i stand here today to remember and remind us all that more than any other word, auschwitz is synonymous with evil. as someone who is very proud of her polish american heritage, i visited auschwitz and i wanted to see it when i had the chance to learn more about my own heritage and i wanted to see what happened there so that i would remember, and i rise today so that the world remembers what happened there and then the her heroic effort of the allied forces joined together to be able to save europe and save western civilization. i've introduced a resolution honoring those that survive even today and those that were lost that would remind us that we need to work always for tolerance, peace and justice and

always to end genocide. the horrors of auschwitz are incomprehensible and indescribable. the numbers are grim and even ghoul issue. over -- ghoulish. over one million people, men women and children, lost their lives at auschwitz. 90% were jews, hundreds of thousands were children and the largest of any of the death camps. auschwitz was created as an internment camp. it was first created as an internment camp for polish dissidents for hundreds of thousands of poles who were not jewish but were murdered alongside the jews of auschwitz. in occupied poland, a nazi governor named hans frank proclaimed that poles will be foreverren sliefd by the third reich, but auschwitz went far beyond the poles because the

german authorities brought in people from throughout europe. who were the people that came? they were teachers, they were politicians, they were professors, they were artists. they were even catholic priests. they were executed -- they were executed or barely survived. these are the authors of heroism that arise from the horrors. many poles risks their lives to save jews. i am reminded of the story of loraine sendler. she smuggled 200 jewish children out of the ghetto into a safe house. the gestapo arrested her first in 1943. they tortured her and then condemned to death. yan karsky working for the polish government to went on to become a leader of solidarity and a newfounder of the democratic government. worked for the polish government. in working he visited the

warsaw ghetto and he did much to liberate people. but, you know, this is not a story of numbers or statistics or naming other heroes. it was a story i'm going to tell about myself. in the late 1970's as a brand-new congresswoman i traveled to poland. i wanted to see my heritage and i visited the small really small village that my family came from where my great grandmother left poland as a 16-year-old girl to come to the united states to meet up with her brother to begin a new life. little money in her pocket but big dreams in her heart. and the story of america is the story of our family. landing in baltimore when women didn't even have the right to vote. she came in 1886, and exactly 100 years to the year i became a united states senator. so i wanted to go back to see where we came from, to really

know our story even better, but i also wanted to see the dark side of the history of poland and i went to auschwitz. touring the concentration camp was an experience for me that was searing and even today i carry it not only in my mind's eye but i carry it in my heart. i could not believe the experience. and, madam president you know me. you know i'm a fairly strong, resilient person. i think we have even shared stories that i was a child abuse worker. i have seen tough things, but i wasn't prepared for what i saw that day. as i walked through the gate of auschwitz to see the sign that welcomed -- the despicable sign to welcome here. then we toured. you don't tour. it's not a tourist site. it's a memorial. it's sacred ground. it's not a tourist site. but as we walked through and we

saw the chambers where people had died, i even went to a particular cell of a father colby, a catholic priest who in the death camp gave his life to protect a jewish member there. when they were ready to shoot him, father colby stepped forward to offer his life instead. father colby in my faith tradition has been can onized a saint for his heroic effort to show that he was willing to martyr himself for another human being and in the belief that god was there in what he wanted to do. but as i walked through there and i saw hard things and tough things and wrenching things, repulsive things, repugnant things then i got to the part that really broke my heart. i got to the part about the children. pictures of children, little

children not that any child's age is there and then i saw the bins. the bins of the children's shoes. bins piled up with little shoes. size 2 size 3 size 4 laced up shoes because they were the shoes that they had in the 1930's and in the 1940's. and then i saw their suitcases, and then i saw over in another corner the eyeglasses that were taken from them and broken into pieces. and then i saw the pictures of the mothers. i will tell you madam president, i became unglued. i had to step away. and even today when i tell you this story my voice chokes up because it shook my very soul. so as we move into this commemoration because it certainly -- it's both a celebration and a commemoration

a celebration of the liberation but a commemoration of what went on. i knew when i left auschwitz i knew and i understood why first of all we should never have genocide in the world again. the second thing and also so crucial to my views is that there always needed to be a home for the jewish people, why we always need an israel, why it has to be there survivable for the ages and for all who seek a home there and seek refuge there. so this is why i work so hard on these issues in terms of the support for israel, the end of genocide and also the gratitude for all the people who fought. for the people who fought in the underground. for people who fought in the resistance. for people to tried to participate in the famous uprisings. to thank god also for the other fighters. you know, the ones who in the

camp gave whatever they could to keep other camp members going. and then for the allied troops led by the united states of america. that when we stood together, we stood and stared evil down, and when we opened up the doors of auschwitz for freedom and the ability to come out barely alive, that it was indeed a historic moment. we don't want that history ever to have to repeat itself where there has to be a liberation of a death camp. so i want to also take this opportunity to salute the allies and all the american people who made us victorious in world war ii. so let's say god bless the united states of america and let's work together for a safe and secure middle eas >> the senate judiciary

committee holds its confirmation hearing for loretta lynch. that gets underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern. live coverage on c-span3. on thursday, day two of the confirmation, other witnesses will testify. live coverage on thursday is on c-span. loretta lynch is currently the u.s. attorney for the eastern district of new york covering brooklyn, queens and staten island. the district and also includes long island. she held the position in the clinton administration from 1999 to 2001 and again starting in 2010. she earned undergraduate and law degrees at harvard and she is 55 years old. >> this sunday on q&a, neuroscientist frances jensen

about the teenage brain. >> they do not have a frontal lobes to reason. cause and effect of actions are not clear. their frontal lobes are not as readily accessible. the connections cannot be made as quickly for split-second decision-making. and a lot of hormones are changing in the body of young men and women. of the brain has not seen these yet in life until you hit teenage years. the brain is trying to learn how to respond to hormones rolling around and a onto receptors and synapses of different types. it is trial and error. this contributes to the roller coaster kind of experience that we watch as parents. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a. >> the internet education

foundation policy conference in washington, d.c. yesterday. addressing cybersecurity, net neutrality, virtual currency, and wireless broadband technology. we hear from the u.s. chief technology officer megan smith discussing the cause of her office and representative cathy mcmorris rodgers on how congress uses social media. this is about one hour 50 minutes. >> we are going to get going. thank you to everybody who braved the weather. in a lot of school closings so folks have to deal with child care issues. we are live streaming thanks to the internet society.

c-span is here today. a lot of ways for this to get out. on youtube we will be showing the video and the audio at a later date. thank you for showing up. state of the net is a community effort. i'm happy you made it here and we are ready to go. on your agenda, you should see the person speaking should be jerry berman the founder of the internet education foundation, which organizes and produces the state of the net. along with other events. the congressional app challenge and several other projects. jerry lives in a cabin and west virginia and he never got out of that cabin. he sends his regrets.

jerry created the internet education foundation ago with a lot of folks in this room to the a neutral platform. every internet stakeholder could come together in good faith and with stability and debate internet issues. jerry believed everybody was an internet stakeholder, even if they did not realize it. that has borne out to be truer and truer. there are more people coming to the debate and discussion about internet policy that probably never would have considered themselves stakeholders several years ago. that vision by the founders of the board of the internet education foundation has proven to be more true. in your package, you have an agenda a list of board members to whom we are grateful.

