republicans including myself went to the white house on thursday to talk with the president and see where we can find common ground. those conversations are continuing. i'm sure all this back-and-forth has sound like the typical washington drama. politics is not about politicians. it is not about washington. it's about you and your family. it's about building an economy that generates and paying jobs. it's about making sure there is fairness for everyone under the president's health care law. so that hard-working people like you get the same relief big businesses have received. it's about stemming the tide of debt and deficits that threaten to wash out an entire generation's opportunities. it's about ensuring that our troops in harms way and their families are taken care of the

same way they take care of us here at home. preserving the american dream, that's what this is really about . the longer we go one settling for, maybe next time, for this notion that putting things off until after the next election is ok, the harder this is going to get. it's a challenge, but we can do this. let's get back to work together. thank you for listening. >> next, "the communicators." members discuss technology legislation, followed by first ladies. the u.s. houset debate over short-term funding for american indian health and education programs, as the government shutdown continues. c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979.

brought to you as a public service by your television provider. "theining us on communicators" is senator richard blumenthal of connecticut, who introduced a bill on telephone cramming. what is telephone cramming? >> it is the practice of putting unauthorized third-party charges on telephone bills. for servicesumers they never ordered and never received. even when they notice, they have to pay. that ispractice literally costing consumers billions of dollars. there are legitimate third-party vendors and third-party charges on telephone bills, but it is a little bit like having a credit card or using your telephone number as a credit card, but the practice of cramming is

literally cramming charges as he would on a credit card for unauthorized and unordered services. >> can you give an example of who may be placing those charges on a telephone bill, or what kind of a charge it might be? >> the charges can vary from supposednd =-- entertainment to venues purported to be provided. any manner of service. telephone numbers in land lines are available in phone books. anyone who is supposedly offering service can put a charge on a telephone bill if the company is willing to what those charges on the bill, and this measure i have offered would essentially prohibit those third-party vendors from having byess to telephone numbers ,orcing companies to stop it

and only telephone related services or bundled services, as with satellite, would be allowed to be placed on the bill. >> why do telephone companies allow these third parties access to a bill, and to add charges to a bill? they tend to facilitate these third party vendors because they helped make money for the telephone companies. they also feel it is something that consumers may want. it is a convenience, but also a great danger. consumers may have no idea how they are imperiled by the easy of the frauds and kremers and scammers to telephone lines. it is like saying, i'm going to andmy bill -- crammers

scammers to telephone lines. it is like, i'm going to pay my bill and leave it, and you pick it up. the cache may be there, but it is unlikely -- cash may be there, but it is unlikely. >> how much is this costing consumers? >> the total charged through authorized and unauthorized third-party charges is about $2 billion a year over the past five years -- year. over the past five years, about $10 billion. how many are actually fraudulent, how many are crammed , we don't know precisely. a substantial enough margin. the danger is increasing exponentially. we feel this kind of ban is absolutely necessary. >> senator blumenthal serves on the commerce committee in the senate. prior to that he was attorney

general in the state of connecticut. did you get complaints about this when you were attorney general? >> very much so. this practice has been around since the 1990's. i was attorney general of connecticut for 20 years. we made a regular practice of going after crammers were fraudsters and scammers. most often, the telephone company cooperated. often, pursuing these fraudsters after the fact provides inadequate remedies. they need to be stopped before the charges are made. seek refunds, can but very often they disappear and the telephone company a be unwilling or unable to find them or to make refunds. not only forides refunds, but penalties on the if it permitsany these unauthorized third-party charges. >> are legitimate companies

participating in so-called cramming? >> not an cramming, because cramming by definition is unauthorized. there are legitimate third-party vendors and third-party charges. his orbody wants to use her telephone line as a credit card, you might as well actually get a credit card. that's a much more secure way of charging. that's why this kind of measure is necessary to prevent a practice that is so fraught with danger and peril to the consumer , and so on scrutinized and little overseen by the telephone company that it is really important to ban it entirely. the cost of oversight and scrutiny are so high that the telephone companies on their own have not been willing to do it.

