House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Latta Makes Pitch for Regulatory, Legislative Humility

At the State of the Net conference, House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH) said that regulators and legislators need to make sure they are not looking in the rearview mirror or putting up roadblocks to innovators who are looking ahead, not backwards. He said that one message he has brought back from his visit to tech startups is they are focused on innovation, so there is not a compliance officer sitting in the corner of the room. Ranking Member Latta also said he thought there was room for consensus on network neutrality. Still, he made a pitch for keeping Internet serivce providers under Title I and the arguments for those. He also said that there are pro-consumer uses of location data, but that access to services, sometimes lifesaving, must be balanced with privacy protections. He signaled that is another area of potential bipartisan agreement. He said it is important not to throw the "Life Alert" baby out with the privacy bathwater, citing his mother's use of that geolocation technology when she had a fall.