there's no laws covering all this location based information. >> host: let's look at al franken's opening statement. >> now, today in this hearing, it's a specific kind of sensitive information that i don't think we're doing enough to protect, data from mobile devices, smart phones, and tablets. this technology gives us incredible benefits. let me say that and repeat that. this technology gives us incredible benefits and parents can see their kids and wish them good night even when they are halfway around the world. it allows lost drivers to get direction on emergency responders to locate a victim in a matter of seconds. the same information allowing responders to locate us when in trouble is not information all of usment to share all the time with the entire world, and yet, reports suggest that the information on our mobile devices is not being protected in the way that it should be. in december, an investigation by "wall street "wall street journal" 101 popular apps found that 47 of those apps, 47 transmitted the third party location to companies and most did this without user's consent

this is senator al franken. now, as as lil soy been burns reports, whether -- alison burns reports, they are investigating whether they are secretly tracking users' locations. >> reporter: let's get back to the hearing room. this hear something chaired by democratic senator al franken. the tech company executives are gonna be on the third panel. first up are representatives from the justice department and the federal trade commission. they are gonna be facing some tough questions about how far privacy laws go. the committee is investigating whether google and apple are investigating personal information through their androids and their iphones. it was revealed that users' information could be tracked. >> our cell phones are becoming spy phones that are collecting information about everything we do, every purchase we make, every place we go in our lives. when that information is added to, our privacy is at risk. >> reporter: and we're gonna keep watching the hearing this morning and have more for you here on the

al franken says there needs to be a balance of the companies and privacy rights of customers. >> they are beginning the way we think about privacy to account for the massive shift of personnel information into the hands of the private sector because the fourth amendment doesn't apply to corporations and freedom act doesn't apply to silicon valley. >> they say their devices only record information on wi-fi hot spots. >>> president obama is making his first trip as president to the u.s.-mexico border to reaffirm his stance on immigration reform. he went to el paso, texas where he'll deliver a speech and visit the border crossing. he has supported legislation which also offers a path way to shape for certain illegal immigrants but he has received strong opposition from house republicans. immigration is shaping up to be a hot political issue in the upcoming elections where more latinos than ever are expected to go to the paul. >> arnold schwarzenegger and his wife are separating after 25 years of marriage. couple says they are going through a great period of transition. the marriage has c

al franken says there needs to be a balance of the companies and privacy rights of customers. >> they are beginning the way we think about privacy to account for the massive shift of personnel information into the hands of the private sector because the fourth amendment doesn't apply to corporations and freedom act doesn't apply to silicon valley. >> they say their devices only record information on wi-fi hot spots. >>> president obama is making his first trip as president to the u.s.-mexico border to reaffirm his stance on immigration reform. he went to el paso, texas where he'll deliver a speech and visit the border crossing. he has supported legislation which also offers a path way to shape for certain illegal immigrants but he has received strong opposition from house republicans. immigration is shaping up to be a hot political issue in the upcoming elections where more latinos than ever are expected to go to the paul. >> arnold schwarzenegger and his wife are separating after 25 years of marriage. couple says they are going through a great period of transition. the marriage has c

. >> senator al franken called for the hearing after users reported storing information about a user's information. both google and apple are making changes to address the issue of location tracking. >>> the san francisco municipal transportation agency is defending its light rail system. in february, the california public utilities commission announced it was considering fines for lingering problems like trouble for an automatic train, control system at the dubose street intersection. state regulators could decide to fine muni this friday. >>> painful budget cuts are coming for the mount diablo district. the district may finalize layoff notices for 182 teachers and employees. gary innerhart tells -- eberhart tells ktvu the school board may have to make additional cuts defending -- depending ong the governor's -- depending on the governor's budget. >>> ahead, a car crashed down an elevator shaft. >>> you will also hear about the mental state of one driver today. >>> warmer? cooler? both? rosemary orozco will have details. >>> also -- >> when you step out into inuncertainty, it's not a

