a16z Podcast - a16z Podcast: Taking the Measure of Tech in Policy -- with Kamala Harris

Episode Date: June 9, 2017

"Slow down, cowboys" -- that's what Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) said when prosecutors in her office wanted to bring a case against companies that let apps download someone's entire address book, because surely that's a complete violation of privacy?! The issue was a perfect example of the perfect storm playing out right now between existing laws and new technologies that are evolving faster than laws can. So how do we move forward, bringing transparency and even more openness --  while also protecting privacy and safety (especially of those who are vulnerable)? The problem is that many litigators and legislators are unfortunately faced with false choices: to be "soft" on crime or "hard" on crime, for example, when the answer is to be "smart" on crime instead. Born and bred in the world's 6th-largest economy -- that is, the state of California, where she was once District Attorney, then Attorney General, and is now U.S. Senator -- Harris shares not just "protocols and procedures, but perspective" in this episode of the a16z Podcast recorded as part our annual a16z Tech Policy Summit, in Washington, D.C., last month.

Hi, I'm Matt Spence. I'm a partner in Andreessen Horowitz and welcome to the A16Z podcast. We have today a conversation with Senator Kamal Harris, which was recorded at our D.C. Policy Summit live in May of this year. Senator, thank you very much for making time to join us today. You're very welcome. Kamala Harris has devoted her career to public safety and civil rights. She made history as the first African American and the first woman elected as the Attorney General of California. And she is only the the second African-American woman in history to be elected to the United States Senate. We'll talk a little more about her careers of prosecutors as we get into this, but I do want to add, this may not be clear from her work in the Senate. She is a devout X-Men fan, and she is an excellent cook. Senator Harris, before entering the Senate, you were a career prosecutor. You prosecuted everything from violent crimes to human trafficking to international criminal cartels. And then you most recently served as California's Attorney General, which is the chief law enforcement officer of the sixth largest economy in the world. Yes. We have a view that some of the

most important tech policy issues are actually not made in Washington at all, but are actually made at the stay and local level. They're made by governors, attorney generals, and mayors who are actually some of the most important tech policymakers. And that's really what you were at the center of. And so when you were representing California and Silicon Valley, you really had a front row seat to see some of the new technologies rolling out. Sure. So that's everything from drones to ride sharing to driverless cars to digital currency. How did you tackle and think about these challenges of updating existing rules and regulations

to new technologies that lawmakers might not have even have thought about when they wrote some of these laws? Right. Well, so I am, I will say, with bravado, a proud daughter of California. my parents met when they were graduate students at UC Berkeley when they were active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. So my sister and I joke, we grew up surrounded by a bunch of adults who spent full-time marching and shouting about this thing called justice. My mother arrived at Berkeley as a 19-year-old from India. She graduated college.

She wanted to study science, and one of the best schools in the world was UC Berkeley. So my grandfather said, do you want to do that? Go ahead. And so that is where she met my father during the civil rights movement. But I grew up then, the daughter of a scientist. And my mother would actually take us to the lab with her on weekends and after work. In fact, little known fact, my first job was cleaning pipettes. I was awful. I got fired. But I grew up in this environment around people, as an extension of my mother's community, scientists, who were so passionate about what can be, unburdened by what had been, their entire motivation was to create the things that have not been created that will improve mankind, that will improve the human experience. So I very naturally, just,

