Veasey Asks Ousted FTC Commissioner How Her Removal Weakens Agency’s Ability To Protect Users Online

yesterday

During a House Energy Committee hearing on examining harms online last week, Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) questioned Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, former commissioner to the Federal Trade Commission, about her removal by President Trump.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you. I thank the general lady. Now we have Mr. Vesey. You're recognized, sir,

00:06for your five minutes of questioning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to

00:09thank the witnesses for being here today. I think that we've learned a lot today

00:12that blocking bills like COPPA and other things that protect our kids is

00:17bad, and that we shouldn't be doing that, and so I appreciate your comments today

00:22and you sharing some of those things. I also wanted to talk very briefly about

00:28the attempted removal of two minority commissioners from the FTC and how I

00:33think that that is really bad for the things that we're trying to accomplish

00:36here today to protect our children and other consumers, as this agency has a

00:41very long history of doing. It's unconstitutional, it's wrong, and that

00:48is the type of thing that could really further wreck our kids and our

00:52teenagers' lives, and that's not what we want. I think that that's the one thing

00:56that we've heard from the panel is that we don't want things that are going to

00:59make it harder for our young people. We want to protect them, and we can't do

01:03that if we're going to try to undermine the Constitution. Commissioner Slaughter,

01:09I wanted to ask you, you have a very strong record for advocating for

01:13consumer protections, and with ongoing supply chain disruptions and

01:18shifting tariff policies, I really worry that unfair and deceptive business

01:23practices are going to be on the horizon. How does President Trump's

01:28attempt to remove you and the other commissioner from the minority impact

01:33the Federal Trade Commission's ability to hold corporations and people that

01:39want to hurt our kids and other consumers through things like price

01:43gouging accountable? Thank you. Congress designed the FTC over a hundred years

01:50ago, 111 years ago, and set it up to be a bipartisan agency made up of members

01:58from both parties who serve staggered terms because Congress understood that

02:03that was a really important way to insulate the work of the FTC from

02:09corrupting influences, from partisanship, and from political interference. Over the

02:16time I've served at the FTC, our staff have gone up against some of the most

02:20powerful companies in court. They've done that, supported by commissioners from

02:25both parties, because we understand that our obligation is to enforce the law

02:32without fear or favor. That is based in the design of the FTC that Congress set

02:40up, and I'm very concerned that my attempted removal not only eliminates

02:45the bipartisan voices that Congress intended, but it also sends a message to

02:51the majority commissioners that they too could be removed at a whim if they're

02:55not willing to take action that may be a favor to some of these big big companies,

03:02the most powerful companies in the world, and and that's really concerning if what

03:07we want, what we all want, I think is for the focus of the administration of the

03:13law to be on the American people, the children, the consumers, the workers, and

03:17honest businesses. That's scary because it's almost the type of thing that you

03:21hear of in a communist country. Commissioner Slaughter also, I know as

03:26the nation's top privacy enforcer, that you guys want to protect Americans' data,

03:33their personal data, and data, again, that could be key, and I think everybody on

03:38this panel seems to express an interest in helping kids especially, and that kids

03:44can have data, all of us can, and I wanted to ask you with data breaches on the

03:49rise and targeted advertisements constantly testing the limits of

03:54consumer privacy, how does your attempted removal and the other commissioners

04:00attempted removal weaken the FTC's ability to protect users online, and do

04:05you see this as part of a broader effort to undermine the agency's

04:09independence? Yeah, I'm very worried about it. The FTC has conducted a study on

04:17social media and video streaming services data collection and use

04:20practices. I mentioned it a little bit earlier. It started under the first

04:23Trump administration. It was the product of a bipartisan effort by myself, former

04:27Commissioner Wilson, former Commissioner Chopra. We finally released the report

04:32last year, and what I didn't get a chance to say is that report talks not

04:35only about the way data is collected, but also how it's used. We've heard a little

04:40bit about some of the really disturbing challenges that kids are set up with

04:45online. We heard about the choking challenge. There's been the Tide Pod

04:48challenge. The report that we issued talked about the ways in which companies

04:52use data to fuel engagement and interest, including around things like this that

04:59create real material harms for kids that cannot be undone. Once it happens,

05:04it's too late. So our job, as all of the parents in this audience know, is to get

05:10ahead of those problems, to send clear signals to the market on a bipartisan

05:16basis about what conduct is prohibited by the law, and how companies bear the

05:21burden of following the law, and that that needs to be done without fear or

05:25favor. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Veasey Asks Ousted FTC Commissioner How Her Removal Weakens Agency’s Ability To Protect Users Online

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Transcript

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