that keeps us balanced. we are fair brokers in these debates. the board members will be introducing people throughout the day. you will get to meet a few of them. we have wi-fi information. the hashtag for twitter is #sot n15. please tweet early and often. i want to thank our sponsors. google, comcast-nbc and verizon. we have several other sponsors. googlewithout them, we could not produce, we could not find a venue of this size to host the conversation. let's see if i missed anything. i think -- people were asking me what is the theme for state of the net? i thought it was pretty self-explanatory, what is the state of the net? there is no way were going to come up with a theme for the

internet. i would not even present. throughout the day we have a strong vein of cybersecurity this year. bitcoin coming up at lunch and innate panel -- and in a panel. we always get some privacy and a strong broadband contingent. trying to put together a theme is difficult. last year i looked around and hbo and espn were cable programmers. amazon and netflix were internet companies. a year later i am not sure if those classifications hold. amazon just won a couple golden globes and espn is streaming online as well as hbo. things change quickly and that is why we do not go with themes. things happen quickly around here. we need to hurry up here the other day in davos eric schmidt

said the internet is going to disappear. we need to have the state of the net before it goes away. a series of keynotes. starting off we go right to lunch, then breakout sessions. a of folks are coming in from out of town. got stuck in new york and boston. jared polis is not going to be with us. every keynote we had this morning's female which is awesome. we have a panel on diversity in technology later in the day which will punctuate that happenstance. i would like to introduce the director of the center for privacy and technology at georgetown. he will have a conversation with the chairman of the ftc. this is the first time we've had an ftc chairman. i'm really excited.

welcome. [applause] >> good morning, chairwoman. i am thrilled to be here. >> delighted to be here. i want to thank everyone for being here and for the invitation. >> for braving the snow in d.c. when you are the nation's leading consumer privacy officer. you have to do a lot of the picture thinking around privacy. i went to focus on the internet of things. i think you have announcement. >> i'm pleased to share with all of you that the ftc is issuing its internet of things report this morning. i'm pleased to have a chance to discuss the report. i hope you have a chance to take a look at it. >> wonderful. there seems to be a tension at the core of the internet of

things and wearable technology. a tension between convenience and privacy. at the consumer electronics show, you had doggie fitness trackers, connected toothbrushes. my favorite was the smart sock. a smart sock that tracked your run, whether you are going to enjoy yourself. none of these things have screens. a lot of people saying we need to rethink the way we do privacy on these devices. it is hard to get consent from a sock or get consent to a sock. these technologies produce extraordinarily sensitive information. at ces you had earbuds that tracked the oxygen level in your blood. you had a bracelet that did not

just track the calories you were burning, it tracked the calories you were in taking by measuring blood glucose. there was a wearable fertility monitor. how do you think about technology for tech -- how do you think about privacy for technology that collects sensitive data but does not have a screen to ask you about it? >> let me back up and get to the first part of where you started. you called it a tension p are from my perspective all the benefits in the internet of things world can only flourish when you take privacy and security into account. i think it is important to understand how an internet of things world changes the landscape. and what the privacy

implications are. i think it is worth delving into. the first thing is, you are right, we are in a world where data is being collected all the time. not only that, we are bringing these devices into our homes. into what used to be private spheres -- our homes, cars, workplaces, we are wearing them. and the data that is being generated is increasingly more sensitive. that is important to keep in mind. not only that, just the volume of data that is being generated is exponentially greater. what that means is there is the potential for very large data sets from which seemingly benign information, from which you can make sensitive inferences. that changes the landscape. that is one piece of it. another dimension is, what

happens to that information. if i am wearing a fitness band that is tracking how many calories i consumed. i would not want to share that information with my insurance company. what is happening with that information? a consumer can understand you have access to it. do they understand it is possible that it could be sold to a data broker. it could end up in an insurance company's hands. that is a set of questions we need to think about. the third piece of this that stands out is the security aspect. a few dimensions here, too. not only is personal information at stake but, as you have more and more devices it also means there is more potential for

exposure. as of this year, there are 25 billion connected devices in the world. in the next five years, that number is going to double. and a lot if the companies that are getting into this space may not necessarily have expertise in security. 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 are using could also indicate physical safety. it is not only personal information but also personal safety. >> sharing and security. first on sharing. this is one of the aspects that troubles and lot of consumer privacy folks. all that data does not necessarily stay private. the ftc released a survey last year of 12 health and fitness apps and found that the 12 apps,

which included a diabetes app a symptom tracker, and a pregnancy app. those apps shared information with 76 third parties. what is wrong with that and what is the ftc doing to fix it? >> that is another problem, the lack of transparency. one thing we emphasized in our report is the importance of notice and choice. if you want to 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 is being shared and how it is being used. so it is really in my mind fundamental that consumers continue to be in the driver's seat. that they have a say over their information and how it is being used. granted, you mentioned the wearable the co -- the sock and

wearable devices. a lot of these do not have a consumer interface or they have one that is a small. companies need to be innovative. not only in the types of products and services that are providing. they need to be innovative in the way they communicate with consumers. another thing we do in our report is provide some suggestions about ways to get around this problem of how do you provide notice and choice and internet of things world. there is so much ingenuity out there that i think it needs to be deployed in a way that will give consumers the transparency that they want and the control that they want. >> do you want innovation for privacy? >> absolutely. >> what about security?

let's say you are sitting down with a developer or a new startup in the early stages of building a wearable device or internet of things device. what is your advice on privacy and security? >> my advice would be, keep both security and privacy top of mind. at the very beginning, there needs to be a culture of security and privacy. conducts a risk assessment. evaluate what exposure you have in the device and plan to deal with it. test any measures before you launch a product. make sure there is at least one person responsible for these issues. keep in mind the entire lifecycle of a product. another challenge that comes into play, consumers may keep a product -- the products may be small, low-cost, some might be seemingly disposable -- that

raises a challenge of security. how do you ensure the devices stay secure? they might be difficult to update software, to deploy security patches. these issues are crucial to be thinking at the very beginning. that is one issue, dealing with security. i would also say two other things. one, the concept of data minimization. it is really important in today's world to have companies be mindful of the data they are collecting. i do not think it is a good practice to simply save more data is always better. that might not always be the case. you are exposing your company to intrusions. if you have data that you do not really need, that is unnecessary risk. my view, companies need to think hard. do you really need to collect this data? why do you need it?

if you do need it, put in place a retention period so you dispose of the data after you no longer need it. >> let's shift gears to your commission's data broker report. last year you shared a report that look at the benefits, it was not one-sided, benefits for fraud prevention and detection. it raised alarm bells for consumers. for example, the commission found that data brokers were compiling lists of people with high cholesterol or he'll likely had diabetes or expectant parents. the bill that would have implemented some of those did not get a vote in committee. what can the commission do now to further the goals of transparency consumer control and accuracy? >> one thing we are going to continue is enforce our credit reporting act.

continue to enforce section five of the ftc act. enforcement is going to be key. and a lot of what we are doing is just raising awareness among consumers as well as businesses. the report shed light on what practices data brokers are engaging in. in a lot of what we are trying to do with ever internet of things report is to raise awareness among consumers and businesses about privacy and security implications of what is taking place. that is another piece of it. we are going to continue to advocate to data brokers. not only data brokers, companies that are interfacing with consumers that sell information to data brokers. we are advocating more transparency. i think the key is that consumers know what is happening . that they stay in the driver's seat and have control over information. in addition to making legislative recommendations in

our data broker report, we recommended best practices about greater transparency. we suggested a centralized website where consumers can learn about data brokers. many consumers do not even know they exist. do not know that these companies are compiling profiles, very detailed and highly personal profiles that are based on one's age, income, race, ethnicity religious and political affiliations, health, etc. so those are important. we also need to be thinking about what happens with that information. our data broker report did not touch on how the information is being used. that is the next set of questions we need to be thinking about. >> we only have a short time so this is my last question. i want to ask you about diversity. and a lot of folks will look at