senator al franken, the new chairman of this new committee -- they had to answer questions about what their practices are and what they do and what they don't do. >> who discovered that the smart phones were capable of doing this? >> the companies would say the discovery was something that occurred along, but research recently realized that tracking goes on. there are stories about tracking and what location information is used for. members of congress had been told as early as a few weeks ago. the company said, well, the information is used for services consumers want. they want to know where the nearest mcdonald's is. they want to know where their kids are. the question is, how is the information used? do consumers know it is being used? one of the things that this hearing shows, a lot of players are in the ecosystem and not all of them fall under particular laws. there really are no laws that cover all of its, location- based information. >> let's look get out franken's opening statement. >> today we are looking at a specific kind of information that i do not think we are doing eno

which is why minnesota senator al franken is so concerned about protecting mobile privacy. what today is about is trying to find a balance between all of those wonderful benefits and the public's right to privacy. >> reporter: senators homed in on apple software that researchers say collects location data and stores it for up to a year on an iphone or ipad. apple says the data helps iphones find locations faster than using gps. apple software executive bud tribble adds the location data is also anonymous. >> apple was never tracking an individual's location from the information residing in that cache. furthermore, the location data that was seen on the iphone was not the past or present location of the iphone, but rather the location of wifi hotspots and cell towers around the iphone's location. >> reporter: but franken also called as a witness consultant ashkan soltani, who says, if mobile phone data can be used to find criminals, it can find individual consumers, too. >> it's really difficult to call this stuff anonymous. making those claims is not really sincere. >> repo

. >> reporter: senator al franken chaired a senate subcommittee hearing on technology and privacy issueshis morning that aaccount traed, among others, represented from apple and google. >> several privacy users that require the government. >> gathering and transmitting users' location information had senators' attention. >> does this data indicate anything about your location or doesn't it? >> that data does not actually contain in our data bases any customer information at all. >> reporter: also under scrutiny, third party smart phone app providers. >> would your companies be willing to commit to requiring apps in your stores to have a clear understandable privacy policy? >> i will take that issue back to our leadership, i think it's a very good suggestion. >> what we need to do, because people may not read a privacy policy, is put things in the user interface that make it clear to people what is happening with their information. >> reporter: today's hearing comes as at least four online privacy bills have been introduced. and included in some of those proposed bills, requirements that

evening, the speaker of the house, newt gingrich walks out of this hotel thinking, you know, that al frankenen i know i will have failed miserably. and let a lot of people down. if, on the other hand, the president leaves thinking, hmm, you know, al would make a pretty good council general to bermuda, mission accomplished. the correspondents' association was afraid of a repeat of the whole imus debacle so the board of governors had a meeting and drew up some ground rules for tonight's talk. for example, there are a number of subjects i've been instructed to avoid. white water, specifically web hubble, susan thomas, either of the mcdougals. i'm not to do jokes about any aspect of the president's personal life except his eating habits. evidently, sir, you eat a lot. and the correspondents' association seems to think that we could have quite a bit of harmless fun with that. other subjects to avoid, newt gingrich's first wife, bob dole's first wife, phil gramm's first wife, dick armey's first wife, rush limbaugh's first wife. [applause] rush limbaugh's second wife, rush limbaugh's third wife. no

senator al franken is holding the hearing on subcommittee on privacy and technology.t begins in just about 45 minutes from now. senator wants to more about the technology that secretly keeps track of user locations. it's growing concerns over online privacy. more and more americans own a smart phone. representatives from the federal trade commission and the justice department will also testify. apple has already taken steps to address privacy complaints. last week it updated the software to reduce the time that it stores information about the user's whereabouts. >>> and track you to the newsroom so we knew your location. 6:14. you didn't need an iphone for that. >> all the sophisticated equipment where the clouds will be if there are any today. >> beautiful picture. you can see some of them gathering along the coast. that is where i think we'll be cloudy today. a very summer looking pattern with clouds at the coast and sunshine and warmer weather for the bay shore. you guys did a great job this week of showing beautiful pictures. it tells the weather story. take a loo