>> why just land lines, not wireless? wireless probably is the next frontier for these crammers to explore. that is why we are investigating the possibility. we did an investigation two disclosed very dramatically the growing and pervasive amount of this kind of cramming, unauthorized third- party charges on land lines. but wireless offers the same kind of opportunities, and may need the same kind of protection. >> senator blumenthal possibilities called the fair telephone billing act of 2013 -- is called theill fair telephone billing act of 2013. is anator rockefeller

leading sponsor of the bill. i'm cosponsoring it, along with center code which are -- another senator. >> what is the argument against your bill? >> the argument is that it is a convenience and a service, but it is, again, so fraught with danger that it is a service that by its nature may lead to fraud and overcharging. >> do you have republican cosponsors yet, or a house bill? >> we have no republican cosponsors. we're hoping for them, and for a house bill. >> senator richard blumenthal, democrat of connecticut. we are talking about telephone cramming here on "the communicators." thank you. joining us now is representative jason chaffetz, republican from

utah. he serves on the homeland security judiciary and government reform committees. he's here to talk about a couple of bills that he has introduced. number one is the saving high- tech innovators from egregious legal disputes, also known as the shield act. representative tickets, what does this bill do and what does it address? >> the idea is to make sure that technology can thrive in this country without these egregious lawsuits coming at people. particularly those people who just sueg to everybody, particularly the small startup companies. there is a way through the courts to be able to pursue justice, but if you have a lawsuit out there that is totally unwarranted, you're going to have to pay for that. it is intended to make sure that we get rid of these unwarranted

attacks on patents. >> can you give an example of an attack on a patent? >> we had jcpenney testify that they are just the end-user of a particular piece of hardware, and yet they were being sued for using this. if there is legitimate use out there, go ahead and go to the courts. you're going to have to put up a bond, and you're going to have to demonstrate you have the wherewithal to pay for those court costs if you lose. right now shall companies are being formed to do these lawsuits. they lose, the shell company has no assets, and we bogged down the courts. there are literally tens of thousands of these lawsuits. >> what is a patent troll? >> it is an appropriate name. there is legitimate ways and reasons why there should be in court, disputing patents.

but these trolls have set up shell organizations and literally suing everybody they possibly can without any justification. this piece of legislation would go a long way in protecting those and making sure we get the legitimate lawsuits funneling up to the courts the way they should. >> what does your legislation do specifically? >> it creates a multi pronged test which says, if you are a university, if you are the original inventor of this patent, of course you can pursue these things. is what you often have somebody going and acquiring the rights to this patent only to turn around and sue everybody they can possibly think of. a multi pronged test, and key to this is setting up a bond so if you do lose the case, you will have to pay for those court costs, which is not the case now. >> what is the financial impact estimated to be? >> it is in the billions of dollars. i talked to high-tech startup companies from utah to

california to new york. this is one of the greatest impediments, particularly for the small companies. and oracles and googles of the world, they are being sued all the time. they have the financial wherewithal, the legal staff to take care of that. startups are being destroyed because the patent troll will come in, threaten a lawsuit and say, you're going to have to spend half $1 million defending yourself, or you can send us a check for $75,000. it feels like extortion. it is much what europe is doing. it seems to be working there. >> is this part of the downside of our free get market system -- free-market system? >> no. we want people to be able to pursue remedy through the courts. but this obviously needs some changing. if you align financial incentives, you usually get the

result you need o. it has wide bipartisan support. i look forward to its passage. , is ithe shield act different than the america invents act, the patent reform legislation that went through a couple of years ago? >> it is. it's much more narrow. we are trying to get to the patent troll issue. this is a two or three page bill. focusery narrow in its towards patents in general. >> where does it stand legislatively? it has been introduced. chairman goodlatte has been very supportive of the concept. these things take time. we have had some hearings. the next step would be a markup, and i hope we can do that sooner rather than later. >> is there a senate bill?

