Who?
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) — Chair, Senate Commerce Committee
Ask a Pol asked
Is it frustrating that the only serious data privacy conversation we have on Capitol Hill in the past decade or so is on this rushed TikTok measure?
Key Cantwell
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cantwell replied. “I don’t think it’s the only…”
“To hit the floor.”
“Oh you’re saying…”
“To hit the floor.”
“I think the information age — with AI, ChatGPT coming around — everybody’s like, ‘Well, what’s in an algorithm? And what’s it doing?’ And we want to know that too. We want to stop that. Meaning, discrimination, distillers or anything that’s hurting US citizens or the US military,” Cantwell said. “That’s why we wrote the GUARD Act in the NDAA. But, you know, agencies have had different views and some people like certain agency approaches over others and so, you know, these guys got this done so, yeah, it’s something to consider, figuring out how to get a robust tool in the hands of our — to help protect US citizens.”
Background:
See Ask a Pol founder Matt Laslo’s past data privacy coverage for WIRED mag.
Caught our ear
“We do want to minimize more data collection. We don’t want people to do deleterious things with it,” Cantwell said. “We want to have as robust a system as we can.”
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s interview with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), slightly edited for clarity.
LISTEN: Cantwell scrum
TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Maria Cantwell
SCENE: Before she can pop up a senator’s only staircase on her way to vote on the Senate floor, Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo spots Cantwell and then three tech reporters descend on her for an impromptu press co
Matt Laslo: And how’s this young lady?
Reporter 1: How are ya?
Maria Cantwell: Good. How are you all?
Reporter 1: What is your view of the TikTok bill at this point?
MC: We’re talking, you know, we had the GUARD Act which we were trying to — we tried to get that on the DOD [Department of Defense] bill before, and so now we’re just talking to all our colleagues over on the committee and then in leadership about what they want to do.
Reporter 1: Some have said, you know, you’ve had former aides that are now lobbying for TikTok maybe…
MC: I didn’t even know that.
Laughter.
Matt Laslo: Are you skeptical of the House proposal?
MC: We want something that’s constitutional, that could do the job. We want a larger privacy bill. We want to fight and minimize data. Like so, we want, you know, we want a robust approach so. And, I think they have parts of that in there but, I think, we want to hear from people about making it, you know, very effective.
ML: From that, it sounds like you don’t think it’s constitutional? It sounds like you don’t think it’s constitutional.
MC: I want to hear from people. We haven’t heard from everybody. We were…
ML: But you’re not decided?
MC: We were previously working with DOJ [Department of Justice], so that’s why we want to understand this. But, I think, the line they keep saying is ‘it needs improvement’. And I’m like, ‘What does that mean?’
Reporter 2: If you were a House member would you have been a ‘No’ yesterday?
MC: I don’t know. I would’ve probably spent the time before and made a decision.
Reporter 1: Does this strong vote over there affect your thinking at all?
MC: You want people to be engaged. But, the dilemma, you know, like with the Trump’s executive order, you want something that is gonna get sustained so that you can use the tool. ’Cause we do want to minimize more data collection. We don’t want people to do deleterious things with it. We want to have as robust a system as we can. The GUARD Act included a bunch of other stuff, including hardware and other tools that would give us, you know, the overall effort. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna look at it. We’ve just been so busy, we just didn’t have a chance to…
Reporter 2: Would you mark up the GUARD Act? Would you mark that up?
MC: Yeah, we could. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you could take the House bill and have them kind of debate that…
MC: Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry. We could do either. Right, we could do either. We could take the House bill up or we could take something else. You know I’m going to talk to Mark [Warner] and the Intel. guys, because I think they want to go back and think about their bill. So this has just kicked off a lot of discussion.
Reporter 1: Have you talked to [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer at all since the passing?
MC: No. No.
ML: Is it frustrating that the only serious data privacy conversation we have on the Hill, in the past decade or whatever, is on this rushed TikTok measure?
MC: Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s the only, but…
ML: To hit the floor.
MC: Oh you’re saying…
ML: To hit the floor.
MC: I think the information age — with AI, ChatGPT coming around — everybody’s like, ‘Well, what’s in an algorithm? And what’s it doing?’ And we want to know that too. We want to stop that. Meaning, discrimination, distillers or anything that’s hurting US citizens or the US military — that’s why we wrote the GUARD Act in the NDAA. But, you know, agencies have had different views and some people like certain agency approaches over others and so, you know, these guys got this done so, yeah, it’s something to consider, figuring out how to get a robust tool in the hands of our — to help protect US citizens.
Reporter 1: Thank you madam chair.
ML: Have a good one ma’am.
MC: You too.
Cantwell’s on her way up private staircase to vote on Senate floor, as the 3 reporters head back to the Capitol’s basement to look for other senators.
ML: That was a good little press conference guys.
Reporter 1: I know. Just the three of us.
Laslo to an attendent.
ML: Have a good weekend, sir.
Sen. Cantwell on slowing down House TikTok bill: "we are trying something a little more robust & long-term" on data privacy