I have a great passion for innovation. You know, there is something about science also and all that we have done in California around the creation of the technology that has changed the world, that is also about understanding that when we're engaged in innovation, it's not because we're bored with things

as they've been. Innovation is about the pursuit of things that can improve that we can be more accurate, we can be faster, we can be more efficient. I'm also, as you said, a career prosecutor. I started my work at the Alameda County DA's office that Earl Warren once ran. It's considered one of the best DA's offices in the country. I started out with low-level offenses and I rose up to prosecuting homicides. So here we are

in this incredible age where we're all privileged, I think, to be in the jobs that we have when the world is changing and technology has upended, long-standing business models. It's a whole new plateau in terms of our evolution and economies and all of that. And the way that I then approach it with my background is to be very very, excited about the innovation and want to do everything I can to encourage it. I understand that government sometimes, when presented with something that is new and is not known, can respond in a way with fear and wants to just regulate and shut it down. And knowing that as a public servant, I always want to cause us to pause and not do that and not be reflective in that

way because we really need to encourage the innovation. Also, as a prosecutor, I know in this exciting new world, there are vulnerable people, and we have to do everything also that we can do to make sure that people are safe. So how do you think about that? Because those are, I mean, two incredibly important things, right? Encouraging innovation and making people safe. Yep. And the way people usually think about prosecutors doing that is using a stick, you know? Right. The threat of prosecution, law enforcement, and that creates a lot of uncertainty. So how did you think about balancing those things and working through that? Right. So I think for so long on criminal justice policy, we have been relegated to a false

choice, which suggests that you're either soft on crime or you're tough on crime, instead of asking, are we smart on crime? Instead of looking at what the public health model has taught us so well, you want to deal with an epidemic, be it health or crime, smartest, most effective and efficient way to deal with it is prevention first. If we're dealing with it in the emergency room or the prison system far too late and much too expensive, it is not efficient to build a system around reacting to a problem. We must give equal priority at least to preventing the problem from occurring in the first place. So on this issue about the concern that we have about technology growing at such a rapid pace and protecting vulnerable people, my approach has

been understanding that there are still protocols and procedures and perspective that need to be taught and need to be learned by this industry. This industry must understand that privacy is a value that we take seriously as a country. It is very prevalent in the Constitution of the United States as a priority. And so what can we do to build into the business model of the industry, a concern and attention to this issue of privacy? example of the things we can do to keep folks safe. How do we did that? So I'll give you a specific example. Shortly after I was elected Attorney General California, which was in 2010, a group of

my lawyers came into my office. And here I am. I'm the top cop of the biggest state in the country, the attorney general California. And a group of my lawyers came in and they said, hey boss, hey boss, is what they call me boss. Boss, did you know that when you download a mobile app, they can download your entire contact list. And I said, no, I did not know that. They said, well, and you know, it is explicit in the Constitution of California that privacy is a right. Yes, I do know that. And so they said, collectively, so let's sue. I looked with them and I said, okay, slow down cowboys. Let's approach this a little differently. Let's bring in these folks and have a conversation with them and see if we can work something out. And that's exactly what we did.

And I got on the phone with the folks at Apple and Microsoft and the six major platforms. And I'm not suggesting by any stretch that these folks were excited or happy to get a call from the Attorney General. It's always kind of a scary. Right, exactly. But they took the call. And over the course of six months, we worked out, I think, an all too rare example of government and industry coming together to solve a problem, short of regulation or litigation or legislation. And what we did is we came up with an understanding

that there would be an industry standard that requires that the hosts of these mobile apps would require that the mobile app have a privacy policy and that it would be explicit and available to everyone. And, you know, the beauty of doing that work is that, as we know, technology is now, it's not like we're talking about one group of companies in one neighborhood, in one city, in one state, in one country.

When the technology companies actually agree to certain protocols and ways of doing business, it has global impact. And so that's the exciting aspect of it. But it also, I think, magnifies the significance of having an understanding and coming to an understanding when we can with industry. And let me just be clear about this. I also am very well aware that I have a carrot and a stick. I prefer to start with the carrot, but I'm also prepared to use the stick.

Had we not being able to come to that agreement, and where there were examples of folks who were not complying with that agreement, we did soon. I mean, that's important. I think folks don't usually appreciate just the sheer amount of that convening power and using both. There's a huge trend towards modernizing government at all levels. you know, whether it's foster care, providing better medical care, caring for our veterans.

