own parents. their frustrations became mine. and their passion for children fueled our efforts to improve d.s.s. we have since added caseworkers, changed processes, added second shift, improved technology, forged partnerships with law enforcement. created new career paths for caseworkers and so much more. we have changed d.s.s. for a better. it is in a far different place than it was a year ago. but there is still work to do. we have found the person to lead that charge. soouz offered was recently quoted as saying "it's always challenging but with e have to do it with openness, with integrity, humility and a lot of determination." i couldn't have said it better. i have no doubt that for the department of social services its dedicated employees and most importantly the children they

serve, there are brighter days ahead. there is an important economic convergence going on in south carolina today. on one side we have a growing economy with more of our people working than ever before. with unemployment down to rate wes haven't seen in many years. with people moving from welfare to work by the tens of thousands and with new companies moving in or starting up all the time, it is indeed a great day in south carolina. [ applause ] but how did get there? there are several factors including our business regulatory approach our right to work laws and our strong economic development and recruitment efforts but also no question our tax system plays an important part in our economy

too. our economic competitiveness as a state is in really good shape. but the nature of competition is that just when you think you are doing well, your competitors are gaining on you. in order to continue our state's remarkable progress, we must take further steps to improve our standing. we are competing for jobs internationally, national and regionally. where we stand compared to our neighboring states matters. some southeastern and southwestern states, tennessee, florida, and texas, have no income tax at all. georgia's tax is a full% lower than ours and just last near north carolina cut theirs by two full points to below even that. in that competitive environment our state's 7% income tax rate stands out and puts us at a disadvantage. in order to keep the ball

rolling in our economy we must bring down our income tax. [ applause ] at the same time we have a very real problem with the way our transportation dollars are spent. our systemem screams out for and restructuring. the condition of our roads and bridges is a statewide concern and yet our dollars are spent with zero statewide perspective. the current system with commissioners representing congressional districts and selected by local delegations is the ultimate exercise in parochialism. instead of fighting for the needs of south carolina at large, they fight for the needs of their districts, which means they fight each other.

i don't necessarily blame them. until we make wholesale changes to the system, doing so in this their best interests. the problem is it is not in south carolina's best interests. so i will not support more revenue for our roads and bridges until we restructure the department of transportation. simply shipping more money into the current bureaucracy would be like blasting water through a leaky hose. some of it would reach the right destination but too much of it would end up in a mess on the ground. i won't do it. that said deficient roads and highways are an economic issue. that is why we supported a billion dollars in new road funds last year which was the biggest infrastructure investment in a generation. are it is why we propose in our executive budget dedicating an additional 61 million in auto sales tax funds entirely to roads. but we know that is not enough.

we still have very substantial infrastructure revenue needs that have to be addressed. we have studied every option. some have advocated raising the state gas tax. yes, we do have the third lowest gas tax in america. gas prices are now down to their lowest level since 2009. non south carolinians who visit our state would pay a portion of the tax and we would boost the revenue stream o that is dedicated to improving our roads and highways. but there are also major problems with it. we have not gotten to where we are as a state with our strengthening and growing economy by raising taxes. white the opposite. if all we do is increase taxes whether it is the gas tax or some other tax, we will hurt our citizens. we will discourage job creators and we will dampen our economy. as i've said many times, i will

veto any straight up increase in the gas tax. it is just not going to happen while i'm governor. it is the wrong thing for south carolina. so here is the deal. let's do three things at once that will be a win-win-win for south carolina. let's cut our state income tax from 7% to 5% over the next decade. that is a nearly 30% reduction in state income taxes. national nationally, it will take us from 38th to 13th. regionally it will put our rate back below those of north carolina and georgia. it will be a massive draw to investment in our state and lit put more money in the pockets of every south carolinian letting them keep more of what they earn. it will reward work, savings and

investment. all the things we need to do to make our state stronger and our people more prosperous. next let's change the way we spend our infrastructure dollars and get rid of the legislatively elected transportation commission so the roads are no longer driven by shortsighted regionalism and policetical horse training and stop raising the gas money. finally let's increase the --. and dedicate that money entirely our roads that. keeps our gas tax below georgia and north carolina and we can do it without harming our economy. because when coupled with the 30% income tax cut it still represents one of the largest tax cuts in south carolina history. . now i hope everyone listened carefully to what i said. this is a three part package

deesmt in order to get my signature on any gas tax i increase w we need to restructure the dot and cut our state income tax by 2%. if we do all of that we are will have better strongroads and a stronger economic situation for our people. that is a win-win. [ applause ] i'd like to personally say thank you to speaker jay lucas for his leadership and his commitment to working with us on this and many other issues going forward. and i'd like to thank chairman brian white, representative gary simal and the other dedicated members of the house transportation committee who have worked for months to find a solution to our crumbling road system. we can all agree that our state's department of transportation must be reformed in order to bring more jobs to

south carolina. and i look forward to working with both the house and the senate to solve this very real problem this year. between august of 2013 and this past november i spent my days and nights traveling south carolina and talking with her people. campaigns are a lot of things. but above all they are on opportunity. an opportunity to hear from our citizens who act as our state's conscience. an opportunity to look backwards as where we were and what we've accomplished. and an opportunity to share a vision for where we want to go. i have heard it said that the election results have given me a mandate. i've thought long and hard about what that might mean. websters dictionary defines "mandate" as a command or authorization to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate to its representative. the way the word has been used

since november suggests to me that many think i have been given the authorization to act. effectively given permission to push through the agenda i desire. that is not how i see it. i never saw the election as a referendum on me. but on all of us. on the direction we have taken south carolina over the last four years. likewise, i don't view the results of as anything but a command. a command by the people of our state to continue along the path we have traveled together since i first took the oath of office as their governor. that path has been one of complete commitment to the economic future of our state. where every action we take is one that makes it easier for our companies to do business, expand and hire our people. it has been one where we jump at every opportunity to restructure our archaic government so as to better serve our citizens.

it's been one where we opened our boarders to new businesses and kept them shut to job-killing unions. one where we fight every day to give south carolina the honest open government they deserve. one where bickering for bickering sake between branchs of government became a thing of the past. it's been one where we place the education of our children above our parochial and political self-interests. and it has been one where we put south carolina back on the map for all the right reasons. that is the path i believe in. it is the path the people of south carolina overwhelmingly embraced ten weeks ago. and it is the path i will continue to follow. for if we do there is no telling the heights to which we can take the state we all love. thank you, god bless you and may he continue to blsz the great state of south carolina.

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we're going to get going. thank you everybody who braifd the weather and made it out today. a lot of school closes in montgomery county and fairfax. so we are live streaming thanks to the internet society. i'm excited about that. and c-span is here so we'll be televising that at some point. so there are a lot of ways for this to get out. and of course on the youtube channel afterwards we'll be showing the video and audio at a later date as soon as we can. .

really thank you everybody for showing u. state of the net is really a community effort. so i'm really excited you made it here and we're ready to go. on your agenda you should see the person speaking should be jerry burman. i'm not him. i'm tim lordan. jerry is the founders of the organization which organizes and the producing the state of the net. and the congressional app challenge which was launched a year ago today several other projects over the years. he lives in a cab in in west virginia during this time of year and never got out of there. he sends his regrets and i wish he could be here. baa i he kruted the internet foundation about 10 years ago with a lot of folks in this room to be a neutral platform. where every stakeholder could come together in good faith and

with civility debate these really important internet issues. and jerry believed everyone was an internet stakeholder even if they didn't realize it. and that's borne out over the years to be truer and truer. there are more people coming to the state of the net and debates about internet policy that probably never would have considered themselves stakeholders several years ago. so that vision by jerry and the founders has proven to be more and more true as the years go by. in your package is housekeeping. you have an agenda, a list of our board members to whom we're really grateful. that keeps us balanced so we don't take any position os an legislation but we're fair brokers in the debates. the board members will be sprucing people throughout the day. and you will get to meet a few of them. and we also have the wifi information which is super important.

