Valley lawmaker wins over Hill Luddites

Valley lawmaker wins over Hill Luddites
By Courtney Macavinta
Staff Writer, CNET NEWS.COM

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-California) can't forget the schoolteacher who told her not to take "useless" math and science courses.

It was bad advice, Eshoo says, and is one reason she never became a bona fide geek. Still, like some of the billionaire entrepreneurs she represents in Washington, the lack of a degree in engineering didn't stop the 57-year-old community college graduate from playing a part in the growth of the world's leading computer and medical technology mecca: Silicon Valley.

"High technology represents 40 percent of the overall growth of our national economy," Eshoo said in an interview. "This is not a fad, but something that is really changing how people think, how they play, how they work, how they communicate with one another."

With the New Economy's engine in her backyard, it's no surprise she caters to the high-tech lobby. Eshoo sits on the powerful House Commerce Committee, a gatekeeper for tech policy; cochairs the Democratic Advisory Group on High-Tech Issues; and is a member of the Internet Caucus.

Eshoo began her political climb with an internship for former California Assembly Speaker Leo McCarthy, which led to a chief of staff position from 1980 to 1982. After serving on the San Mateo County board of supervisors, Eshoo lost a bid for Congress in 1988 but was elected four years later.

Beltway insiders and high-tech executives say she is a patient, yet driven, negotiator who has helped garner numerous wins for her constituents despite being a member of the minority party.

From backing legislation to protect computer users' privacy to opposing Net content restrictions and supporting tax incentives for high-tech companies,

Eshoo has worked on almost every key issue affecting the high-tech industry and Net users during her past seven years on Capitol Hill.

This session she is supporting legislation to advance the use of digital signatures, which help verify Net users' identities and are seen as a critical component to bolstering e-commerce. Last month she also helped pass a bill to limit corporations' liability for potential Y2K failures.

For now, it's unclear what Eshoo will do when and if she leaves the public sector. But with the friends she's made in high-tech places, observers say the welcome mats will likely roll out all over the Valley.

During a visit to San Francisco this month as part of a high-tech retreat for about 20 members of Congress, Eshoo sat down with CNET News.com to discuss online consumer issues, global trade, and an issue especially close to her heart: education.

News.com: From e-commerce sites to the most popular portals, Web sites are collecting droves of personal information from people in exchange for goods and services. Do you think Congress should pass stronger laws to shield privacy in the digital age by, for example, requiring companies to get permission before they share our sensitive records with third parties?
Eshoo: I do. I don't want my bank to be able to sell my most personal and confidential financial information. I don't want my medical records to be sold or misused. And I don't think I'm different from anyone else. Congress reacts to the problems and the concerns that come to us from all of our respective constituents--it's not a proactive institution. If in fact we do not address privacy in the correct manner, the right way, the American people will come back and insist on it because they care about it intensely. But there's not one size that fits all. If in fact you want a uniform standard, then you'd better get the standard right and have all the stakeholders sign off on it.

NEXT: Boosting e-confidence

Boosting e-confidence

You are one of the lead members in Congress pushing forward the use of digital signatures through last year's Government Paperwork Elimination Act and the Millennium Digital Commerce Act this session. Why is the widespread use of this technology so important that Congress is getting involved?
I introduced the first digital signature bill that the Congress has ever had to grapple with. The reason I introduced [the bill] was very interesting. I had set up a virtual district office so that my constituents did not have to get in their cars, drive to the office to pick up forms for Social Security, Veteran's Administration--those are the most often used federal agencies--so they could conduct all of their business online. But when we got to the end of it, they couldn't sign off. They had to have the paper, it had to be mailed back and forth between my office, and then [it had to be moved] on to the appropriate federal agency to complete the process. So that triggered my thinking in understanding that the federal agencies did not accept or allow the acceptance of digital signatures.

The [first] legislation that I introduced, which was actually signed into law last year, directs federal agencies to prepare themselves within a certain time frame to be prepared to accept digital signatures and set up whatever processes need to be set up for it. Now we'll move on in terms of e-commerce. The legislation I wrote in this Congress deals with essentially interstate commerce, so that we have a national standard, we work with the states, and any kind of preemption is worked out with them. It makes all the sense in the world that we move to this new way of doing business because, as I said, it is so much more efficient, effective--and another issue: There is far more privacy that can be ensured with a digital signature than with a pen and ink.

