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Apr 12, 2001
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Tim Cook and other tech executives will meet with President Obama tomorrow to discuss the Healthcare.gov website, as well as "national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures". In addition, the group will discuss ways the Obama administration can partner with the tech sector to grow the economy and create new jobs.

According to a report from Time:
"Tomorrow, President Obama will meet with executives from leading tech companies to discuss progress made in addressing performance and capacity issues with HealthCare.Gov and how government can better deliver IT to maximize innovation, efficiency and customer service," a White House official said. "The meeting will also address national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures. Finally, the President will discuss ways his Administration can partner with the tech sector to further grow the economy, create jobs and address issues around income inequality and social mobility."
tim_cook_suit-800x533.jpg
According to the report, the following executives will attend:

- Tim Cook, CEO, Apple
- Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
- Chad Dickerson, CEO, Etsy
- Reed Hastings, Co-Founder & CEO, Netflix
- Drew Houston, Founder & CEO, Dropbox
- Marissa Mayer, President and CEO, Yahoo!
- Burke Norton, Chief Legal Officer, Salesforce
- Mark Pincus, Founder, Chief Product Officer & Chairman, Zynga
- Shervin Pishevar, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Sherpa Global
- Brian Roberts, Chairman & CEO, Comcast
- Erika Rottenberg, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, LinkedIn
- Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
- Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google
- Brad Smith, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft
- Randall Stephenson, Chairman & CEO, AT&T

Earlier this month, Apple, Google and a number of other tech companies urged the President and Congress to reform government surveillance tactics.

Concerns about government use of user data collecting ramped up in June, when a U.S. government program named PRISM was revealed to be giving the U.S. National Security Agency direct access to user data on corporate servers across a wide spectrum of Internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.

In response, Apple published a statement of "Commitment to Customer Privacy" denying its participation in the NSA's program and teamed up with a number of tech companies to request greater NSA surveillance transparency, allowing it to provide customers with regular reports on security related requests. Last month, Apple published a report outlining statistics on government and law enforcement requests it received from January to the end of June.

Apple and other companies also met with President Obama in August to discuss privacy issues and government surveillance. Recently, Apple and 30 other technology corporations signed a letter urging the U.S. Congress to pass the Surveillance Order Reporting Act of 2013 and the Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, which would result in increased surveillance disclosures and would give technology companies the right to publish detailed statistics on demands for user data.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Tim Cook and Other Tech Executives to Meet With President Obama to Discuss NSA Surveillance and Health Care Website
 

Dulcimer

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2012
891
688
That's quite a guest list. I have to wonder, is there really a point to this thing besides Obama rubbing shoulders with some of the tech industry's most successful people?
 

SamGabbay

macrumors 6502a
Oct 15, 2011
757
868
Facebook will be there?

Yeah... They are definitely qualified to voice their opinion on privacy concerns.
 

cchrisllb

macrumors newbie
Sep 8, 2011
2
0
Transparency

These talks should be transparent to the public and not behind closed doors. How do we really know what they are talking about?
 
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Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
ummm...

Didn't we do this already on December 8th ?

Obviously, someones not happy with the outcome.
 

JayCee842

macrumors 6502a
Jan 21, 2013
589
0
These talks should be transparent to the public and not behind closed doors. How do we really know what they are talking about?

It's sensitive information that could threaten national security if disclosed to the public. :p
 

macs4nw

macrumors 601
After watching 60 Minutes yesterday, I actually feel a little better about the whole NSA/Prism situation.

With proper oversight and accountability, we need to allow the government certain tools to protect us, or another 9/11, or much worse, could be here sooner rather than later.
 
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JayCee842

macrumors 6502a
Jan 21, 2013
589
0
All CEOs: "Obama, please get rid of the NSA."

Obama: "Now wait a minute here. I'll change stuff."

Repeat every 6 months.

lol good one. But I don't think the CEOs will insist for the end of the NSA, just more transparency. Either that, or they will just plan another surveillance agency without public knowledge. ;)
 

GoldenJoe

macrumors 6502
Apr 26, 2011
369
164
Wait, hold on. Are these guys somehow supposed to be unelected representatives? They have NO place in the process of striking this unconstitutional agency. We're the ones who are supposed to be marching on Washington to protest this assault on our rights.
 