2014 and say this was the year of the internet of things or wearables. other folks would say this is a year of cybersecurity giving the -- given the aftermath of the target hack and sony hack. i think 2014 was the year we woke up to the role gender plays in the internet and tech industry. .14 was the year of gamergate female videogamers were viciously harassed. it was the year of the icloud breach where most celebrities affected were women. it was the year of uber, that 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 diversity of their workforce.

what i want to ask you, do you personally think it is important that the tech industry hire a diverse workforce? if so, why? >> i do think that is important. i'm pleased to see companies are being open about their numbers and also taking steps to address the issue. it is important for a multitude of reasons. let me touch on a couple. 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. i'm not hiring and not -- by not hiring and ensuring that your workforce is diverse, you're missing out. another dimension of some of the issues we have been looking out at the commission have to do with how big data is used and data analytics. 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. it is important that companies guard against bias in their analytics systems and their predictive products and algorithms. the more diverse a group of people you have to looking at these issues, that could really help guard against this and put mechanisms in place to ensure that you can neutralize those. >> thank you for joining us. join me in giving a hand to the chairwoman. [applause] >> good morning, my name is rodney peterson. i'm on the board of directors of

the internet education foundation. i want to welcome you to the state of the net conference. i'm pleased to introduce a keynote discussion with leslie caldwell head of the criminal division of the u.s. department of justice. the moderator will be andrew gross, a reporter from the wall street journal's washington bureau covering law enforcement. please join me in welcoming assistant attorney general caldwell and andrew gross for this discussion of their perspectives on the state of the net. [applause] >> thanks a lot for taking the time to do this. i wanted to spend a little bit of time on leslie's background. this is her second tour at the justice department. the first time she spent 16 years as a federal prosecutor. prosecutions from gangsters to medicaid fraud. after the collapse of enron, she

brought charges there. she spent years doing white-collar work. she's at the center of decision-making on what sorts of cases the justice department will prioritize and how they make this cases. the plan is to start by giving you a chance to give a broad overview of your approach to cyber issues. i thought we would delve into legislative proposals and move onto enforcement and talk about specific threats and how the department is grappling with that. computer crimes, cyber issues are a greater concern this time around then they were in 2004. on your first or second day in the new job you announced a takedown of a botnet. what priorities have you tried to set for cybercrime and what are the obstacles? >> cybercrime is a huge problem.

it is really something that cuts across all criminal conduct. it is not just hackers or intellectual property thieves. it is organized crime, international over organized crime. cyber is an every kind of crime and we expect that to mushroom. there are a lot of challenges and addressing cybercrime. the biggest challenge is that it is very international. a lot of actors are not in the u.s. but they are committing crimes in the u.s. over the internet or crimes that affect the u.s. in the gameover zeus botnet a botnet being run out of russia and eastern europe was literally affecting hundreds of thousands of computers in the u.s. and stealing millions of dollars from u.s. companies and bank accounts. that is a real challenge. attribution of cyberattacks is a

real challenge. another significant challenge that we see is the increasing and optimization -- anonym ization of cyberattacks. what is challenging as having the resources to keep pace. >> i want to get back to the anonymization issues. i want to talk about the computer fraud and abuse act. the justice department has been a target of criticism, tim wu of columbia called it the worst law in technology. can you walk us through what you are proposing there and what you would like to see? >> what we are proposing are targeted changes to the law. the law was enacted years ago

technology has changed. the law has not kept pace. we have some targeted things we would like to see. i will give you some examples. for example, it is not currently clear that it is illegal to sell a botnet. it is illegal to create one, to use a botnet in connection with critical activity -- with criminal activity. it is not clear that it is illegal to sell one. we propose it is illegal to sell a botnet for criminal purposes. we successfully have used several injunctions to stop botnets and disable them. currently we are only able to do that if the botnet is engaged in fraud or certain activities. if the botnet is engaged in denial of service attacks, we cannot use our civil injunction powers and we would like to change that. we currently are not able to spyware is illegal if used for

criminal purposes to intercept private communication. we are not able to forfeit the proceeds of sale of spyware. a lot of spyware maybe being sold in the u.s.. people who are creating the spyware might be located in a place where we have no ability to prosecute them. we would like to hit them in the pocketbook. those are some examples. >> one change that has raised some eyebrows is an increase under, for certain violations of the cfa. there is a place where minimum penalties would go from a one-year misdemeanor to a three year felony. the maximum would go for a five year or 10 year felony. is five years not a big enough hammer to hang over people's heads? >> under the federal sentencing

system, the maximum sentence is really, it is a little misleading what sentence a person will get. there are sentencing guidelines tailored to the specifics of the criminal conduct. in a case where a statutory maximum ib 10 years. that does not mean the person is going to or even get 10 years. the federal judge imposing the sentence needs to look at the guidelines and see the seriousness of the offense. was it a large defense was the person a leader, were there multiple people involved? all sorts of factors a judge will consider to sentence a person. the increased penalties are to reflect the seriousness of the attacks we have seen. these are for the most serious offenders. it was our feeling that the attacks have grown in seriousness and scope. some of the attacks are

extremely serious and involve large amounts of money. very large disruptions of people's privacy and our lives are the most serious offenders should be subjected to serious potential penalties. >> one of the criticisms of the cfaa deals with the issue of exceeding authorized access. and 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 want to specifically exclude terms of service from the cfaa. is that a bad idea? why is the administration's idea better? >> the proposal in congress goes too far. there are circumstances where violations of terms of service can be very serious. we have no interest in prosecuting somebody who goes onto a dating website and lies about their attractiveness or their income, in violation of

the terms of service of the dating website. i am being a little glib -- >> the judge mentioned that. >> those are not the kind of cases we are interested and peered there are circumstances where somebody authorized to have access, for example, a law enforcement officer abuses access to gather information about personal enemies. and uses that information against the personal enemies. or to run the criminal history of an ex-wife's boyfriend. a lot of inappropriate things that 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. we are not interested in insignificant things. our proposal has 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. if the violation of terms of access is in furtherance of another felony. if the person is using like i said earlier about the law enforcement officer, is using a government computer. we think that is a good compromise. it criminalizes the things that are dangerous without criminalizing things like the dating website. >> you have also proposed criminalizing trafficking in means of access. there is some worry that this could be used to go after researchers, academics journalists and so on. can you talk a little bit about that? >> our proposal is not -- it is only really targeted at people who are intending to commit a crime. it is not just somebody who is doing legitimate security research to find a flaw in a system or something like that.

it is somebody whose intent is to engage in criminal activity. that is really what we are targeting. that is very different from targeting legitimate research, security researchers. we understand the importance of security researchers. we work with security researchers all the time and we value their skills and appreciate their expertise that we understand the importance of what they do. >> there is some concern about where the line is. where, there are people who call themselves online trolls. there is not, they are not affiliated with a particular institution. should those people feel safe? >> if they are not intending to commit a crime, they should feel safe. if they are intending to commit a crime -- 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. if the person is intending to commit a crime or they engage in criminal activity, there have been circumstances where people have, in the name of research, taken and exposed large amounts of private information, which we think is inappropriate. we are really focused on criminal activity. >> let's shift and talk about some of the anonymity tools. my conversations it seems like it seems like law enforcement has become increasingly confident. in november, you announced with european law enforcement, a takedown of dark network sites

that operated on the tor network. how big of a problem is tor stil l for law enforcement? >> tor was created with good intentions. it is a huge problem for law enforcement. there are a lot of, as you mentioned from last fall, there are a lot of supermarkets where you can do anything, purchased heroin buy guns, hire somebody to kill somebody. murder for hire sites. 80% of traffic on the tor network involves child exploitation and child pornography. we have made some advances in our ability to penetrate the tor network. that has resulted in some cases. it is still a real challenge. this goes back to my point about how internationalization of the

internet not internationalization, but the fact that the internet is so international, is a huge challenge. when you add the tor network that makes it a bigger challenge. a person may be sitting in romania engaging in trout explication that is making its way to the u.s. it is difficult to locate those people and difficult to find them and bring them to justice. it is a significant tool of cyber criminals. >> in terms of durability to bring cases -- and terms of your ability to bring cases when you want to take down a network. in some cases is it impossible, it takes longer, there is more international collaboration? back in your time doing real world, off-line world gangs those cases took a long time and had challenges too. is there a gap there? is it just a different set of skills that government and the fbi has to learn?

