▶ 0:15:43Chair Grassley: Good morning, everybody. The situation is this. We are starting at 9:00 because there is a commerce committee meeting that is very important at 10:00 and all of the republicans cannot be here until 9:30 so we only have a window of 9:30 to 10:00 to get through our nominations.
▶ 0:16:15Chair Grassley: We have three important bills on the committee. We will try to work them in if we get a quorum and work them in before we do the nominations. We have not met for three weeks because we have had attendance problems and there is a lot of work for this committee to do.
▶ 0:16:38Chair Grassley: When I say there is attendance problems that is more of a problem on my side of the aisle than it has been on the democrat side of the aisle. Today's agenda, we have eight nominations and three bills. Two circuit court nominees, benjamin flowers, sixth circuit, matthew schwartz, second circuit.
▶ 0:17:06Chair Grassley: We will vote on four district court nominees, michael hendershot, northern district of ohio. Arthur jones, southern district, texas. Jeffrey kuntz, southern district, florida. John mark, southern district, texas.
▶ 0:17:25Chair Grassley: We will also vote on don berthiamue to be director of the justice department and sean costello to serve as U.S. district attorney for the southern district of alabama. Three bills. Sunshine in the courtroom. Cameras in the courtroom act. And the no fakes act.
▶ 0:17:57Chair Grassley: The six judicial nominees I feel are highly qualified, each have's desk -- each have strong credentials and will make find judges. Our other nominees are exceptional and I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting. We are also voting on two bills that I and ranking member durbin introduced.
▶ 0:18:25Chair Grassley: I will not go into detail what it means cameras in the courtroom. Our third bill, no fakes is a result of a lot of hard work by senator blackburn and senator coons. Senator coons and blackburn have been on me for a long time to get this bill on the agenda so they would like to move that today as well.
▶ 0:18:53Chair Grassley: It is all about protecting individuals from the exploitation of others using ai generated digital replicas of themselves. As I said at last week's hearing , the tell me they want to retain the practice and obviously I agree with that. Very often the senator's conduct is destructive of the very institution they claim they want to protect.
▶ 0:19:24Chair Grassley: The practice of becoming more untenable as senators work with the white house in good faith to secure district courts and U.S. attorneys. This week president trump announced he would not proceed with the new director of the intelligence until he gets the U.S. attorneys of the southern district of new york.
▶ 0:19:50Chair Grassley: I would suggest a president trump he ought to be working with senator thune on the agenda for the united states senate instead of standing in the way. For more than a year senator schumer refused to return a blue slip or consider the highly qualified nominee the president puts forward. Senator schumer has also refused to consider any nominee for other U.S. attorney or district court seats in new york.
▶ 0:20:18Chair Grassley: Senator schumer refused to meet with the administration to find a path forward. He has never responded to their proposals or negotiated any of these vacancies. This is not sustainable. I don't think it is in good faith.
▶ 0:20:41Chair Grassley: Democrats expect republicans to adhere to the norms while at the same time it seems to me undermining them in the process. During the first trump and biden administration senators from opposing parties returned hundreds of blue strips for district court U.S. attorney nominees but during the second term of trump they have been few and far between.
▶ 0:21:07Chair Grassley: Let's not forget for the first time in recorded history senate democrats still have not allowed a single civilian nominee to be confirmed by unanimous consent. In doing so they have wasted valuable time that could have been addressed with legislating meetings for the american people. I know some of my colleagues including some on this committee have worked with the white house in good faith to fill vacancies.
▶ 0:21:38Chair Grassley: I know some others have tried and I think those who have engaged in good faith and urge them to continue their efforts and particularly urge colleagues of their caucus to do the same thing. If I could help resolve an impasse I would be happy to work in that direction. Our senate practices and norms will only survive if there is good faith on all sides.
▶ 0:22:06Chair Grassley: I am urging all colleagues in the senate to put an end to the obstruction. If the blue slip practice is going to continue and it will continue as long as I am chairman. So many of my colleagues have insisted that. Senate democrats must stop bad faith obstructions. Senator whitehouse?