and the hash information. #sotm 15. and thanks to google, comcast and verizon. and several other sponsors in our packet. and without them we could not produce -- we could not find a venue of this size to host all the conversations we really need to do. so let's see if i missed anything. i think beef -- you know people were asking me if we should have -- what is the theme for state of the net this year. i thought it was pretty self explanatory, what is the state of the net? and then i thought about it. there's no way we're going to come one a theme for the internet. things are happening too fast too quickly. i wouldn't even presume. you will see throwughout the entire day strong vain of the cyber security. a bit panel at lunch this afternoon which we dhi think is

a really fascinating development. and a always controversy in the broadband contingent. but to put together a theme is really difficult. when we had state of the net last year i looked around. and hbo and espn were cable programmers. and amazon and netflix were internet companies. a year later i'm not sure if those classifications hold. because amazon just won a couple of the golden globes and espn is streaming online as well as hbo. so things change really quickly. and that's why we don't go with themes because things happen so quickly around here. but i think we really need to hurry up because the over day in davos eric schmidt hit the internet is going to disappear. so we better hurry up. we'll videoahave a series of keynotes and then go into breakout sessions. and a lot of folks in later sessions are coming in from out of town and got sucked in in new

york and boston so we have a few fill-in folks. look to your agenda. one note that jerry is not going to be with us today. so every keynote we have this morning is female. which i think is really, really awesome. and we have a panel on diversity and tech later in the day that will punctuate that happenstance happenstance. right now mr. bedoya is going to have a keynote conversation with a edith ramirez. and i'm super excited. so welcome, please. [ applause ] >> good morning. chairwoman. i'm thrilled to be here with you this morning. >> good morning. delighted to be here and i want to thank everyone for being here this morning and i want to thank

tim for the invitation to join you. >> awesome for braving the snow in d.c. you are effective think makes the's leading consumer privacy officer. and you have to do a lot of big-picture thinking around privacy. and this morning i want to focus on the internet of things. but i think you have an announcement to make. >> yes i'm pleased to be able to share that the ftc is issuing its internet of things report this morning. i'm pleased to be able to have a chance to discuss the report and i hope y'all have a chance to take a look at it. >> wonderful. so there seems to be a tension at the core of internet of things and wearable technology. a tension between convenience on the one hand and privacy on the other. at the consumer electronics show you had i think doggy fitness trackers connected

toothbrushes. and my personal favorite was the smart sock. which was not smart wool sock but actually a smart sock that tracked the rhythm and kad pscadence of your run whether you are going to injurye yourself. none of these have screens. and a lot of people in the work industry say we need to rethink the way of privacy because it's to give consent to a sock. on the other hand this technology produces extraordinarily sensitive information. at ces again you had ear buds that tracked the oxygen level in your blood. add wearable bracelet that didn't just track the calories you are burning but also the calories intaking measuring the blood glucose level. and there was also i think a wearable fertility monitor. ho do you protectic privacy how you think about privacy that seems to collect all of your

most sensitive data all of the time but doesn't have a screen o ask you about it. >> let me answer that by backing up and really getting to the first part of where you started which is this -- you called it a the tension. from my perspective i think all of the benefits that an internet of things world or a big data world can provide really i think can only flourish when you take privacy and security into account. and i think it's important to understand how an internet of things world changes the landscape and with the privacy and data security implications are. and you have already alluded to this but i think it's worth delving into more depth. >> please. >> the first thing is you are right, we are now in a world where data is being collected all the time. and not only that but we are

bringing these devices into our homes, into what used to be private spheres. into our home, into our cars. into our workplaces. we're wearing them. and the data that is being generated is increasingly much more sensitive. and so that is important to keep in mind. and not only that but just the volume of data that's being generated is exponentially greater now. and what that means is that there are now the potential for these very large data sets from which even very neutral or seemingly benign information from which even then make sensitive inive inferencesense sensitive inferences. that changes the landscape considerable. and that is one piece. another thing is what happens to that information? if i'm wearing a fitness band tracking how many calories i consume and i wouldn't want to share that information with my

insurance company, certainly. but what is happening with that information? i think a consumer can understand that you have access to it. but do they understand that it may -- it's possible that it could be sold to a data broker. that it could end up in an insurance company's hands. so that is another set of questions we need to think about very closely. and then i think the third piece of this, that in many my mind stands out is the security aspect. a few dimensions here too. not only is personal information -- deeply personal information at stake. but as you have more and more devices, it also means that there is more potential for exposure. as of this year, experts estimate there are 25 billion connected devices in the world. in the next five years that number is going to double. and a lot of the companies that are getting into this space may

not necessarily have expertise in security. a lot -- also a lot of the devices are small. many of them are low cost, making security much more challenging. and some of these devices that we're using could also implicate our physical safety. so it is not only personal information that's at stake but also personal safety. >> so let's talk about a couple of those. sharing and security. first on sharing. this is i think one of the aspects that troubles consumer privacy folks. that all that sensitive data doesn't necessarily stay private. the ftc released a sirurvey of the 12 health and fitness apps connected to wearables. a diabetes app a the tracker app and a pregnancy app. those 12 apps shared data with 76 different third parties. what if anything is wrong with that picture and what is the ftc

doing to fix it? >> this is another issue in this area and that is just the lack of transparency. one thing we emphasize in our report is the continued importance of notice and choice. i think it's really fundamental that if you want these new technologies to flourish you need to make sure that consumers understand what is happening, understand what information is being collected, understand with whom that information is being shared, how it's being used. and so it's really in my mind fundamental that consumers continue to be in the driver seat. that they have a say over their own information and how it's being used. now, granted you mentioned the wearable -- the sock. >> right. >> and all of these other devices. a lot of these devices don't have any consumer interface or they have one that is very small. so what i think that companies need to do is i think they need

to be innovative not only in the types of products and services they are providing. but they also need to be innovative in the way they communicate with consumers. and another thing we do in our report is provide suggestions about ways to get around this problem of how do you provide notice and choice in an internet of things world. but i think companies can -- there is so much ingenuity out there that i think it needs to be deployed in a way that will give consumers the transparency they want and also the control they want. >> so you want to see innovation for privacy. >> absolutely. >> what about security? let's say you are sitting down with a developer or a new start-up that is in the early stages of building a new wearable device or internet of things device. what is your advice to them on privacy and security? >> my advice would be keep both

security and privacy top of mind. at the very beginning there needs to be this culture of security, this culture of privacy. so conduct a risk assessment. evaluate what exposure you have. and devise a plan to deal with it. make sure you test any security measures before you launch your product. depending on how large the company is make sure there is at least one person that's responsible for these set of issues. and also keep in mind the entire life cycle of a product. another challenge that comes into play is that consumers may keep a product -- again, these products may be small, low cost. some of them may be seemingly disposable. that raises a challenge in terms of security. how do you ensure that these devices stay secure, that you can -- it may be difficult to update software, to deploy security patches. so all of these issues are really crucial to be thinking at the very beginning. so that is one issue dealing

with security. but i would also say two other things. one is the concept of data minimization. i think it's really important in today's world to have companies be very mindful of the data that they are collecting. i don't think that it is good practice to simply say more data is always better. that may not necessarily be the case because you are exposing your company to intrusions. and if you have data that you don't really need that is an unnecessary risk. so in my view companies need to be thinking very hard do you really need to collect this data? what data are you collecting? why do you need it? and if you do need it put in place retention periods so that you dispose of that data after you no longer need it. >> let's shift gears to your commission's data broker report. last year you shared a powerful

report that looked at some of the benefits. it wasn't one sided. fraud protection and prevention. but also raised only alarms for consumers. tth brokers were compiling lists of people with high cholesterol or diabetes or expected parents. you had very serious congressional recommendations. but last year the bill that would have implemented some of those, you know, it didn't get a vote in committee. what can the commission do now by itself to further the goals of transparency consumer control and accuracy that you put forward approximatein that report. >> certainly one thing that we're going to continue to do is enforce the fair credit reporting act. we're going to continue to enforce section 5 of the ftc act. so enforcement is going to be key. but a lot of what we're doing is really just raising awareness amongst consumers as well as businesses. i think the report itself shed a lot of light on what practices

data brokers are engaging in. a lot of what wore trying to do also with our internet of things report is to just raise awareness among consumers as well as businesses about the privacy and security implications of what's taking place. so that is another piece of it. so we're going to continue to advocate to data brokers and not only data brokers but also companies interfacing with consumers that sell information to data brokers. we're advocating more transparency. to me it's very vital that consumers know what's happening that they stay in the driver seat and that they have have control over their information. so in addition to making legislative recommendations in our broker report we also recommended best practices how to provide greater transparence. we suggested there be a centralized website where consumers could actually learn about data brokers because many consumers don't even know they

exist. don't know these companies are compiling profiles, very detailed and personal, highly personal profiles based on one's age, income, race, ethnicity, religious/political affiliations, health, etc. so those are important things. and we also then need to be thinking about what happens with that information. so our data broker report did not touch on how this information is being used. but that is the next set of questions that we need to be thinking hard about. >> excellent. so we only have a short time together. so this is my last question. but i want to ask you about diversity. i think a lot of folks would look at 2014 and say, oh this was the year of the internet of things or this was the year of wearables and other folks say no this is the year of cybersecurity given the aftermath of target and sony hacks. i think there is a real argument that 2014 was the year when we

woke up to the role that gender plays on the internet and tech industry. 2014 was the year of gamergate where you saw female video game develop areers harassed and threatened. as well as critics of the industry. the apple icloud breech, where most of the celebrities effected were women. and the year of uber. a lot of folks forget the uber scandal began when the company was responding to a female blogger who was critical of the company's practices on gender. silicon valley to its great credit has started to issue transparency reports on the diversity of their workforce. so i want to ask you, do you personally think it's important that the tech industry hire a diverse workforce? and if so, why? >> i do think that's important and i'm really pleased to see that companies are talking about these issues and being open

