Scoop: Lawmakers tee up hearing with academics ahead of antitrust report
29 September 2020
Mostly academics will be testifying at Thursday's House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing, which will reveal where its year-long investigation into big tech and competition is going, a source familiar with the matter told Axios.
Why it matters: The hearing is the next step following testimony from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Apple's Tim Cook before the committee in July. A showing of academics and think-tank types signals the lawmakers are still sorting out competition theories and possible legislative fixes to perceived antitrust abuses.
Who's testifying:
- Michael Kades, The Washington Center for Equitable Growth
- Christopher Yoo, Penn Law School
- William Baer, The Brookings Institution
- K. Sabeel Rahman, Brooklyn Law School,
- Zephyr Teachout, Fordham Law School
- Sally Hubbard, Open Markets Institute
- Rachel Bovard, The Conservative Partnership Institute
- Tad Lipsky, George Mason University
The bottom line: The lineup includes some well-known voices who advocate for new antitrust laws to rein in tech giants, along with more conservative figures, some of whom are concerned more about content moderation than antitrust or may simply be less inclined to break up big companies.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.