▶ 0:22:33Sen. Whitehouse: I am in this seat this morning because illinois senator durbin was a close friend of illinois senator obama and then U.S. president obama and today at a star-studded celebration the obama presidential library will open and senator durbin very much wanted to be there.
▶ 0:23:04Sen. Whitehouse: I think he is exactly where he should be. That leaves me to fill in for him today. I would like to take my time this morning to suggest that combining our oversight hearing of the department of justice with the nominations hearing for acting attorney general blanche would be a grave mistake for the
▶ 0:23:34Sen. Whitehouse: Committee. I don't believe we did that with attorney general garland. I think the record of the department of justice under todd blanche lends itself to very vigorous oversight.
▶ 0:23:56Sen. Whitehouse: Oversight which we have been denied because when we ask questions we get scripted litanies of insult and quarrel rather than actual answers to our questions. When we ask for documents and records in writing we get nothing. We are reduced to filing requests that are then not complied with as foya requests.
▶ 0:24:30Sen. Whitehouse: The oversight function of this committee is being systematically disabled. That is significant when you have attorney general bondi saying it was todd blanche who was responsible for the epstein files disaster. The releases of private information and images of victims.
▶ 0:24:52Sen. Whitehouse: The cover-up of documents that name to donald trump and the general incompetence of the whole wretched mess. I don't think it would be a good idea for this committee to be complicit in covering up the cover-up of the epstein files. Move on to the slush fund.
▶ 0:25:24Sen. Whitehouse: Which of great number of my republican colleagues have expressed real reservations about with its attachment of a tax amnesty deal for the trump family and the trump businesses. There are very legitimate questions to be asked about that, including has that idea really been withdrawn or is it just being hit in briefly so it can resurface -- being hidden briefly so it can resurface in
▶ 0:25:55Sen. Whitehouse: Some fashion? We should be looking into this as a committee. It is important stuff. Even if we shirk our duties looking into all of this it appears that a florida court will be looking into all of this and I think it is a bad look for the committee to be turning a blind eye to what went into the slush fund deal and the tax amnesty deal and then discover through a court proceeding in florida all of the stuff we
▶ 0:26:26Sen. Whitehouse: Failed to look at. It is hard to be taken seriously if we have failed to do our own duty than the court proceedings reveal the mischief. I will say that I have looked, I have never ever heard of senior officials of the department of justice being called before a court with respect to a fraud
▶ 0:26:57Sen. Whitehouse: Upon the court. Look up fraud upon a court. It is a pretty serious charge. This one was raised by 36 retired federal judges. Some very respected ones, some very conservative ones. The judge in the proceeding in florida out of which the slush fund settlement emerged reopen the case to have a look.
▶ 0:27:28Sen. Whitehouse: She asked for responses. She suggested the doj might have violated some policies in the settlement. She suggested there was an irs defense memo that would be relevant to the proceedings. The violation of doj policies would be a matter for doj. The irs client memo would be something for doj to answer.
▶ 0:28:01Sen. Whitehouse: She also questioned whether there was collusion. It takes two to collude. It would be a collusion between the department of justice lawyers in trumps private lawyers. There is another reason for the department of justice to have responded. What happened last friday? No response from the department of justice.
▶ 0:28:24Sen. Whitehouse: First accusation of senior level department of justice people of fraud upon the court with an invitation to rebut the allegations, an invitation specific to department of justice conduct and they duck. That is going to continue. The three dozen judges have their answer and the court will go forward.
▶ 0:28:47Sen. Whitehouse: I will contend we do not look like much if that information is being developed in a federal court and we have not been allowed to ask questions and our oversight has been collapsed into a confirmation hearing. I've never seen a department of justice as badly run as this one. I have never seen brought upon the court allegations, I've never seen semi suggestions of contempt. I've never seen so many cases thrown out.
