Rep. Gohmert's Record For Stunning Technological Ignorance Is Broken By… Rep. Gohmert

from the having-quite-a-week dept

My goodness. Yesterday we posted about Rep. Louis Gohmert’s incredible, head-shakingly ignorant exchange with lawyer Orin Kerr during a Congressional hearing concerning “hacking” and the CFAA. In that discussion, Gohmert spoke out in favor of being able to “hack back” and destroy the computers of hackers — and grew indignant at the mere suggestion that this might have unintended consequences or lead people to attack the wrong targets. Gohmert thought that such talk was just Kerr trying to protect hackers.

I thought perhaps Rep. Gohmert was just having a bad day. Maybe he’s having a bad month. In a different hearing, held yesterday concerning ECPA reform, Gohmert opened his mouth again, and it was even worse. Much, much worse. Cringe-inducingly clueless. Yell at your screen clueless. Watch for yourself, but be prepared to want to yell.

The short version of this is that he seems to think that when Google has advertisements on Gmail, that’s the same thing as selling all of the information in your email to advertisers. And no matter how many times Google’s lawyer politely tries to explain the difference, Gohmert doesn’t get it. He thinks he’s making a point — smirking the whole time — that what Google does is somehow the equivalent of government snooping, in that he keeps asking if Google can just “sell” access to everyone’s email to the government. I’m going to post a transcript below, and because I simply cannot not interject how ridiculously uninformed Gohmert’s line of questioning is, I’m going to interject in the transcript as appropriate.

Rep. Gohmert: I was curious. Doesn’t Google sell information acquired from emails to different vendors so that they can target certain individuals with their promotions?

Google lawyer whose name I didn’t catch: Uh, no, we don’t sell email content. We do have a system — similar to the system we have for scanning for spam and malware — that can identify what type of ads are most relevant to serve on email messages. It’s an automated process. There’s no human interaction. Certainly, the email is not sold to anybody or disclosed.

Gohmert: So how do these other vendors get our emails and think that we may be interested in the products they’re selling.

Okay, already we’re off to a great start in monumental ignorance. The initial question was based on a complete falsehood — that Google sells such information — and after the lawyer told him that this is not true, Gohmert completely ignores that and still asks how they get the emails. It never seems to occur to him that they don’t get the emails.

Google lawyer: They don’t actually get your email. What they’re able to do is through our advertising business be able to identify keywords that they would like to trigger the display of one of their ads, but they don’t get information about who the user is or any…

Gohmert: Well that brings me back. So they get information about keywords in our emails that they use to decide who to send promotions to, albeit automatically done. Correct?

NO. Not correct. In fact, that’s the exact opposite of what the lawyer just said. Gohmert can’t seem to comprehend that Google placing targeted ads next to emails has NOTHING to do with sending any information back to the advertiser. I wonder, when Rep. Gohmert turns on his television to watch the evening news, does he think that the TV station is sending his name, address, channel watching info, etc. back to advertisers? That’s not how it works. At all. The advertisers state where they want their ads to appear, and Google’s system figures out where to place the ads. At no point does any information from email accounts go back to anyone. And yet Gohmert keeps asking.

And not understanding the rather basic answers. Unfortunately, the lawyer tries to actually explain reality to Gohmert in a professional and detailed manner, when it seems clear that the proper way to answer his questions is in shorter, simpler sentences such as: “No, that’s 100% incorrect.”

Lawyer: The email context is used to identify what ads are most relevant to the user…

Gohmert: And do they pay for the right or the contractual ability to target those individuals who use those keywords?

Lawyer: I might phrase that slightly differently, but the gist is correct, that advertisers are able to bid for the placement of advertisements to users, where our system has detected might be interested in the advertisement.

Gohmert: Okay, so what would prevent the federal government from making a deal with Google, so they could also “Scroogle” people, and say “I want to know everyone who has ever used the term ‘Benghazi'” or “I want everyone who’s ever used… a certain term.” Would you discriminate against the government, or would you allow the government to know about all emails that included those words?

Okay, try not to hit your head on your desk after that exchange. First, he (perhaps accidentally) gets a statement more or less correct, that advertisers pay to have their ads show up, but immediately follows that up with something completely unrelated to that. First, he tosses in “Scroogled” — a term that Microsoft uses in its advertising against Gmail and in favor of Outlook.com — suggesting exactly where this “line” of questioning may have originated. Tip to Microsoft lobbyists, by the way: if you want to put Google on the hot seat, it might help to try a line of questioning that actually makes sense.

