Mario Wagner for POLITICO

The Agenda

INTERNET OF THINGS

What Washington really knows about the Internet of Things

A POLITICO investigation.
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN

President Barack Obama wears a FitBit monitor on his wrist to count his steps and calories, and
has waxed poetic about the power of wearable technology to give each of us information that
allows us to stay healthier.
On Capitol Hill, 13 members have joined together across party lines this year to launch the Internet

of Things Caucus. Started by a former Microsoft marketing executive and a Republican who made
his fortune in electronics, the caucus pledges to help foster the coming explosion of products,
services and interconnected opportunities that didnt exist a generation ago and will be taken for
granted by the end of this generation.
Then again, the caucus hasn't even held its first meeting yet. Obama's own government panel has
warned of a "small and rapidly closing window" for the U.S. government to successfully figure
out how to deal with the tech explosion everyone is so excited about.
The number of web-linked gadgets surpassed the number of humans on the planet seven years ago,
and today the Internet of Things, the profusion of networked objects and sensors that increasingly
touch our lives, is quickly turning our physical world into something totally new. As American
consumers start filling their homes and businesses with networked technology smart watches
sending health data wirelessly, cars that can take over for their human drivers, and drones tracking
wildfires and cattle POLITICO set out to determine how well government was keeping
up. Beyond one fledgling caucus, how is Washington grappling with this sweeping new force?
The short answer: It's not.
This first-of-its-kind investigation involved reviewing hundreds of pages of federal reports and
hearing transcripts, attending many of the inside-the-Beltway events now proliferating on the
Internet of Things and conducting interviews with more than 50 senators and members of
Congress, Capitol Hill staffers, federal, state and local agency officials, privacy advocates and tech
whizzes all feeling their way into this new frontier. I also wired myself up to see just what it felt like
to move through this new world as an early adopter.
What I found, overall, is that the government doesnt have any single mechanism to address the
Internet of Things or the challenges its presenting. Instead, the new networked-object
technologies are covered by at least two dozen separate federal agencies from the Food and Drug
Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, from aviation to agriculture
and more than 30 different congressional committees. Congress has written no laws or any kind
of overarching national strategy specifically for the Internet of Things.
The Federal Trade Commission has emerged as the government's de facto police force for dubious
business practices related to the Internet of Things. But it faces serious questions about its
mandate, given the lack of underlying laws, standards and policies that apply. And numerous other
offices have grabbed onto their own piece of the elephant, often without treating it as the same
animal. For instance, NHTSA and the Federal Aviation Administration are both grappling with
controversial Internet of Things-related rules, on driverless cars and drones, respectively, though

their work isnt closely coordinated.

One of the few government documents specifically to address the IOT was a report by a White
House-chartered task force published last November. After examining the cybersecurity
implications of new networked technology for national security and emergency preparedness, the
group warned that the U.S. had until the end of the decade to really influence whether it becomes a
success or a catastrophic failure. "If the country fails to do so, it will be coping with the
consequences for generations," the report by the President's National Security
Telecommunications Advisory Committee concluded.
So far, we seem to be letting the window close. While the tech companies behind the IOT are
working hard to make their case in Washington, the budding controversies and challenges the
industry faces has barely shown up as a coherent problem on the governments radar. That day
may be coming. If you think youve got a cybersecurity problem now, wait for the cold winter day
when a hacker halfway around the world turns down the thermostat on 100,000 homes in
Washington D.C., said Marc Rotenberg, the head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Stung by years of Republican criticism that his administration is too quick to regulate, Obama's
Cabinet has gone out of its way to show how friendly it is to the innovation potential of the Internet
of Things without talking much about its consumer and public-sector risks. Congress has been
friendly, too, which is not the same thing as informed.
Theres 435 members of the House, 100 members of the Senate, and most of them still dont know
what the Internet of Things is, said Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who co-chairs the
recently created Internet of Things Caucus, and counts himself an industry evangelist.
Where government involvement is concerned, many of the most plugged-in legislators belong in
the "wait-and-see" camp. I dont think we should wait 15 years until this thing is fully operational
before we start making public policy, said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat who has taken a
leading role on the issue. But I think we could wait 15 months.
But the Internet of Things isn't waiting. Every second, as tech CTO Dave Evans calculates
elsewhere in this special report, 127 items are added to the Internet. Toasters and heart monitors;
trucking fleets and individual cows. The world we inhabit is becoming a digital landscape, one that
tracks and responds to each of us. Is anyone in Washington paying attention?
IN MAY 1869, on a promontory in northwest Utah, America changed forever. Thats
when railroad tycoons and their workers drove in the ceremonial "Golden Spike" that completed
the first transcontinental railroad and knit the East Coast to the expanding West. The railroad was
a phenomenal driver of economic growth and created fortunes but its unprecedented power also