▶ 0:29:17Sen. Whitehouse: I've never seen so many accusations that department arguments were false or pretextual or designed to fool rather than inform the court and we see that over and over again from judges appointed by every president. It is now at the point where the department of justice and the U.S. government have lost their presumption of regularity in federal court proceedings. All of this matters. All of this is something to which this committee should be paying attention.
▶ 0:29:47Sen. Whitehouse: With respect to what our chairman has said about the norms of the committee, one norm is U.S. attorneys come through this committee after a process of consultation before they get to run U.S. attorney's office. Over and over again we see these slippery deals where acting U.S.
▶ 0:30:15Sen. Whitehouse: Attorneys come in and then the first assistant is fired and then when the time runs out on the acting U.S. attorney they slip back into the first attorney position and we have a vacancy. It is an obvious scam to get around this committee's norms. We have put up with this. It did not happen once or twice, it has happened over and over again. On top of that we have seen U.S.
▶ 0:30:46Sen. Whitehouse: Attorneys called out for misconduct over and over again. None of this is normal. None of this is normal. The fact that this committee will not look into it is a shame and I think if we tried to be complicit and failing in our duty to look into this by combining the todd blanche nomination hearing with the department of justice oversight hearing we will of made a very grave mistake. Thank you.
▶ 0:31:18Chair Grassley: I want to respond to the process question you brought up, not the other issues. I would like to remind you that you mentioned garland as attorney general. There were eight months between his nomination and the first hearing. You have to realize there is only four weeks we meet in july, two weeks we meet in september, that is six weeks between now and the election.
▶ 0:31:48Chair Grassley: You have to realize -- I am not running the senate so I do not determine the calendar of the senate. We basically only have three days a week. That is 18 days between now and the election. That is why we have to combine the oversight with the others and we are accommodated by giving members of your side all the time you need to ask questions.
▶ 0:32:19Chair Grassley: We are negotiating that now and we will try to accommodate you as much as we can. With only 18 days you can see that we can have eight months between the nomination and the oversight hearing.
▶ 0:32:35Sen. Whitehouse: I know the chairman is sympathetic to the oversight problems we face and to the degree to which this department's behavior is exceptional. I look forward to having those hearings go forward in a way that reflects the chairman's consistent desire to support real oversight and I hope the proceedings reflect that.
▶ 0:33:00Chair Grassley: When I came to the united states senate we started at 10:00 monday morning and we went until 4:00 on friday. It seems republicans and democrats like a three day work week. There is plenty of work for an individual senator to seven days a week if they want to work seven days a week.
▶ 0:33:23Chair Grassley: You cannot solve this country's problems if you not get 100 of us together at one time and that is whether you have a democrat majority or republican majority, that is the way it has been. We have to put in more time in washington, D.C.
▶ 0:33:41Sen. Whitehouse: No objection to those thoughts.
▶ 0:33:44Chair Grassley: I think we better go to your bill while we are waiting for a majority. We are going to take up the stuff I have the most pressure to work on. We will go ahead with her bill. Let me start out that. The next bill is no fakes. This bill is led by senator coons and senator blackburn.
▶ 0:34:16Chair Grassley: I understand there is a manager's amendment. Ella naugle of the manager's amendment. -- I will now call up the manager's amendment. I hear no objection. If any of the bill sponsors would like to speak, do it quickly. Senator coons?
▶ 0:34:41Sen. Coons: Thank you, Mr. chairman and thank you to senator blackburn. I am deeply grateful to senator blackburn and tillis and klobuchar. To senator blackburn and her staff for a strong partnership. We have had so many negotiating sessions, redline conversations and dozens of them. I am grateful for the support this bill has for many colleagues on this committee.
▶ 0:35:09Sen. Coons: Ranking member durbin, senators britt and moody as cosponsored. This is about what is most personal to us, our voice and our likeness. Every american should have the right to decide how their voice and likeness will be used, especially when generative ai can create highly realistic digital replicas that make it look like we said things we never said and did things we never did.
