"outrage" indeed.
Edit: I strongly recommend watching these directly from C-SPAN rather than the summarized spin-version from random news companies. You might be surprised how little of their time is wasted on grandstanding. Yeah, some politicians will throw in their jabs, but that's not the purpose of those committees and it's a fractionally tiny amount of the dialog. But that's what the news focuses on because it's the most sensational.
https://www.wired.com/story/mark-warner-senate-committee-hea...
"I know Kent Walker. He’s a good guy. I respect him, but we had the lawyers back in November. This is a hearing that’s going to talk about solutions. I think it speaks volumes that Google doesn’t want to be part of that discussion. I don't think it’s good for them or for coming up with a good solution."
That tells me that either Warner doesn't know what Walker does on a daily basis (he could ask) or he just wants an excuse to skewer Page over China, as in the next paragraph. It's particularly glaring, because he goes out of his way to mention that the hearing was about solutions. Any solution at Google/Alphabet would involve Walker a lot more than Page, who's just not immersed in policy. "We had the lawyers back in November" is such a cheap shot. (Perhaps even cheaper if you know that Warner is a lawyer who never practiced...)
And this is from a Democrat who has more latitude to do his real job on the committee. Out of political calculation, Burr and co. need to avoid getting on the nerves of the guy in the White House by even implying that perhaps his victory was aided by another government. All of this to say that I don't expect much to be done. There's the DETER act, but it's not clear if it will pass, in what shape and with what kind of vigor it will be enforced.
Granting, for the sake of argument, that SSCI public hearings are on average more substantive and less grandstanding around pre-set narratives than other public Congressional hearings [0], there was ample advance reason to believe that this hearing was not going to further that pattern.
> Yeah, some politicians will throw in their jabs, but that's not the purpose of those committees and it's a fractionally tiny amount of the dialog.
It may be a tiny amount of the dialog, but even then it's often the tiny amount that actually is decisive in motivating the hearings, in much the only way that advertising may be a minority of the airtime on commercial TV networks, but it's 100% of the purpose.
[0] I don't think it's true on balance, but I do think it seems true based on the selection of public hearings that get major media attention, because substantive, non-showboating hearings of other committees rarely get attention.
That's a completely absurd analogy.
"Throwing jabs" is most certainly not 100% of the purpose. The purpose of making committee hearings public was part of The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 as well as an earlier reform effort in the 1940s.[1][2].
These acts mandated that standing committees be open to the public. This was done for transparency, accountability and to keep overly powerful chairmen in check. That is 100% of the purpose. Facts matter.
You are also free to attend open hearings in person, its first come first served. If you don't happen to live in Washington, D.C. however public access is by televising these.
I posted a link above last weeks hearing in its' entirety. Please point out the "jabs" and "grandstanding."
[1] https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing...
[2] https://lahood.house.gov/sites/lahood.house.gov/files/brief_...
Part of it is also to function as a communication channel to the people. It shows their constituents that they're asking the questions people want them to ask and it would give Google's leaders a chance to explain their company-wide position on issues in this case. But they have to care enough to show up.
That's true of most committees; the difference that makes SSCI seem better is that non-grandstanding hearings (or moments of hearings) from, say, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry have roughly a 0% chance of ever getting coverage from the major media, whereas, due to subject matter, SSCI hearings can be newsworthy without grandstanding (though the grandstanding still gets far disproportionate coverage.)
> Part of it is also to function as a communication channel to the people. It shows their constituents that they're asking the questions people want them to ask and it would give Google's leaders a chance to explain their company-wide position on issues in this case.
If Google needed the opportunity of an SSCI hearing to get any message it (or a client) wanted to virtually any audience of concern, the uncontroversial portion of the premise for inviting them to the hearing would collapse. Page showing up improves the ability of the Senators that have prejudged Google to get media coverage of their grandstanding, but it does nothing for Google's ability to have it's message reach any audience it cares to have it reach. There's no value to Google in voluntarily cooperating in a hearing concerning matters on which so many members of the committee had publicly, explicitly, and in quite immoderate terms prejudged Google and where the terms sent clearly were incompatible with an intent of productive information gathering rather than political scapegoating.
It's, of course, the prerogative of Congress members to use hearings for grandstanding with high value PR target witnesses as props as a means of gesturing to their constituents about their concern on an issue. It's also a very good idea for those high value PR targets to decline to voluntarily cooperate when it is clear that are being invited as punching bags. (It's both good for the punching bags and good for the integrity of the process of government.)
