Category Archives: Amy Klobuchar

Security fears over antitrust legislation raise looming questions about a federal privacy law

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A bill designed to break up America’s largest tech companies could come with an inadvertent side effect, its critics are arguing: weakening Americans’ privacy and data security. Detractors of the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act,” including Apple and Google, are campaigning against the legislation, contending that it would limit how companies are able to protect users’ privacy and security. “These bills may compel us to share the sensitive data you store with us with unknown companies in ways that could compromise your privacy,” Google’s president of global affairs Kent Walker wrote in a blog post Tuesday. Allowing users to download apps straight from the internet means “millions of Americans will likely suffer malware attacks on their phones that would otherwise have been stopped,” Apple’s senior director of government affairs Timothy Powderly wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The critiques are just a small part of the storm […]

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Top tech critic Lina Khan named FTC chair

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Just hours after the Senate confirmed Columbia law professor Lina Khan as the new Democratic commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, the Biden administration reportedly picked her to run the agency. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., first noted Khan’s selection as FTC chair in a Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. A White House spokesperson confirmed the pick. The 32-year old Khan has been a staunch critic of Amazon, Facebook and Google, contending that they abuse their market power. She’s also warned of tech firms that could mine consumer data in a way that endangers privacy. The selection is a huge warning shot to big tech companies that the Biden administration will put close scrutiny on how they wield market might to acquire and crush the competition. Khan’s power could also be buoyed by efforts in the House from both parties to limit anti-competitive behavior in Silicon Valley. The FTC […]

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Senators warn YouTube to buck up on misinformation

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YouTube has found itself in the crosshairs of a group of Democratic senators who want the Alphabet-owned video platform to take down misinformation about elections, false claims of voter fraud and content that could fuel civil unrest. In the buildup to the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, YouTube chose to not take down content that promotes false claims about the election or that challenges the credibility of election’s results. That policy is not enough to curb misinformation, the senators warned in a letter they sent Tuesday to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. “[T]he platform is now home to an ‘onslaught of videos aiming to undermine the legitimacy of the election,’” wrote senators Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Gary Peters of Michigan and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. “These videos seek to undermine our democracy and cast doubt on the legitimacy of President-elect Biden’s incoming administration. Moreover, because the current president has […]

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Senate Democrats push feds to stand up disinformation ‘response center’ ordered in NDAA

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With the presidential election just four months away, 15 Senate Democrats have asked national security agencies to step up their efforts to counter foreign disinformation aimed at undermining the vote. The Trump administration should ensure that political candidates and the public are promptly notified of foreign efforts to interfere in U.S. politics — and set up a congressionally mandated federal office for countering foreign influence, the senators wrote in a letter Friday to the heads of the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “[W]e urge you to take additional measures to fight influence campaigns aimed at disenfranchising voters, especially voters of color,” wrote the senators, including Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey. After the sweeping Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 elections, U.S. officials have tried to do more to combat foreign […]

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Klobuchar to voting vendors: Don’t turn your back on good hackers when setting up a CVD program

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After years of getting pummeled by critics for not embracing ethical hacking, the country’s biggest voting equipment vendors took a big step in that direction in September. They asked the cybersecurity community for ideas on how to set up a process through which researchers could flag software flaws for vendors to fix. Companies that specialize in coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) programs like Bugcrowd and Synack responded to the request for information. But the usual suspects weren’t the only entities to submit ideas. A Democratic presidential candidate and one of the most outspoken voices in the Senate on election security also chimed in. In a four-page letter to the industry association establishing the CVD program, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., advised the voting-gear vendors to ditch their reservations about working with unvetted researchers, pay close attention to their supply chains, and set a timeline for getting software bugs fixed. “[V]oting system manufacturers […]

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Election Assistance Commission pleads for more money in Senate hearing

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The Election Assistance Commission is straining to secure elections in advance of the 2020 cycle with its current level of funding, the organization’s leadership told lawmakers Wednesday during a hearing on Capitol Hill. EAC chairwoman Christy McCormick said during a Senate Rules Committee hearing on election security that the commission has seen its budget halved from where it was in 2010, despite the fact that its responsibilities have greatly increased since the 2016 election. “That’s unbelievable,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said of the cuts. “That’s like cutting the budget of the fire department in the middle of a five alarm fire. We’ve never had such a serious attack on our political systems that we’ve had in the last three years and your budget is 50 percent what it was.” All four EAC commissioners who testified Wednesday agreed that information sharing with local election officials needs to improve in advance of the 2020 elections. Two […]

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Voting-machine vendors have some serious questions to answer, senators say

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While the security of the 2020 election remains a prominent topic in Washington, a group of Democratic senators is raising alarms about longer-term issues that will resonate after voters are done choosing a president about 20 months from now. The three companies that make most of the voting technology used in the U.S. must be more transparent about their plans to improve their products to meet current expectations about security and performance, says a letter Wednesday by Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and three other top Democrats. In particular, the senators say every machine should reliably produce paper records, and the companies should do far more to upgrade their products. “The integrity of our elections is directly tied to the machines we vote on — the products that you make,” says the letter from Klobuchar, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Gary Peters of Michigan. “Despite shouldering such a massive responsibility, there has been […]

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Senators ask Trump administration how badly shutdown hurt federal cybersecurity

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After former U.S. officials raised concerns that the longest government shutdown in history had weakened federal cybersecurity, lawmakers are asking the Trump administration how bad the damage is. “We are concerned that these circumstances have left our government and citizens vulnerable to cyberattacks,” five Democratic senators wrote in a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. The senators – Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, Massachusetts’ Ed Markey, New Mexico’s Tom Udall, Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, and New Jersey’s Cory Booker – want to know how agencies are preparing to harden their networks for a future shutdown, citing past experience as a cautionary tale. During the 2013 government shutdown, the senators wrote, Chinese hackers compromised the Federal Election Commission’s computer network, crashing sensitive computer systems that disclose billions of dollars in spending each election cycle. “Shutdowns have severe […]

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New bipartisan bill proposes international election security cooperation

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With the Election Day having passed without any apparent cybersecurity issues, a pair of senators have introduced a bill that would have the U.S. share election cybersecurity information and best practices with international allies. Under the Global Electoral Exchange Act, U.S. election officials would more closely collaborate with their foreign counterparts, and the State Department would have new authority to share information. A program would be created at the State Department to invite people from participating countries involved in election administration to exchange strategies on how to conduct audits, protect election infrastructure, fight disinformation campaigns and share ideas on other election security issues that have risen to prominence amid growing awareness about foreign interference in the democratic process. The bill would also let the State Department issue grants to nonprofits involved in election security seeking to exchange information about the issue with counterparts in other countries. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Dan Sullivan, R-Ak., introduced […]

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Two bills seek transparency in ownership of election vendors

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Senators introduced a pair of bills Thursday that would crack down on foreign ownership of election systems in the U.S., as the government continues to try to mitigate supply chain risk. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., announced the Protect Our Elections Act and the Election Systems Integrity Act, both of which would set restrictions and reporting requirements around foreign ownership and operation of election systems. The former has bipartisan backing, with co-sponsorships from Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Cardin D-Md. The latter is also backed by Cardin and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. The two bills overlap significantly in scope. Asked why they’re separate, a spokesperson for Van Hollen said that one deals with disclosure while the other would issue a ban. The Protect Our Elections Act would outlaw foreign ownership of election systems, specifically ones that deal with voting, tabulation, voter registration and communication systems for election agency. The bill would […]

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