▶ 0:35:35Sen. Coons: No fakes gives every american a new interactional property right to destroy their digital replica and license it as they wish and allow their families to protect it after they passed and stop unauthorized replicas from proliferating online. The bill creates a workable notice of takedown system so we can enforce this. If online platforms takedown unauthorized deepfakes everyone wins. If they do not the online platforms are exposed to financial penalties.
▶ 0:36:04Sen. Coons: The bill also reigns in the use of ai models that exist to create unauthorized deepfakes. No fakes includes features that protect free speech, parity, satire, newscasts, they are all protected and we built in counter notification processes.
▶ 0:36:24Sen. Coons: This important bipartisan bill is the product of real compromise between stakeholders on all sides and has enthusiastic support from across the movie, music, and television industries from online platforms from youtube to tiktok and ai companies like openai and ibm, from organized labor and child safety groups. I would like to submit for the record support of quotes from 40 different organizations who often do not see ida I am much of anything all supporting this bill.
▶ 0:36:54Sen. Coons: If I could conclude, did everyone get what they wanted? No but we did work to build support and would not have happened without my chief counsel who was tireless and engaged in a real partnership with my republican colleagues.
▶ 0:37:09Chair Grassley: Senator blackburn.
▶ 0:37:13Sen. Blackburn: I am so pleased we are finally moving forward with the no fakes act does senator coons said this is been a bipartisan effort. A lot of work has gone into it. It is imperative that we put this national standard in place for voice and visual likeness protection of creators.
▶ 0:37:37Sen. Blackburn: Every american needs this to protect from proliferation of harmful ai generated deepfakes that are created without their consent, from artists and songwriters to students and everyday citizens. Our nation deserves meaningful protections against deepfakes. Our bill would establish clear guardrails that protect our creators. In tennessee and nationwide.
▶ 0:38:06Sen. Blackburn: In addition to establishing of federal intellectual property right in every american's and visual likeness. We also provide a clear notice and takedown framework as a low safe harbor provisions for companies that comply. These provisions ensure that when a platform receives a proper notice of a deepfake, that platform must properly -- must promptly remove or disable access to that harmful content.
▶ 0:38:37Sen. Blackburn: If they promptly remove the content they will not face liability under the bill. We have included explicit first amendment protections in this bill. For example we have excluded commentary, criticism, scholarship, satire, and parody content from being removed as well as news and sports broadcast removal.
▶ 0:39:01Sen. Blackburn: Additionally senator coons and I have worked for months with some of our key stakeholders to come up with this compromise manager's amendment that will be advancing this morning. What came out of those negotiations was a counter notice framework I believe makes the bill stronger under the new provision.
▶ 0:39:25Sen. Blackburn: Someone who believes a platform took down their content inappropriately if the content was not actually a deepfake or if it was first amendment protected can have their content placed back online. Both the creative community and the platforms had to make compromises. I believe it is a stronger bill in the end.
▶ 0:39:52Sen. Blackburn: I've always said america needs one set of rules for ai and no fakes is a critical component of that rulebook. Every american has an article one section eight clause eight constitutional right to benefit from their creative works. The no fakes act allows for just that in the age of ai.
▶ 0:40:18Sen. Blackburn: I want to thank senator coons and his team for their partnership on the effort as well as the bipartisan coalition of cosponsors. We have assembled a robust group of outside supporters, and Mr. chairman I have letters to submit for the record from the creative artists agency, the broadcasters association of all 50 states, the human artistry campaign, the american medical association come at an open
▶ 0:40:49Sen. Blackburn: Letter of support from sag-aftra signed by over 16,000 individuals. I look forward to a strong bipartisan voice vote in advancing this legislation. Thank you.
▶ 0:41:02Chair Grassley: Before I call on senator lee I would like to get this bill done but just as soon as we get all the people here we will start the nominations. Senator lee?
▶ 0:41:15Sen. Lee: I want to thank senator blackburn and senator coons for their leadership on this. This is an important issue. A person's voice and likeness are both valuable assets.
▶ 0:41:32Sen. Lee: Artists, performers, content creators of every sort have legitimate interests, financial interests, reputational interest in controlling how those assets, the things that belong to them are used and they deserve protection against theft, against fraud and unauthorized use. Especially the type of commercial exploitation that can happen can be really problematic.