Depending on the intended use of a digital signature, certificate authorities, which authenticate a person's identity and verify signatures, collect and store a wide range of personal information including everything from a first and last name to financial information and Social Security numbers. Do you think the government needs to adopt privacy standards for digital signatures?
I do. Privacy is something that runs through the veins of every single American. We want privacy from our government, we want privacy about everything that we do, [and] certainly with our financial transactions [and] our medical records. The technologies themselves can secure the privacy. But digital signatures carry a form of encryption. So with that comes a much higher degree of privacy and protection of the individual who is employing a digital signature.

You've been working to try to lift export controls on encryption, which helps secure global communication, and for the past six years or so, Congress has rejected legislation to overhaul the rules. With everything from cellular phones to email incorporating this technology, are we going to see an export relief bill passed this year?
Well, we were successful at convincing the administration and the appropriate agencies that we can retain the integrity of our national security...and that we can also export some of the finest and state-of-the-art products. [For example, the export ceiling for some of the market's fastest microprocessors was lifted], and I think that's a real victory, and it will have to continue to be moved because we are progressing at such a fast speed. The issue of encryption, of course, brings in a whole range of law enforcement agencies at the national level: the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency. That's where the breakdown exists. As a Democrat, I'm very pleased that [House] minority leader [Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri) ] appointed myself and my colleague Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California) to be the cochairs of a hi-tech advisory group within the Democratic Caucus. One of the first issues I raised with the leader was that we had to break through--make a breakthrough on encryption. Gephardt has now agreed that together we [should] meet at the White House on this to get the administration moving.

Now, to the credit of the administration, they've come up with several ideas and shopped them around. The downside is that there weren't any takers. And we also have some of the old Cold Warriors that have revived themselves in the House of Representatives around the "red menace" of China and some of the alleged breaches of national security at our national labs. So this has added to their voices that we should not really change the set of encryption laws that are on the books now...it's really part of the Cold War strategy and not [about] a newer economy and how we can approach a global marketplace.

Have you heard from consumers in your district about encryption, or is it just the software and other high-tech companies in the Valley who are concerned about this?
My 85-year-old mother hasn't spoken to me about encryption. So I don't think that I would pretend for a moment that everyone that's walking down the street as we speak is going to be able to talk about encryption and understand it fully. But the applications of it, going back to privacy and national security, if you explain it to them in that sense, they will very quickly come to realize how important encryption is.

NEXT: Fueling the new economy

Fueling the new economy

There is no shortage of talk about the high-tech boom driving the national economy. Obviously the industry is leading U.S. exports, but we've also seen a lot of companies cut thousands of jobs in the past year. Is this a trend Congress needs to address?
The issues of trade and a global economy carry with them blessings and some burdens as well. I think the general notion has been that we have traded with industrialized countries. In a global economy, we are now trading with and trying to open more doors to trade with industrializing nations. And so the standards are different. Our standards are the highest: child labor laws, environmental laws, protections for the worker in the workplace. So where the rub comes in is how you bring up [others'] standards without lowering ours. But we also know that if we don't keep the doors open and negotiate more in terms of trade that our markets, our products, and our workers will suffer as a result of it.

I have voted for every trade agreement that has come before the Congress. Do I think that they have all been carried out to the best of the language that was in that legislation? I really don't. The cleanup along the border of Mexico that was built into NAFTA really has not been realized. So we still have a ways to go, but the notion of closing the doors and putting up a fence around America I don't think is healthy, and we can't afford to bury our heads in the sand.

What is Congress working on now to help refuel high-tech growth?
The question is, where do we make the investments? Now, certainly in terms of the New Economy there are two major bookends. [The first] is education. If we do not see to an educated workforce and the investment in our K-12 system across the country, then America will not be the nation of opportunity, because there will be so few that will be able to use the brainpower, the intellectual prowess, to be part of this New Economy. And the other bookend is the long-term thinking for research and development and certainly making the research and development tax credit permanent [for firms, because it historically has had to be reapproved each year]. This should not be an on-again, off-again thing. We don't treat the home mortgage interest deduction that way. We [need to] understand where the targeted tax cuts will be healthy for the economy and not just simply make great political promises.