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fo...
The rest of it is still important. They're asking questions and forming their perception of the situation which they use to shape policy.
* Granted, phone calls don't have the weight of purgery to keep people honest. But, that only goes so far.
When it comes to information warfare and propaganda, you'll see them come to the same type of conclusion on multiple panels, which is that public awareness is a key component in any effective counter measure. Giving the leaders of these industries a mic to educate the public seems in all of our best interest. Not all of these committees are some kind of "circus". It's just a normal part of how these things work.
[1] Recent example: https://www.c-span.org/video/?449088-1/senate-intelligence-c...
PS: If our politicians did all of these behind closed doors and on private phones you'd be on here complaining about that too. I prefer that some of this happens in the public eye.
A closed door hearing is for fact finding, public ones are for proselytizing.
Just because a tiny amount of grandstanding happens doesn't make it all mock/show.
Full disclosure, you're a Googler.
The majority of questions at every hearing I've seen have been politically biased grandstanding, with the goal of creating a soundbite that appeals to the base, not of factually informing the public.
You don't want the guy who thinks that google, probably uses version control software, but doesn't know what it is.
The ic didn't want a decision maker, they wanted a heel.
And again, if you want a discussion, you need people who are contextual experts. A CEO can't speak intelligently about security and privacy at Google or Facebook. Nor can Congress. You can discuss things in broad strokes and talk about high level initiatives, but actually real, useful discussion is unlikely.
There was a popular post yesterday showing pichais response to a question about fake news at a Google internal meeting. It was a widely derided answer and being uninformed, despite it being to a roomful of engineers who work at Google.
That leads to one conclusion, through any number of avenues (pichai doesn't understand the issues, realpolitik, people don't understand the issues, googlers don't understand the issues, etc.), That a congressional hearing asking Google about fake news would be unproductive theatre.
That’s “perjury”.
C-SPAN covers this stuff verbatim, with zero spin. This stuff is very important to Democracy, and sitting it out is horrible optics.
The news just doesn't like reporting on the boring stuff.
Then why the empty chair theatrics; why reject, in a hearing notionally about policy, the Google executive most appropriate for policy issues; why the pretense of national importance of having particular witnesses with dramatic complaints about their absence when the committee only used voluntary invitations and not subpoenas compelling testimony?
It may not be all theatrics, but it's definitely more about theatrics than governing.
Maybe I’m jaded, but your response reminds me of those from Theranos employees on this very forum when it was criticised.
We have a law enforcement and judicial system for that. Most Senators don't know anything about business or technology.
You seem pretty consistently dismissive of the democratic process in this thread. I don't think I should have to remind you of how critically important it is.
Technically yes. But politicians (the actual rep's themselves) do not really write the laws - they just agree on the spirit of the law of which they're pursuing and then basically sell it to other members.
It's the equivalent of engaging a Partner at a big 4 consultancy. They show up for the sales call, but are nowhere to be found when the solution they sold actually gets implemented.
Sound bytes are an important part of the democratic process. Politions need to differentiate themselves from the pack by standing on one side or the other of any given issue otherwise the general public would be voting randomly.
And given the footage I've seen of late from such hearings, I too have no confidence in their abilities.
My point in my original post is that these inquiries should have WAY harsher consequences than they have. Larry Page should be facing the real possibility of jail time right now for not having shown up. Policy changes should be coming from these inquiries.
But, sadly, none of that is going to happen and we all know it. Because you don't put a guy who helps fund your campaign in jail.
As another commenter posted, we have a judicial system for that. We have separation of powers in our government for a reason. Congress should not be acting as judge and jury.
If Congress really thought it was necessary for him to attend they would have used their subpoena power either initially or after he declined the invitation. Refusing a congressional subpoena is a crime.
The fact that they haven't should tell you how important they really think it is. Most of them are probably happier that he didn't because it gives them more chances for sound bites.
After all the hearing were just for show. The real questions they wanted answered were submitted to the companies in writing and all of the companies including Google/Alphabet provided written responses.
Senate Intelligence Committee hearings tend to much more informed and productive comparatively speaking. It's apparent from even a cursory viewing of the hearing.[1]
Larry Page would have been made well-aware of this distinction before making the decision not to attend.
[1] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fo...