▶ 0:42:03Sen. Lee: The legislation as drafted now raises significant concerns regarding free speech. We need to ensure that in protecting content creators rights we do not inadvertently chill free speech or undermine long-standing first amendment principles. My plan is to support the bill today and look forward to working with senator blackburn to address these concerns before.
▶ 0:42:33Sen. Lee: They need to be addressed but I'm happy to move it out of committee and support you in that process moving forward.
▶ 0:42:41Chair Grassley: Senator klobuchar?
▶ 0:42:46Sen. Klobuchar: Senator tillis and I worked with the leaders of this bill, senator coons and senator blackburn. I want to thank them from the beginning. This builds on some of the work senator cruz and I signed on the take it down act which is now signed into law at the provision requiring platforms to take down nonconsensual images in 48 hours is in effect as well as the increased penalties for the people that post the illegal images.
▶ 0:43:15Sen. Klobuchar: I think this is a huge step forward and a model we should be using in many contexts. While this law we did before focused on the nonconsensual images and puts the rules of the road to give people control over digital replicas of their voice and likeness, this goes to something we know has been a real problem.
▶ 0:43:42Sen. Klobuchar: It is important we pass this bill because it is easier than ever to use ai tools to generate everything from images, videos, songs, recordings, and even senate hearings. Senator blackburn and I held a hearing on privacy that was actually a great subcommittee hearing. We walked out thinking this was so good, maybe we can find a compromise on this.
▶ 0:44:08Sen. Klobuchar: A day later I saw an image of myself and I thought this thing is getting so much attention, it was me and she was sitting next to me and my staff was behind me. It was actually an ai image. That might've been considered parody. I do not think it was very funny. They put me in the middle of the sidney sweeney jeans campaign issue. It was startling as I looked at my feet and finally the platforms took it down or put digitally altered on it. A of people believed it.
▶ 0:44:41Sen. Klobuchar: They believed I use language I would never use. They believed I said things I would never say. To me it was an example how of how quickly these things can go viral. What happened -- if it is parody I have another piece of legislation that believes it should say digitally altered. Technology lead to incredible things.
▶ 0:45:04Sen. Klobuchar: Last year we did an event with randy travis who lost his ability to sing after having a stroke and using ai replicas of his own voice he has been able to continue putting out music. That is because it is his voice and his decision. Easy access to this technology has created challenges that harm real people. Sony music has identified 130,000 songs with unauthorized deepfakes on streaming services.
▶ 0:45:34Sen. Klobuchar: So much of what our country is based on and our innovation and economy is based on ideas, innovation. People's intellectual products. If we mess around with this with ai and reward them for that we will mess around with our entire economy. It is not just artists. Consumers lost more than 3.5 billion dollars through imposter schemes. That is why this bill is so important.
▶ 0:46:02Sen. Klobuchar: Everyone should have the right to privacy at the right to control their own voice. I will end by thanking the consumer, artists, entertainment, labor, tech stakeholders that have come together to support this bill. You must know something is going right when you can announce you have the american medical association and sag-aftra supporting the same bill. Usually these interests do not align on something.
▶ 0:46:29Sen. Klobuchar: It is not like they are opposed, but it shows the broad coalition that supports doing something about this challenging and growing problem.
▶ 0:46:37Chair Grassley: Before senator padilla and senator cruz, if we get everybody here on our side we will stop you in the middle of your speech. Go ahead.
▶ 0:46:51Sen. Padilla: I want to begin by thanking senator coons and senator blackburn and the many stakeholders who have worked so collaboratively to bring the no fakes act to this point of receiving a markup. The problem of unauthorized deepfakes that mislead or defraud or otherwise harm the individuals depicted as well as the public is urgent and demands congressional response. I am grateful for the hard work everyone involved has put into this effort.
▶ 0:47:21Sen. Padilla: The bill before us today has substantively and substantially improved and reflects the care the sponsors have taken to address a number of concerns regarding the implementation come innovation, and free expression online.