>> i would say it is both. traditional law enforcement skills play into cyber investigations. we use under covers, we use informants, we use wiretaps. but it's different. if you are investigating a gang, you will generally know that the gang is in brooklyn or the gang is in queens or in washington, d.c. you will generally know who the gang members are. you will generally know a fair amount about them and be able to figure out about their backgrounds and histories and identify the crimes they are committing. the crimes will generally be relatively localized. even if they are all over the u.s., you can know where they are. in the cyber world it can be challenging to figure out who are these people. there are a lot of loose networks who may ban together. for example, to engage in one hack. say a hack of a retailer and then sell stolen information and stolen credit cards.

there may be another hack where some combination of the same people are involved but other people are involved all of the world. they may be sitting in one country and using servers in another country. the victims are in a third country and the money is flowing to a fourth country. it can be extremely challenging to identify people, to link them together, to trace the money. it is a very challenging thing. it is more challenging and requires skills and addition to traditional law enforcement skills you would need to investigate organized crime in the u.s. >> in a similar vein, bitcoin and virtual currencies. for the last few years the department has made some major cases targeting virtual currency businesses. seems like a primary worry that it is a money-laundering tool. have prosecutions, like the case against the man who pleaded

guilty to helping users exchange cash for bitcoin. >> bitcoin is still viewed by criminals as a way to mask transactions. there is no center place where bitcoin is located. it is difficult to trace. bitcoin is legal and may have a place as the markets evolve going forward in e-commerce. it does pose a challenge because it can be used to conceal illegal activity and it is more difficult to trace transactions in bitcoin. one of the things we need to do is we need to upgrade our anti-money-laundering laws to recognize that there are virtual currencies that are different than what we have been used to and what the laws were intended to address. >> do you feel like you are starting to get close?

it is much newer than traditional banking. do you feel like you are starting to get some sort of handle on how these operate? you are still making plenty of cases against banks for money laundering in dollars and pesos. >> i am not an expert that we had a lot of people andin computer crimes and in the actual property who know a lot about bitcoin. they understand the market and they understand the bitcoin and virtual currency space. i think we are, we may be playing catch-up that we are getting it. law enforcement tends to follow a little bit behind the criminals pretty much across the board, ranging from organized crime to cybercrime. >> should we be on the lookout for more cases involving bitcoin businesses? and bitcoin infrastructure.

>> i don't know that we are necessarily focusing on bitcoin infrastructure. i think we are focused on criminal activity where criminals choose to have payment made in bitcoin. as part of the gameover zeus takedown, we took down a ransomware. it was called cryptolocker. screens would be frozen and people would be told that files were locked. to get access they had to pay a ransom. the ransom had to be paid in bitcoin. it was not the bitcoin that was the problem, it was the ransom and the locking of files. >> you mentioned cryptolocker. it seems like there is something happening with cryptolocker on one end and sony on the other. we are seeing cybercrime going from data into more and more -- from theft of data into more and

more extortion. is that something you are worried about? >> extortion over the internet has a long history. it might be getting more sophisticated. i think it is not a new problem. it's been a problem for some time. it may be growing in sophistication and breadth as we see cyber's growing but i do not think it is a new problem. >> lets get your perspective on moves by some filmmakers to encrypt phones so law-enforcement cannot get into them. i have seen the fbi director way in comedy british prime minister, -- i've seen the fbi director weigh in, the british prime minister. >> we understand the importance of security but we are very concerned that they're not, the creation of a zone of

lawlessness. there's evidence we could have lawful access to through a court order that we are prohibited from getting because of a company's technological choices we have cases where evidence that is on phones is extremely important. this tend to be cases involving violent crime, rape murder kidnapping. for some reason the criminals have a tendency to videotape what they are doing and take pictures. to the extent that we are not able to get access to that kind of evidence, that can be a significant obstacle to us being able to prosecute those kinds of crimes. and he kind of access we would seek is the kind of access we had in the prior version of the iphone. we would get a search warrant after showing probable cause. we would send the phone to apple and apple would do the unlocking of the phone and send the

portions that were relevant to our investigation. it is not as if we are seeking open access without any court supervision to this datea. we think it is important that we have access, lawful access, to evidence that can be extremely important in solving crimes. >> is there a way for apple and google to let you guys in but keep out the authoritarian governments? or say no to authoritarian governments and others that they might not want to do business with in that regard? >> i am not going to speak to whether apple is able to say no to the chinese government, for example. in other areas of law enforcement, our rules and access to evidence are not dependent on what china would want to do or what the law might be in china. in the united states we have a

process whereby we can get electronic evidence through search warrant and court orders. it should not matter, from my vantage point, that china may not have the same robust process . >> we are just about out of time. what else should we be on the lookout for? what are the new expanding frontiers? what are people not seeing that you think is important and we should keep an eye out for? >> we need everyone in the country, both individuals and companies and organizations really need to be more conscious of cybersecurity. everyone needs to really be assuming that they are vulnerable, assuming that they can be hacked, assuming that their data can be taken and needs to plan accordingly. we created a cybersecurity unit within our computer crime and international property -- until

actual property section -- an intellectual property section to increase awareness. we are not going to be able to prevent every cyber attack but i find myself surprised by how flat-footed and unprepared some very large and sophisticated companies are. including companies that you would think have state-of-the-art cybersecurity. that is where we need to go. i do not think the hackers are going to stop, the people getting 15 minutes of fame for through hacks are being reinforced by the fame, not to mention the money they are making. i think prevention and emphasis on prevention is something that we really need to focus on. >> you mentioned international efforts earlier. you have seen cases that you

brought, the national security division brought, say against pla hackers. there've been, there is a rico case where a lot of the criminals are oversea. in cases where a lot of the people are never going to see the inside of a u.s. courtroom how is the department working to change that or make those people change people's behavior and places we cannot get to? >> the idea that what is the point of indicting somebody in russia because you will never get done is -- get them is wrong it's true we will not be able to get russia to arrest and extradite a russian citizen to the u.s. if that person travel somewhere, we have the capability to have alerts. we often do you get people who

travel. i do not mean to single out russia there are any number of countries. we have many cases where people have traveled and where we have arrested them and event -- and extradited them to the u.s. there's a large case pending in seattle involving a russian national who was traveling in the maldives and arrested to and brought to the u.s. it is not uncommon for people to travel. they might not come to the u.s.. but they might not realize that by going to the maldives they make themselves honorable to arrest. there is also increasing pressure on local governments. for example, if there is a russian hacker who is hacking computers in the u.s. but also doing things in russia. the russian government might not be that happy about that. i do not mean to single out russia. the same thing is true in a lot

of countries. citizens are becoming victims also, they do not want that. there is increasing international pressure and international cooperation among law enforcement. including countries you may not think would be part of that mix. that is really what we are doing. it is only a matter of time before almost all the countries in the world realize that this is in nobody's interest to protect these people. >> thank you for doing this. >> my pleasure. [applause] >> good morning. my name is alan davidson. i'm the director of the open technology institute at new america. my claim to fame is as a board member of the internet education foundation. it is my pleasure and delight to be here to introduce our next keynote. for a long time especially in

the early days of the internet's popularity, it was quite common to bemoan the difficulty in finding identifiable leadership on technology issues in the federal government. a lot a lot has changed nothing more difficult than 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 destruction in this crowd, our interviewer today will be the first chief technology officer of the united states who's now 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. i'll have to editorialize. i've known megan since the 1980's were we were like in nursery school or something, i don't know what it was. i can safely report that even as an m.i.t. undergrad, she was a bit of a legend as an engineer. that legend has really only grown. she has incredible street cred in silicon valley. she did a long tour of duty as vice president at google. and she's somebody who has kind of 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 welcoming the country's first chief technology officer interviewing our keynote speaker for today.

