“Maybe you should put it in the hands of private litigants,” Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said. “Law cases are powerful things, so maybe it is, we let the people who get doxed and the people who get hacked and whatever – we give them the power to go to court. Then you get discovery.”
While senators plan to ask Twitter officials to testify — likely with the help of subpoenas — in response to their former director’s accusations, they don’t appear to be waiting either. Senator Hawley is now trying to breathe new life into his off-the-shelf proposal to move the FTC’s technology portfolio to the Justice Department, though he’s open to many reform ideas floating around in Washington.
Hawley and outspoken South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham renew their call to ban Section 230 — the law passed by Congress in the infancy of the Internet that protects online businesses from certain types of lawsuits for content users publish on their platforms .
‘You have to give people a permit. Apparently money doesn’t matter to them. Losing your ability to operate would matter,” Graham said. “So if you had a license, then you have something that you could lose.”
Graham has argued with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren for the creation of a new federal regulatory agency targeting technology companies. While the two agree that the FTC is currently incapable of overseeing Silicon Valley, they disagree on Section 230, which Graham has been seeking to reform for some time.
“Let’s hold off discussing 230 until we have a better structure to discuss a general approach to the tech industry,” Warren said as she walked to her office.
Whistleblowers like Zatko are enabling Congress to finally pull back Silicon Valley’s meticulously manicured veils — a welcome change for Warren.
“Congress is getting more sophisticated about the need for technical regulation,” Warren said. “The question is whether Congress will get up to speed soon enough to catch up.”
Congress is anything but fast, which is why Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota says that despite the whistleblower’s enlightening testimony, lawmakers themselves are sharing the blame for not providing better traffic regulations for Silicon Valley.
“Why don’t we put ourselves in the mirror? Congress has yet to pass a federal privacy law. We haven’t passed a competition law since the advent of the Internet,” Klobuchar said at the Capitol.
Republicans blame Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for bottling up bipartisan measures, including Klobuchar’s own antitrust measure, which has already gone through the committee but never made it to the Senate floor for a vote. Yet the Democrat defends its party leaders.
“No, this is also on the Republican side,” Klobuchar said. “It’s just, we have to get this done. It must be prioritized. It’s hard stuff. The debate will take time.”
Time is running out, at least for this Congress.