about their numbers and also taking steps to address the issue. so look, i think it's important for a multitude of reasons but let me just touch on a couple. i think that any company that seeks to be at the cutting edge and innovative, you need to make use of the full talent pool that is available to you. and so i think by not hiring and not ensuring that your workforce is diverse i think you are really missing ount inging out on that. let me also make another point. another dimension of some of the issues that we've been looking at at the commission have to do with how big data is used and data analytics. and one thing we also want to emphasize is that while big data has the potential to provide enormous benefits, there is also potential for bias and for disparate impact. and i also think that it's important that companies guard against bias in their analytic

systems, in their predictive products and in their algorithms. and i think the more diverse a group of people that you have looking at these issues, i think that could really help guard against this and put mechanisms in place to ensure that you can neutralize those. >> wonderful. thank you for joining us this morning. if you could join me in giving a hand to mr. ramirez. >> thank you [ applause ] >> good morning everyone. i'm rodney peterson and on the board of directors of the internet education foundation and one again want to welcome you to the annual state of the net conference. leslie caldwell is here

assistant attorney general and head of the department of moderation of the justice. and a please join me in welcoming assistant attorney general caldwell and andrew grossman for this keynote discussion and their perspectives on the state of the net. [ applause ] >> so thanks a lot for taking the time to do this. i just wanted to spend a little bit of time on leslie's background. this is actually her second tour at the justice department. the first time around she spent 16 years as a federal prosecutor. prosecution's everyone from gangsters in brooklyn to medicare in san francisco. and after the collapse of the enron directed the task force that brought charge there is. and after that dwreerns on the other side of the table going white collar work. and head of the justice department's criminal division in may. so that puts her in the this center of the decision making. so my plan here is to start by giving you chance to give a

broad overview of your approach to cyber issues, and and delve into the legislative proposals. and only computer crime, cyber issues and a much greater concern this time around than when you left government in 2004. i think on your first or second day in the new job -- first day, announced a takedown of the game over zeus bot net. and whand of if priorities are you trying to set on cyber crime? and what are the challenges and obstacles you have encountered. >> you are right that cyber crime is a huge problem now that was a much smaller problem when i was in the department before and left in 2004. it is really something that cuts across all criminal conduct. it is not just hackers. it is not just intellectual property thieves. it is organized crime.

international organized crime. narcotics trafficking. cyber is in every kind of crime now and we expect it to grow and mushroom. there are a lot of challenges in addressing cyber crime. probably the biggest challenge is that it's very international. a lot of the criminal actors are not in the united states. but they are committing crimes either in the united states over the internet or crimes that tafkt affect the united states. and the game over zeus bot net. a bot net run out of eastern europe was affecting hundreds of computers in the united states and stealing millions and millions of dollars from u.s. companies and bank t accounts. so that is a real challenge. attribution of cyber attacks is a real challenge. and another challenge swee is the increasing momization of cyber attacks. the biggest challenge is keeps

pace with the ever increasing sophistication sophistication. >> i want to talk a bit about the computer fraud and abuse act. some cases the law and some cases the justice department's use of it has been a target of criticism from people who pay attention. tim woo in columbia called it the worst law in technology. there have been a number of proposed changes including one from the administration this month. can you walk us through what you're proposing there and what you would like to see? >> so what we're really proposing are very targeted changes to the law. the law was enacted years ago. technology's changed very substantially since them then. the law has not kept pace. we have very targeted things we'd like to see happen. i'll give you examples. i'm 23409 going to give you a survey of all the changes. but for example it is not currently clear that it's illegal to sell a bot net.

it's illegal to create one or use it in connection with criminal activity but it is not clear it is illegal to sell one. so we've proposed that be made clearly illegal sell a bot net for criminal purposes. not just to sell any bot net for any purpose but really for criminal purposes. right now we very successfully have used civil injunctions to stop bot nets and do disable them. but we're currently only able to do that if the bot net is engaged in fraud or other activities if it's enkbajd ees's engaged in denial of service we currently can't use our powers to interrupt. and we'd like to change that as well. we currently are not able. to spy ware is currently illegal to intercept private communications but we're not currently able to forfeit the proceeds of sale of spy ware. and that is something we'd like to see happen as well.

it may be being sold in the u.s. but the people creating it and marketing it may be in a place we have no ability to prosecute them. but we'd like to be able to hit them in the pocketbook where it hurts. so those are some examples. >> one thing i think has raised some eyebrows in increase -- for certain violations of the cfaa. there is a place where minimum penalties would go from a one year misdemeanor to a three year felony and up to -- the maximum would be a five year felony to a ten year felony. is five years not a big enough hammer to hang over people's healed for these cases? >> under the federal sentencing system the maximum sentence is really -- it is a little bit misleading what sentence a person will actually get. because you have to know there are sentencing guidelines. and the sentencing guidelines are tailored to the specific of

the criminal conduct. in a case why a statutory maximum might be ten years, that doesn't mean the person is going to or even could get ten years. because the federal judge imposing the sentence needs to look at guidelines and see the seriousness of the offense, was it a large, organized offense. was the person a leader? were there all sorts of people involved? there are all sorts of factors the judge will consider in deciding where within the guidelines range to sentence a person. the increased penalties are really to reflect the increased seriousness of the kind of attacks we've seen. so these are really for the most serious offenders. and it was our foaleeling as the attacks have grown in seriousness and scope. some of these are extremely serious, involve very large amounts of money and very large disruption of people's privacy and their lives. and the most serious offenders should be subjected to more serious potential penalties. >> one of the criticisms of the

cfaa deals with this issue of exceeding authorized access and these prosecutions for violating terms of service or potential prosecution for violating terms of service. your proposal makes some changes to that area of the law. some in congress want the too go a limit further and specifically exclude pretty the cfaa. is that a bad idea? or why is the administration's idea better there. >> i think the proposal that you are talking about in congress goes a little too far. because i think there are circumstances where violations of terms of service can be very serious. we have no interest in prosecuting someone who goes on to a dating website and lies about their attractiveness or their income in violation of the terms of service of the data website. and i'm being a little glib but really -- >> and that was the judge mentioned that. >> yes but those are not the kind of cases we're interested in. but there are cases where

somebody whose authorized to have a access, for example a law enforcement officer is authorized to have access to a computer but abuses that access to, say, gather information about personal enemies and use that information against those personal enemies or to run the criminal history of an ex-wife's boyfriend. a lot of inappropriate things that really should not be allowed. so there needs to be some way to address violations of terms of access in a criminal way when that is appropriate. but as i said we're not interested in insignificant things. so our proposal has -- we have three circumstances where it would be a violation, a criminal violation. if information is taken from a source that is worth more than $5,000, that would be a crime. if the violation of terms of access is in furtherance of another felony, that would be a crime. and if the person -- to use the example i cited earlier about the law enforcement officer -- is using a government computer in violation of terms of

service. we think that is a good compromise that criminalizes the things that are dangerous without criminalizing things like the dating websites. >> and you have also proposed criminalizing trafficking in means of access. there is some worry out there this could be used to go after researchers, academics, journalists, so on. can you talk a little bit about that provision? >> sure. that -- our proum proposal is really -- it is not -- it is only really targeted at people who are intending to commit a crime. not just someone who's doing legitimate security research to find a flaw in a system or something like that. it east really just someone whose intent is to engage in criminal activity. and that's very different from targeting legitimate security researchers. we understand the importance of

security researchers. we work with security researchers all the time. we value their skills and appreciate their expertise and we understand the importance of what they do. this is not targeted at them. >> and i think there is some concern there about where the line is. and, you know, where -- there are people who call themselves maybe an online troll. but there is not -- you know, they are not affiliated with a particular institution. how can -- i mean should those people feel safe? >> i think if they are not intending to commit a crime they should feel safe. but if they are intending to commit a crime. and i understand what you are saying about the line not being completely clear. but there is -- we do exercise prosecutorial discretion all the time in deciding where we should and should not prosecute. i think if the person is intending to commit a crime and if they do engage in criminal

activity, there have been circumstances where people have in the name of research taken and exposed large amounts of private information from individuals. which we think is inappropriate. so -- but we really are focused on criminal activity. >> let's shift and talk about the anonymity tools you mentioned earlier such as torr. my conversations with people in law enforcement, it seems like prosecutors the fbi have become confident to if not contract it to the get around it. in november you announced with european law enforcement a take down of dark market sites that operated around the tore network. how big of a problem is tor still for law enforcement. >> tore was created obviously with good intention. but it is a huge problem for law

enforcement. there are a lot of as you mentioned from our takedown last fall. there are a lot of online supermarkets where you can do anything from purchase heroin to buy guns to hire somebody to kill somebody. there are murder for hire sites. we understand that something like 80% of the traffic on the tor network involves child exploitation and pornography sites, child pornography. so that is a significant problem. we have made some advances in our ability to penetrate the network. and that's resulted in some cases but it is still a real challenge. there is a lot of again, in goes back to my point earlier of how internationalization of the internet the -- well the fact that the internet is so international is a huge challenge. and add in the tor and that may be a huge network because the

person may be sitting in romania with some activity that is making its way to the united states. and i's very difficult to locate these people. and even more difficult to find them and actually bring them to justice. so it is a very significant tool of cybercriminals. >> in terms of your ability to bring cases, you know when you want to take down a certain network, is that in some cases it is completely impossible or just attentiontakes longer or more international coordination. how, you know, looking bag at your time doing real world or offline world gangs, those cases took a long time and had big challenges too. is there a large gap there? or is it just a different set of skills that that government and the fbi has to learn? >> i would say it's both. traditional law enforcement skills definitely play into cyber investigations. we use undercovers. we use informant. we use wiretaps.

