MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Ro Khanna

Interview

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VELSHI: In a statement to the "Washington Post" on Tuesday, a Grindr spokeswoman said, quote, "The alleged activities listed in that unattributed blog post are infeasible from a technical standpoint and incredibly unlikely to occur. There`s absolutely no evidence supporting the allegation of improper data collection or usage related to the Grindr app as purported."

Now what we do know is that the apps on our phones collect personal information about their users, about us. According to the "Harvard Business Review" collecting and selling data is estimated to be a $200 billion business. But there are no federal laws in the United States restricting the collection or the use of location data.

Joining us now are Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. He`s a member of the House Oversight Committee. And Gerrit De Vynck, technology reporter for "The Washington Post".

Welcome to both of you.

Gerrit, let me start with you. What`s the problem to be solved here in the story that I`ve told? We all understand that we don`t have laws to control these things. And we all have options to opt out of certain data collection and seems like none of us use that option.

GERRIT DE VYNCK, TECHNOLOGY REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, I mean we have the option, but the option is really stop using your smart phone. And that`s really not an option for most Americans.

You know, this is just the world that we live in at this point and to put it back on the consumer to say oh it`s our fault that we`re being tracked. That our data is being collected by dozens of companies, this isn`t just Google and Facebook.

It`s, you know, any app on your phone can be selling some of that data and they anonymize it. But that doesn`t mean that that anonymous data can then be combined with other data sets, sliced and diced by other companies and then sold on and used as it was in this case to identify specific people doing specific things.

VELSHI: Congressman Khanna, how do you manage this? How do you propose the idea that the government does get involved in regulation of this in a sophisticated way without, you know, without crushing industries that are probably pretty good and useful to people.

But this isn`t what it`s designed for, right? We`re not supposed to -- people are not supposed to be using Grindr so that they can be outed.

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Ali, first of all this shows that this isn`t some technical issue. What happened to this priest is deeply scary and offensive. It`s what (INAUDIBLE) surveillance capitalism. Basically you can use data to expose people, to manipulate them, to threaten them.

This is why we need an Internet bill of rights that has clear, informed consent which informs people you have to opt in, not requiring you to opt out.

It`s why we need to have data minimization. You shouldn`t be allowed to collect data that`s not necessary. And the consent shouldn`t just be for collecting the data. It should apply to anyone who uses the data.

We know what we need to do, it`s just that Congress frankly hasn`t acted. Europe has acted with the GDPR. We haven`t acted.

VELSHI: I want to just show some polls to you both. The Morning Consult did a poll that said should Congress prioritize privacy legislation among Americans: 83 percent yes, 8 percent no, 9 percent no opinion. Morning Consult did another poll about that in which it`s 86 percent yes, 6 percent no, and 8 percent no opinion amongst Democrats.

Then they asked Republicans. It`s not that far off. 81 percent of Republicans say yes, 12 percent say no, 7 percent have no opinion.

This is bipartisan, but Gerrit, do we know what good legislation looks like? It`s been tried -- California has got some legislation. Europe`s got some legislation. Europe`s done more thinking about this than we have.

Do we know how you get good legislation that allows you to use your phone the way you want to use it but doesn`t let people manipulate your data?

DE VYNCK: Yes. I mean there`s a ton of proposals out there. I mean Europe has had privacy regulation for a couple years now. I think a lot of people would say that it maybe hasn`t been quite as effective as, you know, people wanted it to be.

I think really the problem is that we just sort of, you know, created this situation where commercially we`re used to using a lot of things for free. And the way that that`s funded has been through advertising.

And so you might download a weather app and say oh, like this is just to see what the weather is in my area is. Of course I`m going to share my location with them so that I can see what the weather in my area is.

But in those terms of service that you agree to they`re taking that location data and selling it to the data broker that is then selling it on to someone else. And that`s how that weather app is making money and that is provided to you free. So that whole system would have to change.

VELSHI: Congressman Khanna, it does seem that there`s bipartisan support for this. Is there some meaningful legislation that can tackle this? The hearings we`ve had on social media and the Internet have not been all that fulfilling recently.

KHANNA: Oh, there is. I mean this was originally after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. We go them in Congress five years and we have the Internet bill of rights almost 3.5 years ago. Every six months they tell me the Energy and Commerce Committee is going to come up with privacy legislation. They haven`t done it, and it`s because there are a lot of special interests that are involved.

And Gerrit is absolutely right that Europe`s legislation wasn`t effective. I represent Silicon Valley. Let me tell you what these tech companies did, they created dark patterns to get people to consent.

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KHANNA: So basically they have screens that were brighter and boxes that forced people to check. So we need to beef up the technological competency of our regulatory agency. Right now the tech companies are running circles around Congress and around the regulators.

VELSHI: Thanks to both of you for this important conversation. Congressman Ro Khanna and Gerrit De Vynck.

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