Washingtech Tech Policy Podcast With Joe Miller

The Cyberwarfare Capability of North Korea For decades, policymakers, journalists and the media have discussed, prevented, and continued to assess North Korea's nuclear capabilities. The United States and the United Nations have repeatedly issued sanctions against the country to prevent it from developing its nuclear arsenal.  But what is the cyberwarfare capability of of North Korea? The Council of Korean Americans' Jessica Lee sheds light on the cyberwarfare capability of North Korea and the current policy landscape affecting the Korean Peninsula. Bio Jessica Lee is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Council of Korean Americans (CKA)(@CouncilKA). Jessica works closely with the Executive Director and CKA members to define CKA’s policy agenda and advocacy strategy. Jessica leads research and analysis on leading issues of importance to Korean Americans. Prior to joining CKA, Jessica was a Resident Fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu, HI. At the Pacific Forum, Jessica published articles on secu

Bio Licy Do Canto is founder and president of the Do Canto Group, a bipartisan government relations firm specializing in public health and health care legislative and regulatory policy, with a particular focus on underserved communities. An expert in health care policy with nearly 20 years of beltway experience, Licy has a track record of building bipartisan consensus, guiding federal legislation into law, and directing national issue campaigns and coalitions. Describing him as a “highly regarded healthcare lobbyist” among his peers, and Congressional officials and other decision-makers across the federal government, the prominent Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill named Licy one of Washington DC’s top lobbyists for seven consecutive years, earning the recognition in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010. Prior to founding the Do Canto Group, Licy was a principal at the Raben Group, where he lead the firm’s Health Practice Group, providing clients with a range of services, including policy development and

  The Power of WiFi for Business and Communities The potential for WiFi can't be understated. WiFi is beneficial not only for businesses, but also for communities that have traditionally lacked access. In this episode, Edgar Figueroa of the WiFi alliance helps us understand the different types of spectrum. Edgar also describes what WiFi is and how WiFi is playing an increasingly important role in telecom policy. Bio As president and CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance (@WifiAlliance), Edgar Figueroa has led an unprecedented period of growth for Wi-Fi®. Wi-Fi Alliance has grown to more than 700 member companiesUnder Edgar’s leadership. He has also maintained an aggressive development roadmap and adopted a vision of “Connecting everyone and everything, everywhere.” Edgar forged numerous strategic partnerships to facilitate penetration of Wi-Fi into established and emerging markets. Edgar also defined the Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ program development framework. He also guided the launch of several generations of intero

  The FCC is currently considering whether it will overturn the long-fought net neutrality rules enacted under the Wheeler FCC. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia subsequently upheld the rules. If the Ajit Pai FCC undoes the rules, as it is likely to do, there will be, as always, winners and losers. Who will they be? Further, ISPs are arguing that they too believe in net neutrality principles. But does their purported support of net neutrality principles align with the original definition of net neutrality that was first advanced by their opponents? Bio Christopher Lewis (@ChrisJ_Lewis) is Vice President at Public Knowledge. He leads the organization's advocacy on Capitol Hill and other government agencies. Prior to joining Public Knowledge in 2012, Chris served at the Federal Communications Commission as Deputy Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs. At the FCC, Chris advised the FCC Chairman on legislative and political strategy. He is a former U.S. Senate staffer for the late S

How to Build a Lobbying Presence in Washington Before you build a lobbying presence in Washington, consider the fact that technology now touches almost every aspect of our lives. Accordingly, our policymaking has become more complex as companies develop new technologies and consumers use technology in ways that were unanticipated. What are the key issues that policymakers and businesses should be focused on as they seek to fine-tune their policy strategies? How are policymakers dealing with issues, like diversity, that policymakers have historically considered less "substantive" but which have begun to take on monumental importance in American business and politics? Why is Washington, D.C. relevant to start up and early stage ventures and how can they build a lobbying presence in Washington? You'll get answers to these questions and more on Ep. 102! Bio Named a “Top Lobbyist” by The Hill newspaper, Elizabeth Frazee (@EFrazeeDC) has a 30 year career in Washington. Elizabeth has worked in high-level jobs on Cap

How will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Affect Warfare? In today's episode we discuss the role of artificial intelligence in the future of warfare. What are the risks? How is the United States likely to fare in confrontations involving the use of AI? In a recent paper, Center for a New American Security Fellow Greg Allen and his co-author, Taniel Chan, illustrate both the risks and opportunities for the use of AI in warfare. We discuss these findings plus lessons learned from previous revolutions in the use of military technology. Bio Greg Allen (@Grecory_C_Allen) is an Adjunct Fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. He focuses on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, robotics, and national security. Additionally, Mr. Allen's writing and analysis has appeared in WIRED, Vox, and The Hill. In 2017, The Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs published  his report entitled “Artificial Intelligence and National Sec