But on the crime front that you spent so much time on, you mentioned the role that technology can play. How did you think about or how do you think about how we might use technology to better fight crime and apply some of those insights to this really tough problem? So I'm obsessed with the need for adoption of technology by government with a specific emphasis based on my career as a prosecutor, on the adoption of technology by law enforcement. So let's put all of this in context. So technology has brought about so many new ways of thinking, of having emotion, of language, and all of that. And it's brought about certain terms that everyone here knows, right?

Open, open data, big data. You know, when I came out of law school, we had big data, and I will tell you what it looked like. It was this really tall aluminum file cabinet with thousands of files. That was big data, right? But now, because of technology, we can write code that can figure out what is in there and analyze it. We can engage in predictive policy. We can be smarter. So when I was Attorney General of California, I decided that we would try an open data initiative

with the vast amount of data that we had in terms of the criminal justice system in this, the largest state in the country, almost 39 million people. And so we created an open data initiative, and basically what we did is we downloaded and then made available to the public all of the information we had about criminal justice data as it relates to arrests, as it relates to deaths and custody, police officers killed in the line of duty. And I'll tell you something else about government, which you all probably know. Government has a tendency to be like private individuals, which is this. All of that data, all that information about ourselves, we just hold on to. We don't like to share it because transparency reads as also, we all know this, vulnerability. Oh, my goodness, I have to put all my stuff out there.

People will start picking apart. That doesn't feel good. That doesn't make me comfortable. So we hold on to this. But if we're really going to be smarter as government, we need to understand that this data, when we analyze it, When we apply metrics to our analysis and evaluation of our effectiveness instead of gauging effectiveness based on some good blind adherence to tradition, when we apply metrics to our measurement of our effectiveness, we all know, private sector knows it quite well. We will be much more effective. And so the data helps us do that. And so we created this open data initiative. We called it open justice, where we shared with everyone, journalists, academics, whoever wanted to see it, all this information. I'll give you an example of what came about as a result of downloading it and then sharing

it. Without any depth of analysis, we saw a few things. And by the way, I shared this with everyone because I also know government does not have the skill set, the culture, or the bandwidth to necessarily analyze this data within its current structure. And so the benefit also about an open data initiative as it relates to government is all of these other folks, journalists and academics can use their skills and their tools to help government analyze its own effectiveness. And so as an example with open justice, we found, African Americans are 6% of California's population, and we're almost 25% of in-custody deaths. So that required us to have a conversation with folks who were offended by the protests of Black Lives Matters and say, hey, guess what?

the data shows us there are significant disparities in terms of what we're seeing in the criminal justice system. So let's acknowledge it and then deal with that. And so the point about open data as it relates to government is it's so profound when you think about it because government has three essential functions, right? Public safety, public education, and public health. Can you imagine if government, writ large, really, really adopted technology in a way that we engaged in open data, the kind of information that we possess, if it were really available for academics, for journalists, for whoever, to analyze and help us figure out where we are or if we are being effective. I mean, I'm so excited about the possibilities if we can get everyone there

and not be afraid of technology. There's, in fact, one company who work with OpenGov, which talks about trying to take a lot of this data. That's exactly right. Put it together at the state and local level, and the insights you have about budgeting others are significant. And return on investment. Yeah. So you're now in the United States Senate. Yes.

And, you know, one of the themes that we've thought about and talked about at this conference, again, is bridging this divide. So in your months in the Senate, you know, what surprised you? What have some of your interactions been with some of the senators? and what's, you know, as being a fresher, what are you seeing so far? It's an interesting experience, and it's an environment, I'm told by people who have been here for a while that is different because it's upended a lot of folks in terms of their expectations of what would be happening and their role in terms of government and leadership. But it's been a good experience.

It's been a learning experience. I'm on the Budget Committee. I'm on Environment and Public Work. I'm on Homeland Security, and I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee. So all of them are presenting us with a lot of information about challenging issues. And does senators like hang out? Do you go to dinner? Well, yes, and I'll tell you this. I mean, I feel very strongly that some of the most intractable issues that challenge us as a country are not only bipartisan, they're nonpartisan. And so if we approach it from that perspective, I think we'll be much more effective.

