Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Dan Permac. So today's show is the latest in our series of conversations with 2020 presidential candidates. And today we're joined by Eric Swalwell, a four-term congressman from California who formally got into the race last month, basing his campaign largely around the

idea of gun control.

What follows is our interview, taped earlier Tuesday morning.

Congressman, you've been known for your embrace of social media.

The Hill once called you the Snapchat King of Congress, and you represent a district that

includes part of Silicon Valley.

With that as

context, what are your thoughts on this kind of ongoing debate within Democratic Party, more broadly,

about breaking up big tech companies? An issue I know well. Elected to Congress at 31, your first job

is IT help desk, basically hoping the more senior colleagues set up Facebook and Instagram accounts.

And I did that for a while. And I saw how these platforms are ways to communicate with the broader set of constituents

and election time with voters. But I've also seen that as the times have changed, we have not changed

our antitrust laws with them. And although these platforms are free, we have to

wonder what we are really giving up. And what we're really giving up is, in many cases, our privacy.

And a lot of information about us that we may not want out there. I do believe we need to undergo

a national privacy law effort, just as Europe did in the last couple years.

And I think that is one way to make sure that consumers are more aware of how their data is being used.

Is that the model you think we should follow what Europe did with the GDPR?

I need a good start, especially just for the awareness and having to opt in when your data is being used.

But I also believe that we need a national breach notification law.

The states all have different breach notification laws to win.

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