created monopolies and complaints of corruption and unfairness. Two decades later, it
led Congress to create the first U.S. regulatory agency: the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Other big moments in American innovation history have followed similar patterns. Washington
has tended to play the role of cheerleader-in-chief standing aside as new markets grew, and
watching the consequences of each new technology lead to messy patchworks of local and state
rules, before finally deciding they required federal attention as a coherent national issue.
Congress is often a little behind the curve, said Donald Ritchie, the recently retired Senate
historian. They have to perceive theres a problem. And the advocates and lobbyists have to tell
them theres a problem before they actually do something about it.
Before the Food and Drug Administration's creation in 1906, for instance, Americans had endured
decades of food scandals and a rising market in unregulated (and useless) medicines. Henry Ford
started pumping out Model Ts at the start of the 20th century, and Americans got a national
highway system by the mid-1950s. But Congress took another decade before imposing safety and
environmental regulations on the automobile industry.
It takes a long time for the civic community and the government to catch up with the risks, said
Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate whose 1965 book "Unsafe at Any Speed" had a major role in
forcing lawmakers to impose new safety rules on the auto industry.
Air travel followed its own convoluted early path. It was a decade after the Wright Brothers
invention that Congress established a research-and-development program for aeronautics, and
another decade before the Commerce Department got its first crack at setting federal safety
standards on the new industry. The Civil Aeronautics Authority arrived in 1938 to regulate airline
fares and determine carrier routes. But not until the 1950s did President Dwight D. Eisenhower
sign the law that established the precursor to the modern day FAA.
As for the Internet itself, the technology was almost an accidental byproduct of government
research efforts that date back decades to the Defense Department. As it took off, and came into
more peoples homes, lawmakers in the 1990s did propose bills aimed at protecting Americans'
privacy and safety from this new wave of information. Most were rebuffed. And while President Bill
Clinton near the end of his first term signed the Communications Decency Act mocked at the
time as the "Great Cyberporn Panic of 1995" the Supreme Court in 1997 issued its first ruling on
Internet regulations by applying First Amendment protections to X-rated materials.

The view of the Hill on the Internet was it was new, it was radical, it was explosive and the almost
immediate reaction back then was to regulate it, said Daniel Caprio, a former chief privacy officer
and deputy assistant secretary for technology policy in President George W. Bushs Commerce
Department. Thankfully, thats not what we did.
While Americans died without rules for food, flight and cars, the Internet overall has clearly
benefited from government non-interference. So which category does the Internet of Things fall
into? Given its potential to reach deep into citizens daily lives tracking their heat use, their food
shopping, even their tooth brushing many experts struggle to pinpoint exactly where it should
fall on the regulatory spectrum. In one sense, its just a tech market, a network of chips and sensors
and wireless standards. But in another, its something that touches American citizens much more
directly and personally than the Internet itself ever has.
This is the weirdest damn thing we have in the world in terms of governance at the moment, so its
no wonder Congress cant figure out how to get its arms around it," said Christopher Hill, a
professor emeritus at George Mason University and expert on the nexus of policy and technological
history. "Its not Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T or Sprint. Its not Cisco. And its not Amazon. And
its not Dell. Who the heck is it? Thats one of the problems we have. The it in question is
extremely diffuse.
A RECENT BUSTLING Thursday morning in the Capitol offered a pretty clear picture of just
how the government is dealing with this amorphous new challenge or isnt.
In the Rayburn House Office Building, the Energy and Commerce Committee was putting the
finishing touches on a sweeping health care bill that would create a roadmap for the exchange of
electronic health records, provide stronger backing for telehealth programs, and more clearly
define the Food and Drug Administrations role in regulating wearable monitors and health apps.

