france are going on that issue? >> guest: this is an important issue because taxation has global implications. the french digital services tax

that you referencing has been widely reported as a point only choice moment of u.s. companies. we were concerned about the impact of the tax on innovation. our view at iti on this issue is they shouldn't be country specific solutions. if we need an updated tax structure it should be done on an international basis. the oecd is the organization that's been looking into these issues. we believe that's the proper venue for addressing these issues. the united states government did open an investigation under section 301 as the provision that allows investigation of these matters. that is still pending. the is and france have been in heavy discussions about this. france has indicated at least publicly they are interested in allowing the oecd to resolve this issue. we think that's the best possible outcome. >> the wto is looking at the own

moratorium on e-commerce. i believe that if set to expire next month if i'm not mistaken. do you have any expectations for whether that will be renewed or won't what might come of that? >> guest: that's an important parallel discussion to these issues, and what's interesting about the wto doing this as with the oecd, it's a worldwide body and they have the ability to adopt policies that multiple nations will address. the multi-national solution that we're all looking for we think is best out of the oecd. they have made a lot of progress. the oecd has specific country members that almost every country on earth follows the oecd guidelines we believe that's the best way to get to a truly global solution. >> if france impose its own duties on e-commerce or what have you that we might see bigger countries like india, south africa, elsewhere start to impose their own taxes?

>> guest: many countries have suggested they will do so. on the geographic scope that's problematic if you're if you dt countries adopting different regions for taxation. also on innovation standpoint, if you will, it makes it more difficult if we are trying to effectively ring fenced digital services and treat them differently for tax purposes and physical goods. that's not a good way to be. that's not the way that will promote innovation. >> host: jason oxman, let's bring it domestic. election security. is iti involved in it? >> guest: our member companies are the compass and to provide election security. it's an important issue. it's an headlines because we've seen attempts to interfere with u.s. elections. our member companies are focused on cybersecurity products generally so it secret election infrastructure, also securing healthcare infrastructure, securing retail infrastructure to everything that is connected, if you will, needs to be secured. secured.

on the election security issue specifically, what we've been pleased about is the willingness of federal, state and local governments to partner with technology companies in search of good solutions. we are doing everything we can as an industry to support our partners that are responsible for elections and we are cautiously optimistic, if you will, that enough jurisdictions will adopt these technologies to do a a better job of securing r infrastructure. >> host: cybersecurity and desha complex is becoming a term trend to it is indeed and it's a term because of the necessity of that partnership. the u.s. government is one of the largest purchasers of technology in the world, and if you add in state and county local governments as well you have a multi-trillion dollar market for purchases of technology. we are focused at iti on public sector, private partnerships. we just brought on board the former cio of the fbi to lead

our public sector efforts because of the importance of these issues. >> host: time for one more question. >> we've seen in the last years in washington increased criticism of a segment of the tech population or the tech companies, particularly internet companies. some of that criticism is coming from other parts of the industry. i'm curious as the leader of an organization that represents how many companies, how was the way the conversation has changed the washington impacting your organization and your lobbying approach with lawmakers? >> guest: it's interesting and it is something every industry experiences, the magic of a trade association as we bring together the fiercest marketplace competitors around the table and what we asked him to do is take off their company had to put on their industry hats and work collaboratively, where we can find areas to find collaborative interests, if you will. and move those forward to the benefit of the entire industry.

we are no different from any other industry segment, from pharmaceuticals to paint and coatings, every trade association has their competitors that are around the table that do things to benefit the industry and then they go out and sometimes they sue each other and sometimes they compete against each other, sometimes they take at against each other. you asked about how this has changed. if we were having this conversation 15 15 years ago it would've been about the fierce marketplace and policy battles between the cable companies and the telcos. you don't hear a lot about that anymore because they felt more areas of overlapping consensus than they did 15 years ago when they're battling each other in the marketplace. 15 years before that it was about the nascent long-distance competitors in the local telephone companies. i cannot something we hear a lot about today. 15 years from now the tech industry will not be the poster child for discussions, but i think today there are more areas

of consensus than not. one of the reasons iti has been around for 103 years is because we are focused on spending our time within those areas of consensus and doing everything we can to promote an innovation focused economy. >> host: our guest this week on "the communicators" has been jason oxman, president and ceo of the information technology industry council. our guest report has been steven overly of "politico." thank you very much. this communicators and all others are available as podcasts. >> live this morning democratic presidential candidate tom steyer will be speaking at st. anselm college, the "politics & eggs" breakfast hosted by the new england council at the new hampshire institute of politics, life in manchester. tom steyer seated at the table signing the