>> all right. here we go! [applause] rock and roll! thank you. good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining on this exciting day. it is, as was said in the beginning, an interesting time where washington's capacity to harness the power of potential of technology data and innovation is really stepping up. i thought, megan, if we might, just to get the crowd oriented to your current priorities and passions, share a little bit about your role as c.t.o. as you see it and the priorities that you've put forward. >> right. it's incredible to be here. it's been fun to get to d.c. and see this new sort of enter to this culture coming from silicon valley, and just a quick thing. i find washington to be incredibly entrepreneurial. it's really familiar to me having come from silicon valley. people get things done, and

they collaborate. it's really an interesting place, and i really enjoyed coming, and it's an honor to be here. so, the c.t.o. job, which you began, the president started on his first day, and our role is not really to be kind of a v.p. of running the government. there are many people doing that already. we were just at the department of energy today. it's phenomenal technical teams that are here. it's really an instigation job, an ark kerr tour job, where the sort of mandate is how do you help advise the president and his team on how to harness the power of technology, innovation and data on behalf of the nation. and so it really moves with the times. as you began, it was really the beginning of this office, and we're focused on three areas, and i think you guys really stood up to this first area as well as the beginning. 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 america that will want to weigh in, 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 right now, and a whole range of things, copy right patented, that laundry list of the 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 alex is here, who's been championing a lot of this regulation reform, and 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? how are we being the best place in the world, the best country for innovation and technology so that the strongest entrepreneurs, the strongest invendors and scientists are coming here because we have a climate and policy landscape

for them to really do their thing? sometimes i think henry ford was not trying to disrupt horses. he just had a new idea. how do we help those people do their things? well, 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 newseum with the first amendment right on the wall. you guys did a huge amount of work on that when you were c.t.o. the second area is digital government. >> yep. >> and there's a couple of pieces of digital government. i was lucky, as were you. we worked at the beginning, and in the 1990's, it really feels to me like it's kind of 1990, 1996 1997, 1998 in the category of digital government. it's the beginning. people don't yet see what's going to happen in this extraordinary way, but you're starting to see it and you can feel it, and people are coming. what that looks like to me is, you know, here we are in the country that we are the country

that created amazon. we are the country that created facebook twitter, the internet. why shouldn't the web sites and 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. the back end and the front and end all those pieces of our web services and technologies that we use to run our government need to be that good, the i.r.s., the v.a. and what's exciting is not only have teams been working on that but more people are coming. and i have a technical term, i.q. and e.q., t.q., technical quotient. there's t.q. people coming to government. we accidentally got into a position as a government where we often really leverage technology well during war, and we bring engineers in, you know you see the beginning of computing with world war ii and many things. people have seen the movie

"imitation game," churchill standing up a very talented technical team that cracked the codes and helped read what the nazis were doing. so we bring techies in. we sort of get away from it a little bit in peace time. and what really we need to do is have technical people at the table. the digital service, the presidential innovation fellows, which are like white house fellows who are technical who design thinking on front end and back end, embeding 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, 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 just don't really -- you won't be confident on what you know. bad things can happen. in this case we want to have the t.q. people in the

conversation and on our side when we're doing contracting and work, or someone who's thinking about customer service the way that jeff bezos and his team would. so that's exciting. the other part of that is, of course, open government, which you guys start a lot. the president has opened hups of thousands of data sets since the beginning, which you guys stood up. how do we get more data released? some of the greatest examples are, of course, the weather data and the geo 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 the developing community? i just think more a.p.i.'s in this idea. how can you have a marketplace of government tech where the a.p.i.'s and the data out there, people are bringing solutions, and that's really beginning to happen in a great way. so that's that area. the president has led a lot on open government partnerships in 65 countries lots of nonprofit organizations and civil organizations have been in, and then the national action 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 a country that i've been living in, having had the chance to be at m.i.t. and out in silicon valley and really part of what we nickname innovation nation. and then there's some people who are really struggling and they're not getting access at school or through university, through whatever places, to be a participant, 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. and so this is an area where we really think about, we almost call them discovery. so how are we working to bridge the americas to work together? what are we working on? stem education, bringing our youth in we can talk more about the details of that. but those are our three areas. >> that's a very helpful overview. i'd like to dive into each and every one of those areas.

as we dive into that 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 influences either side of those two. ok. got it. that's helpful. 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 from -- you've only been here a few months, but if you think a little bit about the last several years, do you see some larger shifts in the capacity of the government on any of those three priorities as you've laid out? >> one of the things that's been really great is watch different leaders put laps into their agencies, so the h.h.s. team, health and human services, has brought an idea lab into h.h.s. there are extraordinary people in government and outside of government who have innovative ideas, and so there hasn't always been a place. one of the things that's something the tech industry has

done forever that's where the word comes from with the early team, having a lap 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 almost like entrepreneurs and residents who are coming from within or without and putting skills together and working on pilots and prototypes and doing things that's called a minimum viable product. make something that people can get a feel for what you're talking about. but you also don't want to over resource it. if you keep it at the right resource side, then you can kind of i.p.o. it through the team. so for example digital sciences and the c.m.s. team they can incubate new ideas for data science, and then get them straight through the medicare and standard system so that we can really improve the scaled products that we have. so i think these innovation labs, you see usaid has the new

global development lab, so a place where they can incubate. it's not only them doing things, but also things like -- they created this fabulous group called the higher education solutions network which lots of universities from berkeley to william & mary to uganda, so sort of these faculty and students who are all over the world working on development engineering, whether it's new water systems, a new healthcare delivery piece, a lot of mobile apps, s.m.s., not high-end smartphones, so getting those ideas and that talent group, talking to each other, 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 started, is embedded as kind of a hub and model within o.m.b. office of management and budget, and so you see a small

team at the center, and then in the agency, they focus on five or six major products to begin this year, and then we'll ramp from there. one of my favorites is, of course the veterans affairs. they just attracted the number three employee of amazon to come as an engineering manager into the v.a. i mean what's your second act after amazon as an engineer? you've built everything. i mean, this woman's code is delivering the boxes to your house with a smile right, for 15 years-plus. what's her second act? our veterans. and these amazing americans who have delivered on behalf of the american people over and over again, how do we make their services as great as the ones that she and others led before? we're seeing that kind of talent come into government. i'm very excited about that. i also really believe in open source and open a.p. 's 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 scientists work in open