Across the hall, the Financial Services Committee collected testimony on cybersecurity threats that
the banking industry faces in protecting consumer data on electronic payments. Former Minnesota
Gov. Tim Pawlenty, now a major industry lobbyist, told lawmakers how hackers represent an
existential threat to our economy and called for federal standards notifying consumers of data
breaches, pointing out the industry faced a confusing mix of almost 50 different state standards.
Congressional members flowed in and out of the hearing room to chat with lobbyists and staffers in
the marble hallway. When I stopped Rep. Sean Duffy to ask about some of the privacy and security
issues central to the IOT, the Wisconsin Republican and former MTV Real World star who
fashions himself as tech savvy and who is known to take selfies with anyone looked up
quizzically: The Internet of Things? What the hell is that?
One floor up, the American Constitution Society hosted a luncheon panel discussion on the
regulatory challenges facing Airbnb, Uber and other companies representing the so-called sharing
economy. With GPS location systems and fares that fluctuate based on market demands, Uber has
found itself pushing hard to change government regulations built around the rival taxi industry;
like many Internet of Things technologies, it also blows up traditional assumptions about who
benefits from new technologies and who needs protections. No one ever thought that Uber would
be like a black mans dream, right? said Christina Weaver, director at the Raben Group, a
liberal consulting firm, explaining how Uber can eliminate the problem African- American men
face hailing a taxi in person.
Across the Capitol, Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, got an unusually
warm embrace in the afternoon from a group of lawmaker who normally would not roll out the red
carpet for him: Senate and House Republicans. The reason: He was unveiling a governmentindustry-academic partnership on unmanned aerial vehicles headquartered at Mississippi State
University. The new research institution, he said, would help demonstrate how the Internet of
Things applies to farmers, oil workers and many more people to help them safely and efficiently do
their jobs. While this partnership looked an awful lot like a modern-day version of pork in an
earmark-free world, the Republicans didn't seem to mind.
I want to add my congratulations to the administrator," said Rep. Kevin Cramer, a Republican
from North Dakota whose home-state academics would contribute to the drone research effort.
"You know, sometimes we Republicans dont get that many opportunities to congratulate the
administration on good decisions. But you made a good one here."
Unmentioned was perhaps a more consequential effort Huerta is leading, work on a new rule that
would set weight, height, time and location restrictions on Americans' use of drones. The future of
this multibillion-dollar industry will hinge on how restrictive his policies are. And it wasnt hard to

appreciate why: About 10 minutes later, the televisions all across the Capitol running nonstop cable
switched into "BREAKING NEWS" mode: The Secret Service had just arrested a man for flying a
drone in Lafayette Square a park right across the street from the White House.
ALL OF THESE new Internet of Things technologies wont just automate everyday activities.
They are also creating vast amounts of data that users won't necessarily know are being collected
on them. Can the government do anything about it? Should it?
Personal health data is stringently policed by the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act, and the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act required financial institutions to give
consumers a privacy notice spelling out what information is collected on them, where and how its
being shared and also how the data gets protected.
Obama has been trying for several years to expand consumers online privacy rights, but so far, hes
had little luck making progress. In a 2014 White House report on Big Data, which noted the IOT
was only in the very nascent stage, the president called on Congress to pass data-breach
notification requirements for consumers, and a separate plan limiting data collection on children
and teenagers. But when the White House released its own draft bill earlier this year, it was
promptly attacked by tech companies complaining it would stifle innovation and privacy advocates
who saw the bill as a sellout to the tech industry.
Absent action on a larger privacy bill, lawmakers are taking on some IOT issues in piecemeal
oversight fashion. For example, Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee partnered in May to send letters to 17 U.S. and foreign auto manufacturers
and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking what they're doing to secure the
data collected on Americans by their new automated cars.
Some lawmakers are trying to extend privacy safeguards into these new realms. Sen. Ed Markey
(D-Mass.) asked three years ago, back when he was still in the House, for the Food and Drug
Administration to improve its oversight of implantable wireless medical devices that could be
controlled by hackers a risk that only grows more troubling as the technology is added to health
care practices and media reports find examples of potentially haywire insulin pumps
and pacemakers.
It's always better to legislate in anticipation of problems being created," Markey told me. "But
sometimes it actually takes the event to have occurred, which triggers the political outrage that
then makes it possible to legislate."
But Markey was an outlier in Congress. The industry's favorite sound bite, about the need for
government to use a "light touch on the IOT, has become a clich among lawmakers.

