At a fundamental level, today's hearing is about transparency.

We have seen time and time again that social media platforms are vulnerable to being exploited by bad actors.

Democrats respect the free-speech rights enshrined in the First Amendment.

But after a white supremacist terrorist was able to exploit social media platforms in this way, we all have reason to doubt the effectiveness of the GIFCT and the companies' efforts more broadly.

Congress has a responsibility not only to track the progression of these emerging technological breakthroughs, but to understand how they affect our security.

Just last week, Riviera Beach--a small city in Florida--agreed to pay a $600,000 ransom demand after hackers crippled city computer systems.

I know recognize the Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Thompson, for 5 minutes.

For its part, Congress appropriated $380 million--a down payment--to fund grants to State and local election officials to replace unsecure election equipment.

Unfortunately, the sophistication of hackers is outpacing the speed at which State and local governments can implement IT modernization programs.

These bad actors range from unaffiliated cyber criminals to sophisticated state actors--including Iran--and their interest in breaching State and local networks is only growing.

We are witnessing a new technological age with Artificial Intelligence or 'AI.'

I want to thank Chairman Richmond for holding today's hearing on an especially timely topic, the cybersecurity challenges in the State and local governments.

In March, a white supremacist terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand, exploited social media platforms to live-stream violent images across the world--millions of times over.

It is time for the Federal Government to do more.

But our challenge is, do we set parameters of guidelines with the money so that at the end of the day we can measure how successful the goal has become?

Technology such as Artificial Intelligence is one tool social media companies use to help identify, monitor, and remove such terrorist content.

As a former mayor myself, I understand the problems cities have, and mayors more specifically.

This begs the following question: Why has the Trump administration actively aggravated the challenges on our Southern Border?