>> today subcommittee meets to examine the state of the economy and trends in mobile technologies. i am glad to convey this hearing. over the past several weeks consumer interactions with mobile apps and the information

these apps collect about americans has dominated the news reports. this year we have an opportunity to take a look at the apps industry and understand contributions to our economy and fostering innovation. it is also an opportunity to discuss emerging trends within them such as virtual reality and ai apps. i hope we will examine policy issues related to broadband infrastructure, data privacy, work for savella, and other considerations important to the continued growth of the economy. proliferation of smart phones and other mobile devices has created an exciting market of mobile applications. they allow consumers to access virtually anything at their fingertips and they can watch tv, deposit checks at the bank, and control the lighting and security within their homes and

start their cars or connect with a loved one face-to-face all through the touch of an app. has become -- competition, and new opportunities for american enterprises. increasingly consumers and businesses are turning to apps not just for entertainment, but also for efficiency. mississippi farmers copper examples, are using them for agriculture technologies. they allow them to monitor the health of their crops and the welfare of their lives dock remotely. this helps farmers accurately predict -- they are also using

apps to access telemedicine service. they can provide patients with immediate access to medical professionals -- and services that are not readily available in their neighborhoods or communities. we need to ensure that reliable broadband networks are available to all americans, whether that is through private investment or dedicated government programs --

>> before i get into my comments, i think i would be remiss if i did not address -- which is net neutrality and that's about the internet it will. it is hard for me to be in a hearing around apps or anything else about the internet and not mention that this week will have an opportunity in the senate to take a stand on behalf of of a free and open internet. this will require every senator to go on the record and i hope that my colleagues will join me and worked to reject the fcc's

-- weather technology is in fact bring a positive change that we hoped for. they make it easy for us to buy things and they help us to communicate better. they also created an industry that employs millions of well- paid software engineers, designers, and marketers. but we have not yet really realize the potential of these technologies and i personally worry that too many companies are focused on the wrong problems and the wrong questions. we already live at a time of unprecedented convenience, but the silicon valley spends money and brainpower building apps to make things available and on- demand and take transactions frictionless. for example, analysis said that at least $9 million was poured into delivery startups between 2006 and 2016.

as one technologist tweeted, the tech culture is focused on solving one problem. what is my mother no longer doing for me? but behind this kind of sassy comet is a more solemn truth, is that we have the best tech available in the history of the world and it should strive to solve the serious problems that we face as a society. and a lack of convenience is not one of those problems. the overwhelming options at our tips are sometimes becoming an inconvenience in and of themselves. instead we need tech to focus on the most important and impactful problems facing society. it is true that the disruptive is is models we've seen from the apple economy have provided tremendous benefits to consumers that they have costs. they cost us jobs in certain industries and create new forms of addiction and left behind an uneven distribution of wealth. sometimes that balances out to new merchants for a few but

does not turn out well for society as a whole. and i understand the concept -- and improved convenience. i don't believe -- profound and positive changes from the mobile revolution that will translate into meaningful progress for the whole country. i know there are witnesses and the organizations they represent share this hope and i look forward to hearing from the witnesses.>> thank you very much, senator. fort economic development.

>> in particular the company has developed -- to allow students and faculty to contact law enforcement about threats. and their providing precise permission about the location. given the parkland tragedy -- and how it can help law

enforcement receive information about school threat. more broadly we need to focus on making sure american workers have the right skills to participate in this part of the economy and push forward. in colleges and universities throughout florida they have stepped up. -- and university of south order, our institutions of higher education

-- >> thank you, senator. we are delighted to have our panelists here today. founder of the mississippi coding academies in -- technology, policy institute here in washington, d.c., and the president of act the app association in washington of shield group. where delighted to have each and every one of you. we will begin to my left with your opening statement of no more than five minutes.

>> thank you. on behalf of of and the coding academies, i want to thank you for this opportunity to testify today on how we just might be helping bridge this enormous gap which exists between high- tech employer needs and for entry-level programmers and developers and the available resources that they have from our community colleges and four- year colleges. before i delve into that, and i will be brief with my comments, i want to say a little bit -- our mission is to accelerate technology and innovation by connecting them to mentors and investment capital and to service providers and with help transform over 1200 ideas into real companies and those companies have raised over $170

million in capital and they have produced -- we are proud of the fact that we do that with a staff of six professionals. we have a budget of $1 million per year and half of that comes from private company sponsorships. our board is made up of private company executives, representatives -- and the mississippi community college for. i am serving a two-year term as the chairman. we not only focus on connecting these entrepreneurs with capital and providing mentors, we focus on holding -- those startups to thrive. and it was part of that charter that lettuce warm -- that let us form the academies. in our state alone there are