Two committee hearings earlier this year on Capitol Hill were actually the first conducted
specifically on the Internet of Things. A few weeks later, the Senate unanimously adopted
a nonbinding resolution that was all about the upsides of the Internet of Things.
The statement described a new business sector that could generate trillions of dollars in economic
opportunity" and "empower consumers in nearly every aspect of their daily lives." Only once, near
the end of the 450-word resolution, did a negative connotation come along: "The United States
should prioritize accelerating the development and deployment of the Internet of Things in a way
that recognizes its benefits, allows for future innovation, and responsibly protects against misuse."
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), one of the resolution's lead sponsors, said in an interview that she'd
pushed the measure because she wanted the Senate to be "proactive, for a change." It was an easy
lift getting it adopted, Senate aides said, though a few Republican conservatives posed reflexive
questions asking whether even this supportive, pro-development measure might not end
up creating a precedent for the federal government to control the Internet.
Fischer said she's been drawn into the Internet of Things because of the way technology is
transforming her state, from the agriculture fields where farmers use GPS in their tractors to
sensors that help them determine moisture content, land grade and fertilizer needs. Considering
the commercial goods being trucked in every direction across her state, she said she's also bullish
on the benefits that the IOT can have for transportation.
In our interview, Fischer declined to name a single agency that she said was going too far right now
with Internet of Things-specific regulations. But she also took credit for proposing legislation that
she said prompted the FDA to back off regulating FitBit and other wearable devices.
Ask me what the Internet of Things is. My unusual answer is, I dont know, she said. But there
are people out there that experiment, and theyre innovative and theyre entrepreneurs and theyre
creating things like mad, and thats their job. And it should be our job in government to make it
easier for them to do their job and create and build without government immediately throwing up
roadblocks.
The learning curve looks just as steep for everyone else in the Capitol. Texas GOP Rep. Michael
Burgess, chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee with primary jurisdiction over
the FTC, told me he'd recently been over to the commission's offices for a meeting covering the
Internet of Things. It was his first time there.
"I didnt realize they were so close," he said.
As for the Internet of Things Caucus, launched earlier this year by Issa and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-

Wash.), a former Microsoft employee, it's only attracted 11 other members so far, and the first
official meeting wont be until July at the earliest. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), a caucus member
who made millions founding an electronic greeting card company before being elected to Congress,
misidentified the Democrat leading the group. Burgess said he didn't even know the new caucus
existed.
Asked why the group was only now forming, even though the IOT concept has been around for
more than a decade, Issa, who from 2011 through 2014 vigorously investigated the Obama
administration from his perch atop the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,
snapped, I was busy.
THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH hasn't exactly ignored the Internet of Things. At the extreme end is
the FTC, which has emerged as Americas chief enforcer on this topic. While it cant go after
technology firms specifically for privacy or security reasons, the commission has become a kind of
data cop by using authority that dates to the Franklin Roosevelt administration to take on
companies engaging in unfair or deceptive practices.
In 2013, the FTC launched its first Internet of Things-specific case against the security and
technology firm called TRENDnet, saying the Los Angeles-based company didn't do enough to
protect its customers' private camera feeds hackers had posted links to live feeds of nearly 700 of
the cameras showing babies sleeping in their cribs, children playing and adults going about their
daily lives.
Using its enforcement powers, the FTC challenged a China-based developer of the mobile
application BabyBus last December because it appeared to collect specific geolocation data on
users millions had downloaded the system without getting parental consent. And in February,
it forced settlements with marketers of two mobile apps MelApp and Mole Detective for
claiming they could detect symptoms of melanoma, even in early stages.
The FTC in January also unveiled one of the most comprehensive government looks to date on the
Internet of Things, with a staff-written report that urged tech companies to build security into their
products and services from the outset, to minimize data collection and give consumers more notice
and choice about how their data will be used. But the FTC analysis ducked questions about specific
laws that might be needed to handle this new frontier, instead supporting Obamas broader privacy
bill that has been stuck in Congress.
"I think were all in kind of an educational phase," Maureen Ohlhausen, a Republican FTC
commissioner appointed during the Obama era, said in an interview. "Its a little hard to say
anybody has a handle on all of it at this point.