Lobbying and Advocacy for Entrepreneurs: The Business Case Lobbying and advocacy is not necessarily something that most entrepreneurs think about when they venture out on their own. Despite the fact that my business focuses on tech policy, when I launched WashingTECH.com,  lobbying and advocacy couldn't have been further from my mind. I was more concerned with the minutiae: configuring and registering domains, setting up my workflow, designing my own site, etc. While I intended to include lobbyists on the podcast, I was more concerned with lobbying and advocacy issues as content. I did not remotely consider that a small business like mine would have any pull amidst the many "white shoe" lobbying firms up and down K St.: The big guns were for huge corporations, not businesses like mine. But as I have progressed and interviewed 100 guests, I have learned that these issues indeed affect me. For example, I conduct most of my interviews via Skype. Buffering issues that I encounter during my guest interviews affect

The Rise of Technology is a Double-Edged Sword for many African Americans Recent reports suggest that African Americans have the most to gain, and yet the most to lose, from advances in technology. The digital divide persists. Recent Pew research shows 86% of blacks reported being internet users, compared to 90% of all respondents. However, just 65% of Black survey respondents to the Pew study have access to broadband at home, compared to 73% of Internet users overall, and 78% of white users. African Americans are both disproportionately impacted by climate change, and underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupations. Paradoxically, the Koch brothers' lobbying efforts have tended to focus on increasing STEM skills among African Americans to prepare them to work in the fossil fuels industry. African American citizens have as much to gain as anyone else from law enforcement's proper implementation of technology. However, newer law enforcement technologies, such as facial recog

   Philanthropists in Silicon Valley Want Your Ideas The provincial Silicon Valley that was loathe to step outside of Northern California is practically ancient history. An industry that once shunned Washington, D.C.'s buttoned-up bureaucrats now leads in lobbying and campaign contributions. Increasingly, philanthropists in Silicon Valley are making investments that in many ways are changing the very structure of our institutions. The New York Times is running a series on the institutional investments Silicon Valley titans are making.  For example, Netflix's Reed Hastings and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are making investments to enhance and experiment with innovative new educational tools and models. Other tech philanthropists have long invested billions to fight more global, humanitarian problems, such as climate change and malaria. They also offer microloans to small businesses in developing nations. The election of Donald Trump to the presidency as not caused the mass tech exodus from Washington that was in

African American Women Engineers' Silent Struggle Against Indifference I had a hard time finding a title for this post. I wanted to come up with something that would speak to what people were already searching for. So I went to Google Trends and entered "black women in engineering". The results showed zero interest over the past 5 years. I tried "African American women in engineering". Again, no one was searching for these terms, according to Google. I tried narrowing the search to just the United States. Still, there was nothing. It takes me an average of about 4 hours to produce each podcast episode. This includes curating the news, writing the news summaries, recording the interview, editing the interview, writing the script for the show, recording the show, and a host of other tasks. Suddenly I found myself spending 45 minutes on the title alone. I thought that perhaps I wasn't entering the correct search terms, or that something was wrong with Google's algorithm. Then, after a longer period of time than

Can Using Emojis Get You in Trouble? You know what emojis mean. Otherwise, you wouldn't use them. Right? One recent University of Minnesota study found that there can be vast differences between what you and your recipient think that emoji means.Use the wrong emoji, and you may have some explaining to do.  What you think is a smile on your iPhone could look more like a grimace on the recipient's end who is using a different device. Cases in which courts must determine what emojis mean are few and far between, but they do appear from time to time. In one case, a University of Michigan law student accused a fellow student of stalking. The fellow student had texted the victim messages calling himself a "petty bastard" and saying that he wanted to make her "feel crappy". The fellow student attempted to argue that the "wry" emoticons he used negated the threatening and harassing nature of the other texts.   The court disagreed and held that the emoticons did not change the meaning of the texts. My guests today bel

America's History of Recalcitrance De jure discrimination Racism online is evolving in a way that is consistent with the way racism has always evolved--from explicit to subtle. Plaintiff-side civil rights lawyers have found it easiest to win -- if civil rights cases can ever said to be "easy"--  in cases in which they can convincingly demonstrate defendants' explicit discriminatory policies. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and their subsequent cases and amendments comprise the bulk of American civil rights law.  The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Brown held segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. In interpreting a statute, judges will consider Congressional intent, which includes the circumstances under which Congress enacted the law. Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act  in an era of widespread de jure segregation in the South. Every 6th grad

What is a SLAPP Suit? Let's say you own a small business called "Policy Town Fajitas". You think your business is second-to-none. You've invested in it--time, sweat, money and otherwise ... But then, all of a sudden, one of your customers doesn't fancy your business as much as you do. So they post a negative review about your business on a site like Yelp. They say your "chicken fajitas taste like pigeon and that's how I know it's not authentic Mexican food." If you're like most businesses, you try to improve (such as by switching to chicken meat). But some businesses try to turn the tables by putting the reviewer on the defensive. Let's call the reviewer Mrs. Davis. So you file a lawsuit against Mrs. Davis that is simply designed to drive her absolutely nuts. Eventually, you hope, Mrs. Johnson will decide to delete her review. That lawsuit is called a "strategic lawsuit against public participation", but we just call them SLAPP suits.    Now, we know you would NEVER serve up pigeon fajitas. But what are the

