CES becomes the latest victim of US government shutdown

A little before the world's largest technological show turns off in a few days, organizers warn that more speakers will be interrupted due to an ongoing winding up in the US.

The annual consumer electronics program is expected to bring nearly 200,000 tech enthusiasts and executives to Las Vegas, with the show kicked off Sunday. But on Saturday, Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Technology Association, which runs the show, issued a brief statement warning that a number of speakers working for the US government had to interrupt their appearances.

Sarah Brown, a CTA spokeswoman, said 10 speakers have canceled so far. These speakers come from the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Communications Commission and several other agencies. She added that there are no current plans to replace these speakers with other programming.

"Because of the government's closure, some of our planned government speakers at CES 2019 have notified us that they must cancel their journey to the show," Shapiro wrote in the statement. "As a result, some of our planned CES 2019 programming and speakers will change. We encourage attendees who planned to hear US federal government speakers to check the sessions on the site to ensure that those individuals are still talking."

The CES Lineup speaker will be updated regularly with any changes.

The partial closure started on December 22 after Congress failed to agree on President Donald Trump's $ 5 billion demand to fund work on a US-Mexico border wall. The stop has continued, even after the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives this week when the new Congress convened in Washington.

On Friday, Trump said he was willing to let the closure last for months or over a year. It can affect far more than one trade show, with hundreds of thousands of federal workers going without pay, and several federal agencies are slowing down the work of a crawl.

Staff of Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, already announced that Pai had to cancel his appearance, which was slated to include an interview with Shapiro. Most of the FCC employees have been raised, meaning they are on unpaid leave until the end ends. Pai and the four FCC commissioners still come to work, but their travel is limited due to limited funding.

This is the second consecutive year that Pai has canceled a look at CES, with the chairman failing last year apparently due to the death risk.

Here is a complete list of canceled government speakers at CES 2019:

• Brandon Bray, Environmental Protection Agency
• Brendan Carr, FCC
• Rohit Chopra, Federal Trade Commission
• Andre Hentz, Department of Homeland Security [19659015] Barnes Johnson, EPA
• Daniel Kaniewski, Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Ajit Pai, FCC
• Bakul Patel, Food and Drug Administration
• Rebecca Slaughter, FTC
• ] Arun Verdury, DHS

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