President Barack Obama will meet with many of Silicon Valley’s best-known executives Tuesday at the White House to discuss the troubled Healthcare.gov website and controversial surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency, the administration announced.
“Tomorrow, President Obama will meet with executives from leading tech companies to discuss progress made in addressing performance and capacity issues with HealthCare.Gov and how government can better deliver IT to maximize innovation, efficiency and customer service,” a White House official said. “The meeting will also address national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures. Finally, the President will discuss ways his Administration can partner with the tech sector to further grow the economy, create jobs and address issues around income inequality and social mobility.”
The meeting comes one day after a federal judge ruled that an NSA phone data collection program likely violates the Constitution, and one week after eight tech giants released an open letter to Obama and Congress protesting the scale of government surveillance programs. “This summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide,” AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo wrote in the letter. “The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change.”
The list of those expected to attend:
· Tim Cook, CEO, Apple
· Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter
· Chad Dickerson, CEO, Etsy
· Reed Hastings, Co-Founder & CEO, Netflix
· Drew Houston, Founder & CEO, Dropbox
· Marissa Mayer, President and CEO, Yahoo!
· Burke Norton, Chief Legal Officer, Salesforce
· Mark Pincus, Founder, Chief Product Officer & Chairman, Zynga
· Shervin Pishevar, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Sherpa Global
· Brian Roberts, Chairman & CEO, Comcast
· Erika Rottenberg, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, LinkedIn
· Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
· Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google
· Brad Smith, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft
· Randall Stephenson, Chairman & CEO, AT&T