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,520
After watching 60 Minutes yesterday, I actually feel a little better about the whole NSA/Prism situation.


Really? I thought CBS did a great job of ball washing the NSA. Might as well have been produced by the PR team of the NSA.
 

Daalseth

macrumors 6502a
Jun 16, 2012
599
306
After watching 60 Minutes yesterday, I actually feel a little better about the whole NSA/Prism situation.
You feel better after watching a program from an untrustworthy news source where they interview pathological liars? How...naive.

This just in, the NSA Spying program has been found to be unconstitutional.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25410064
The judge called called the NSA's surveillance programe "indiscriminate" and an "almost Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States".

Not that they will stop doing it or anything.
 
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WaxedJacket

macrumors 6502a
Oct 18, 2013
690
1,071
People say "Steve Jobs this" and "Steve Jobs that" and I despise it on here. But this is one time I wish Steve was alive to represent Apple in this specific matter :-/
 
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gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Tim Cook and other tech executives will meet with President Obama tomorrow to discuss [] "national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures".

Excuse me, but unauthorized intelligence disclosures are not the problem. ********** governments spying on people, that's the problem.

Here in the UK the problem seems to be that harmless appearing politicians, especially female ones, seem to turn into surveillance nazis as soon as they come to power. Jaqui "jackboots" Smith first (that's the one whose husband let British taxpayers pay for his porn), good riddance to her, but as soon as we got rid of her, Theresa May follows right in her footsteps. Running out of alternatives.
 

Rocketman

macrumors 603
This is a political not a technical meeting.

The solution is obvious. Reduce government "mandatory" spending (off-budget finance), reduce annual deficits, increase interest rates gradually now, make regulations subject to normal judicial standards, less regulation, more legislation.

And for goodness sake, revive the Senate rule on voting that was in place since the beginning till this week!

Benefits:

Less government means more private sector where money velocity is higher. Velocity is at a record low due to overburdonsome government.

Less deficits shifting to surpluses will minimize the damage to the budget when interest rates and debt service rises. It will reduce the pressure to steal from the social security and medicare "trust funds". It will also allow the Fed to reduce its balance sheet faster.

Increased interest rates will take the thumb off the scale of the free market, end financial repression (grandma earning interest in retirement), which will shift benefits from the 1% to the 40%.

Regulators are in a monologue with themselves. There needs to be a law passed making administrative courts subject to "preponderance of the evidence", not "regulator correct by default".

Congress delegate less, legislate more. Deprecate 3-6 regulators entirely.

Start there.

Rocketman

Can you hear me Tim?

The second attachment the left scale should read T not M for Trillion.
 

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pubwvj

macrumors 68000
Oct 1, 2004
1,901
208
Mountains of Vermont
It astounds me how much the government has spent on the web site. It should have been done for 1/100th as much and work. They should have hired someone competent and proven like Amazon.
 

Klae17

macrumors 65816
Jul 15, 2011
1,226
1,576
These talks should be transparent to the public and not behind closed doors. How do we really know what they are talking about?

Someone teach this guy to reply and not quote the entire article please...

----------

Mr. Cook, please keep your eye on Apple's business instead.

As a stockholder and owner of many Mac products, it is Apple's job to ensure the security of our information. It's his job.
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
It's sensitive information that could threaten national security if disclosed to the public. :p

Don't you think we have a RIGHT to know what info is being discussed ?

However we DO trust Apple after all, and/or Google with our information, yet we can't get any further than that ?

Its kinda a laugh to think this, national security, not not. he public has every right to know...

After all,, we already know about what the NSA is doing (thanks to Snowden), therefore, we should also know whats going to happen. directly from the talks...

Info will leak out anyway afterwards in some fashion, so why not spill it directly from the pigs themselves.

Its always fun then they get stuff wrong, and try to police themselves which backfires..

I want a front row seat, just to point and laugh.
 
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