Here's another way I look at it. In my experience, when people wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning with that thing that is challenging them, with that thing that causes us to be jarred awake with a cold sweat, the thing that is weighing on us and worries us, we are thinking about that issue never through the lens of are we a Democrat or Republican, right? And when we have that thought,

it usually relates to one of just a very few things, our personal health, the health of our children or our parents. Can we get a job? Can we keep a job? Can we pay the bills by the end of the month? Can we retire with dignity? The vast majority of Americans, these are the issues that wake them up at 3 o'clock in the morning. And if we as leaders, I think we're able to really more fully appreciate that, I think we would have less dysfunction in terms of the partisanship that I think bogs down what could otherwise be smart, public politics. policy. But so I've definitely been reaching out and it has been reciprocal with my now colleagues across the aisle. Funny little story, Lindsay Graham came up to me about a couple months ago and he came up to me and, you know, he's a big deal in the Senate because, of course,

the United States Senate is very steeped in tradition, including seniority and I am the freshman and he is not. But he came up to me, came across the room and he just, and he just, looked to me and he said, you need to buy me dinner. So I'm like, oh, I looked at him and it was just one of those days. And my response was, why? He said to me, so I don't have to pay. Smart man. That was fantastic. Fantastic. And so, he and I have been talking about what we can do in a bipartisan way to deal with immigration because one of the underlying points

that he and I have discussed is this has been a big issue for me. California has an outside stake in the outcome of this conversation. We have more immigrants documented and undocumented than any state in the country. And I strongly believe we have to not vilify this community and we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

We need to deal with H-1B visas. We need to do all of that. But what has occurred to me in the conversations I've been having with my now colleagues from around the country is there are a lot of them who just don't have the population that we have in California. And so this topic of immigration and what we need to do around comprehensive immigration reform, it is purely theoretical for a lot of them and ideological because the folks we're talking about are not their neighbors or their coworkers or in school with their children. And so what Lindsay Graham and I have talked about is he has indicated a willingness to pull together a group of Republicans from Red States because I'd like to host them in California to meet with our dreamers, to meet with the folks who have the H1BVs and understand in a real way who these populations are and what they are contributing and to understand that they do not pose a threat to what are otherwise considered to be America's values or culture. You know, there's another divide that we've talked, but of course it's still between Silicon Valley and Washington.

So based on your time in the Senate so far, what do you think that Washington can learn from Silicon Valley? Oh, a lot. And vice versa. And is there anything Silicon Valley can learn from Washington? Sure. Yes. So I mentioned I'm on Homeland Security and Intelligence, as two Senate committees and, again, as a career prosecutor.

I know that one of the biggest threats to any individual and in terms of a violation and national security threats is cybersecurity. And in order to understand the, you know, in order to combat the threat, one must understand it. And there is, I think, a lot of work that we still have to do in creating a greater understanding and appreciation within, you know, these highest bodies of governance and

legislation around how technology works and how we can then when we understand it, prevent the harm that concerns us, but also approach it from a way that is not the traditional way of just only thinking about combating it, but understanding specifically when we're talking about cybersecurity, it's not only about prevention, it's about detection. You know, and so building into the system and ability to detect the harm. We've all read about that. It's all open source information. I'm not sharing anything classified about the Russian hacking of the election of the President of the United States.