1200 open jobs for coding professionals. our colleges and universities produce 250 science graduates a year. about one half of them leave the state. so there is an enormous gap just in our state at the national level it is more compelling. there are half 1 million open jobs in programming and development today and it will grow to 1 million by the year 2020 and there are 43,000 graduates to meet -- they will continue to grow and things like the economy are going to worsen that gap over time unless we do things differently. there are a lot of highly motivated young people who for various reasons, mostly

socioeconomic, who are not able to attend a four-year college. yet many of them have the basic analytical and creative skills to become coding people. and those are equivalent to what many college graduates will get and they are career type positions, not just dead- end jobs. i know you will find this hard to believe, but i have had five decades in this information technology business. i will tell you this. i have seen it time and time again. you cannot predict based on background, based on education who is going to be a good developer, who will be a good programmer or a coder. some of the best i have ever known in my companies were music and arts majors. certainly a good number of them have math and science backgrounds, that you cannot predict who will be good at this. there is definitely a creative

as well as an analytical component. so what are we doing? in the spring of last year four of us, and i am one of the founders, we went to the town of water valley, mississippi, where an innovative program had been started by a couple of c level executives who had been with a successful technology services company and they wanted to give something back. the established the base camp coding academies. they wanted to prove that a high school graduate could go through an intensive 11 month program and emerge as what we would call a full stack developer. that is a programmer who has the ability to see the big picture. the database, the backend, the user interface, all the various components. not necessarily that they can do everything perfectly, but they had the ability to see the big picture and they had the ability to be productive. well, all of the graduates of

that first class were hired by companies like regional telecom from mississippi, and fedex. and those kids all have new and exciting careers in information technology. they did not want to expand beyond the areas that they were in, so with their permission, we took their ideas and approached the mississippi development authority and with the wholehearted support of our governor, who is our executive director, dr. andrea mayfield, who is the president of community colleges, and she is wonderful to work with, she recognized that we were bringing a different spin to this problem and she has worked jointly with us to make that happen. today there are 25 students enrolled in two different locations and we expect those locations to add three more

classes in june of this year and we are actively discussing three other locations in the state for 2019. in block c, and in the mississippi delta, and actually a second location in the delta, as we call it, vicksburg. i will talk about that in a few minutes. we already have 130 candidate for the 60 positions in the three classes that begin in june. we are feeling good about this.>> perhaps we can expound more on that during the question and answers. dr. oh, your recognized. >> ranking membership, and members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. my name is sarah oh.

i am in a nonpartisan think tank that studies the economics of innovation and technological change. the app economy is an important source of economic growth. as an economist, my primary concern is growth and new business formations, jobs, research and develop, and economic opportunity. apps create new markets and make existing markets more efficient. and they thereby promote growth. however, some at innovation has raised questions related to privacy, connectivity, and artificial intelligence. the right policy responses require clearly identifying the problems want to solve and thinking carefully about the cost and benefit of any proposal. in short, we need to be careful of how to reduce or remedy that affect you economy without discouraging the innovation that drives economic growth and makes us all better off.

as easy as it is to click our app button, we should remember that they call on a massive and deeply complex infrastructure to deliver goods and services. cell towers, coders, math students, and lab dedicated to research and development all work behind the scenes to deliver the apps that are simple and easy to use. they deliver real-time data to aliens of users, not just here in our country, but around the world. american companies reach a global market with apps. they make life easier and faster. at tpi we use cloud services for big data analysis. i'm amazed by how much computing power we can access today. our team of researchers can access world-class servers and only paid are the minutes that we use. are big data projects would have been impossible just a few years ago without these advances. but these advances come with

new policy challenges. regarding privacy, the economists question whether firms underinvest in data protection relative to some socially optimal level. if data breaches harm customers and firms are not period venting those harms, then there might be room for intervention. but even if harms exists, regulators must be careful to do no harm themselves. regulations have real cost and benefits to the economy. it is important to remember that with any new regulation firms will still behave strategically around the rules. firms will use regulations to benefit themselves and her competitors. regulation can have unintended consequences, disadvantages, or vice versa. the european gdp arc which begins -- to measure the effects of privacy legislation on

innovation and economic growth. regarding connectivity's, it requires continued investment in broadband. the subcommittee knows about deployment and adoption challenges, the universal service fund and the economics -- for 5g, 80,000 municipalities can hold up or speed up the expansion of wireless networks for small cells. policymakers need to stay focused on supporting investment to get everyone connected. regarding radio spectrum, the government has a lot of spectrum and federal agencies still use old inefficient equipment. it's economic growth is a priority, and the federal government can help the app economy clearing spectrum for connected devices. regarding ai, we recently hosted a conference on the policy implications of ai.

scholars discussed the limitations and potential in fields like medicine, central banking, and traffic routing. we discussed whether it is a general-purpose technology and the answer is we are not sure and how much human judgment still matters. and the answer is it does a lot. in conclusion, the app economy drives economic growth, but we need to know what computers can and cannot do, how to measure harm, and whether rules can remedy these harms. we have more questions then we have answers and it will take careful thought in conversations like the one we are having today before we have good policy solutions. thank you for inviting me to testify today. i look forward to answering your questions.>> thank you very much. mr. reed, you are now recognized. >> thank you. my name is morgan reed and i am president of the app association, which represents more than 5000 app makers, and b2b software developers.

