The Opportunity Although Congress has introduced many bills to regulate large technology companies and to incentivize technology development and competitiveness, with the exception of Representative Ro Khanna’s 2020 (reintroduced in 2021) bill to create a new independent agency, “to be known as the Federal Institute of Technology’’, there has not been a concerted effort by Congress to give a federal entity the power needed to encourage innovation and regulate and sanction the technology industry in a timely manner. Congress considered creating an agency for innovation when it prepared the Endless Frontier Act but ultimately it decided to create a new Technology Directorate at the National Sciences Foundation. While it was a valiant effort in a positive direction, it is unlikely that the Directorate provides enough empowerment to encourage innovation across the technology sectors. Currently, there is no executive branch agency that can address cross-agency safety issues that are not completely owned by any single agency. For example, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) currently lacks the power to order companies that produce deadly products to recall them. They are only empowered to request that the products be removed. It took several years to recall over 4 million Fisher-Price Rock and Play Sleepers after 30 deaths of infants over ten years were tied to the products.90 The FDA spent three years approving a protocol for Picture and Archiving Communication Systems (PACS) for medical scans, but they failed to conduct a security assessment for them. Meanwhile, thousands of medical images are widely available online because of a flaw in that protocol. Health and Human Services has been aware of the vulnerabilities of at least 30 systems with thousands of medical images for over two years and has yet to act to have them removed.91 A department of technology could escalate and act on such issues when other agencies fail to, or it could help augment the existing efforts of agencies.
90
Fisher-Price Recalls 4.7 million sleepers recalled as officials confirm over 30 deaths. https://www.cnn. com/2019/04/12/us/fisher-price-rock-n-play-sleeper-recall/index.html
91
Bogan, Leisel.“Your Insides Are Online: Government Capacity and Technology.” Perspectives on Public Purpose, April 5, 2022, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/your-insides-are-online-governmentcapacity-and-technology.
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School
38