minnesota senator al franken sent letters to the two bay area tech giant asking them to require all developers making apps for mobile devices to adopt formal privacy policies. the policies would tell users the personal information that the app collects and how it's stored or shared. >>> facebook founder mark zuckerberg says his company played a minor role in the arab spring uprising. >> i think that facebook was neither necessary nor sufficient for any of those things to happen. the thing that was both necessary and sufficient was population of people who felt strongly that change needed to happen. >> zuckerberg was speaking at a conference in paris. many of the arab spring protests were organized on facebook and other social networking sites. but zuckerberg says the movement would have spread even without social networking. >>> another social networking site credited in playing a role in the arab spring uprising made a huge purchase. twitter bought tweet deck, a third-party app developer that serves the twitter power users that allows brands, marketers and celebrities and other users to track

apple and fwogoogle back in the hairs of al franken.ber of the senate judiciary committee today sent letters to the two tech giants asking that all mobile apps come with clear and understandable privacy policies. this comes as mobile devices come under scrutiny for the data they collect about their users. no comment yet from apple or google. and, speaking fl google, the south san francisco second grader who won the doodle for google contest last week will be honored by his hometown. that is 7-year-old mateo lopez. he'll get the key to the city at tonight's city council meeting. lopez's drawing called space life took first place among 107,000 entries. lopez is not the contest's youngest winner, he pulls in a $15,000 scholarship which, he says, he plans to use as stanford. >> good for him. thank you, scott. >>> a new $500 million federal grant competition is handing out cash to states which improve their preschool programs. the obama administration's early learning challenge is a third round of its race to the top state competition which

when it comes to smart phone apps and personal privacy, senator al franken says it's pretty much thest out there. some apps don't have privacy policies. some have policies that are so long users usually just click "accept" without reading them. that's why senator franken is now calling on both apple and google to adopt a universal privacy policy that would spell out to users exactly what data is being collected and how it's being used. it's a simple idea. it may not be that easy. two weeks ago at a senate judiciary committee hearing, apple's vice president of software technology bud trible said that they do require that their app makers get consent from users before collecting their data but they don't have a technical means to enforce it. >> when you start to do that for every little piece of information, uhm, the screen that the user is confronted with in terms of yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, potentially becomes very long and complex. >> reporter: apple and google is had no comment on this latest request from senator franken. he says that he is most concerned about recent requests th

over 70%, including liberals like al franken, and the 29 democratic senators who voted for the war authorization bill, including senators chuck schumer, dianne feinstein, and john kerry. plus the future "new york times" editor bill keller and editor of the liberal magazine "the new yorker," david rennie. all supported the war. the times ran many bogus front-page stories about how saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he later apologized for their cheerleading. but the damage had been done. they had given bush the cover he needed, and the ability to claim in a liberal paper like the times says so, it must be true. it must be true. so here it was, the fourth night of a very unpopular war, and my film "bowling for columbine" was up for an oscar. i went to the ceremony but was not allowed along with the other nominees to talk to the press on the red carpet. going into the kodak theatre. there was fear that someone might say something and in wartime, we need everyone on the same page. the actress diane lane read the list of nominees for best documentary. the envelope was opened and she a

he won reelection in a state that had elected al franken as a senator.t is the untold story? what is the thing that people should be watching out for that may not be on the front page of the news as far as the 2012 election is concerned? guest: i think security will be interesting. obviously, economic matters are paramount right now, but traditionally has been get closer to the election, it has been something that the republican nominee has done. the have hammered on the idea that the republicans are the ones you can trust on national security. with the death of bin laden, will that be blunted some one this year? what kind of impact will the national security issues as we headed down to election day? guest: national-security and foreign-policy are getting the short trip. they're welcome to a robust debate about those issues. the killing of bin laden was a "gutsy call." in some ways it was an obvious call, but it is hard when you're putting words on the ground to make sure you're getting the job done. no one will take that away from the president. a lot o