▶ 0:47:36Sen. Padilla: There are still some issues that warrant additional attention and obligations placed on diverse stakeholders in our communication ecosystem including music services, a video game developers, user generated content platforms of all sizes and others to see those are appropriately tailored and designed to be cheap.
▶ 0:48:02Sen. Padilla: Because the process has been so collaborative and so constructive and has been done in such good faith I am confident we can continue working together to refine these provisions and ensure the final legislation effectively combats harmful deepfakes while protecting innovation and free expression. I look forward to supporting this measure.
▶ 0:48:22Chair Grassley: We now turn to the nomination of benjamin flowers to serve as circuit judge on the U.S. circuit court sixth district.
▶ 0:48:36Sen. Whitehouse: This is an extraordinary daily will motivated candidate who has expressly said it is not his intention to follow the law but rather impose his view on what he calls traditional western values. He has derided textualism and says a port that correctly decides cases on narrow grounds -- a court that correctly decides cases on our grounds without upsetting precedence is not much use.
▶ 0:49:07Sen. Whitehouse: That is unacceptable for the conservative movement of today. In his own words he will use his seat on the bench to impose his view of traditional western values, to press for the conservative movement of today, and will avoid it seems to mock the notion of correctly deciding cases on narrow grounds. Textualism and minimalism used to be conservative values. This does not provide that.
▶ 0:49:37Sen. Whitehouse: The clerk will call the role on flowers. [roll call]
▶ 0:50:21Sen. Whitehouse: >> the ayes are 12, nays are 10.
▶ 0:50:29Chair Grassley: The nomination will be favorably reported. Senator schiff, you want to be voted in person? >> please report senator schiff as a no vote in person and not by proxy.
▶ 0:50:48Chair Grassley: Now we go to matthew schwartz. I am favorably reporting the nomination.
▶ 0:50:57Sen. Whitehouse: I want to flag for my colleagues that this individual represents president trump personally in his appeal of 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records related to his payments to stormy daniels and also in the $464 million judgment against trump and his family members and business for inflated value of business assets.
▶ 0:51:21Sen. Whitehouse: The president still owes the firm $400,000, notwithstanding the chairman's comments about following norms, no blue slip from the new york senators. I urge a no vote.
▶ 0:51:34Chair Grassley: The clerk will call the role. [roll call]
▶ 0:52:23Chair Grassley: >> the yay's are 12 and the no's are 10.
▶ 0:52:28Chair Grassley: Schwartz will be favorably reported. Now michael hendershot. The clerk will call the role. >> [roll call]
▶ 0:53:16Chair Grassley: The aye's are 12 and the no's are 10.
▶ 0:53:18Chair Grassley: The nomination will be favorably reported. Now arthur jones, southern district of texas. The clerk will call the role. >> [roll call]
▶ 0:54:04Chair Grassley: The aye's are 12 and the no's are 10.
▶ 0:54:07Chair Grassley: Arthur jones will be favorably reported. Now we go to jeffrey kuntz, southern district of florida. The clerk will call the role. >> [roll call]
▶ 0:54:55Chair Grassley: The ayes are 12 and the nays are 10.
▶ 0:54:57Chair Grassley: Jeffrey kuntz will be favorably reported. Now john marck, southern district of texas. The clerk will call the role. >> [roll call]
▶ 0:55:51Chair Grassley: The ayes are 12 and the nays are 10.
▶ 0:55:53Chair Grassley: John marck will be favorably reported. Now don berthiamue.
▶ 0:56:06Sen. Whitehouse: I am likely to be the only democrat voting aye but he does have integrity. While I may find I should be very disappointed in my vote I will be voting yes.
▶ 0:56:20Chair Grassley: The clerk will call the role. >> [roll call]
▶ 0:57:22Chair Grassley: The ayes are 14 and the nays are 9.