but it is different. because the if you are investigating a gang you will generally know the gang is in brooklyn or in queens or in washington d.c. and you will generally know who the gang members are. and you will generally know a fair amount about them and be able to figure out a lot about the backgrounds and histories and the crimes they are commit asks the crimes may be relatively localized. . even if they are all over the united states you can still know where they are. in the cyber world it can be very challenging to figure who are these people. there there are a lot of loose networks of people who may ban together to engage in one hack of a retailer and then sell the stolen information and stolen credit cards at credit carder forums online. then maybe another hack where some combination of those same people are involved but other people are involved and they are all over the world. they may be sitting in one country and using servers that are in another country. where the victims are in a third

country. and then the money is flowing back to a fourth country. so it can be extremely challenging to identify people, to link them together. to trace the money. it is a very challenging thing. it is challenging thing. significantly more challenging and requires different skills in addition to traditional law enforcement skills that you would need to investigate an organized crime gang in the united states. >> similar game. bit coin and virtual currencies. the department has made progress targeting them. seems like the primary worry is it's a money laundering tool. prosecutions like against charlie sh rem who pleaded guilty, has that chilled illicit bit coin activity? >> unfortunately, i don't think it has. i think bit coin is still viewed by criminals as a way to mask their transactions. it's difficult for us because

there's no central place where bit coin is located. it's difficult for us to trace and bit coin is perfectly legal and may well have a place as it evolves and the markets evolve going forward, in e-commerce in particular. but it poses a challenge, because it can be used to conceal illegal activity and it's more difficult for us to trace transactions in bit coin. one of the things we need to do is upgrade our anti-money laundering laws to recognize the reality that there are virtual currencies out there that are different from what those laws were intended to address. >> do you feel like you're starting to get, you know, close eye mean, it's obviously it's much newer than the traditional banking system but do you feel like you're starting to get some sort of handle on how these operate and you're still making plenty of cases against banks for money laundering in dollars

and pesos. >> i'm not an expert on it but we have a lot of people in our computer crime intellectual property section know a lot about bit coin and fbi agents and secret service agents know about it. they understand the market and understand the whole bit coin and virtual currency space. so i think we're certainly -- we may be playing a little bit of catch-up, but we're certainly getting it. law enforcement tends to follow a little bit behind the criminals pretty much across the board, ranging from organized crime to cyber crime. >> so should we be on the lookout for more cases involving bit coin businesses and bit coin infrastructure? >> i don't know that we're necessarily focusing on the bit coin infrastructure. i think we're more focused on criminal activity where the criminals choose to have payment made in bit coin. so, for example, we, as part of the game, we also took down a

ransom ware, where -- it was called crypto locker. where people's screens would be frozen. they would be told their files were all locked and to get access to their files, they had to pay a ransom and that ransom had to be paid in bit coin. so it wasn't the bit coin that was the problem it was the ransom and the locking of the files. >> you mentioned crypto locker. it seems like there's something happening here with crypto locker on one end and maybe sony on the other where we're seeing cyber crime going from theft of data to -- into more and more extortion, hacking to try to get people to give money, to change their behavior. is that something that you're worried about? >> i think extortion over the internet has a long history. it may be getting more sophisticated, but i think that it's not a new problem. i think it's been a problem for

quite some time, and it may be growing in sophistication and breadth as we see so many internet cyber crimes growing, but i don't think it's a new problem. >> let's get your perspective on the moves by some phone makers to encrypt locked phones, so law enforcement can't get into them. i've seen the fbi director weigh in on this, the british prime minister. love to get your view there. >> and president obama. um, so we're very concerned about that. um, we understand the value of encryption. we understand the importance of security. but we're also very concerned that there not be the creation of really what i would call zone of lawlessness, where there's evidence that we could have lawful access to through a court order that we're prohibited from getting because of a company's technological choices. we do have cases where evidence

that's on phones is extremely important. and those tend to be cases involving violent crime rape, murder, kidnapping. where for some reason the criminals have a tendency to videotape what they're doing and take pictures. and to the extent that we're not able to get access to that kind of evidence, that can be a very significant obstacle to us being able to successfully prosecute those kinds of crime. the kind of access we would seek is the kind of access we had in the prior version of, for example, the iphone where we would get a search warrant after showing probable cause and send the phone to apple and apple would do the enlocking of the phone and send us the portions that were relevant to our investigation. so it's not as if we're seeking open access without any court supervision to the data. but we really think it's important we have lawful access to evidence that can be

extremely important in solving crimes. >> is there a way to -- to -- for apple, google, to let you guys in but keep out authoritarian governments or say no to authoritarian governments and others that they might not want to do business with in that regard? >> so i don't actually -- i'm not going to speak to whether apple is able to say no to the chinese government, for example, but in other areas of law enforcement, we don't -- our rules and our evidence -- our access to evidence are not dependent on what china might want to do or what the law might be in china. here in the united states we have i process whereby we can get the electronic evidence through search warrants and court orders, and it shouldn't matter, from my vantage point t it shouldn't matter that china may not have have same robust process. >> i think we're just about out of time, but i wanted to end

with the question, what else should we be on the lookout for over the next year? where should we expect cases? what are people not looking at or not seeing that you think is especially important and we should keep an eye out for? >> so i think, um, we really need everyone in the country, both personal individuals and companies and organizations, really need to be more conscious of cyber security. i think everyone needs to be assuming that they're vulnerable, assuming they can be hacked. assuming their data can be taken. and needs to plan accordingly. we recently created a new cyber security unit to try to increase public awareness on prevention. because i think that that's where we really need to go. we're not going to be able to prevent every cyber attack but maybe those of you in this audience who know much more about this than i do, but i find

myself surprised by how flat-footed and unprepared some very large and sophisticated companies are, including companies that you would think would have state of the are the cyber security. so i think that's really where we need to go. because i don't think -- the hackers are not going to stop. the people who are getting their 15 minutes of fame through these big hacks, are being reinforced by the 15 minutes of fame, not to mention the money they're making from stealing all this information. so i really think that an emphasis on prevention is something that we really need to focus on. >> looks like we have a little more time. you mentioned international efforts earlier and you've seen cases that you brought, you or the national security division have brought against, say the pla hackers or there have been -- there's the large rico case, where you have a lot of defendants still overseas. can you talk about -- and some of the criticism of those cases

is, these people are never going to be seeing the inside of a u.s. courtroom. how is the department working to change that or make those people -- change those people's behavior in places that we can't get to? >> so i think the idea of what's the point of indicting somebody in russia because you'll never get them is really wrong. we have the ability to -- it's true that we won't be able to get russia to arrest and extradite a russian citizen to the united states, but if that person travels somewhere, we have capability through international law enforcement to have alerts and we often do get people who travel and i don't mean to single out russia, but there are any number much countries, but when people travel internationally, there are cases where they have traveled and we have arrested them and extradited them to the united states. there's a large case right now

pending in seattle involving a russian national who was traveling in the maldives and was arrested and brought to the united states. so we do get people who travel. and it's not uncommon for people to travel in different parts of the world. they might not travel to the united states but they don't realize that by going to the maldives, they make themselves vulnerable to arrest. i think there's also pressure, increasing pressure on local governments. for example, if there's a russian hacker, who's hacking computers in the united states, but who is also doing things in russia, the russian government may not be that happy about that. and again, i don't mean to single out russia, but the same thing is true in a lot of countries. where these countries' citizens are becoming victims also and they don't want that. so there's increasing international pressure and cooperation among law enforcement, including in countries that you may not think would be part of that mix. so that's really what we're doing.