The two agencies most actively writing rules on the Internet of Things also are going out of their
way to demonstrate that their intentions are not to stop the Internet of Things. At the FAA, Huerta
recently boasted that his upcoming drone plan is "the most flexible regime for unmanned aircraft
55 pounds or less that exists anywhere in the world.
At the Transportation Department, Secretary Anthony Foxx is speeding up NHTSA's schedule to
complete regulations by the end of this year instead of 2016 that eventually would mandate
communications equipment requiring all new vehicles to connect with one another. He made the
announcement during a recent visit to Silicon Valley, insisting during the stop that the rules would
prevent deadly accidents and "eventually produce a car that drives itself better than a human being
can."
Back in Washington, Foxx told me in a brief interview that the government's Internet of Things
strategy remained in its infancy.
Its all under construction, he said. Were trying to move faster. Were trying to be smart about
it, and obviously with a primacy on safety, which is our mission. I think the future is bright for
technology. Its just a matter of making sure the processes that we have built over the last 100 years
work for the next 100 years."
Some of the other federal agencies haven't yet been forced to answer the regulatory questions,
giving them a chance to hang back and defer to the market.
"It seems to me that maybe incentivizing and encouraging as opposed to regulating may be a new
dynamic and something for government to begin thinking about in this 21st century, Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack said during a USDA-sponsored conference in February. With innovation
and technology, anyway, it's something to think about."
The Energy Department seems to be taking a similar approach: encouraging, with a note of
caution. Electric utility providers are deploying so-called Smart Grid technologies that compile
detailed information about a households energy use. Aware of the potential risks in holding such
sensitive data, the department earlier this year touted a voluntary code of conduct it created with
industry to help protect this information.
At the Commerce Department, the National Telecommunications & Information
Administration has been leading public talks since 2013 to come up with voluntary rules for
industry as it develops facial recognition technology, though POLITICO Pros Tony Romm recently
reported that privacy groups just bailed on the effort because they saw it as too industry-driven.
Several departments are trying to showcase how the Internet of Things would work for their own

missions. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, is studying the viability of network
sensors that can monitor dangerous pollutants including ozone, particulate matter and volatile
organic compounds. At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists
partnered with industry, conservationists and academia are using acoustic buoys, real-time data
and historical migration metrics to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. The Homeland
Security Department just partnered with the Air Force Academy in search of ideas for wearable
equipment for emergency first responders, including sensors and other items that link up voice and
data communications.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, another arm of the wide-ranging Commerce
Department, may be thinking the most broadly about the Internet of Things. It has no regulatory
powers, but it is delving into the underlying technical structures that can help the different gadgets
work together. This points to another kind of government intervention, one that could help the
industry and consumers by creating order out of whats starting to become a commercial free-forall.
What we want to promote is a coordinated national strategy for a globally interoperable Internet
of Things. Having a local IOT doesnt make sense, Christopher Greer, director of NIST's Smart
Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems program, told me in an interview.
ULTIMATELY, THE BUCK for most of these agencies stops with Obama's White House. The
Democrat did win both of his terms using an unprecedented array of data and digital technology.
But his record is mixed so far when it comes to tech-forward governing.
Under Obama's watch, leaker Edward Snowden exposed the post-9/11 National Security Agency
program that collected vast troves of metadata on Americans' telephone records. Obama's
signature health care law collapsed at crucial moments because of website failures and a clunky
digital infrastructure. The Office of Personnel Management earlier this month disclosed it was the
victim of the worst hacking in U.S. government history.
The White House has had responses to all of those challenges, but it has yet to come up with any
kind of coordinated strategy for what's ahead on the Internet of Things. Our overarching goal in
this space, a White House spokeswoman wrote me via email, is to encourage technological
advances that deliver great benefit for the American people, and to ensure that policy decisions are
informed by our best understanding of technology. This isnt an easy balance, and theres steady
pressure on Obama from all sides. The FBI, for example, wants to have back-door access to see
decrypted data on smartphones a policy the tech industry vigorously opposes.
Obama's top advisers say they are still reviewing recommendations from that November 2014