>> i'm not sure that. right now we are focused on the house. >> another piece of legislation you introduced, the gps act, has senate companion legislation. what does this legislation do? >> geolocation is a useful tool for all americans. what i'm worried about is not only the law enforcement component, but individuals who are surreptitiously following somebody, triangulating someone, and following somebody may be on their phone or in their car or their mobile device. maybe it's an ipad. yourhould be able to have own privacy. americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and should not have to give up all those rights just because they choose to use one of these mobile devices. to gps act says in order follow someone, access their geolocation, you would have to have a probable cause warrant.

for lawld be true enforcement and individuals. if an individual wanted to follow someone in st. louis and they happen to be in phoenix, they could do it. radioshack and get a smart 17-year-old who can figure out how to do this. it should be against the law. >> the porters of this bill include the electronic frontier foundation and the aclu. what is law enforcement's response to your gps act? >> one of the things we need to look at is the obama administration's approach to this. there was a very important supreme court ruling called the jones case, in which the court nine to nothing ruled that by law enforcement using the hockey puck sized gps device, they could not follow somebody. it was a violation of the fourth amendment. justice indicated in his

writings that congress is going to have to look at this and how pervasive gps is in a broader sense, and are going to have to look at, where are those lines? it's a very important thing and it does affect every single americans. >> on the three committees that representative chafe its serves serves, he is involved in other committees. is interest in the gps act been heightened by what has been going on at the nsa? >> absolutely. we have broad bipartisan support on this. senator wyden has been the champion. the former chairman of the judiciary has been very supportive of this.

we have got very good support on both sides of the aisle. the more parents and people become acutely aware that these gps type of devices can be very helpful in your day-to-day life, they can also be a tool and a conduit for somebody who has got some the ferry as thoughts and ideas to follow somebody -- nefarious thoughts and ideas to follow somebody. that should be against the law. law enforcement should have to demonstrate to the court that they have probable cause. >> do you hear from constituents on this issue? >> absolutely. certainly with the nsa revelations, people have been acutely aware and concerned about what the government is doing, are they following them? has nota administration clarified their position post- jones. ofre was a freedom information act request that the aclu put in. every single page was redacted. we don't know what the

administration's position on this is. i question the fbi director. he said he could not talk about it at that point. >> congressman jason chafe its, itz,blican from utah -- chaf republican from utah. now joining us, democrat of california who represents several of the big technology companies in the california district. start with a topic that seems to beginning a bit of steam, cell phone unlocking. what are you working on? >> i have a cell phone unlocking section 1201 of the digital millennium copyright that allows the register of copyrights to control technology relative to alleged copyright.

were reallyns surprised when the library decided they could not unlock the cell phone that they owned without going to their carrier. it's not right. there's no copyright involved. it's a way for a monopoly to controleir monopoly after somebody has purchased a piece of equipment. if they want to enforce their contracts, there's plenty of ways to do that. they could sue. they could break the phone if they wanted to do that. you cannot keep people from unlocking their phone. my bill is the most expensive effort. -- expansive effort. it is an absurd situation we have.

this actually brought it to the attention of the american public. >> how hard are the verizon's and at&t's fighting this bill? >> they were witnesses. i thought their testimony was pretty lame. they could not come up with a good reason why. the president has mentioned this is inappropriate, gone to the fcc -- i don't know if they have both americans would consider the current , andtion to be ridiculous it's good incentive for the congress to act. >> are you finding bipartisan support for this? >> yes. unfairness tax, wireless tax fairness act, i should say. localities out that and states are taxing wireless

cell phone access, not the phone purchases themselves, in a disproportionate way. i guess it's an easy thing to do. they are taxing these plans as if they were syntaxes. it's kind of tobacco like. what we said as a congress and country is we do not want to disproportionately burden access to the internet. we have in internet fairness tax that had huge bipartisan support. when you think about where we , hown 2013, 2014 coming up do people get access to the internet, especially people who are less affluent? it is through their cell phones and digital devices. have moratoriums on disproportionate taxes on cell phone access. we have bipartisan support on that. i'm hopeful that we in the middle of all of this acrimony

can come together and do something sensible like that. >> as we're getting close to the end of the first session of the 113th congress, do you see potential action on this bill? >> i hope so. the cell phone bill passed the house last congress by a huge margin. we have over 200 cosponsors of the bill now. you would think if you're getting close to cosponsoring a bill, you might have time to bring it up. >> if they don't make it through -- session >> what does it stand for? >> electronic privacy communications act, adopted in 1986. where were we digitally in 1986? a long ways from where we were today.

