Tulsi Gabbard on Technology Democratic Presidential Challenger; HI Rep.

Break up tech giants like Facebook, Google, & Amazon

FOUR CANDIDATES HAVE SIMILAR VIEWS: Bill de Blasio; Bernie Sanders; Elizabeth Warren; Marianne Williamson.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren laid down a marker by calling for Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple to be broken apart, saying that they have "bulldozed competition." Warren said the companies should be designated as "platform utilities" and prohibited from both owning a platform and competing on it (think Amazon selling its own goods or Google including its own products in search results). Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has backed Warren's proposal and pledged to introduce legislation along those lines in the House.

Warren's proposal would have regulators seek to unwind blockbuster mergers like Facebook's acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram; Amazon's purchases of Whole Foods and Zappos; and Google's deals for Waze, Nest and DoubleClick. Few other Democratic candidates have gone as far as to call for reversing specific deals.

Pay for infrastructure by winding down wars

So far, Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate suggesting removing American military might--and the spending it requires-- from overseas conflicts and redirecting that money to infrastructure. But she's not the first to make such a suggestion; for much of former President Barack Obama's presidency, he suggested the same thing, which Congress never endorsed.

Voted NO on protecting cyber security by sharing data with government.

• CISPA conducts federal cybersecurity activities to provide shared situational awareness enabling integrated operational actions to protect, prevent, and recover from cyber incidents.

Proponent's Argument for voting Yes:

• Rep. SINEMA: We need a 21st century solution for this 21st century problem. This bill ensures that research and development, intellectual property, and software code is no longer being stolen by China, Iran, and Russia.
• Rep. MAFFEI: We've already seen state actors like the People's Republic of China pursue widespread data theft from American computer networks. This is a clear and present danger.

• Rep. McNERNEY: I'm concerned with the civil protections not required in H.R. 624. Businesses should be required to remove personally identifiable information before submitting data to Federal agencies.
• CNet.com: Rep. Ron Paul warned that CISPA represents the "latest assault on Internet freedom"; that "CISPA is Big Brother writ large." CISPA would permit, but not require, Internet companies to hand over confidential customer records to federal agencies. What sparked the privacy worries--including opposition from the ACLU and the Republican Liberty Caucus--is the section of CISPA that says "notwithstanding any other provision of law." By including the word "notwithstanding," CISPA's drafters intended to make their legislation trump all existing laws. It would render irrelevant wiretap laws, Web companies' privacy policies, and more.
• Rep. LOFGREN: CISPA could allow any private company to share vast amounts of sensitive, private data about its customers with the government. CISPA would override all other privacy laws, and allow a private company to share nearly anything--from the contents of private emails to medical records--as long as it "directly pertains to" a broadly defined "cyber threat."