Apple CEO Tim Cook Talks Technology With Senator Orrin Hatch During Washington, D.C. Trip

Apple CEO Tim Cook met with at least one U.S. senator to discuss technology policy during a trip to Washington, D.C. this week, reports The Hill. According to the report, Cook sat down with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force.

capitol-building
Cook apparently met with Hatch to discuss the senator's innovation agenda for the upcoming 114th Congress, which is scheduled to convene in January 2015. The pro-research and innovation plan addresses several critical technology issues including patent trolls, company trade secrets, and more.

Sen. Hatch, who serves as Chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, laid out a plan to ensure that the United States continues to foster an environment that encourages research and innovation by addressing abusive patent litigation, protecting trade secrets, modernizing the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, strengthening cybersecurity, reforming immigration policy for high-skilled workers, reducing regulatory and tax burdens for innovators, and removing barriers to digital trade.

Details of the conversation were not made available, nor is it known whether Cook met with any other senators during his D.C. trip. On Monday, the Apple CEO, along with (RED) CEO Deborah Dugan, dropped by a Georgetown Apple Store in the city to mark World AIDS Day and Apple's contributions toward the (RED) campaign. Both Cook and Dugan tweeted photos from the visit.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts..

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro and Air Feature

Two iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air Colors Appear to Scratch More Easily

Friday September 19, 2025 10:02 am PDT by
As reported by Bloomberg today, some of the new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air models on display at Apple Stores today are already scratched and scuffed. French blog Consomac also reported on this topic. The scratches appear to be most prominent on models with darker finishes, including the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in Deep Blue, and the iPhone Air in Space Black. Images Credit: Consoma ...
iOS 26

Everything New in iOS 26.1 Beta 1

Monday September 22, 2025 12:44 pm PDT by
Apple released the first beta of iOS 26.1 today, just a week after launching iOS 26. iOS 26.1 mainly adds new languages to Apple Intelligence, but there are a few other features that are worth knowing about. New Apple Intelligence Languages Apple Intelligence is now available in Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese. AirPo...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Foldable iPhone Like 'Two Titanium iPhone Airs' Joined at the Hinge

Monday September 22, 2025 2:16 am PDT by
Next year's rumored foldable iPhone will showcase an ultra-thin design resembling "two titanium iPhone Airs side-by-side," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says Apple's first foldable device will be "super thin and a design achievement," combining Apple's thinnest iPhone form factor with cutting-edge folding...
Apple Intelligence General Feature 2

iOS 26.1 Adds New Apple Intelligence Languages and Expands AirPods Live Translation

Monday September 22, 2025 11:15 am PDT by
With iOS 26.1, Apple Intelligence is gaining support for additional languages, including Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese. Apple announced plans to expand the languages that can be used with Apple Intelligence last year, and now the added language support is here. Apple Intelligence is now available in the following...
iPhone 17 Pro and Air N1 Feature

Some iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air Users Experiencing Intermittent Wi-Fi Issue

Monday September 22, 2025 8:44 am PDT by
Apple's latest iPhone models launched on Friday, and some early adopters of the devices are experiencing intermittent Wi-Fi issues. Affected customers say Wi-Fi connectivity periodically cuts out on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, with hundreds of comments about the issue posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and the Apple Support Community over the...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.1 Coming Soon, Likely With iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro Fix

Thursday September 18, 2025 9:17 am PDT by
Apple is preparing to release iOS 26.0.1, according to a private account on X with a proven track record of sharing information about future iOS versions. The update will have a build number of 23A350, or similar, the account said. It is likely that iOS 26.0.1 will fix a camera-related bug on the new iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models. In his iPhone Air review, CNN Underscored's Henry T. ...

Top Rated Comments

Small White Car Avatar
141 months ago
Since Tim Cook is a California resident shouldn't he be meeting with his California Senators/Reps?

"Sen. Hatch, who serves as Chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force..."
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JohnStrass Avatar
141 months ago
For 6 years now Democrats in the Senate have been in charge and taunting Republicans by vacuuous rhetoric accusing them of not coming up with ideas, all the time ignoring over 357 bills PASSED in the R House.

The time is upon us for Republican ideas to get actual traction by PASSING bills in both the House and Senate and piling them high on the desk of the President.

Then we will see what the "leader" of the Democrats actually does with ideas Democrats help craft in both the House and Senate.