ways so the u.k. team who has the government's digital service, the president was just in india, digital india, we're actually able to share code across countries, and so just like code for america, we don't have to all have the same cities for every city, we can open source and share the stuff, really seeing a ramp in that which is great. >> let me unpack a few of the themes that you just shared, because i think it's easy for folks to understand a little bit of the current state of play. i'm going to connect two of them you just shared. this notion of internal government ideal labs, incubating, think of them as innovation pipeline managers, sort of test the idea, potentially validate them and then event we'll they scale up, as you mentioned i.p.o. in the agencies, and in the same spirit you referenced regulatory reform and you frame 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 zphail 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's trying to build a better way of serving healthcare options up for patients or thinking about other regulated sectors of the economy? can you share a bit about that? >> yeah, ideas always start with a little crystal, a small team. so how do we as government get better at seeing those, and then helping stand those up? they can be inside an agency, like in an idea lab where different folks have come together from inside, from outside, and there's a place to gather and to have a little bit of research to begin to show what that is. i mean it's become so much cheaper to make things over time. so the ability to mock up, and also just the way that we think about design thinking, just

colleagues who have advanced. mocking some stuff up, having conversations with customers and seeing if something is something that could work. all the way to the difficult back end fixes and upgrades that can be edited. so i think that's one thing that we can do. the other is we are really in a new position with what the internet s. i mean, sometimes people think there's this great -- are people familiar with the manifesto? it's a fabulous piece from early web -- >> wildly popular. >> yeah, look at them. so there's the team just published a new thing called new clues. and they list these things, it's very provocative. the first one is the internet -- sometimes people think it's interconnectivity -- >> a series. didn't you get the memo? >> it's just us

interconnected, in a really effective new way, which is incredibly exciting. number 12 actually says a very provocative point, which is there hasn't been a crowd 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 who were just here from across the country for their -- i think it's annual gathering. >> yep. >> so in talking to each of them, it really struck me, each of them have really saw many things, but at least one at an elite level. the mayor of south bend has incredible sort of instrument station on their sort of utility system and are saving extraordinary money by just measuring where they have

overflow on sewage systems or where they're leaking water. awesome. you know, we saw the president visit in iowa, you know the chattanooga team. so those mayors. so who solved something for you? who solved something for homelessness? and if we could actual have the all those mayors and their teams just cross-share all that innovation, we would be in a whole other place. and i think we actually are starting to move into a position where you can actually do things like that. and so, again, it's the same point of someone or some small team sees the problem, has a passion for solving it fixes it, and then what we have in this case, as the mayor, knowing we have a distribution problem, where we could use the internet to better distribute these amazing solutions and localize them and make them work appropriately and just get moving really accelerate our country into a much better position on behalf of them. >> let's take that theme one more layer. you talked about one of the

powerful visions here, 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 that seems to be getting better and this notion. by the way, whoever said that, great line. well done. here's the question. let's just take an example. obviously healthcare.gov has been relanched and is working quite well. maybe you can talk about how the technology team built up the 2.0 marketplace. but an interesting story for those of you that may have seen it a startup called stride health basically took the raw data from healthcare.gov among other data sets, 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 plant. so you have a functioning working, and successful healthcare.fw ov, and you have this entrepreneurial version built on top that may be

offering a value ad. do you see a world where there will be more of this quasi public-private effort, and do you think it's a good theme? how do you support that? where's that going? >> i think that's fabulous. if you think about government as a platform to support the people in different ways, and on the digital side, being able to use these new tools so that the base product that we could offer, in this case the healthcare.gov from the h.h.s. team, having them open that up for people to add features is terrific, features and whole new products on top of that, so there's an entire economy that can build up above that, which is very exciting. and we haven't been in a position, you know, a decade or two ago to have that kind of resource, have that kind of open environment you know, that really came with the 1990's as sort of open source and open systems and the ideas that came with the web entered into almost like an evolutionary way with humanity. i think you were asking me a

little bit about watching the healthcare.gov team. 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, many screens you know, back to my amazon analogy. if you had to go through 70 screens to buy something from amazon, that's really hard, right? of course there's going to be more than one or two, because it's not a physical item that you're buying, something that needs personal information. but over time, you know, i think the 2.0 version took them from like 70 screens down to like 20. and they'll get smaller, and we'll get auto fill, and just making it customer-centric, i think they did a terrific job this time. the results happened. you know, we can see in the dashboard even there's more people signing up, and that's what that team, the h.h.s. team that's building that and running that is saying. all we'll spend a few minutes thinking about how you peel back one layer deep in

prioritize ago cross these areas. you laid them out quite well, thinking about the sort of technology policy sets of issues that many cases are sort of 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 agencies, and then you spoke about the country and the gap that occurs and everyone having a shot at living this better life. could you talk about where in those three do you see the gap and use that as a basis for describing kind of where you put your priority across the reach, to give us some color in the world as you see it today. >> i think we have to push on all three, 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. and so heavy emphasis there from the team. alex he's here also matthew,

becky, others from the team, these guys were all working on this. ryan, if you want to follow occupant digital government side, alex working a lot on regulation reform and policy, and then we all work together. the one -- i actually think that it's the american people. >> yeah. >> because i don't know. nibble surface area. more people doing things will solve more problems faster. maybe i'll give you two examples. >> please. >> do you guys know about like tech meetups? are people going to tech meetups? >> got t. >> some people like tech meetups. do you guys know about startup weekend or a weekend where people ham a new company? these are resources that are out there. a tech meetup is sort of a gathering that would be happening each month or twice a month, once a quarter, where the techies on that topic, and meetups can happen on hiking, whatever topics. i think it's interesting that there's about 500 tech meetups a day in our country, so the

president information boise, idaho, last week, and so we contacted the meetup team, and turns out there's 14 in boise. one of whom has more than 700 people in it that meets monthly on web development. there's another that does coding has about 45 people in it. you don't think of boise and technology in that particular way that there's an entrepreneurial community, but there is. startup weekend, these kind of startup hacks happen all over the world. if you actually go on the web and look at the map, they're happening all over our country. there was one last week weekend in bismarck, north dakota. and it was at a really cool space where the bob cat team has an innovation center, a great space like the newseum, and they gathered. let's talk about the two americas. the president was at standing rock reservation with a fabulous young native american youth there, and recently traveling nations came for the

summit. 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 already taken their lives and 20 kids had tried. that's a haunting statistic. to me, it's a haunting statistic i've heard since i've been in government. so there's these two americas. now, standing rock resmbings is one-hour drive, maybe one hour and 15 minutes from bismarck, so i contacted some folks that i met from standing rock and some folks that i had met from the startup and said, why don't you guys invite the kids? a bunch of them went up there and had an incredible time this weekend. >> this weekend? >> yeah. so to me, it's like the great american meet upneeds to happen. like we need to barn raise this country. somebody has a door over here, and they're not talking to each other. and yet they're right there hiding in plain sight. in silicon valley, you could get off of a plane, and you literally would like walk

anywhere in silicon valley and say, hi, i have a startup everyone would help you, right? >> that's truism >> there's people pouring out of coffee shops. everyone would help you. but in many of our cities, that innovation team is there. there's people doing startups, people with spaces, the burning man equivalent. in boise there was this thing called hack fort, which is just like south by southwest, and it's on campus. this is happening all over our country, but it's hiding on the rest of the americas. we need them to -- we need to bridge that together, and i think that as we begin to do that, the american people will do the thing they've always done, which is kind of lead us into the future. >> megan i want to invoke our compatriot who couldn't join us today, todd park. he had an expression for this that i'd like to get your comment on and that was when asked why has there been this divide, we see it everywhere we go todd's reaction, and i'll