senator al franken, we can do it anywhere. [applause] it was not easy.h all due respect to other people in public office, some of them need a little encouragement. pushing them back up against the wall metaphorically matters. i had the first government shut down under my watch i minneso in the 150 year history of the state. i set record for vetoes in my state single season and won the most in history. the cato institute is a libertarian organization. they gave only four governors in the country an a. louisiana, west virginia, and minnesota. i am proud of that. [applause] i just want to share with you in the minute i have left, working in the mills was not easy. working in the meatpacking plant or driving a truck was not easy. of course, when you see those big plants shut down in manchester or south st. paul and the faces of unemployment in your communitynd disruptions to your family and community, you see things not as a budget number, but as a matter of a mily and of the bargain future. my mother died when i was 16. my dad lost his job for a while not t

trade commission officials at this two and a half hour hearing chaired by the minnesota senator al franken. >> it's my pleasure to welcome all of you to the first hearing of the senate judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law. i am sorry that everyone wasn't able to get into the hearing room but we are streaming live on c-span, thankfully, and thank ec's and for that. and i'd like to turn over to chairman leahy and thank you, sir, for the subcommittee and giving me the opportunity to lead. the chairman has a long track record on protecting privacy and all i'm honored to join in this effort. mr. chairman? >> thank you, senator frank in, and i want to commend you for holding what is a very timely hearing none the privacy implications of other malae applications -- mobile applications for privacy, technology and the law. i thank senator franken for his dedicated leadership on the consumer privacy issues as the chairman of the subcommittee and thank dr. colburn for his amendment to such issues, too, and i appreciate both of them working together on this. throughout the three d

federal trade commission officials at this two and a half-hour hearing chaired by minnesota senator al franken. >> it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to the first hearing of the senate judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the wall. i am sorry that everyone wasn't able to get into the hearing room, but we are streaming live on c-span thankfully and thank c-span for that. and i'd like to turn over to german leahy and thank you for creating the subcommittee and giving me the opportunity to lead. the chairman has a long track record on protecting privacy, and i'm honored to join him in this effort. mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator, and i want to commend you for holding what is a very timely hearing on the privacy implications of other mobile what locations, the first hearing for the hearing on privacy, technology and allow all. and so i thank the senator for his dedicated leadership on the consumer privacy issues as the chairman of the subcommittee. i thank the doctor for his commitment to such issues, too and i appreciate both of them working together on this. throughout the

. >> host: let's look at al franken's opening statement. >> now, today in this hearing we're looking at a specific kind of really sensitive information that i don't think we're doing enough. to protect. and that's data from mobile devices, smartphones, tablet and cell phones. this technology gives us incredible benefits. let me say that. let me repeat that. this technology gives us incredible benefits. it allows parents to see the kids and wish them good night even when they're halfway around the world. it allows a lost driver to get directions and that allows emergency responders to locate a crash victim in a matter of seconds. but the same information that allows those responders to locate us when we're in trouble is not necessarily information all us want to share all the time with the entire world. and yet, reports suggest that the information on our mobile devices is not being protected in the way that it should be. in december, investigation by "the wall street journal," into 101 popular apps for iphone and android smartphones found that 47 of those apps, 47, transmitted the sm

he won reelection in state that had elected al franken as a senator. what is the untold story? what is the thing that people should be watching out for that may not be on the front page of the news as far as the 2012 election is concerned? guest: i think security will be interesting. obviously, economic matters are paramount right now, but traditionally has been get closer to the election, it has been something that the republican nominee has done. the have hammered on the idea that the republicans are the ones you can trust on national security. with the death of bin laden, will that be blunted some one this year? what kind of impact will the national security issues as we headed down to election day? guest: national-security and foreign-policy are getting the ort trip. they're welcome to a robust debate about those issues. the killing of bin laden was a "gutsy call." in some ways it was an obvious call, but it is hard when you're putting words on the ground to make sure you're getting the job done. no one will take that away from the president. a lot