report by the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, which

included calls for much greater coordination across federal agencies and departments, a NISTwritten definition of what the Internet of Things is, and a more thorough accounting by the White
House Office of Management and Budget of how much federal money is spent on IOT security. For
now, they also say they want to stay on the regulatory sidelines and largely let the private
sector run.
We look at this from a lens of playing a supportive role, Daniel Correa, a senior adviser for
innovation policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, recently told a panel
at Microsoft's Washington, D.C., headquarters.
"Were not going to have a Department of the Internet of Things," added Tom Kalil, the deputy
policy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in an interview. "But
we can have a sense for where we are now, where wed like to be over the short, medium and long
term and what is a sensible division of labor based on the roles and responsibilities of different
agencies.
WHAT I CAME to realize, in the course of my reporting, is that theres an underlying mismatch
between the way government handles issues and the way this new technology actually works.
Government operates in silos in Congress, committees often fight one another for jurisdiction
harder than Democrats clash with Republicans; all the agencies, departments and commissions
that make up the federal executive branch maintain separate fiefdoms for everything from
agriculture, to defense, to transportation and energy.
The IOT is precisely the opposite. It is a freewheeling system of integrated objects and networks,
growing horizontally, destroying barriers so that people and systems that never previously
communicated now can. Already, apps on a smartphone can log health information, control your
energy use and communicate with your car a set of functions that crosses jurisdictions of at least
four different government agencies.
What that means, many predict, is that the government and the tech industries will always be
moving in different directions.
I dont think were going to get a unification of jurisdictions, said Stan Crosley, director of the
Indiana University Center for Law, Ethics and Applied Research in Health Information. "At best,
we can get a harmonization, and I dont think thats possible."
Suggestions abound for what government should do. At the local level, nearly everyone agrees
that the feds need to help develop some basic standards so that the whole country can work
together. Michael Mattmiller, Seattles chief technology officer, said techies in his city want to push

their IOT applications nationwide but need some basic federal coding rules in place first to make
sure everyones speaking the same language something as simple as the number of fields in a
home address, for instance, could render a great piece of Seattle civic technology totally useless for
Chicago.
Issa and a couple other lawmakers said the Internet of Things would benefit from a blue-ribbon
commission of experts from the ranks of industry, government, privacy and academia who can
study the full suite of issues and report back with recommendations on legislative and regulatory
policy fixes.
I worry about commissions as just being make-work. But in this case, I think it would follow in a
good tradition of commissions that would make a difference, said Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.).
Fischer wants to see Congress put pen to paper writing the country's Internet of Things strategy.
But to get there, she acknowledged she needs to help her colleagues out by pointing out to them all
of the examples in their own everyday lives that involve the Internet of Things.
I should be better at that," she told me after I'd run through a list of all the different House and
Senate panels that could conceivably be holding Internet of Things-focused hearings.
"Youre pointing things out that Im going, yeah, thats right. I'm on Armed Services and chair of
the Emerging Threats Subcommittee, so we deal with cybersecurity. And yeah, theres a lot there
that my colleagues on Armed Services probably dont realize its the Internet of Things. So we need
to be better messengers and get that vocabulary out there."
Markey praised the FTC for pushing ahead with Internet of Things cases. What's most needed now,
he told me, was a level of White House leadership that hasn't yet emerged. Im not sure its been
elevated yet to the level that it should be in order to have a comprehensive plan that is articulated
and then understood by every agency," he said. "I think its a lot more scattershot.
Hill, the technology and policy expert tied to George Mason University, pointed out that he once
worked in a government agency that did exactly this kind of work. Called the Office of Technology
Assessment, it was created in 1972 by Congress to navigate topical issues like energy and the
environment, as well as a scary mix of Cold War-inspired science and technology questions. With
as many as 140 staffers at times and a budget that topped out at more than $20 million Defense
Secretary Ash Carter is also an alum the office produced more than 800 studies and reports on
everything from biotechnology to aerospace and military technology. But the office drew
conservatives ire in part by questioning the Reagan administrations wisdom in pursuing the Star
Wars missile-defense system, and when Newt Gingrich and the 1994 GOP-led Congress came to
power, they defunded the office (with support from Democrats like Nevada Sen. Harry Reid) and

effectively killed it.

The IOT, Hill told me, "would have been subject to an intensive examination from this office. Not
necessarily hostile, either. But it would have pointed out Im sure very early and very loudly the
security issues, the liability issues, potential problems with systems out of control or getting
captured by commercial interests. It would have also pointed out the great possibility for
improvement of health care, home management and personal security.
Hill said government's challenge in handling the Internet of Things remains so complicated
because of how government has treated the Internet itself its never quite settled on how to
regulate it and partially defers to nonprofit international bodies. With the IOT, he said, the
challenges get even more complex.
Everyone from the DOE to the CIA to the NSA has got a place in this thing, Hill said, plus the
FTC and the NIH and the public service and the State Department.
"I dont know of anything else like that in technology history," he added. "I think it may well be a
unique beast.