kpi think it's only a matter of time before almost all the countries in the world realize this is in nobody's interest to protect these people. >> all right well thank you for doing this. >> my pleasure. [ applause ] >> good morning. my name's alan davidson i'm the director of the open technology institute at new america. but my claim to fame here this morning is as a board member, long-time board member of the internet education foundation and it's my pleasure and delight to be here this morning to introduce our next keynote. for a long time in the -- especially in the early days of the international's popularity, i think it was quite common to bemoan the difficulty in finding identifiable leadership on technology issues in the federal government. a lot has changed since those days and nothing more visibly

than the creation of the role of chief technology officer. a technology leader close to the president, and charged specifically with thinking about all the different ways that technology plays into the big policy issues of the day and also the ways that technology is changing the very relationship between people and their government. we are very lucky to have with us today two of the three people who have held this role. the first is somebody who needs no trukz in this crowd our interviewer today will be aniece chopra the first technology officer of the united states who is the co-founder and executive vice president of hunch analytics. he will be here today with somebody who i'm delighted to introduce, megan smith our current chief technology officer. and i'll have to say i've known megan since the '80s. we were in nursely school or something. i don't know what it was. i can safely report that even as an m.i.t. under grad, she was a

bit of a legend and that legend has only grown. she has incredible street cred in sill doan valley. did a long tour of duty as vice president at google. and she's somebody who has almost unnatural ability to think creatively about big technology problems think creatively about their solutions and match the people who can make those solutions happen. she's a perfect person for this role. the president has been very lucky to lure her here to take this on. we're very lucky to have her here in washington. and i'm excited to see what she's going to do with it. so please join me in being welcoming the country's first chief technology officer interviewing our current keynote speaker, speaker, the current chief technology officer. [ applause ] >> good morning. and thank you all for joining on

this exciting day. it is as alan said in the beginning, an interesting time where washington's capacity to harness the power and potential of technology, data, and innovation, is really stepping up. i thought megan just to get the crowd oriented to your current priorities and passions, share a little bit about your role as cto and the priorities you've put forward. >> right. it's incredible to be here with colleagues here in government, it's been fun to get to d.c. and enter into this culture, coming from silicone valley. i find washington to be incredibly entrepreneurial. and it's really familiar to me, having come from silicone valley. people get things done and they collaborate. it's really an interesting place and i enjoyed coming and it's an honor to be here. so the cto job, which you began, the president started on his first day and our role is not really to be kind of a vp

and engineering the government there are many people doing that already, the nasa team. y were at department of energy yesterday. it'sr lots of phenomenal teams are here. it's really an instigation job, an architecture job, where the mandate is, how do you help advise the president and his team ho how to harness the power of technology, innovation and data on behalf of the nation. so it really moves with the times. so as you began, it was really beginning of this office and we're focused on three years and i think you guys really stood up this first area, as well as the beginning seeds of the other. the first one is really the technology policy area and having technical people at the table during those conversations. so in addition to going out and talking to the incredible cohorts of americans that want to weigh in on a policy, having the actual engineers at the table, that's one of the things we're doing. so the topics of the day, of course are privacy, net

neutrality, the spectrum auction, which is live right now, and a whole range of things copyrights patents, the laundry list of conversations we're all having and many people in the room are a big part of that. a piece of that includes an area that we've been looking at and someone who is championing this regulation reform is here. sometimes we think about this area, how do we help with getting out of the way of america's top innovators and yet protect the american people? so how are we being the best place in the world the best country for innovation and technology so that the strongest entrepreneurs, the strongest inventors and scientists are coming here? because we have a climate and a policy landscape for them to really do their things. sometimes i think henry ford was not trying to disrupt horses. he just had a new idea. so how do we help those people do their things while we're still learning and protecting the american people, dealing with privacy and all the things

we need to do to be the great nation. here we are in the museum with the first amendment right on the wall. so that's our first bucket. you guys did a huge amount of work on that when you were cto. the second area that we think about is really digital government. >> yep. >> and there's a couple of pieces of digital government. i was lucky, as were you, we worked at the beginning of the web. and in the '90s, and it really feels to me like it's 1996, '97 '98, in the category of digital government. it's the beginning. people don't yet see what's going do happen in this extraordinary way, but you're starting to see it. and you can fell it and people are coming. but that looks to me you know, here we are in a country that we are the country that created amswron. you know jeff baize oz and his team created facebook and twitter and created the internet. why shouldn't the websites and the mobile services and the way that we do customer service with the american people from the government, why shouldn't it be

that good? because we are that good as an american people. so the back end and the front end and all those pieces of our web services and technologies that we use to run our government need to be that good. >> that's right. >> the irs, the va. what's exciting, not only have teams been working on that but more people are coming. and i have a technical term, tq like iq and eq techenal quosht. there's tq people coming to government. we got into position as a government where we often really leverage technology well during war, and we bring the engineers in, you know, you see the beginning of computing with world war ii and many things. people see in the movie imigation game, churchill stand ug up a very talented technical team that cracked the enigma codes and helped read what the nazis were doing. so we bring techys in, we get away from it a little bit in

peacetime. and what really we need to have technical people at the table. the united states digital service, the presidential innovation fellows who are white house fellows, who redesign ppinging and front end and back end, embedding them in government. that's not to say that government should build everything. that would be not good. we should have our amazing off-the-shelf products from tech hosted products, we should have things that we contract for, custom, but there needs to be a person in the room who speaks that language. you don't want to go to a meeting in a foreign language and rely on the other side's interpreter. you won't be confident of what you know. and bad things can happen. and in this case we want to have tq people technical people in the conversation on our side when we're doing contracting, or someone helping architect solutions who's thinking about customer service the way jeff bezos and his team would. so that's exciting. the other part is open government, which you guys started a lot.

the president has opened hundreds of thousands of data sets since the beginning. how do we get more data released? some of the greatest examples are weather data and the g.o. data and multibillion dollar industries that stand on top of that open data. how do we get more out there and how do we gauge that in the community? i think less rfp and more at pis in this idea pop to have a marketplace of government tech where people are bringing solutions, that's really beginning to happen. so that's that area. 65 countries, lots of non-profit organizations and civil organizations in and then the national action panel around open government and making progress there. that's the third area. the fourth area is, i think about the american people. our greatest asset is the american people. and sometimes we get into kind of two countries where there's the country that i've been living in, having had the chance

to be at m.i.t. with alan and at silicon valley and the innovation nation, and there are some people who are struggling and not getting access at school or through university, through whatever places, to be a participant and bring their passion to the world and really be part of an innovation conversation that this country needs to lift our economy and our families. so this is an area where we think about initiatives. how are we working on bridge the americas, who could be working together? what are we working on stem education, bringing our youth in? those are the areas. >> that's a very helpful overview. and i'd like to dive into each and every one of those areas and help us understand who you are as we get into this conversation. raise your hand if you work on the hill. or if you work in the executive branch. or you have interest in influencing either side of those two?

[ laughter ] okay, got it. that's helpful. so megan to set the stage for those three areas could you just share a bit about what you've seen changed in these areas. what's been different -- you've only been here a few months, but if you think about the last several years, do you see some larger shifts in the capacity with the government on any of those three priorities as you've laid out? >> yeah, one of the things that's been really great, watching different leaders put innovations labs into their agencies. the health and human services heads brought an idea lab into hhs. they're extraordinary people in government and outside of government with innovative ideas. there hasn't always been a place. one of the things that is something that the tech industries have done forever with the early digital equipment team and others, having a lab, or a place where you can play. and creating a review system that works within the agency. one of the tricks of making something like that is to make

it big enough that it exists, so you have some budget and some people and you get like entrepreneurs and residents who are coming from within or without and putting skills together and working on pilots and prototypes and doing things, you know, in silicone, we call it minimum viable product. make something that people can get a feel for what you're talking about. but you also don't want to overresource it. if you keep it at the right resource size, you can ipo it through the team. so nile who is doing digital sciences they can incubate new ideas for data science and get them through medicare and the standard systems so that we can improve the scaled products that we have. so i think these innovation labs has the new global development lab, a place to incubate. it's not only them doing things but it's also things like, they created this group called the higher education network. which matrixed lots of

universities from berkeley to william & mary, so this faculty of students all over the world working on development engineering, whether it's new water systems, a new health care delivery piece so getting those ideas and that talent talking to each other and talking to the agency and getting sort of the blood flow around ideas really moving together with partners, so they can see better ways to execute. i think seeing that. the second piece is really bringing the technical skills right into the government. the united states digital service, which the president starteds has a spokes model within omb, office of management and budget. so you see a small team and then in the agencies they focus on five or six major projects to begin this year and then ramp from there. one of my favorites is veterans affairs. they just activityttracted the number

three employee of amazon to come into the v.a. this woman's code is delivering the boxes to your house with a smile for 15 years plus. so what's her second act? our veterans. these amazing americans who have delivered on behalf of the american people and over and over again. how do we make their services as great as the ones that she and others led before? so we're seeing that kind of talent come to government. i'm very excited about that. i also really believe in open source and open apis and what the tech communities and open source communities can do. one of my favorite innovations in government that's happening is the collaboration because of how the computer scientists work in open ways. so the uk team who has the government digital service, the president was just in india, digital india. we're actually able to share code across countries. so just like code for america, we don't have to all have the same systems for every city, we