The high-tech lobby so far has been pretty bipartisan. That said, especially with the presidential race coming up, what are you doing to get Silicon Valley companies to support the Democratic ticket?
Before you move to suggesting to someone, "Come with this political party," my response to that would be for playing devil's advocate. [If I was the companies], I would say: "Show me. Where you have been? What you have learned? What's the investment that you've made to understand all of this and then the legislation and the work product that has come out of it?"

I'm exceedingly proud of the work we've done as Democrats on digital signatures, on Y2K legislation, on securities litigation reform, on the economic issues that have really turned our economic engine around so that so much of this prosperity really can be enjoyed. We've built many relationships with people in the work we've done. Our work is recognized and valued. Of course, those that are contending for president, one will say they are going to be better at it than the other and let the debate roll on and let the American people soak it all in and they make their decision.

The Commerce Department just released a study warning that there will continue to be a high-tech worker shortage. The government and industry's most high-profile efforts to address this problem involve giving schools money to get online and to equip classrooms with computers. What else needs to be done?
We need standards so we can measure where our children are, what they're doing, and what the outcomes are. People come from all over the world to see with great envy our higher educational system--our universities and our colleges--they are second to none in the world. But they don't come here to see and admire our K-12 system. So accountability, higher teacher training, and investment in our teachers so that the education they impart is meaningful day in and day out [is very important]. I don't think we reward teachers enough for what they do. I've always said they should be canonized. They're not valued highly enough...and all you have to do is look at the salaries. The infrastructure of our schools actually is [important, too]. I mean, you send a child to a building that's dilapidated, the toilets are leaking or don't work, the textbooks are antiquated--what does it say to that child? I don't think there's that much of a mystery about what needs to be done.

Many high-tech executives would like to see schools operated in a free-market environment, where the good ones thrive and the bad ones go out of business. What do you think about charter schools, which get public money but operate more independently and are started up in grassroots fashion?
I support charter schools. The very first charter school in the state of California was in my Congressional district in San Carlos. I always think of the charter schools as test kitchens. And in the public school system, that test kitchen is very important, because what comes out of it in terms of the experimentation can then be shared by the other schools in the school district. They're innovative and creative and allow for the kinds of things to happen that we know can energize or reenergize the public school system. We have many very good public schools in our area and throughout the country. The question is, "How do we bring the rest of them up?" Eight thousand [schools] are terrific; what about the rest of the 80,000 you see?

President Clinton signed legislation last year to commission a federal study on gender inequality in the high-tech industry as far as hiring, compensation, and retention. Is this is a real problem in Silicon Valley?
As one of the handful of women representatives in the House, I'm very sensitive about this issue. No, the Valley has not kept up with what I think are the strides that need to be made. We have very few women that are actually CEOs of corporations. In the biotechnology industry, there are many very, very well-paid positions and many women that are up in the higher ranks, but it is still for the most part a very bright man's world. And I think in the venture-capital side that they could do a lot in terms of placement of great minds that women have and make use of their experience on boards of directors and that [if] some of the integration of males and females in the corporate world would be [increased], we could move the numbers up. But it is not a corporate world where women are at least close to being half-partners with our male counterparts.

You have a daughter. Do you think she was encouraged in school to excel in subjects, such as math and science, that could have groomed her for a lucrative career in the information technology arena?
Well, I did! I encouraged her. I encouraged her because I would tell her what I was taught: My teacher said, "Take this advanced math and this science class and then you won't have to take any more because you'll never use it anyway." And so I did obviously the opposite with my daughter. It's really not all that easy for women, but there are many that have blazed paths, and I'm the beneficiary of that. We will continue doing the same, and I have no doubt that women in the high-technology industry, as well as others, are constant sources of pride to us and that they will help pave the way for others as well. But we're not there yet.