we have members in all 50 states and all 435 congressional districts. in our 2018 economy report, we put the value at $950 billion employing 4.7 million people throughout the u.s. the average salary is nearly double the median income at $86,000. our biggest single roadblock his talents. with more than 500,000 open unfilled jobs in america today. how did we get here? smart phones have become the single most rapidly adopted technology in human history outpacing innovations like the wheel, buyer, or even the microwave. in less than a decade we have put 10,000 years of collective human knowledge into the hands of 3.4 billion people. diagrams of distant galaxies and cat videos car the smart phone brings the world to our

fingertips. gone are the days when developers created people -- a piece of software and shipped it in a box to a retail store -- today software developers can reach a global market instantaneously through trusted that forms from a swipe, click, or even a spoken command. the modern app economy is based on four major tenants. connectivity of the network, we need 5g rollout, to help grow all aspects of her industry, customer trust, consumer trust in mobile software products and services is inextricably linked to security, and encryption is a part of that. offloading overhead. my members can offload overhead onto platforms like apple and cloud providers and getting applications to market has moved from $10 million $200,000

and from months to years to a matter of weeks. finally, access to the global marketplace. the global digital economy makes my smallest member and equal player in the eyes of consumers. while some think of apps as colorful icons on their smart phone, they are revolutionizing -- in fact, two out of three businesses use apps for communication, empathy training, and other activities. our companies -- inventories and the shipping department and link all the way to the line supervisor at the manufacturing plant. for american businesses, mobile is not a luxury, it is a necessity to have a reliable platform and a constant mobile connectivity. the app economy is one of the leading employers. by 2025, computing jobs will go by 12.4% in mississippi and 6.4% in hawaii.

these of the jobs of today harnessing analytics, analytics, to create better products and services. healthcare is a particularly telling example. it has revolutionized the way providers reach patients across the country. the university of mississippi medical center -- 53 of the 82 counties live more than a 40 minute drive specialty care. but the telehealth services bring remote monitoring to people in their homes without sacrificing quality of care. -- as well as honolulu-based health tech apps, a company -- through cognitive exercises -- provides access to more than 10,000 trucking company and matches freight effective routes to reduce the carbon footprint.

-- which divides logistic support -- and captures project data to ensure projects when safely. th now -- i'm happy -- >> thank you what -- -- thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today --

a long-term impact -- technologies the act on her children's growth and development -- they're not being utilized anywhere near --

the simple truth is that -- apps are used mostly for personal entertainment -- trying to set players --

>> that sent an email somewhere. it is a powerful technology that provides -- quickly and efficiently to prevent violence in our schools. information and intelligence is critically important --

>> our other app technologies include connect protect which -- to wage yoke targeted medication information and crime reporting. and the state-of-the-art secure scare, it provides law enforcement with the stick cure and encrypted means sensitive intelligence to law enforcement officers in the field -- which, when i turn on the news every day, i hear something about how it is not a secure means of mitigating sensitive -- it is accelerating at an amazing pace.

-- fastest growing sphere. it is more than just entertain. the adoption of mobile technologies by law enforcement and federal, state, and local government, will allow them to share information and save taxpayers money by vastly increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the services delivered. i wanted to end by thanking you, mr. chairman, and the members of the committee for this opportunity, as well as the local government and law enforcement professionals that serve americans every day. we are proud to work with these men and women around the country, and particularly in senator nelson's home state of florida. i especially want to acknowledge -- has been a constant source of ideas and challenges that help us to meet the demands of law enforcement agencies everywhere. thank you, again. >> thank you to all four of you for some very intriguing

testimony. mr. reed mentioned annual average salaries of $86,000, rarely double the national average. in this field about technology -- of app technology and there is such a great demand that we are nowhere near billing -- billing those slots. perhaps we need to talk about apprenticeships and why you are thinking about that, let me ask mr. forster along those lines, what is it about the academies that frees you from government red tape and allows you to respond more quickly to the needs of industry?

and what do you think of the statistics of $86,000 saturdays he's in the ballpark there?>> yes, i have every confidence that those numbers are real. in our state our average starting salaries are in the $50,000 to $60,000 range. they move up to the $80,000 range for more developers. what is the key? and the thing that eliminates this your craddick issue, if you will? we must start private industry or industry because we have a great partner, but we must start with the employer. they must be engaged with us. they must set the curriculum. we do not want to be teaching

what the technologies were 10 years ago or even two years ago. this industry reinvents itself in terms of programming technologies, development technologies, continuously. so only through a very tight relationship with indus tree are we able to quickly respond to those needs. they provide guest instructors and we go out and visit them on- site. and our students get to see what it is like in the work place. these are the kinds of things that make us different and those of the distinguishing care restricts. >> mr. read, what you had to add to that?>> i would like to echo everything he said. but this is worthwhile to know. 50.2% of the population in rural areas does not have broadband. >> where'd you get those to six? >> here's why this thursby.

right now, we had over 50 ceos in town and we had a whole of the room and i asked how many employed people who do not work in your home location or interest date? i had 100% of my 50 ceos saying they're willing to work with people and hire people who are not in their state. and the problem we have with the state like mississippi, if they go home, and they do not have broadband, then how are my people going to hire them? and that is how we look at 5g roll out. i can hire your people, they just have to have broadband. >> where is tv white space working?>> there are several pilot projects working across the country. its primary use is in rural areas. as this committee knows, the difficulty -- you have a world population that is nine miles

from the nearest truck, it is expensive to pull a line down, but if we can use tv white spaces to get broadband connectivity to rural populations, we can change their future in terms of their ability to live where they are from and compete in a global environment.>> which companies are delivering -- what kind of companies -- entity takes this tv white space and makes an agreement and gets it there?>> so the tv white space is being pioneered by a company out of senator cantwell's home state. they been on the front edge of this, and they been partnering -- the tv white space is essentially like your wi-fi, but how to get wi-fi to go a

