00:00I now recognize Congresswoman Trahan for five minutes.
00:06Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:07I appreciate you allowing me to be part of this important conversation.
00:11Over on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is where I usually serve,
00:15we have a lot of conversations about technology.
00:18And one thing is always clear, data is at the heart of AI.
00:22That's why I believe that any serious discussion about AI
00:26has to start with a conversation about privacy.
00:29And that's what I'm here to do today,
00:31to sound the alarm about a deeply troubling trend,
00:34our own government's growing appetite for Americans' personal data.
00:39Let me just give you an example, a hypothetical, of course, but not a far-fetched one.
00:44Sarah is a typical American woman.
00:46She pays her taxes, owns a gun legally, and is raising her daughter, Emma, on her own.
00:53She and Emma rely on Medicaid to get the health care that they need.
00:57One day, Sarah shares a post on Facebook.
01:01She's concerned about something the president said about firearms, and she posts so.
01:06But in Washington, an AI-powered monitoring system flags her post.
01:10A political appointee digs into her personal data and sends emails to agency heads
01:15urging them to take action against her.
01:18Within days, Sarah's life falls apart.
01:20The IRS audits her and claims she owes thousands.
01:24Emma's doctor says her Medicaid isn't active anymore, and now Sarah has to pay out of pocket.
01:29Now, to be clear, this story's made up.
01:32But it's not science fiction.
01:34It's an alarm.
01:35It's a warning.
01:36Mr. Schneier, you talked in your testimony about coercion as an adversarial use of data.
01:42What kinds of coercion could bad actors inside the government use if they had detailed profiles on every American?
01:52I would think of it as selective investigation.
01:54The government has enormous powers to investigate people.
01:58And the question is who they choose to investigate.
02:01There's a famous book from many years ago called Three Felonies a Day,
02:04that we in our normal lives commit three felonies a day because there are just so many rules,
02:09and we don't know them.
02:10And so given things like that, who you choose to enforce the law on matters.
02:17So this data can be used to select people whom to investigate, people whom to charge.
02:24And this could be used selectively by any regime, even not the U.S., any country that wants to do this.
02:32Well, unfortunately, this isn't just a hypothetical trend.
02:36It's already happening.
02:37Under the Trump administration, Doge aggressively collected sensitive data across agencies,
02:43breaking down firewalls that are supposed to protect us.
02:46Then came the executive order directing agencies to eliminate information silos,
02:51basically to share and pool that data.
02:54And just last week, we learned that Palantir, a Silicon Valley company known for building surveillance tools,
03:00is being hired to build AI-powered profiles on every American using the data that Doge collected.
03:09It's hard to overstate how dangerous this is.
03:13Mr. Schneier, are you worried that once this data is centralized, future administrations, no matter their party, could weaponize it?
03:20I mean, are we on the verge of opening Pandora's box here?
03:22I don't know if Pandora's box has been opened years ago, but certainly giving this power to a government is something that feels very un-American.
03:32I mean, there are reasons why this data was siloed.
03:34There are reasons why we didn't have these powers.
03:37I mean, you can imagine humans doing this well before AI, but we chose not to.
03:41So AI can certainly make this more efficient.
03:46But yes, this is power in the hands of a human who wants to wield it for ill, can do that very efficiently.
03:54We need a national reckoning on privacy.
03:57That means strong oversight of this administration and its tech partners and real legislation to protect Americans' rights.
04:04You know, I've spent the past three months talking with civil liberties groups, privacy experts, and people across the country.
04:10And the one thing is clear, we need stronger privacy laws.
04:14I believe that we can protect people's data and modernize government to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse.
04:20These goals are not at odds.
04:23They're linked.
04:24So if you're listening and you're concerned about what's happening about big tech, about government overreach, about your family's privacy, call my office.
04:33Let's have a national conversation.
04:36Let's protect the freedom that our founders fought for and the privacy we all deserve.
04:40And one last thing I just wanted to mention, because over the course of this hearing,
04:44the chair has suggested that no one on the other side of the aisle called attention to the harms of the Republicans' 10-year ban on state AI regulations.
04:53That's patently false.
04:55We had robust debate on the Energy and Commerce Committee, with several Democratic members, myself included,
05:00calling attention to this provision during and after our 26-hour markup.
05:06In fact, Democrats offered an amendment to strike the language entirely.
05:10So, Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the results of the recorded vote.