paraphrase, was that there's this wall of disbelief that seems to get in the way of people thinking that they can make it to that other side and the big magic on our side has been to evangelize the fact that that wall of disbelief is paper thin and that if we could find a way to punch a whole through that wall of disbelief, we could actually get folks to say, i'm in that reservation, but i can number that tech meetup and i can see myself in the innovation nation. you want to react to todd's description? do you think of it -- is that a reasonable way of thinking about it? how would you respond to that as a message for folks thinking about where to go next? >> and we can meet the tech meetup to the reservation. i think it's a pretty great visual. and if you punch through this, somehow we're not seeing each other, even though we're right there, it's critical. 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. one of the most popular classes at m.i.t. is called how to make almost anything. to me, that's like art and home ec and shop. it's like the thing that you could learn to do. we would never teach children not to write when we teach them to read, but we teach them all these math and science facts without giving them the ability to express the make or discovery part of themselves. so you see these master teachers in our country who are getting it done, and so, again, they're hiding in plain sight and let's scale them and let's transform our education system to make sure one of the big findings for stem learning is the kids, some kids are listening because they've done the projects outside of class but most kids aren't quite sure why are we learning this thing what's the -- what is it for? what does it do? they want to change the world. so if you can get them to understand that, you know, we need to bring alan shepherd back to earth, so it would be

nice to have this trajectory and math is related to that, or really context-based things, i think we could pull more kids in and do more active learning, which science shows us is the best way to learn. >> yes. we're at the end of our time, but megan, i'd be remiss if i didn't ask to you say a word about the role of, this is for everyone. women and minorities tend to be underrepresented in this concept of innovation nation. could you just close us out with your perspective, obviously being our first female c.e.o., breaking through barriers. tell us about that, your perspective on women and minorities in this innovation nation, and then we will move to the next topic. >> sure. the first time i ever came to go to the hill, the republican congress women had asked us to come talk about stem, so it's an honor to be here with her and with gerald, who i worked with at the beginning of the web. 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 any kind of innovation. it's true with our kids. the more they try, the more they understand, that happened for me, i went to school in inner city buffalo, and we had mandatory science fair. we were required to practice that doing. it taught us the other thing i think we could get done is the unconscious bias that we have in our media. the way we portray who does what. there is stereotyping that happens around race and gender.

there is a test from movies. if you are watching a movie and there is more than two women characters, major and minor. if they have a conversation with each other that is not about a man. most movies cannot pass that. >> are you serious? that is pretty bad. >> yes. that is because there are so many few women writers. as i will mention, the imitation game. the true story is that more than half of the team was women at the elite level. joan clark, the women per trade with alan turing is a real character. she is a character as real as he is. the movie "jobs are cut out the mac team, if you look at the

photographs of who made it, the section of the movie from hollywood, no women were even the cast for the mac scene. when you look at the movie "you." -- "apollo" -- the women who was there as not portrayed in the movie. >> >> thank you everybody, well done. well done. >> >> thank you everyone, and thank you for being prompt and not

letting the snow get in your way. we're going to keep rolling. we want to keep today going forward. our next person is actually a keynote. she is in her 10th year. it is different to them but you have in your agendas. we are going to do this as an interview with peter cook from bloomberg television. this will be another strategic dialogue like you just witnessed. one thing this congress were -- this congresswoman has done is become the head of the republican caucus. follow the -- for all of you who busy using social media, there were many not interested. now, over 90 percent of congress is using some form of social media. if you want to go look at her twitter or facebook page, she

really knows how to use the medium. i appreciate that because it is easier for those of us in washington to understand. there is probably another centcom out that with all of these staff chasing their members to make sure they get their social media right. please welcome. >> >> thank you for being here. pleased to be here. how is the hurting of the cats going? >> always republicans and one room, trying to herd cats. with a larger majority in the house, it is a exciting time. it makes me excited to be here. i want to hear from you too. we're going to talk internet, technology innovation.

we could use a healthy dose of that on capitol hill as we approach problem-solving intel how we as representatives do our jobs. that is what i am hoping to bring for the house republican conference. >> let me ask you about your print -- personal use of technology. you are one of the highest-ranking women there. the highest-ranking woman and the house republican congress. you have made an interesting try to get your colleagues. it was not long ago were talking about the series of tubes. realistically, your fellow members, how tech-savvy are they? ask well, we are learning all the time. in the last year, we did over 200 training sessions. so, this is a priority. they are coming.

there is a desire to learn. i would reflect very quickly that i think you all recognize in the last 10 years what has happened as it relates to technology and new trials. it is incredible across the board. bringing that to capitol hill needs to be more of a focus. when i was first elected to congress in 2004, even back then that was before we were using twitter netflix streaming. a lot has changed, even in the last 10 years. i was elected to leadership five years ago into my girl and my priority in being part of the leadership team was to help bring the republicans into the 21st century and to get us not just in using these tools but inking more creatively as to how will would solve the problem. it started out as fundamental as

just getting our members to sign up using facebook and using twitter. left leg 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 can revolutionize the relationship that i have as a representative with the people that i represent. i find that it is so much easier, even coming from washington state which is that the other end of the country here in washington dc. to be able to have a conversation in real time, more personal. with a larger group. it will does change the relationship with the people.

if you have ideas, or if you would like to come and talk to me and my team. we're doing that all of the time. having different leaders come in in to educate us on what is possible. i also think about the relationship the average person has with their government. whether it is contacting someone on capitol hill, where too often it is still -- the response is a form letter two weeks after the fact when they sent an e-mail. this is one of my next big things to conquer. to update that whole constituent correspondence type system. even just within the federal government. people can be receiving life-changing letters from someone in the federal government -- something that is going to impact our lives, their businesses. yet, trying to get a hold of

someone to get answers can be extremely difficult. there is huge potential there. intel we deliver services. i get excited about what is possible. let's start imagining what a 20th-century veterans administration should look like. it gets his pay on the traditional left versus right and the mcgrath versus republican to the future. somewhere where we can think, ok what does a 20th century v.a. looks like. i had zocdoc. how many of you know about sock dock? -- zocdoc? you were waiting over 30 days for an appointment. zocdoc was founded by a guy who

was on a plane and his eardrum exploded. he was told he would have to wait. now, there is an app where you can go to the abbey and what they found was 25-30% of doctors appointments are never failed because people do not show. -- are never filled because you do not show. because they have done it. they have done it successfully. they approached the v.a. and told them they could do it. the v.a. had 37 different reasons they could not do it. they are still working on it. they are not giving up on it. this is an easy example. one that we all recognize we could do better. we could serve our veterans better. we could get them the appointments they need.

the care they need. in a more efficient, effective way. we need to be an embracing what technology and innovation can do as far as changing the way and improving the way that to government offices delivered services. >> there is a conventional wisdom that democrats are more tech-savvy. they have closer ties to silicon valley. that they "get" this stuff better. what do you say? >> i would suggest that it is the republicans that really believe in a bottom-up approach to problem-solving. they believe in going out there and seeing what you can do. or the most part, a more minimal role. a limited role for federal government so that you as an individual and people who have an idea as to how you can

improve people's lives can't make that happen. so often, i think although well-intentioned whether it is laws or regulations that come from washington dc one-size-fits-all. it does not allow for the freedom and opportunity that an individual or a startup needs in order -- or the flexibility they need, in order to be successful. that is where republicans really believe in empowering individuals in startups. i like to think that it is the republicans that have long been the party that is advocating for more freedom, more opportunity more flexibility. rather than the top-down up from washington dc >> take us outside the beltway to your district in washington. what is the state of the

internet in the eastern washington. when did you on the family orchard get broadband? how many of your constituents have access to high-speed internet? >> i am really proud to come from washington state. i represent eastern washington. i border idaho down to the canadian border. spoke ain't too well a-wallah. we are very proud of some -- spo kane down to walla walla. there is a growing tech center in spokane. some angel investors who are wanting to make it happen. we, you know, we have a lot to offer. we have a lower cost of living.