▶ 0:57:28Sen. Britt: I want to say a few words in support of sean costello's nomination. He has been serving this district for over 20 years. During that time cs rose through the ranks as the chief of the criminal division in 2018 and has been serving as the interim U.S. attorney 2021. Prior to his time in office he served for several years at main justice in D.C. and was also a legislative aide to both senators richard shelby and jeff sessions.
▶ 0:57:59Sen. Britt: During his time on a federal prosecutor he has tried 28 cases to final verdict and has pursued cases on a wide range of criminal conduct including child exploitation, national security, terrorism, drug trafficking, and corporate fraud. He has devoted his entire career to public service and working on behalf of the people of alabama and the southern district. Senator tuberville and I were proud to recommend him to president trump for this nomination and I urge my colleagues for a yes vote.
▶ 0:58:28Chair Grassley: The clerk will call the role. >> [roll call]
▶ 0:59:13Chair Grassley: On this vote the ayes are 15 and nos are 5.
▶ 0:59:22Chair Grassley: I will call in senator cruz and then senator welch and then we will vote on the blackburn bill.
▶ 0:59:30Sen. Cruz: I would like to commend senator blackburn and senator coons for their work on this bill. The topic establishes the protection of intellectual property and ai is ushering in new eras with the potential of theft and deception that we are going to need to be vigilant fighting against.
▶ 0:59:52Sen. Cruz: That being said I also want to associate myself with senator lee's comments that legislating in this area is complicated and fraught with peril. I will support this bill to move it out of committee dive concerns on the first amendment side. I hope the authors of this bill are willing to work with senator lee and me to make sure we are protecting legitimate first amendment speech, that we are protecting satire which is an important part of speech.
▶ 1:00:22Sen. Cruz: I think of the ada spencer pratt ran in the l.a. Campaign which I thought were hysterical and are a good example of what should be protected and not fall within a bill like this. With the hope and understanding we can work together to make sure we are protecting legitimate free speech I go along with the committee.
▶ 1:00:45Chair Grassley: I apologize to senator coons, I forgot to mention he was the lead sponsor. Senator welch and then senator schiff and then we will vote.
▶ 1:00:55Sen. Welch: I thank my colleagues and the sponsors of this legislation. My colleague and my U.S. representative in congress had the deepfake experience similar to what senator klobuchar described. It was pretty appalling. It was her image, it was her voice, it was not her words. It was not satire.
▶ 1:01:24Sen. Welch: It was asserting through her mouth positions she absolutely and completely was against. There was no indication that this was ai enhanced. The reality of the world we live in is that it is very difficult for people to see this is a fake , that this was a fake it was
▶ 1:01:57Sen. Welch: Totally and completely realistic. The no fakes act protects creativity. I think none of us can underestimate the perils of what happens when images and likeness is appropriated illegally now to create confusion and chaos. Thank you.
▶ 1:02:21Chair Grassley: Senator schiff.
▶ 1:02:24Sen. Schiff: I want to offer my strong support for the no fakes act. Throughout my time in congress I represented the creative capital of the world and I believe our creative economy and hard-working people behind it deserves strong protections for their talents and voices and likeness which make up the foundation of their livelihoods. And the advent of ai those livelihoods as well as the identities of everyday americans are under threat.
▶ 1:02:51Sen. Schiff: Rapid generation has unleashed a wave of unauthorized exploitation. We see this in the voices individual likenesses of individuals from celebrities to children. They replicated and weaponize it without their permission and sometimes without their knowledge. That is why I have long supported the no fakes act. This legislation establishes a clear federal right protecting all individuals from an authorized digital replicas.
▶ 1:03:23Sen. Schiff: The performers and voice actors who power our country's greatest cultural export deserve to know their faces and voices will be used to replace them. In order to protect the creativity and protect against worse exploitation I urge my colleagues to support this bill and I yield back.
▶ 1:03:38Chair Grassley: I am going to assume there are no amendments. >> Mr. chairman? >> similar to senator lee in senator cruz with first amendment concerns. Senator blackburn and her team are sure they will work with us and I am grateful for that.