One of the big issues there is the detection issue, right? So there's the prevention, the detection. Then there is also the point that is rarely discussed, which is resilience. After the attack has happened, there should be, you know, equal weight in terms of public policy given to how can we regroup as quickly as possible? Because in particular, if we're talking about the attack being, as it relates to our public grid, electricity, hospitals, we need to get back up and running as quickly as possible, our financial structure. We need to get up and running as quickly as possible. So resilience. And then the fourth

piece is accountability. How do we build into the system a way that, and this is something we do naturally with the harm. We always think about what will be the repercussion, what will be the punishment, what will be accountability. But I think there needs to be greater appreciation for all of those factors and give them at least equal weight. And in the industry, technology, industry as a whole, it appreciates those points more than anyone. And I think there's a lot of room for sharing that information, but also sharing the knowledge about how technology works to actually accomplish each of those four pieces. Right. And that, as you said, I mean, that is an area that falls right squarely between law enforcement and attorney general and intelligence and homeland

security. And it's also, you know, I'll bring it up in the context of another issue that I've dealt with, which is cyber exploitation. So the press calls it revenge porn. I really don't like that term for a number of reasons. Revenge suggests that there was something that was done that requires or at least justifies that response, you know, revenge. And then porn, you know, This is not pornography. And what I'm talking about is those cases that have been widely reported and those larger number of cases that have not been reported, where the photograph of someone is shared publicly, and usually 90% of them is the photograph of the woman in a, so back a consensual

relationship, in the context of that consensual relationship, someone takes a selfie, usually the woman of herself in a pose without any clothes on or some little bit of clothes on, sends it to the person she's in a consensual relationship with. One of the things that everyone doesn't understand is that 90% of those consensual relationships do not end in marriage and so it's probably not a good idea. But it happens and no one should fault the person for doing it. And so play it out. Relationship ends. They break up, disgruntled former lover, post the image on website. So I actually, through my office, through the Aege's office, prosecuted the first case, the Bullard case. It was the case where this fellow

held up, had created a website, you got posted. And he would post these images at the request of the disgruntled ex-lover. And when the women, the vast majority, again, were women, the victims, would contact him and say, please take that down. And by the way, they'd find out in all these awful ways, like their friends would find out. Or there were young women who were in graduate school and had graduated and going to get a job and they're in a job interview and they're being asked all these questions that they can't understand why it's being asked. And they realize it's because the employer, prospective employer, saw the photograph, right? So these women then contact you got posted, please take the thing down. And no, I'll do it only if you give me some money. Well, that's

called extortion. So we prosecuted the case. But through the course of dealing with that case, it became apparent to me that there were a lot of gaps in our system in terms of how to deal with it. There were gaps in our system in terms of the law, because our laws on technology writ large are, many of them are quite obsolete. You just can't, there is not a historical precedent for a lot of what technology has created. And so in this case, it was that there were not any laws really on the book about how you would prosecute that case in terms of creating responsibilities for those who post these images and notification. And there were no laws on the books about how the host has a responsibility to take the image down when requested.

So what we did is we actually convened about 50 tech companies in my office in San Francisco, national companies, startups, the whole gamut, and brought them in, then brought in police officers and victims to talk about how this was happening and how the industry could adapt to the fact of this and take on some responsibility for helping to mitigate the harm and hopefully even dissuade and deter the activity. And we made huge progress. Again, the point about convening, right? There was one fellow I won't name the tech company and he said, Kamla, you know, you want us to take it down, but you know how many people want us to take an image down because, you know, she had a pimple on her face that day? Like, we can't be in the business of just because

somebody requests us taking down an image, just taking it down. And I said, that's a very good point, a legitimate point. Well, part of what we have done classically is in a temporary restraining order. If a domestic violence victim comes to a police department and says, please make sure that he stays away from me, case hasn't been litigated. But what the court will do is say, well, if you have a police report that legitimizes the complaint, that might be some evidence that causes us to do what you want us to do. Long story short, maybe not so short, with industry, we came up with policies, and right now I'm sponsoring, co-sponsoring legislation to make cyber exploitation a crime, a federal crime, because we just need to deal with it.

Well, Senator Harris, thank you. We could continue for a lot longer. Thank you for spending time with us. Thank you for thinking about these tech issues in your new role, bring the experience your previous role, and I'd like us all to thank you for spending time. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you.