lot further than we can on the current -- we need better spectrums. >> back to the statistic you gave. about mississippi. i said -- i assume you have similar statistics about all the other states? and is that in a form that you could enter into the record? >> absolutely. >> without objection, that will be entered into the record at this point. you know we're having a debate, 11, with the fcc -- on this very topic. are you telling me you have done a study -- your group has done a study that is different and uses different information?>> we have done combinations of studies. at the rate of almost all of these -- it is still the fcc's

data. we would love to have more accurate data, in fact we had meetings with the commissioners on the four to get us better data. right now we find almost -- if you dig deep enough, it goes back to the fcc. >> pardon me, my fellow subcommittee members, how do we get better data? do you have suggestions for us? dr. oh? >> so we use fcc data as well. and what we find is that it is often delayed by two or three years. i'm not part of that conversation about getting better data but i would be interested to know how expensive it is. and whether money allocated for other

things can be put toward maps. there are a lot of other things that the fcc is spending on and that -- prioritizing maps could be one way -- >> i will add -- i am way over my time. no one is really happy with these naps. -- these maps. you seem to suggest that there is a better set of data.>> there are, but given our time can raise, i would be happy to sit down with your staff and talk about the ways that are data scientists, as well as -- how we can pull the data from existing sources and the fact that most americans are carrying a smart phone in their pocket. how do we use the access on the wireless side right from the phones themselves. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

there is bipartisan concern in terms of these maps. and it seems to me that the basic problem is that they are switching the onus of responsibility on to state and individual communities to disprove that the maps are incorrect, when everyone knows they are not accurate. i think we are going to have to shift that conversation. i know -- this is sort of an open docket question. but what we wanted is the most accurate map and if estate or community is unable to for resource reasons to marshal the data to disprove there, that should not penalize them. this is the fcc's job to get this correct and they're getting it wrong and even though the chairman and i are disagreeing on net neutrality as it relates to the fcc, we could not agree more strongly on this issue. it seems to me that when it comes to the app economy, you

have an infrastructure peace, you have a work horse problem, and then you have everything related to connectivity, and tv white space, and 5g and everything else. that is relatively lashed out, but i think it is important to get the technical pieces rights. the question i want to ask is we have the best tech in history and although we are talking about telehealth and exciting technology that can transform society in a positive way, i would like to be reassured from you, and i will start on my right, that we are not simply providing infrastructure to allow people to purchase what they want, a good or a service, just a little faster. it seems to me that a lot of the tech money is in that space, and i think it is not a coincidence that 85% -- and the

problems that they have are different problems than the rest of society. and when they think about what is a killer app, they think about something that is related to their own personal convenience. and that is where the capital flows. can you reassure me that we are solving the problems with this big tech? >> i agree with you that there are bigger problems with this. we do have a connectivity problem. when you can go to places and people cannot use their smart phones, we have huge problems. and you see this every day. my partner yesterday had to buy a new phone and he was in a place in virginia and he could not use his phone.>> we have these conversations about connectivity every time we have a subcommittee hearing. my question is what big problem will we stop? not just i would like a slurpie now.

tell me, since you are the app association person, what can we solve? >> it is funny that you bring that up, because you did talk about telehealth. and you have a bill that would make one of the largest changes possible. hopefully, everyone in the room here in knows how much they reimburse for telemedicine? 14 million. that is an embarrassment. when you talk about the way we can make changes, -- if you see a doctor at the top of his game, top of her game, she is likely to have seen about 29,000 patients by the time she sees you. but a patient with your condition and your comorbidity, she is lucky if you've seen five people. she will make a determination on how to treat you about what you learned in school, what she took in a continuing education classes. and what we are looking to do

through mobile applications and access to data is the ability to arm that physician with intelligence. and they know that you respond better to this medication. she responds better to treatment -- that is about the most important problem we can solve, and that is saving lives that are there to be saved. and i say we are able to make that difference.>> for ai, one of the hopes of ai is that we can have robot that can do complex tasks. for something i did not put in my comment is that if we have robot second bowl laundry, that is millions of hours of manual labor done by women that can be used for something else. in folding laundry that is a complex task for a robot. and that is what scientists are doing. robots will be able to do those manual tasks that people do not

have to do any longer. so is it the jetsons or the terminator? there are many things that if we could get a robot to do that, it would take a lot of time.

white male dominated. several of those students have stated they have expressed interest in building their own apps. it is just another aspect of bringing that portion of our citizenry and our young people in to really, really productive jobs. and those demographics i think are compelling. >> thank you. >> i might note that the connect for health act has four original cosponsors. and, needs to be congratulated for now having 23 cosponsors.