▶ 1:03:57Chair Grassley: I assume no amendments in the sponsors that we can do it by voice vote. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed no. The ayes have it without a doubt in the bill is reported. We now go to the cameras in the courtroom legislation. The sunshine in the courtroom acted as the title of the bill.
▶ 1:04:26Chair Grassley: It reintroduced this year would senator klobuchar. Thank you senator klobuchar. Cosponsored by durban and blumenthal and cornyn. The bill grants the presiding judge in courts the discretion to allow cameras in their courtrooms and contains provisions to protect the identity of witnesses and jurors and coverage of private conversations.
▶ 1:04:52Chair Grassley: This legislation addresses the long-standing need and I want to give you an example of the lockerbie bombing in 1988 that terrorists detonated a bomb on an international flight headed for detroit. 259 people were killed. Years later the district court in D.C. denied victim's request to access court proceedings remotely, noting it was prohibited from doing so under federal law.
▶ 1:05:19Chair Grassley: It took an act of congress in 2024 to ensure victims in that case could remotely access the trial proceedings. Denial of access should not be the default. The public has a significant interest in many cases at the state level. Erika kirk has advocated for cameras in the courtroom at the trial of her husband's murder.
▶ 1:05:46Chair Grassley: The public has a right to see justice prevail in this case as well as the families involved. My bill would provide the same transparency that erika kirk seeks but at the federal level. It is common sense and long overdue and I encourage my colleagues to support the bill. Senator klobuchar?
▶ 1:06:08Sen. Klobuchar: I would like to thank you for your leadership and for listing this bill to expand public access to federal court proceedings. I would also like to thank senators durbin, blumenthal, and cornyn for cosponsoring. This month we celebrated 40 years of c-span. When it started everyone was scared and thought they would look bad on tv. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't.
▶ 1:06:39Sen. Klobuchar: As it is a fixture. People have the right to see what is going on when senators are debating the important issues of our time. The same is true of the supreme court. That is why the bills we are voting on are so important. I am especially focused on the supreme court bill because I think having just the audio available or some live streams here and there is not the same.
▶ 1:07:04Sen. Klobuchar: Many of us have attended these hearings, it is an extraordinary experience and you should not have to come to washington to do that. The bill I will note provide safeguards for jurors, witnesses, and the parties involved. The bill prohibits the broadcasting of any juror during a trial or during jury selection and also provides judges discretion in the trial piece of this to obscure the identity of witnesses.
▶ 1:07:32Sen. Klobuchar: The bill prevents the presiding judge from allowing media coverage if doing so would violate the due process of the rights of the parties involved. I encourage my colleagues to support the bill. Senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:07:52Sen. Whitehouse: I wanted to know with senator durbin a today that he was the leader of the department of the bill and would like to put a statement into the record supporting it.
▶ 1:08:02Chair Grassley: Those in favor of reporting the bill say aye. Opposed say no. The ayes have it by a bigshot.
▶ 1:08:16Sen. Klobuchar: This is the kind of thing you could capture on video.
▶ 1:08:20Chair Grassley: The next thing is cameras in the courtroom. Reintroduced with senator durbin and cosponsored by klobuchar and blumenthal. Like the first bill this is common sense legislation that promotes transparency in our judicial system. It instructs the U.S.
▶ 1:08:42Chair Grassley: Supreme court to prevent television coverage of the proceedings that are already open to the public but the bill restricts coverage for specific cases and the majority of the supreme court voted should violate due process. The public has a right to observe cases before the highest court and the supreme court decisions have national importance and they affect the lives of every american.
▶ 1:09:09Chair Grassley: This legislation ensures access to all americans, even those who may not have resources for travel to D.C. and observe the court in person. I encourage my colleagues to support this bill. You want to speak for senator durbin?
▶ 1:09:26Sen. Whitehouse: Senator durbin was a leader in the development of this legislation and I ask his statement put into the record.
▶ 1:09:33Chair Grassley: Without objection we report this bill by voice vote. All in favor say aye. Opposed say no. It is overwhelmingly reported out. Meeting adjourned.