it no longer fits our digital world. most people, when they use e- mail, think their communications are private. under epca, if you have an e- mail stored in your inbox for more than 180 days, you can get it without a warrant, just with a subpoena. most people don't realize that. the things you save are the things that mean a lot to you. the things you delete are spam. the wonderful e-mail from your daughter that you saved has no protection. cloud computing is really no protection.

as not only important to users, almost -- also an important business issue. if you are a u.s. business company offering cloud computing and you go to europe and say, any police agency can get your stuff with a subpoena, do you think you will be able to sell your services in germany to competitors? i don't think so. nsas they furor of the revelations died away in congress? >> i don't think so. we had a classified briefing in the judiciary committee this week. i'm not allowed to discuss what went on. i went into the hearing with a lot of concerns. at the end of the hearing, i had more concerns knighted at the beginning. had at the beginning. there will be additional inquiries. i don't think our safety needs

to be at the expense of our constitution. comes to internet and telecommunications issues, how does your post on the judiciary committee assist you? >> it's very helpful. intellectual property is the purview of the g sherry committee -- judiciary committee. there is a connection between ip law and freedom of the internet. we constantly see ip content owners wanting to encroach on internet freedom in an effort to protect their rights. they do have rights, but so do users of the internet. increasingly, we're going to find a need to examine old assumptions. the nsa issue has brought us to the forefront. there are common doctrines under constitutional law, in plain sight. there is no expectation of privacy if you're in plain view.

that is fine, if you're walking down the street. how does that work in the digital world, where as you walk down the street, your picture is taken by every store, every atm machine, and all those photos can be compiled and facial recognition technology could be utilized to identify where you are every moment of every day? is that the expectation? i don't think so. i think this will be bipartisan. to say, how do these all doctrines actually work in the digital environment -- technology has changed everything. >> something technology companies are very interested in is immigration reform. with everything going on in congress in washington, is immigration reform dead? >> i don't think so. i work on this every single day. i think we have viable ways forward.

the question is, will the republicans permit a vote? if we get a top to bottom reform measure on the floor for a vote, it would pass. the real question is, what will the republican leadership do? will they allow congress to vote or not? i hope they do. >> the democrat of california joins us on "the communicators." [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> brought you as a public service by your television provider. the house has adjourned and the senate has adjourned. preston brooks makes his way over to the senate chamber. a wooden cane with a gold knob at the end. sumner brooks says, mr.

-- sumner looks up simultaneously -- mr. sumner, i have read your speech over twice. it is a libel against my state and relative. brooks comes down on the top of sumner's head. sumnerould take charles three years to recover from that may 1856 beating. partht at 10:00 eastern, of a three-day holiday weekend on "american history tv," this weekend on c-span3. ladies, influence and image focuses on the life and times of first lady grace coolidge followed by u.s. house debate from earlier today on short-term funding for american indian health and education programs. house democrats speaking to reporters about the government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling. ♪

>> grace coolidge was enormously popular as first lady and influenced the tastes of american women by becoming a style icon. married to a man known as silent cal, she never spoke to the press, but she did use her office to bring attention to issues she cared about. good evening and welcome to the c-span series "first ladies: influence and image." tonight we will be telling you the story of first lady grace coolidge. she came into office with her husband the president in 1923 after the sudden death of president harding. here to set the stage for us is amity shlaes, a coolidge biographer, syndicated columnist, and author of other books on that period. welcome to the program. tell us about the arrival of calvin coolidge into the white house. how prepared was he for the job? >> quite prepared, because he