Information & Ethics committee  Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I am the chair of the Federal Election Commission in the United States. I represent a bipartisan body, but the views that I'm going to express are entirely my own. I'm going to shift the topic from privacy concerns to influence

Information & Ethics committee  I'm very concerned about it, in part because our entire system of regulation is based on the assumption that large sums of money are what we need to worry about and that this is where we should focus our regulatory activity. On the Internet, however, sometimes very small amounts

Information & Ethics committee  The problem with dark money is that you never really know who is behind it. There has been about a billion dollars in dark money spent on our elections in the last 10 years, and I cannot tell you who is behind it. That's the nature of the darkness.

Information & Ethics committee  We have a constant stream of complaints about dark money. The case I just described to you is one of the foremost examples we've seen recently. It can be money that comes in through LLCs or 501(c)(4)s. In this case, it came in through the domestic subsidiary of a foreign corporat

Information & Ethics committee  PayPal, gift cards and all of those things are deeply concerning. If the money is going directly to a campaign, they can't accept more than a small amount of money without disclosing the source of it, and they're not allowed to accept anonymous contributions above a very small am

Information & Ethics committee  I absolutely share that concern. Part of the problem, as far as I know, is that they're not verifying who is behind the ad. If somebody says Mickey Mouse is the sponsor of this ad, that's what they're going to run on their platform.

Information & Ethics committee  I hesitate to answer that question. As I said in my testimony, there are various laws that I wish Congress would pass. There are regulations that I wish I could persuade my colleagues on the commission to agree to pass. I think we are not in as good shape as we could be, but I d

Information & Ethics committee  I do think that authority is there. I think there are federal officials who are empowered to make that type of information public if they become aware of it, as they become aware of it. There are obviously national security and intelligence concerns that sometimes hamper that typ

Information & Ethics committee  I don't even know how to begin to answer that question. Obviously Canada has a different system from ours in the United States. I don't always agree with the way our Supreme Court interprets the First Amendment, but it has provided extremely strong protections for free speech r

Information & Ethics committee  I share many of those concerns and I worry deeply that what is going on is not just election-oriented but is an attempt to sow discord, to sow chaos and to undermine democracy in many countries.

Information & Ethics committee  I believe that is so.

Information & Ethics committee  I can't say that I am; I'm sorry.

Information & Ethics committee  I absolutely think there is a need for greater regulation to ensure that when people see things on social media, they can trust where it's coming from.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, as I said, I think what we need is greater transparency. When people are reading something online, they need to be able to know where it's coming from. We had this example of ads and information being placed, propaganda, coming from the Internet Research Agency in Russia.