Then, the second part, you just have to say huh? The lawyer already explained, repeatedly, that Google doesn’t send any information back to the advertiser, and yet he’s trying to suggest that the government snooping through your email is the same thing… and Google somehow not giving the government that info is Google “discriminating” against the government? What? Really?

Lawyer [confounded look] Uh… sir, I think those are apples and oranges. I think the disclosure of the identity…

Gohmert: I’m not asking for a fruit comparison. I’m just asking would you be willing to make that deal with the government? The same one you do with private advertisers, so that the government would know which emails are using which words.

Seriously? I recognize that there are no requirements on intelligence to get elected to Congress, but is there anyone who honestly could not comprehend what he meant by saying it’s “apples and oranges”? But, clearly he does not understand that because not only does he mock the analogy, he then repeats the same question in which he insists — despite the multiple explanations that state the exact opposite — that advertisers get access to emails and information about email users, and that the government should be able to do the same thing.

Lawyer: Thank you, sir. I meant by that, that it isn’t the same deal that’s being suggested there.

Gohmert: But I’m asking specifically if the same type of deal could be made by the federal government? [some pointless rant about US government videos aired overseas that is completely irrelevant and which it wasn’t worth transcribing] But if that same government will spend tens of thousands to do a commercial, they might, under some hare-brained idea like to do a deal to get all the email addresses that use certain words. Couldn’t they make that same kind of deal that private advertisers do?

Holy crap. Gohmert, for the fourth time already, nobody gets email addresses. No private business gets the email addresses. No private business gets to see inside of anyone’s email. Seeing inside someone’s email has nothing to do with buying ads in email. If the government wants to “do the same deal as private advertisers” then yes it can advertise on Gmail… and it still won’t get the email addresses or any other information about emailers, because at no point does Google advertising work that way.

Lawyer: We would not honor a request from the government for such a…

Gohmert: So you would discriminate against the government if they tried to do what your private advertisers do?

No. No. No. No. No. The lawyer already told you half a dozen times, no. The government can do exactly what private advertisers do, which is buy ads. And, just like private advertisers, they would get back no email addresses or any such information.

Lawyer: I don’t think that describes what private advertisers…

Gohmert: Okay, does anybody here have any — obviously, you’re doing a good job protecting your employer — but does anybody have any proposed legislation that would assist us in what we’re doing?

What are we doing, here? Because it certainly seems like you’re making one of the most ignorant arguments ever to come out of an elected officials’ mouth, and that’s saying quite a bit. You keep saying “private advertisers get A” when the reality is that private advertisers get nothing of the sort — and then you ignore that (over and over and over and over again) and then say “well if private advertisers get A, why can’t the government get A.” The answer is because neither of them get A and never have.

Gohmert: I would be very interested in any phrase, any clauses, any items that we might add to legislation, or take from existing legislation, to help us deal with this problem. Because I am very interested and very concerned about our privacy and our email.

If you were either interested or concerned then you would know that no such information goes back to advertisers before you stepped into the room (hell, before you got elected, really). But, even if you were ignorant of that fact before the hearing, the fact that the lawyer tried half a dozen times, in a half a dozen different ways to tell you that the information is not shared should have educated you on that fact. So I’m “very interested” in what sort of “language” Gohmert is going to try to add to legislation that deals with a non-existent problem that he insists is real.

Gohmert: And just so the simpletons that sometimes write for the Huffington Post understand, I don’t want the government to have all that information.

Rep. Sensenbrenner: For the point of personal privilege, my son writes for the Huffington Post.

Gohmert: Well then maybe he’s not one of the simpletons I was referring to.

Sensenbrenner: He does have a Phd.

Gohmert: Well, you can still be a PHUL.

Har, har, har… wait, what? So much insanity to unpack. First of all, Gohmert seems to think that people will be making fun of him for suggesting that the government should “buy” access to your email on Google. And, yes, we will make fun of that, but not for the reasons that he thinks they will. No one thinks that Gohmert seriously wants the government to buy access to information on Google. What everyone’s laughing (or cringing) at is the idea that anyone could buy that info, because you can’t. No private advertiser. No government. It’s just not possible.

But, I guess we’re all just “simpletons.”

Seriously, however, we as citizens deserve better politicians. No one expects politicians to necessarily understand every aspect of technology, but there are some simple concepts that you should at least be able to grasp when explained to you repeatedly by experts. When a politician repeatedly demonstrates no ability to comprehend a rather basic concept — and to then granstand on their own ignorance — it’s time to find better politicians. Quickly.

Filed Under: advertising, data, ecpa, gmail, ignorance, information, louis gohmert, snooping
Companies: google