can open source and share this stuff. really seeing a ramp in that, which is great. >> so let me unpack a few of the themes that you just shared because i think it's useful for folks to understand a little bit of the current state of play. i'm going to connect two of them that you just shared. this motion of internal government idea labs incubating, think of them as innovation pipeline managers to test the idea validate them and they scale up, ipo'd in the agencies. in the same spirit, you referenced regulatory reform and framed that in much the same way, entrepreneurs outside of government tackling ideas in a new and clever way, almost also seeking the opportunity to test, to validate and then to eventually scale in areas where we have regulation. could you share a bit about how you think these two logical constructs, the idea that small ideas can grow up to be bigger ideas if managed appropriately, how will that change what it means in reality for someone who is trying to build a better way

of serving health care options up for patients or thinking about other regulated sectors of the economy? could you share your view on that interception of innovation pipeline. >> yes. ideas always start with a crystal, a small team. you know the margaret meed quote. how do we as government get better at seeing those and helping stand them up. it can be in an idea lab with folks from inside outside and there's a place to gather and have a little bit of resource to begin to show what that is. it's become so much cheaper to make things over time. and so the ability to mock up and also just the way that we think about design thinking, just colleagues who have advanced that field. just taking paper, mocking some stuff up, having conversations play acting with customers and seeing if something could work as an idea all the way into very difficult back end fixes

and upgrades that could be edited edited. so i think that's one thing that we could do. the other is, you know, we really are in a new position with what the internet is. sometimes people think -- i don't know if people are familiar with the clut rain manifesto -- >> wildly popular in this room. >> look at them. >> so the team just published a new things called new clues. and they list these things. it's very provocative. the first one the internet is us. you know sometimes people think it's plumbing or interconnectivity. >> a series of tubes. didn't you get the memo? >> it's just us interconnective in a really effect i new way, which is incredibly exciting. number 12 actually is a very provocative point, which is there hasn't been as profound an invention since language.

that's a pretty amazing point. so sometimes i think about model t days, like the very beginning of things. we're really early in what this is, but i think using this tool, this thing, this us is allowing us to see things faster that we could scale. so for example the mayors. incredible mayors were just here from across the country for their -- i think it's annual gathering. >> yep. >> so in talking to each of them it's really struck me each of them have really solved at least one thing at an elite level. the mayor of south bend has an incredible thing with instrumentation on their utility systems and are saving extraordinary money by measuring where they're leaking water et cetera. awesome. we saw the president visit in iowa, you know the chattanooga team, people have solved municipal broadband. so these mayors. who has solved something for

you? who has solved something for homelessness? so if we could have all those mayors and their teams cross-share that information, we would be in a whole other place. i think we're starting to move into position to do things like that. so it's the same point of someone or some small team sees the problem, has a passion for solving it fixes it. and then in in this case with the mayors ipping think we have a distribution problem where we could -- [ inaudible ] -- really accelerate our country into a much better position on behalf of america. >> so let's take that theme one more layer. you talked about one of the powerful visions here is the sharing and also the building on top of. and so let's just take that logic one step further. maybe it's the public private interface that seems to be getting better.

here's the question. so let's just take an example. obviously health care.gov has been relaunched and is working quite well. maybe you could say what you saw in the lessons learned for how the technology team built up that 2.0 marketplace. but an interesting story, a start-up called stride health took the raw data from health care.gov and now uber is partnering with them to provide personalized insurance recommendations for drivers who might have back pain conditions as a priority search feature across the plan. so you have a functioning, working and successful health care.gov and this essentially entrepreneurial version built on top that may be offering a value add. do you see a world where there will be more of this quauzi public private effort and is it a good thing? where is that going? >> i think it's fabulous. government is a platform to support the people in different

ways. on the digital side being able to use new tools so that the base product that we could offer, in this case the health care.gov from the hhs team, having them open that up for features is terrific. features and products on top of that. so there's an entire economy that can build up above that which is very exciting. bee haven't been in position a decade or two ago to have that kind of resource, have that kind of open environment. you know, that really came with the '90s, as open source and open systems and the ideas that came with the web enters into almost like an evolutionary way with humanity. i think you were asking me a little bit about watching the health care.gov team you know i didn't work on that at all, but it was great to see in the second version some things that happened. for example, just a simple thing. in the early version, the first

version, it took many, many screens, back to my amazon analogy, like if you had to go through 70 screens to buy something from amazon, that's hard. and of course there are going to be more than one or two, because it's not a physical item that you're buying, it needs personal information, et cetera, but over time i think the 2.0 version took them from 60 or 70 screens down to like 20. and they'll get smaller and auto fill and you're making it customer centric. i think they did a terrific job this time. and the results happened. we can see in the dashboard if there's more people signing up and that's what the hhs team that's building and running that is saying. >> can we spend a few minutes in our last segment here? talk to me about how you peel back one layer deeper in prioritising across these areas. you laid them out quite well, thinking about the technology policy sets of issues that in many cases are cross-cutting across lots of areas, potentially some that are deeper in one sector.

you spoke a lot about the notion of digital government and what that means in terms of openness and building up technical quotient inside the country and you spoke about the country and everyone having a shot at living in better life. where do you see the greatest gap from your ideal state and use that has a basis for where you put your priority across those three, just to give us some color as to the world you see today? >> i think we have to push on all three, and especially the first one because policy is something that the government has access to do and it unlocks a lot of things and also protects. so heavy emphasis there from the team. alex ryan, wave up -- ryan is here. also matthew, becky, others from the team who work on this. ryan is focusing on the digital government side. alex on regulation reform and policy. and then we all work together. the one i actually think it's

the american people because i believe in surface area, more people doing things innovatively will solve more problems faster. maybe i'll give you two examples. >> please. >> do you guys in here know about, like tech meet-ups? people going to tech meet yups? a few people doing that. do you guys know about things like start-up weekend or a weekend where people hack a new company? so that's it. these are resources out there. tech meet-up is more of a gathering that would be happening once a month or twice a quarter where the techies and it can happen on hiking or alternative medicine. i think there's about 500 tech meet-ups a day in our country. so the president was in boise, idaho last week, we contacted them and there's four team meet-ups. one of them has more than 700 people that meets monthly.

another one that has coding and has about 45 people in it. so you don't think of boise and technology in that way, that there's an entrepreneurial community there, but there is. start-up weekend and these kind of start-up hacks happen all over the world. if you actually go on the web and look at the map they're happening all over the country. there was one last week in bismarck, north dakota. and it was at a really cool space where the bobcat team has an innovation center a great space like the museum, and they gathered. let's talk about the two americas. the president was at standing rock reservation with fabulous young native american youth there and recently the tribal nations came from the summit mostly based on this one experience, which was he was talking to the youth there and found, talking to this one freshman kid, there's 40 kids in his class and three of the kids had taken their labs and 20 kids had tried. that's a haunting statistic.

to me it's the most haunting statistic i've heard since i've been in government. so there's these two americas. standing rock is one hour drive from bismarck. so i contacted some folks from standing rock and folks and said why don't you invite the kids. and they went up and had an incredible time this weekend. >> this weekend? >> yeah. so to me it's like the great american meet-up needs to happen. we need to barn raise this country. somebody has a door over there and a this over there and they're not talking to each other. and they're hiding in plain sight. so you could get off a plane and you would like walk anywhere and say i'd like to have a start-up, i'd like to join everyone would help you. >> that's true. >> there are just people pouring out of coffee shops and driving around, everyone would help you. but in many of our cities that

innovation team is there. there's people with start-ups tedexes, the burning man equivalent. in boise, there was a thing called hack spert. this is happening all over the country, but it's hiding on the rest of the americas. so we need to bring that together. and i think that as we begin to do that, the american people will do the thing they've always done, this is kind of lead us into the future. >> megan i want to invoke our compatriot who couldn't join us, todd park, our second cto. he had an expression for this that i'd like to get your comment on. when asked why has there been this divide, we see it everywhere we go. todd's reaction, and i'll paraphrase paraphrase, there's this wall of disbelief that's gets in the way of people thinking they can make it to the other side. and the big magic on our side has been to show the wall is

paper thin and if we can find a way to poke a hole in that wall, we could get folks to say, i'm in that reservation, but i can be in the tech meet-up and i can see myself in the innovation nation. is that a reasonable way of thinking about it and how would you respond to that build on it as a message for folks thinking about where to go next? >> yes, muf the tech meet-up to the reservation. i being it's a great visual. like somehow we're not seeing each other even though we're right there. i think in some ways there's a real opportunity with the schools to do more of this. in budget cuts, we accidentally kind of took away all the maker things from many of our kids. we took away art and shop and home ec. and one of the most popular classes is called how to make almost anything. to me that's like art and home ec, it's the thing you could learn to do. you know we would never teach children not to write when we

teach them to read. but we teach them all the math and science facts without giving the ability to express the make or discover part of themselves. and so you see these master teachers in our country who are getting it done. and so, again, it's like they're hiding in plain sight in the education system. let's scale them and transform the education system. let's make sure, one of the big findings for stem learning is some kids are listening because they've done the projects outside of class. but most kids aren't sure why we're learning this thing, what is it for, what does it do? because they want to change the world. so if you can get them to understand that we need to bring alan shepherd back to earth, so we need to do the trajectory and the math is related to that, really context-based things, we can pull kids in and do more active learning, which science shows us is the best way to learn. >> we're at the end of our time.