we have abundant -- we have more land. we have five universities and colleges between washington state university into a stern university and washington. there is lots of potential. we're still looking at seattle and saying, come on over to spokane and give us a look. i do also represent a lot of rural areas. spokane is the largest city and my congressional district. it is about 280 thousand. i have about 10 counties. in those world communities, i still represent some areas that do not have real access to the high-speed internet. the broadband is still being deployed. there is still more work to be done to reach those rural areas. i used the v.a. example earlier. i have a lot of veterans who live in the rural parts of the

district i represent. if they could actually get access to some of the telemedicine, the videoconferencing that is now available, it could go a long way. we have got some work to do. >> what is the role the federal government needs to play in that? how committed should be washington to those districts? >> i do believe that the internet broadband is similar to -- is important to infrastructure similar to water and sewer systems that we have in those of moral communities. as we think about building that basic infrastructure, i think it is important that we are looking at all aspects. as far as the role of the federal government, i have supported efforts in the past to make that possible in to help make it possible [inaudible]

-- and whether i think it is the universal service fund or those committed to the rural areas, i think there is a role for them. box lets talk about those issues. dealing with the whole. the breath of the economy and regulatory issues, including the fcc. you and some of your colleagues this fight over net neutrality. how is that going to play out with congress looking to step in here. with the fcc poised to step in as soon as next month. >> first and foremost, i would emphasize that this is an important debate we are having. in, it is a healthy debate. as i said earlier, a lot has

changed in the last 10 years. our laws need to be updated to reflect the 21st century. i think there is 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 is in important role for the sec -- fcc in at attaching regulations. >> but this is more of a role for congress. is there confusion that this is congress's role to clear this up? >> i do believe, i do.

you are going to have better access. you are going to be able to meet with your representative, make the case, help us understand and make smarter the sessions that sometimes you get out of a regulatory agency. the reality of how they work. there is more transparency. more opportunity on capitol hill to make the case. i think the principle that has been laid out in both the house and the senate, i recognize the hearings last week were pretty hot. i was -- i would encourage you that this is a healthy debate. you want this to take place in congress among your elected representatives where you have an opportunity to go to them in and appeal to them. and they are going to make decisions that are in the best interest of those they represent. i am hope hope we will be able

to find it some middle ground here that continues to encourage both investment and innovation. finding that middle ground may mean making sure that our laws reflect where we live and that they are ones that will continue to encourage the type of innovation we want to have in our economy moving forward. >> safe to say that congress has the full backing to take this as far as it needs to go? >> we are going to take this as far as it needs to go. certainly there are a lot of issues. this is one of those we will continue to discuss what is the best way forward. >> they are very hot topics here

in washington. this is a giant story, the fact that the business sector has been targeted in this way. what is your sense from eight leadership perspective -- up from a leadership perspective? and your own concerned about not only what happened at sony but the risk to the private sector and the government? >> there is so neat, other retailers, target. 10 others that have been targets of cyberattacks. i think that this is in issue this is a bipartisan way to address some realities that we face. the president had a joint meeting with republican and democratic leadership last week

at the white house. this was one of the five priorities he laid out. at least around that table there was some desire -- >> he identified it as one of the four areas. >> we also have the patriot act expiring in june, which will force congress to act upon some of the data collection in and other provisions within the patriot act. >> do you see these issues merging together and forcing action on the part of congress? >> i do think certainly some aspects of cyber security will be a part of the patriot act. i am someone who -- i voted for the patriot act. but, also believed it was very important that to there was the expiration of the patriot act and the provisions that would ensure that we as members of congress could analyze a few

years down the road. ok, is this -- not 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 have all learned, you know, the data collection is just one piece. i have been in a number of meetings and briefings where how it was implemented was way beyond what anyone, you know, the authors of the page it act ever in vision. we are in a position now where we can ask us some of those questions. bucks there has been a notable split among your colleagues. i thought everyone was on the same page. x that is true. i think we need, first of all this is, again, a debate about

how we find the balance between protecting civil liberties and also the real threats that face the country and how we go about protecting of americans. the safety and security of this country. it is a balancing act. i believe it is very important that congress, the house the senate, the intelligence committees are really providing the kind of oversight we need to ensure those civil liberties are being respected and protected in this process. there have been enough examples raised where we all have some concerns about what exactly is being collected and i have supported efforts in the past. demanded those questions be answered. >> do you know yet how you are going to vote on the issue of reauthorization? tax know.

i am in the camp -- no. i am in the camp but i'm waiting to see. >> >> finally, the diversifying tech caucus. tell me what this is. the workforce of tomorrow. >> >> i'm very excited. this is a caucus that was launched yesterday. breaking news between the house, the senate, and the republicans and democrats. as we celebrate innovation and everything it is doing in our lives, it is important that we are also making sure that whether it is women, veterans minorities, people with disabilities, we're making sure that we're having a conversation, spending some

time, perhaps some roundtables or briefings where we take a look at and dig a little deeper as to the terriers that exist. we celebrate the number of startups, tech startups, and yet only 3% of them are with women. with is that has long been involved to go into the stem fields, i think we need to look at what are some of the perceived in and real barriers we can address and i hope we will find some ideas. through the ideas, i have -- though the years, i have worked on that legislation. i think there are a number of things we can do. part of it is increasing awareness. that is something we very much can do. there is also legislation, whether it is different

incentives or scholarships. i have worked in the past to encourage young people to pursue stem education. i have worked to encourage adjunct professors content specialist to go into the high schools and help teach and connect. especially as i talked to women young women, junior high and high school age. so often, you ask them, what do want to do with your life? you know, they want to have a career where they are going to make a difference for the long-term. they want to work for a team. but they don't associate science, it technology, and math as being careers that will lead to this outcome. there is certainly more work that needs to be done. the opportunities are great right now. when you think about how we create more opportunities in

america for everybody, no matter who they are or their background or walk of life, there is a huge potential here. obviously, we're still at the beginning stages of what the internet and technology and innovation have to offer. >> we have come a long way. i know you have to get back up to the hill. thank you very much. [applause] >> on the agenda we have a coffee break. when we come back at about 10:50 or so, we will ring the bell. jerry was put into a committee hearing, but will be back with

the head of the federal communications commission and then we will have a congressman. we will be back in like 20 minutes. thank you. live coverage on thursday is here on c-span. back grouningd on loretta lynchd on

loretta lynch covering staten island in new york city. she send undergraduate and law degrees at harvard. she is 55 years old. "washington journal" is neck, live with your foenltz. the house gavels in at 9::00 eastern. in 45 minutes, congressman charlie dinn on the role model republicans will play in the 114th congress. he will look ahead to the 2016 presidential race.

representative ron kind of wisconsin, chair of the new democrat coalition will discuss the group's agenda and president obama's push for new trade deals. we will look for your comments on facebook and twitter. ♪ r. good morning, everyone, this wednesday, january 28th. here are your morning headlines. senate democrats are backing away from a bi-partisan proposal to push for immediate sanctions against iran follow. at a time report from the president obama not to undercut international talks with tehran. on capitol hill, house speaker john boehner is considering legal action against president obama's immigration executive decision telling g.o.p. conference that there is not much the party can do legislatively on the nature side confirmation hearings for u.s. attorney