Privacy, Searches, Seizures and the Law The digital age is challenging the way our judicial system balances privacy against the needs of law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Our devices, as well as cloud-based services like Dropbox, have revolutionized our concept of what information should be considered private. For example, in U.S. v. Graham, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland applied the so-called "third party doctrine". In that case, the court held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect historical cell site location data. Therefore, law enforcement officers do not require warrants to obtain access to that data. The court reasoned that the defendant communicated the data to a "third party", namely the cell phone provider. These technologies also pose significant Constitutional challenges. For exampl

The London Bridge terror attacks that occurred this past weekend are causing policymakers to once again re-evaluate the efficacy of their counterterrorism efforts against ISIS. ISIS counterterrorism expert Audrey Alexander (@aud_alexander) is a Research Fellow at The George Washington University Program on Extremism. Before joining the Program on Extremism, she worked at King’s College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). At ICSR, Audrey used open source intelligence to identify instances of Western women relocating to enemy-held territories. Previously, Audrey worked at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), where she studied online radicalization and “lone-actor” terrorism. She contributed to the widely acclaimed “Till Martyrdom Do Us Part: Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon” report published by ISD and ICSR. Alexander holds a Masters in Terrorism, Security & Society from the War Studies Department at King's College. In this episode, we discussed: how American institut

How can policymakers balance consumers' need for targeted, relevant content against such consumers' desire for privacy? Anindya Ghose (@aghose) is a Professor of Information, Operations and Management Sciences and a Professor of Marketing at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He is the Director of the Center for Business Analytics at NYU Stern, and the co-Chair of the NYU-AIG Partnership on Innovation for Global Resilience. He is the NEC Faculty Fellow and a Daniel P. Paduano Fellow of Business Ethics at NYU Stern. He has been a Visiting Associate Professor at the Wharton School of Business. He also serves as the main Scientific Advisor to 3TI China . He was recently named by Business Week as one of the "Top 40 Professors Under 40 Worldwide" and by Analytics Week as one the "Top 200 Thought Leaders in Big Data and Business Analytics". His rise from assistant to full professor in 8.5 years at NYU Stern is widely regarded as one of the fastest in the history of the entire Information Sy

Yosef Getachew (@getachew2) is a Policy Fellow at Public Knowledge where he works on a variety of technology and communications issues. Prior to joining Public Knowledge, Yosef worked as a law clerk for several technology and communications organizations including the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast, Facebook, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Yosef has also served as a Project Coordinator and Research Assistant for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Yosef received his J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. In law school, he was an Articles Editor for the Federal Communications Law Journal. Yosef was born and raised in Washington D.C. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, watching basketball, and spending time with friends. In this episode, we discussed: what 5G is and what it will mean for consumers. the potential of 5G for job creation, particularly for communities with disproportionately high unemployment rates. how to ensure underser

Matt Cagle is a Policy Attorney for Technology and Civil Liberties at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Matt attended law school at Stanford and has a BA in Latin American Studies and Political Science from the University of Arizona. Before joining the ACLU as a Policy Attorney, Matt worked as an associate with BlurryEdge Strategies, a San Francisco-based law practice advising startups on privacy issues. In this episode, we discussed: how the police use social media to track American citizens.  Resources: ACLU of Northern California The Philipp K. Dick Collection by Phillip K. Dick   NEWS ROUNDUP A massive hack infected hundreds of thousands Microsoft Windows-based computers, disabling several large hospitals in the UK, requiring them to turn away some patients, as well as Fedex, Telefonica, and several other institutions. The ransomware, which is a program called "WannaCry", encrypts files so users can't access them and then demands payment, in the form of the digital currency known as Bitcoin,

Shayna Cook (cook_shayna) is a policy analyst with the Education Policy program at New America. She is a member of the Learning Technologies project. Shayna researches and reports on innovation, new technologies, and digital equity issues concerning children from birth through third grade. She is a former teacher who graduated from American University with a master’s degree in education, focusing on policy and leadership. She holds a bachelor’s degree in classics from Howard University. In this episode, we discussed: how states can use federal funding to promote family engagement. how schools can more effectively incorporate technology to promote family engagement. how to evaluate engagement programs to determine how they improve learning outcomes. Resources: New America's Education Policy Program New Guidance on Using the Every Student Succeeds Act to Support Early Learning by Shayna Cook (New America, 2016) Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Jeff Binder (@JeffBinder) is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Layer3 TV, a next generation cable company, founded in 2013. Most recently Jeff was a general partner at Genovation Capital, a stage-agnostic private equity and venture group focused on Technology, Media and Telecom. In addition, Jeff served as an advisor to TPG and Silver Lake, two of the most respected names in private equity.  Prior to Genovation, Jeff led Broadbus Technologies as its founding CEO, pioneering the concept of television on-demand to become the leading supplier of cable industry on-demand video streams. In 2006, within four years of its first institutional round of financing, Motorola purchased Broadbus for $200 million and Jeff joined the company as a senior executive of M&A/Strategy and GM On-Demand Solutions. In addition to day-to-day operations, Jeff spearheaded several key initiatives within the office of the CEO including the first smart phone eco-system, code named Photon. As Chairman and CEO, Jeff led the L