I predict this Socialist President will do almost nothing.

BTW I have been saying this continuously for years (see sig).

1. Its nice that only 54 of those "Bills PASSED" ware pointless attempts to kill obamacare...:mad:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/03/21/the-house-has-voted-54-times-in-four-years-on-obamacare-heres-the-full-list/


2. read up on your Socialism...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/365722/market-socialism
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
aaronvan Avatar
141 months ago
Since Tim Cook is a California resident shouldn't he be meeting with his California Senators/Reps?

I doubt Tim Cook could stand to be in the same room with California's two odious Senators.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
winston1236 Avatar
141 months ago
There IS NO DOUBLE TAX. Simply, you pay local taxes. IF the taxes you pay are less than US income tax, then you pay Uncle Sam the difference.


In other words, you benefit from being American and pay the same taxes as any other American.

*buzzer* WRONG. If you make less than around 70k abroad you don't have to pay US tax, above that you do. So yes there is double taxation.

----------

For 6 years now Democrats in the Senate have been in charge and taunting Republicans by vacuuous rhetoric accusing them of not coming up with ideas, all the time ignoring over 357 bills PASSED in the R House.

The time is upon us for Republican ideas to get actual traction by PASSING bills in both the House and Senate and piling them high on the desk of the President.

Then we will see what the "leader" of the Democrats actually does with ideas Democrats help craft in both the House and Senate.

I predict this Socialist President will do almost nothing.

This administration believes in tax, spend, borrow, fine, mandate, monologue. The Pres. demogogues Congress, bottlenecked by the D Senate!

BTW I have been saying this continuously for years (see sig).

Top fines collected by FEDGOV. It goes into the Treasury without a mandated use, so the President has the mother of all slush funds!

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/06/23/a-list-of-the-biggest-bank-settlements/

Obama is center right, not liberal and certainly not socialist. A Socialist would have given us single payer healthcare and overturned the 2005 Republican Bankruptcy Law that made all student loans both public and private a lifetime debt.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Gasu E. Avatar
141 months ago
How about when Obama and the Democrats accept and embrace a good Republican-initiated idea (hint: Obamacare is but one example) and then the Republicans flip-flop and make up all kinds of fictions ("death panels" anyone?) just to block "the enemy" from being seen to serve the country? Their policy is to oppose everything... and then ober the coming years when Obama's policies do help people in spite of all opposition, they'll gladly take the credit. Time travel at its best! (See also: Obama somehow caused the recession under Bush's adminstration!)

Great.

Somebody had to say it :)

There's definitely a pattern there. Remember how a couple of years ago Mitt and his friends were complaining because 47% of Americans were not paying income taxes and therefore (ignoring all other taxes) didn't "have skin in the game"? That was because of the Earned Income Credit-- which was a Republican idea, the concept being that it was an incentive for people to get off welfare and instead work for low wages-- a Republican alternative to welfare. Which, of course, they deny, as it is helping all those lazy "takers."

Then there were all the incentives to help relatively low-income families get mortgages. This was a great idea-- out of the Reagan administration. The idea being that home ownership would give people incentives to fix up their property, and would help to make low-income neighborhoods cleaner and safer. Again, now disavowed by today's Republicans.

Of course, the core concepts of Obamacare came out of a Heritage Foundation paper, which was then implemented by the same Mitt Romney. Now, if you want to be amused, you should look up the history of statements by the Heritage author, as he increasingly disavows his ownership over time-- it's actually quite funny if you trace this.

There used to be a time, not that long ago, that Republicans (and conservative Republicans!!!) actually believes that government could and should help poor people through active policies. The distinctiveness was that they believed big money should not just be thrown at the poor via big government bureaucracies but should be carefully targeted to support clever programs designed to leverage market forces. Now, the Republicans are overrun by people who believe in a pseudo "philosophy", invented by a science fiction writer (ironically an atheist), that low income people are lazy, shiftless parasites for whom poverty is just and deserved.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
2499723 Avatar
141 months ago
I predict this Socialist President will do almost nothing

For better or for worse, depending on one's point of view, Obama is quite the opposite of a socialist president. I'm not sure that's even possible in US politics (or indeed most of Western Europe) given the near universal attachment to neo-liberal free market ideology. Whatever one's leanings, it seems there are certain universal truths to modern 'Western democracies', and that's one of them.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)