senator cantwell. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you to the witnesses. thank you mr. forester for mentioning code.org and your work in your home state. i always said we need to be more aggressive about our coding education. unfortunately, the federal role is so much more minimal than the state's role in this this aspect. i always refer to my own experience of taking typing and latin and that having a mandatory language requirement. that today, our mandatory language requirement should be one year of coding in our schools. that would give everybody access to your point about never predicting which student is good at coding. it is something every student should be exposed to. i invisit you to come to seattle and visit code.org or any of our institutions on this. mr. reed, i wanted to talk to you about the app economy since you represent the association. and your comments about

efficiency and constant mobile activity. i think you hit it right on the head about this issue which is what the app economy needs and what the businesses who rely on the app economy need. i can't tell you the list of farming applications i have seen. everything from managing livestock to predictability about weather. i see you are for net neutrality or an open in quantifying that information. what does it mean if we don't have that kind of rule of the road for efficiency and connectivity of those devices? and, you don't have to talk just about the farm economy. but at ladies and gentlemen, what are people looking for? >> i think, i think it is why i started the comment act the

fact that it is worth remembering that we have connected 3.4 billion people with the world's collected information. what you are getting to, is people seek knowledge about what they want to do. it shouldn't all be fun and games. it is people saying i want to do more. i want to reach a different group of people than i can in my hometown. so the door that is open is amazing. it is knowledge, access, interactivity. and without the internet access and the rules of the road and how do we get to those rural communities. one side everybody is connected and the other side still has blank spots in it. we have to figure out how to make sure that the people in all parts of the state have that access to connectivity and the rules of the road are

established. i think you are right on point in figuring out how the senate quantifies that is the next step. >> i think having just visited spokane and seeing how it is a start up incubator, if somebody starts artificially slowing that down today, i'm going to be less sufficient in delivering services. and so, that, i think is the concern for us. the fact that in vancouver, washington, a cable company is saying well i will give you higher speed broad band today. but, only if you take our expense i expensive bundle. they will give you less expensive higher speed only if you take the bundle. so what consumers are worried about is the app economy will get hijacked and they will be so dependent on these applications.

that somehow, they are artificially slowed down or throttled that will be a problem for them. so i guess i'm with our colleague from hawaii. i'm very much in support of clarifying this now. that we are protected but i just think to your point, whether you are in seattle as you said, one of the most connected places in the country or on the other side of the state, you still want the same thing. you want the efficiency that comes from all of these applications. if that is information in the cloud, you don't want to be slowed down from getting access to it. because otherwise, you are not going to be running an efficient business. isn't that what so many apps are based on? >> we are certainly based on greater efficiency. but we are not only about efficiency, but solving problems but i take your points to heart. it is something our community is very aware of and engaged on. >> thank you.

i hope our colleagues will take time to really deeply understand how much this access is about small businesses starting something new and being competitive. that is why we need net neutrality. thank you. >> thank you senator cantwell. senator cortez-masto is next. >> thank you mr. chair. good afternoon, welcome. so i want to touch on an area i'm really interested in coming from nevada. it kind of touches on what senator shots was saying. we should be developing these apps for more than just ordering a slurpee. and what is happening in nevada is very exciting. i call it the innovation state. we are actually utilizing this smart technology and transportation apps to seamlessly integrate the user's experience in the community. i think that addresses safety,

efficiency, and accessibility. what we have seen in northern nevada is the app token transit, our regional transportation put together in washoe county. there is so much more and so much potential so my question i will open it up to the panel and i know mr. reed, you talked a little about this. can you talk a little more about how you envision these apps when it comes to the intersection between smart technology and smart communities. how you envision or how these will be transforming the future in our communities. >> well, i think it is a great point you raised because you use the keyword there. community. it is about the bonds you have with people either of common interest. locality. the way we go about our lives. when we go to church, what we

do, where we go to eat. and the way people use mobile apps to connect is exactly that. it is about how they build their community. the web of interaction they have with other people. what you are seeing now with states and localities is how do we have these people who have been outside the community who don't have access to transportation? who have a hard time with emergency care? one of the members we have has built an ai based chat bot to deal with language barriers for emergency personnel. you don't use the community health center. you don't use the community emergency room if you are worried they won't understand you at the front door. how do you take the brilliance of applications and the back end power of an application and turn it into something small in the right way? if we can help with language, with access to facilities, with transportation, you gained what you want. which is an improved community. >> and that's it right? it is about the individuals

living in the community and the impact on them. >> that's the correct. >> it is bringing that connectivity and utilizing it in the smart communities. what you want to call it. it is that interaction. >> so, we have had the pleasure of working with the national league of cities on some of the smart cities issues and i recently did a panel with them on this exact topic. the real lesson to learn i found from the mares and others was the idea of community building blocks. transportation. how do you get to and from your house and work and to and from your place of worship? how do you engage with services the city needs to provide? and frankly, how do you enjoy yourself? and i thought one of the most profound things i heard from the leaders of the national league of city is a smart city is also a fun city. it is not boring. it is not just gray buildings. it has to be a city that gives you something vibrant to

interact with. i think you are right on point. how do cities become enablers of a better community? >> that's right. and so, part of what i also see happening as i work with our regional transportation commission in nevada. and across the country, this new technology. as we build this infrastructure, we better be building the guardrails for privacy and cyber security. it's the easiest time for us to incorporate. we talked about coding and the need to ensure we are teaching the next generation, the young generation in the schools, coding, but, how do we get the talent on the security side? how do we ensure we are incorporating the security piece of that? that has been my biggest challenge. particularly with the former attorney general of nevada. let me open up the panel. this has been part of our

discussion as well. >> well, you put your finger on what will be an increasingly important part of the development community's responsibilities. and we are working right now with dr. mayfield who i mentioned in the community ledges to perhaps copartner with them to put in a cyber crick line up if you will that might be a next level of the course work for our people to get us all more aware. more capable. it is certainly like all the other techniques and technologies that we need to use, it is going to have to be developed. it is going to have to be given a lot of emphasis and investment because it is ultimately an achilles heel. >> and i would agree with that also. and what we see constantly is

