by Joseph Vazquez at newsbusters.org
The House Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce hosted a hearing, headlined “Economic Danger Zone: How America Competes to Win the Future Versus China.” The problem? The witnesses consisted of a string of leftist-funded, Big Tech-backed organizations trying to push a dystopian artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicle (AV) scheme under the pretense of protecting American national security against China.
The Feb. 1 subcommittee hearing, headed by subcommittee chairman Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) specifically placed emphasis on beating Communist China in the global race for AI and AV technology while also supposedly stifling the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to steal U.S. consumer data through legislative action. “Chinese companies, who enjoy a nationalized privacy and data security standard, operate with this regulatory certainty, which is a competitive edge,” the hearing summary alleged. However, witnesses presenting at the hearing made scant mention of the dangers of liberal Big Tech companies like Google that could exploit the data made available by AVs to nefarious ends.
MRC Business staff attended the event and later analyzed the hearing, background and testimony of the witnesses present. Representatives from leftist-funded organizations like the Center for American Progress (CAP), , and New America gave testimony to the subcommittee about the need to beat China by leading the world in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and creating a federal privacy and data security standard. MRC Business discovered that some of the witness organizations present were either linked to China through philanthropic funding they received in the past, or connected to Big Tech companies like Google that have a sordid history of data mining and violations of data privacy.
Utilizing Foundation Directory Online data and reporting by The New York Times, MRC Business discovered that leftist organizations like George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund and Omidyar Network Fund, and the liberal Ford Foundation, funneled at least a massive $231,591,575 between 1999-2022 collectively into three of the organizations (CAP, New America and R Street) represented at the hearing.