but please say a word about the role of this for everyone. women and minorities tend to be underrepresented in this concept of innovation nation. could you close us out with your perspective, being our first female cto, breaking through some barriers. tell us a bit about that, your perspective on women and minorities in this innovation nation and then we'll move to the next topic. >> and i think kathy is speaking next. the republican congresswomen had asked us to talk about stem. you know, the conversation continues around how do you get people to physically try this stuff? it's sort of the expression, practice makes permanent. and that's true in innovation, and true with our kids. the more they try this the more they'll understand this. that happened for me. i understand went to school in inner city buffalo.

we had mandatory science fair. we were required to practice that. and it taught us not only that it's interesting and fun, but also taught us some confidence that we could do to. it wasn't like mt. everest you started just like when you learned to write. start with some alerts and write an essay. we need our children to experience that. the other one that is incredibly significant that we could get done, the unconscious bias that we have in our media around the visualization and the actors and the way we portray who does what. so there's stereotyping that happens around race and gender. and do you know the beck dale test? it's from movies. so if you're watching a movie and there's more than two women characters, mijor and minor, if they have a conversation with each other that's not about a man, most movies can't pass that. and especially in science and technology. >> are you serious? >> yeah.

>> that's pretty bad. >> partly because there's so few women writers that you're getting this one perspective. that's happening in science and tech. i mentioned "the imitation game," the true story is that more than half of the bletchley team were women. so joan clark, who is the character that's portrayed with alan turing is not an anomaly. she's true in history as he is, but there were a lot of technical women. the movie "jobs." i have friends who were in the mac team. if you look at the rolling stone's photograph seven men and five women appear in those photos. but in the section of the movie from hold, accidentally, no women were cast for the scene. none of those women any of the elite americans who did that work. when you look at the movie apolo, most people don't know kathryn johnson.

she's the african american woman who calculated the trajectories for alan shepherd, john glenn and the apolo mission, and she lives in maryland. >> wow. let's celebrate these folks. >> yeah, we need them to appear so that all young men and women can see them. >> megan we got to right those wrongs! thank you, everybody. well done, well done. [ applause ] >> thank you all and thank you, everyone, for being prompt and on time and not letting the slight snow that we have get in your way. we are going to keep rolling because congresswoman morris is on a bit of a schedule and we want to keep today going forward. so our next person is actually a keynote, it's kathy mcmores rogers who entered her tenth year of congress and what's different than what you have on your agenda is we're going to do this as an interview with peter cook from bloomberg television. so this will be another

interesting dynamic dialogue like you just experienced. one of the great things that the congresswoman has done, she has become the head of the republican caucus. when she started for all of us in the room who are busy tweeting and looking at your facebook page, using social media, there was less than a 30% interest in social media being used by congress when she first took the position. now over 90% of congress is using some form of social media. you want to go look at her twitter feed or facebook page. she really knows how to use the medium. i not only appreciate that because it's a faster way for those of us who sit in washington to understand how to use this, but it also makes me think someday there's another sitcom or drama with all the staff trying to make sure they get their tweets right. please welcome congresswoman morris rogers and peter cook.

[ applause ] >> thank you very much. nice to be here. glad you survived the snow. congresswoman, thank you for making it as well surviving the house republican conference this morning. just leaving the closed door session. how's the herding of the cats going? >> 246 republicans in one room who have all kinds of ideas as to what's priority and what we should be doing. but really for the republicans, the larger majority in the house, it's an exciting time about what's possible and i think that is what makes me excited to be here. i want to hear from you too, but we're going to talk internet and technology and innovation. and we can use a healthy dose of that on capitol hill as we approach problem-solving and how we approach we as representatives do our jobs. so that's what i'm hoping to bring for the house republican conference too. >> let me ask you about your personal use of technology and the role it's playing on capitol

hill for house republicans. you're one of the top leaders there, the highest ranking woman in the house republican conference. first of all, you've made a big effort with your colleagues to try and bring technology on board. it was not that long ago ted stevens was talking about the series of tubes. we've come a little bit since then. realistically, your fellow members, how tech savvy are they, really? >> well, i would just -- we're learning all the time. in the last year we did over 200 training sessions. so this is a priority. and they're coming. the members are staffed. so there's a desire to learn. but i would just reflect very quickly that i think you all recognize in the last ten years, what has happened, as it relates to technology and new tools. it's just incredible across the board. and bringing that to capitol hill needs to be more of a focus. when i was -- i was first elected to congress in 2004.

and you think about even back in 2004, you know that was, you know, before we were using twitter, netflix streaming. a lot has changed just even in the last ten years. i was elected to leadership five years ago and my goal and my priority in being a part of the leadership team was to really help bring the republicans in the 21st century and to get us not just using these tools, but thinking more creatively as to how we solve problems. so, yeah what started out as fundamental, getting our members to sign up using twitter and facebook and last week during the state of the union facebook actually said that it was a watershed moment for the use, the members were using these tools to help communicate messages. i get excited about the way that

these tools with revolutionize the relationship that i have as a representative with the people that i represent. and i find that it's just so much easier, even coming from washington state, which is at the other end of the country, here in washington, d.c., to be able to have a conversation in realtime, more personal, with a larger group it really does change the relationship that i have with the people that i represent. and so i think there's just the basics of getting the members the staff to use these tools and there's even more potential and again, if you have ideas, if you'd like to come talk with me or my team -- >> i saw you working it out megan smith, cto, coming soon. >> we're doing that all the time, having different leaders come in and just educate us on what's possible. but then, i also think about the relationship that the average

person has with their government. whether it's contacting someone on capitol hill, where too often, it's still the response is a form alert two weeks after the fact when they sent an e-mail. this is one of my next big things to conquer, is to make -- you know, to update that whole constituent correspondence type system. just within the federal government people can be receiving life-changing letters from someone in the federal government, that's going to impact their lives, their businesses and yet trying to get a hold of someone to get answers, can be extremely difficult. so i think there's huge potential there but then also just how we deliver services. and i get excited about what's possible. let's start imagining what a 21st century va should look like, or a 21st century irs.

and i think it gets us beyond the traditional left versus right or republican versus democrat debate, to, you know, the future. and getting us to a place where we can think okay what does a 21st century va look like? i don't know how many of you have heard of zok dock, but they came knocking on my door after the whole situation related to the va broke. you know, the waiting list the number of veterans that were waiting over 30 days for an appointment. they just said we think we can help. and this zok dock was founded by a guy who was on an airplane his eardrum exploded and he needed an appointment. he was being told you'll have to wait like five days to your doctor and it was killing him. so he went -- now there's an app, you can go to the app and what they found is that 25 to 30% of doctors appointments never are filled because people

don't show. so there's -- if you can capture those appointments and match them with the people that are needing an appointment, it just makes sense. and they've done it. and they've done it successfully. they approached the va and said, we can help. and what's the response from the va? you know there were like 37 different reasons as to why we can't do it. i mean they're still working they're trying to you know, they're not giving up on this but this is just an easy example. i think one that we all recognize we could do better. we could serve our veterans better. we could get them the appointments that they need. they get the care they need in a more efficient and effective way. and we need to be embracing what technology and innovation can do as far as really changing the way and improving the way that

government often delivers us services. >> there's conventional wisdom and i'll let you shoot it down if you want to that democrats are more tech savvy, closer ties to silicon valley, that they get this stuff better. tell me why that's wrong? >> i would -- i would suggest to you that it is the republicans that really believe in a bottom-up approach to problem-solving, believe in going out there and seeing what you can do for the most part, a more minimal role, a more limited role for the federal government, so that you as an individual and a group of people that have an idea as to a way that you can improve people's lives, can make that happen. and so often, i think although well intentioned, whether it's laws or regulations that come from washington, d.c. the one size fits all, it doesn't allow for the freedom and the

opportunity that an individual or a start-up needs -- the flexibility that they need in order to be successful. that's where the republicans really believe in empowering individuals and those start-ups. and that's -- i like to think that it's the republicans that have long been the party that's advocating for more freedom, more opportunity, more flexibility. rather than the top-down approach from washington, d.c. >> get to a couple policy issues in just a second. but take us to the district in eastern washington, what's the state of the internet in eastern washington? when did you get on the family orchard? when did you guys get broadband? how many of your constituents have access to high-speed digital lines right now? >> right. very proud to come from washington state. i represent eastern washington,