there are older technologies that just don't talk to each other. people are still using things that were written 15, 20 year, ago they say they want to share this information between law enforcement. local government. they are trying to share information. they can't right now. we are having to write code to have the systems be integrated and you can actually share information. >> we are short 270,000 jobs in the cyber security area. anything you can do to make more people in nevada potential people i can hire, i'm looking forward to that. >> thank you. >> senator bloomenthol. >> thank you mr. chairman. i want to talk about privacy. mr. reed, your organization

stated after the enforcement action four years ago, when the punishment rarely changes and fits the offense. the emerging tech companies will approach ftc enforcement as nothing more of the cost of doing business. you were commenting on the penalty against snap chat over security abuses as nothing more than the cost of doing business. apparently, the same was true of facebook as we have now learned from the recent revelations about cambridge analytica. aren't there models of privacy rules or enforcement that congress should impose? haven't we learned our lesson and shouldn't we begin, in fact, with the new european rules? the general data protection

regulation? that everybody in europe is going to have to follow. why should americans be guaranteed less privacy than europeans? >> well, a couple of quick things. i think that comment from four years ago, boy, it made me sound smart. because it is still true today. i think one of the things congress can do, this committee in particular, i think we are about to have a full slate of ftc commissioners. they need to look at enforcement from two lenses. one, how do you fix a problem. and two, how do you make a difference? and in the gepr question, the problem we have with gdpr, we don't know which gdpr it is. we had a series of letters come out of the article 29 working party that radically changed most interpretations of gdpr. so, on gdpr writ large, i think

that there's still a lot to be seen. what does it mean. how do we implement it. my members are taking it seriously. we have a whole series of blogs on how do small businesses comply with it. you may have missed my earlier testimony. what is worth noting is every single one of my members, the one man shops to the largest, they are part of the global economy. we are taking gdpr seriously. but we don't know what it means in all places yet. >> we may not be sure of what it means in all places, but we know about the general principle. minimizing data. providing for consent. enabling transparency. consumers should know which data should be collected. there are basic principles here that they are nowhere near adopting right? >> it is great it is coming

from you with your legal background. one of the problems we have are the basic principles and how we want to communicate them to our users and the legal requirements that avoid liability. which you brought up earlier. so, how do we for example on machine learning, data minimizization is great on concept. and something we help build and something we are really proud of. 500 plus developers with thousands of apps for kids. one of the problems when we move into machine learning is okay. how do i do data minimizing and provide tooling for health care? on the point of transparency, that's great. but i spent a year working with mtia and others for the short form privacy notice. when we field tested that with users they wanted something very different. it is a work in progress. the best results i have seen so far are what we have seen out of apple, microsoft, and just in time notification. meet the customer where they

are. tell them how the data is being used. when it is being grabbed or taken and tell them how you are going to use it later and finally provide another interface if they want to say i want that back. but all the points you raise and the key principles you are outlining are important. how we get there and deal with the liability is the part we are still working on. >> i know that it is a complex area. but, my feeling is that the absence of some line in the sand, some right lines, even though in practice, there may have to be complexity in all of the subheadings of those principles as applied to different apps and so forth. that absence will mean nothing is done. and, five years from now, we will be having the same

conversation. and i just fear that your prediction, that the punishment really changing and never fitting the offense, it is the cost of doing business, will mean that these app developers will just keep pushing the envelope against privacy interests. so, my time has expired. i'm sorry to end on a pessimistic note. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator. i need to apologize to senator hassan. she should have been recognized before senator bloomenthol. >> you can blame it on me mr. chairman. >> okay. and so, senator you are now recognized. >> thank you chairman wicker and ranking member shots. i am having an afternoon where i would like to have roller skates so sitting still for a couple of minutes is a good thing. to all of the panelists, thank you very much for being here.

it is excellent to hear from all of you about what the future holds for the mobile economy. jobs, new efficiencies. we really do hold great promise. and that is why i work with senator gardner and we are working with others who introduced the airways app and creating the safe pipeline for the resource the economy needs on. this will make major investments broad band promote inknow nation. the air waves act will ensure that the united states is prepared to engage in the global race. do you agree the additional spectrum is necessary for the mobile economy of the future? and if you do, do you agree the steps were necessary for the mobile economy to thrive and for us to remain a leader in

the global 5g? >> yes. absolutely. i think congress is one of the only bodies that can push federal spectrum out. and i think every legislative act that does so is really good for the economy. and 20 years from now, the app economy will be divisive. any way you can release spectrum now is a good thing. >> anybody else want to comment? well, thank you for that answer. another reason i am glad to be working with senator gardner on the air waves act, we developed a mechanism to focus on rural economies and communities new hampshire has significant rule areas that lack the connectivity we take for granted in urban markets. i'm sure that is true of other

areas. it would set apart 10% of proceeds to serve underserved areas. it is a real down payment on the mobile future for royal consumers. it could mean billions of dollars for rural deployment. do you have thoughts on what other steps we might take to get the mobile economy to rural areas in new hampshire and throughout the country and again, anybody wants to answer. >> i am from an even larger state of alaska. i will tell you, one of if areas earlier i discussed was the need on how to expand tv wide spaces to do broad band for rural communities. i think the area really important to hit on that is

empowering rule communities with broad band is not about giving them something to look at and play with, but it enabled them to stay there and get a job. they are training people in rural areas. and they don't have to leave mississippi or your great state to work for our companies. it is not to make people happy but enployed. >> do you have anything to add mr. forester? >> in the near term, we are highly focused on employment opportunities that exist with traditional employees but i can tell you that we must provide this capability broadly across states like yours and mind. because so many of these people will be in areas notes serviced well otherwise. and they cannot realize the potential of what they might wish to do. we not only meet mississippi's

requirements but we are providing resources to other states. as soon as we are in that position, guess what? we are limited unless we can provide the very, very high broad band access they will need to work in austin, but live in mississippi. >> thank you. i know others have mentioned the issue. i wanted to touch on the issue of our mapping. the fcc is working to implement a program called mobility fund space to provide resources for our mobile networks. the fcc's map of networks is inaccurate and leaves rural communities in the state of mississippi without much recourse. senators moran, wicker, and i are working to get these apps updated. what additional advice do you have for rural communities that hope to keep pace with

innovation and what more can we do here at the federal government state localities and the private sectors to assist our rural communities? >> i just would like to note that the universal service fund and that push and high cost fund is $4 billion every year. so, what this group can do is take a closer look at where's the money going. are we geting the best bang for our buck. and, it really is a constant stream of money. so, there is an additional $5 million for broad band recently. where's the money going? so i think more studies and more inquiries to the fcc status updates and studies. >> well thank you. i see i'm out of time. thank you mr. chair. senator marky?

>> thank you. i love hearings on mobile technologies. back in ... unbelievably back in the early 19 1980s , the chairman of at&t asked how will they have a wireless device? and the chairman of at&t testifying before congress said one million people in america. and we had given them the spectrum for free. that was their vision. at&t. so that wasn't good. and we had given another company all this for free. so ... i got a little discouraged. so in 1993, i was able to move over 200 megahertz of spectrum for the seventh licenses but not allow the first to encompass the bid. they were charging 50 cents a minute. and the phone was the size of a

brick. so by 1995, 1996, everyone had one of these phones. flip phone. it was digital, not analog. ten years later along comes steve jobs and we are moving this way. so, we just keep moving. moving. you know? in the right direction. but one of the key ingredients will be having net neutrality on the books. for wireless devices as well. because everything is moving over to wireless. we know the history and history is not good. it is a rich long history that informs everything that we are going here. and net neutrality is something that by necessity has to be on the books. in 2005, a north carolina base provided the madison river communication block.

the online voice service to favor their own service. in 2007, ap found comcast was severely blocking down bit torrents of website that offer consumers to share video, music, video game files. comcast was not happy with that. 2007, 2009, at&t forced apple to block skype and offer other competing voiceover internet protocol services. so they would use their power network control to push people toward their own services. and so, the long rich history is that the innovation comes from the competitors. when you are in control of the network, your innovation is really in how do you block? how do you stop? how do you push around those who are seeking to innovate in the space and it went on and on. year after year, i can just go

through all of the different examples. why net neutrality is needed. so as we move deeper and deeper into this wireless world, can we ask each of you, did you support the obama era net neutrality rules when they were put on the books? did you support that mr. forester? >> i'm probably not really a good source for a comment there. >> you don't have a view? >> i have a personal view. >> what is that? >> that the net should be free and open as it can be. and it is going to drive continued economy. >> my view is that title one was the regime for the last ten, 1 years. and so, i would say title one. >> mr. reed? >> we support the four

principles of net neutrality and are looking forward to having a solution that holds up over the length of time. >> so, you would not put the existing rules back on the books. social security that -- is that what you are saying? >> we do not have a version of the books that go on with more than 5,000 members as we are looking at it. >> i just wondered if you wanted the strongest version. that's the version we are going to vote on tomorrow. the strongest version. >> it is us being a small company. we want equal representation and to have the same speed and access as everyone else. >> and, as you know, the court struck down the rules of title one. so, i know what your preference is. but, the courts actually struck them down when they moved in that direction. so, so, this is a big historic

vote that we are going to have tomorrow. and, again, in the wildest world, it is going to be absolutely imperative that you can't be discriminated against. you can't be blocked. you can't be told what you can and can't do. this is like oxygen. you know. to young people. but to the people who are not so young as well. if we want to preach openness, we shouldn't want to teach temperance from our school. we should stand up ourselves. this will be the most historic vote we will have on keeping the internet as open and free as it should be. >> i'm not sure you got the answers you were hoping for. but thank you for the questions. senator udall. >> thank you chairman wicker. all of you have pointed out that the app economy is an

innovative part of the economy. and has revolutionized how we navigate our lives. we have heard about the history and overview. the innovations raised questions about children growing up in a digital world. parents are forced to make choices between their children's privacy and getting their kids to engage in an increasingly online world. i with senator hassan have written to youtube about the youtube kids app directing children to conspiracy theory videos and about the need to respect the privacy of children. and i also plan on contacting other major app developers and platforms as part of the effort to ensure the children's privacy is protected. mr. reed, last month, the washington post reported on a study by the international computer science institute at the university of california