i border idaho from the canadian border to the oregon border spokane to walla walla, certainly on the west side of the state we're very proud of the microsoft and amazon and other -- and just the number of start-ups. but there's a growing tech sector in spokane a growing number of start-ups, some angel investors that are taking seriously, you know, the potential, the opportunity that it would bring for people in eastern washington in wanting to make it happen. we have a lot to offer. maybe i'll just do the sales pitch a little bit. we have a lower cost of living, we have abundant -- we have more land, a skilled workforce, five universities and colleges between washington state university in eastern washington and whitman. so there's lots of potential there, but we're still somewhat looking at seattle and saying

okay, come on over to spokane, give us a look. and i do also represent a lot of rural areas. spokane is the largest city in my congressional district. it's about 280,000. and so i have ten counties. and in those rural communities, you know, i still represent some areas that do not have the real access to the high-speed internet, the broadband is still being deployed and there's still more work to be done to reach the rural areas. and you know, i use the va example earlier. i have a lot of veterans that live in the rural parts of the district that i represent. and if they could actually get access to some of the telemedicine, the video conferencing that is now available, it could go a long way. so we still have some work to do. >> still have work to do. and what's your sense about the role the federal government

needs to play in that? how much help should washington be providing to the rural communities in your district that are struggling to stay as current as their colleagues around the country? >> well, i have -- i do believe that the internet broadband is similar to -- is important infrastructure similar to water and sewer systems that we have in those rural communities, so as we think about building that basic infrastructure, i think it's important that we're looking at all aspects of that and as far as the role of the federal government, i have supported efforts in the past to help make that possible and to help make it possible -- [ inaudible ] -- investments. and i think whether it's the universal service fund, and some of those that are committed to the rural areas, i think there is a role for them as we move forward. >> let's talk about a couple policy issues because i know you're going to be tight on

time, getting back up to capitol hill. on the energy and commerce committee, deals with a whole breadth of the u.s. economy and regulatory issues there oversight, including the fcc. you and some of your colleagues, greg walden and chairman upton, the fight over net neutrality. how is this going to play out with congress looking to get a step in here and with the fcc poised to move perhaps as soon as next month? >> well, first and foremost, i would emphasize that this is -- this is an important debate that we're having. and it's a healthy debate. and i think, as i said earlier a lot has changed in the last ten years. and our laws need to be updated to reflect the 21st century. i think there's a number of our laws that really need to be brought into the 21st century.

and this is one where we need to figure out where that middle ground is. as a representative for the people of eastern washington i believe that it is very important that congress is engaged and is making the decisions related to what the laws of the land should be. and, yes there's an important role for the fcc in implementing and passing the regulations. >> but congress needs to step in here, if there's confusion about this, it's congress's role to clear this up? >> i do believe that it's important that congress -- i do. and i think that you um are going to have better access. you're going to be able to meet with your representatives, make the case help us better understand and make smarter decisions than sometimes you get out of a regulatory agency. it's just the reality of how

they work. there's more transparency and more opportunities to capitol hill to make the case. i think that the principles that have been laid out in both i recognize the hearings last week were pretty hot. but i would encourage you that this is a healthy debate and you want this debate to take place in congress. you want it to take place among your elected representatives where you have an opportunity to go to them to appeal to them and they're going to make decisions as they see are in the best interest of those they represent. and so i am hopeful we'll be able to find some middle ground here that continues to encourage both investment and innovation. and finding that middle ground may right now seem a little beyond our reach, but this is a

process and this is the process of making sure our laws reflect the world in which we live and that our laws are ones that continue to encourage the type of innovation we want to have in our economy moving forward. >> safe to say that chairman upton and chairman walden have the full backing of the republican leadership in the house to take this to the finish line? >> we're going to be working on this together. and certainly there's a lot of considerations and this is one of those issues that we're going to continue to discuss as to what's the best way forward. >> another very hot topic at this conference and in washington, cybersecurity in the wake of what happened at sony. at bloomberg this is a giant story. the fact that this is -- the business sector's been targeted in this way. what's your sense right now from the leadership perspective about how big a priority cybersecurity legislation is in this congress for you all and your own concern

about not only what happened at sony but the risk out there to the private sector much less the government. >> yes. there's sony and there's another retailers. target and others that have been targets of cyberattacks. i think that this is an issue where there's an opportunity to come together actually in a bipartisan way. to address some realities we face and some concerns that need to be addressed. the president had a joint meeting with republican and democrat leadership last week at the white house, and this was one of the five priorities that he laid out and one where at least around that table there was some desire -- >> speaker boehner's identified it as one of the four areas that he sees for bipartisan cooperation. >> we also have the patriot act expiring in june which gives us

an opportunity -- which will force congress to act upon some of the data collection and other provisions in the patriot act -- >> do you see these issues merging together on june 1st and sort of forcing action on the part of congress? >> do i think that the -- certainly some aspects of cybersecurity will be a part of the patriot act. i'm someone who -- i voted for the patriot act, but also believed it was very important that there was the expiration of the patriot act and the provision that's would ensure that we as members of congress could analyze a few years down the road. not just what we intended but is this working effectively? and now where we find ourselves i think it was very important

that those provisions expire because i think we've all learned -- the data collection is just one piece, but i've been in a number of meetings and briefings where how it was implemented was way beyond what anyone -- the authors of the patriot act ever envisioned. and we're in a position now where we can actually ask some of those questions. >> there's been a peat notable split among some of your colleagues. not everyone's on the same page about this. >> that's true. i'm someone who believes we need to -- first of all, again, this is a debate where how we find the balance between protecting civil liberties and then also the real threats that face the country and how we go about, you know protecting americans and the safety and security of this

country, it is -- it's a balancing act. and i believe it's very important 245 congress, the house and the senate the intelligence committee really provide the kind of oversight that we need taupe sure those civil liberties are also being respected. and there's been enough examples raised where i think we all have some concerns about what exactly is being collected and i've supported efforts in the past to demand that those questions be answered. >> do you know how you're going to vote yet on the issue of reauthorization on june 1st? >> no. i'm definitely in the camp that i'm going to wait to see you know, how we craft something and how we find that balance. >> we want to ask you about something you were talking to megan smith about and that's something that just launched. the diversifying tech caucus. tell me what this is and how it

is you plant to help diversify the tech workforce of tomorrow. what it congress can do on a bipartisan basis on this front? >> i'm very excited. this is a caucus that was launched yesterday. so -- >> breaking news. >> breaking news right here between the house and the senate and republicans and democrats. i think it's -- as we celebrate technology and innovation and everything it's doing in our lives, i think it's important we're making sure that whether it's women or minorities or veterans or other -- those are disabilities disabilities, that we're just making sure that we are having a conversation spending some time, perhaps some round tables or some briefings where we just take a look at -- diving a little deeper as to maybe some of the barriers that exist. we celebrate the number of start-ups, tech start-ups, and yet only 3% of them are with

women. as someone who has long been involved in encouraging more women to go into the stem fields it's an opportunity for us to look at what are some of the perceived and real barriers that we can address. and i hope we'll find some ideas through the years i've worked on legislation. you ask so what can we do on capitol hill? i think there's a number of things we can do. part of it is to increase an awareness. and that is something we very much can do. but then there's also legislation, whether it is different incentives or scholarships. i've worked on in the past to encourage young people to pursue stem educations. i've worked on legislation to encourage the adjunct professors or we call them content specialists to go into the high schools and to help teach and

help connect, and especially as i talk to women or young women, junior high and high school age, so often they -- as you k. them, so what do you want to do with your life? you know they want to have a career where they make a difference for the long term they want to work on a team. but they don't associate science, technology, engineering and math being careers that are going to lead to this outcome. and so there's certainly more work that needs to be done. the opportunities are great right now. and as you think about how we create more opportunities in america for everybody, no matter who they are, their background their walk of life, i think there's huge potential here obviously obviously. we're still at the beginning stages of what the internet and technology and innovation has to offer. >> you've come a long way from

the series of tubes. thanks very much for the time. we appreciate it. i know you've got to get up to the hill. so kathy mcmorris rogers, thanks very much. appreciate it. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> so folks, thank you congresswoman. on the agenda we have a coffee break. just when we come back at about 10:50 or so we'll kind of ring the bell pf jared polis will not be joining us. he was pulled into a committee hearing. but we'll be back with jessica rosemore, commissioner of the communications commission. and then we'll have congressman bob goodlap. and later suzanne sparling from the department of homeland security. we'll be back in about 20 minutes. thank you.

here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span 2's book tv saturday night at 10:00 on "after words," white house correspondent for american urban radio april ryan on her more than 25 years in journalism and her coverage of three presidential administrations. and sunday at noon on "in depth," our three-hour conversation with walter isaacson whose biographies include ben franklin, albert einstein and the international best-seller on steve jobs. and on american history tv on c-span 3 saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on the civil war, boston college history professor heather cox richardson on how the cowboy during reconstruction became symbolic of