berkeley finding that thousands of children's apps on google were violating the child's online privacy protection act. it identified disney's where's my water and the game loft minion rush. what does your association believe the federal trade commission should and can do to avoid violations of capa? >> it has been one of my most interesting exercises the 15 years i have been working on this to try to figure out the breadth and scope of capa. i testified when senator marky was congressman marky. we have to figure out how to meet parents where they are. when it comes to developers abiding by it, that's the law. and they need to do it. we built a network with more

than 500 moms with apps but then dads were involved as well and it became the no it's inside program. all the developers fully compliant. here was the interesting part we ran into. the parents found the friction difficult. the parents were the ones we had to figure out, how do you engage better? how do we get the parents' attention when it matters? not when i load them with consent mechanisms. we are looking at a world under capa, how do we comply with their rigors. there are 150 items on the faq at this point and meet parents with the way they behave. that has been one of the most difficult challenges on making capa work. also provider a parental perspective. they want the kid to see what the kid wants to see.

main thing, the fcc need to do more. and they need to do more publicly. we personally, i personally and our association brought examples of violations to them. and they were solved by the services. and there was no visible flurry in the water. they need to use their bully pulpit to take the most obvious offenders. keeping in mind it's the parents we have to make sure we educate. >> yeah, focusing a little bit and drilling down on the ftc enforcement. in the past two years, how often has the ftc enforced with the app developers? >> this is the ftc, the reality of the situation. which is the ftc has been active behind the scenes in

meeting with hundreds, maybe thousands of developers. in terms of big public enforcement we are at a small number at this time. that is not to say they have not been bringing people in. my point to you, we need to do some of these publicly so there can be some understanding by my community and the parental community what is expected of them. what is expected of us and how do we meet in the middle. >> many of the app developers are based in lithuania and china. do you think most app developers including ones located overseas are fully aware of the requirements of capa and that what you are saying would help is ftc being aggressive. >> it is fascinating.

everybody is global. it is creating a whole new series of regimes. they can't do it in europe. you talk about lithuania. i'm hearing them say how do i meet with them at the same time. i actually think weirdly enough, where we are right now with gdpr is going to help and i would like the ftc to use some of its powers to go after specific companies to make people more aware of their requirements. >> great, thank you very much. i know i'm over time mr. chairman. i will submit a couple of additional questions. >> many of us went over time today. because it is such a good topic. i want to thank the members of the subcommittee. and the members of the panel.

for a very, very fine hearing today. my staff has told me i have to close with a statement that the hearing record will remain open for two weeksful during this time, senators are asked to submit any questions for the record upon receipt, the witnesses are requested to submit their written answers to the committee as soon as possible. and that is about as flexible as i have heard. so thank you very much, ranking member shots. and other members of the sub submit subcommittee. this hearing is adjourned.

[ ambient noise ]

>> join us thursday when directors from the national institutes of health testify before the senate appropriation subcommittee on the president's 2019 budget request for the research centers. our live coverage starts at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on cspan3. later on thursday, it is comments from small business administrator linda mcmahon. she is expected to discuss small business in america. live coverage starts at 1:00 p.m. eastern also here on cspan3. >> this weekend, cpan city tours takes you to selma alabama. we will cross the iconic edmond pettis bridge for a town known for its role in the civil war

and civil rights movement. on book tv. we will visit the home of dr. martin luther king jr. used as his selma headquarter as he planned the selma to montgomery march. >> there was a photographer here. he worked for life magazine at the time. he was embedded in the house. and he wanted to capture dr. king's emotions as he watched on television. president johnson committing to signing the voting rights act. this is the chair dr. king was sitting in watching that television. president johnson addressed the nation. >> and we will meet the first african-american fire chief in the city. chief henry allen talking about his book marching through the flame. on sunday at 1:30 p.m. eastern on american history tv. we will look at the voting rights movement that started in the 1930s and visit several

locations around the town integral to the movement. and then the the visit to the edmond pettis bridge. >> they see this name. and the sense of the past and the present coming together. a modern bridge stamped with the name of a voice of white supremacy in the house. >> watch saturday at 5:30 p.m. eastern on cspan2's book tv. and sunday, on american history tv on cspan3. working with our cable affiliate as we explore america. sunday, on q and a, university of virginia history professor william hitchcock on his book the age of eisenhower. america and the world. in the 1950s . >> well, i call it the disciplined presidency. eisenhower in the way he

carried himself and the man he was, was a disciplined man. a great athlete. an organized man. very methodical. that is how he ran the white house too. he was extremely organized and a lot of people, especially the young senator future president john kennedy criticized eisenhower's stogginess. but for eisenhower, it meant when crises came, he had a plan. he knew who to turn to. he used to say plans are worthless, but planning is everything. so, you are always thinking what is over the hill? what crisis might erupt? he chaired the national security council every week. and he has his thumb on government. he trusted the process. he believed the federal government could work well if it was well lead.

>> q and a. sunday night at 8:00 eastern on cspan. connect with cspan. go to cspan.org/connect and sign up for the e-mail. the program guide is a daily e- mail with the most updated prime time schedule and upcoming live coverage. word for word gives you the highlights. an insider's look at upcoming authors and book festival. and the weekly newsletter giving you the upcoming programming exploring our nation's past. visit cspan.org/connect an sign up today. now, the house administration committee examineing the operation of the u.s. capital visitor's center as it nears its tenth anniversary. members heard from the ceo of visitor services who