Federal Legislators Take Another Run At Ending Qualified Immunity

from the no-longer-above-the-law,-but-subject-to-it dept

Last summer as protests raged around the nation in response to the killing of an unarmed black man by a white Minnesota police officer, federal legislators offered up a solution to one of the hot garbage problems of our time. A federal police reform bill contained a number of fixes to policing in America, including one crucial element that would make it far easier for citizens to pursue lawsuits over rights violations: the termination of the qualified immunity defense.

Over the years, qualified immunity has morphed from a limited protection for officers to allow them to make split-second decisions in dangerous situations to a blanket excuse for rights violations. Thanks mainly to the US Supreme Court, qualified immunity now shields officers from large numbers of legitimate accusations of rights violations. SCOTUS has shifted the emphasis to judicial precedent, rather than any discussion of the alleged violations brought before federal court judges. As long as law enforcement personnel violate rights in new ways that aren't covered by existing precedent, the officers are allowed to dodge lawsuits, juries, and fact-finding.

The Supreme Court has made it easier for lower courts to dodge questions about rights violations -- and, in turn, prevent them from establishing new precedent -- by forcing them to defer to a limited test that only involves established precedent and a very limited examination of the facts of the case. Only recently has the Supreme Court realized it may have had this wrong. Two remands to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (the circuit most protective of cops) in the past few months indicate the nation's top court now feels the lower courts have followed its damaging instructions too closely.

So, there may be hope going forward. But it will be slow in arriving and still somewhat limited by the Supreme Court's precedential blanket instructions on QI cases. Nonetheless, there is hope.

What may be faster-acting is some federal legislation. Far too often, courts defer to legislators who seemingly have zero interest in deterring the wreckage qualified immunity has wrought. Asking politicians to go head-to-head with some of their most powerful supporters is kind of a non-starter. But if it's legislation courts are demanding, at least a few legislators are willing to give it to them.

The last effort to eliminate qualified immunity died quietly, even as cities continued to burn. The effort has been renewed by a bipartisan group of legislators who have seen immunity and the damage done and refuse to offer their tacit blessing of this accountability escape hatch by doing nothing. Akela Lacy has more details for The Intercept:

Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, Democrats of Massachusetts, are introducing a bill to fully end qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects police and law enforcement officials from civil liability in cases where they are accused of violating someone's constitutional rights.

The "Ending Qualified Immunity Act" [PDF] would do exactly that, building on Rep. Justin Amash's attempt to terminate this bullshit last year, when the irons were hot and setting fire to precinct houses. The bill notes law enforcement has been on the wrong side of history since the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Since then, law enforcement hasn't bothered to correct its course. It engages in biased policing pretty much all the time and sinks its funding into efforts that reinforce its foregone (and often bigoted) conclusions.

As the bill points out, qualified immunity actually subverts the intention of federal legislators. It was created solely by a single court with no deferral to legislators who had already expressed their intent through this legislation, which created a cause of action for citizens whose rights had been violated.

This doctrine of qualified immunity has severely limited the ability of many plaintiffs to recover damages under section 1983 when their rights have been violated by State and local officials. As a result, the intent of Congress in passing the law has been frustrated, and Americans’ rights secured by the Constitution have not been appropriately protected.

In short, screw qualified immunity. It undercuts the Constitution as well as legislative intent. With this bill, QI would no longer be considered a defense to allegations of rights violations.

It shall not be a defense or immunity to any action brought under this section that the defendant was acting in good faith, or that the defendant believed, reasonably or otherwise, that his or her conduct was lawful at the time when it was committed. Nor shall it be a defense or immunity that the rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution or Federal laws were not clearly established at the time of their deprivation by the defendant, or that the state of the law was otherwise such that the defendant could not reasonably have been expected to know whether his or her conduct was lawful.

This doesn't prevent cops from escaping civil rights lawsuits. They still can. But they can't do it with a motion to dismiss prior to any fact-finding. Instead, they'll have to deal with lawsuits like most civilians have to: by bringing their own evidence and waiting for a judge to rule on the merits. In some cases, this will mean going to trial. And going to trial should never be considered a failure of the system. That's supposed to be the desired outcome. Instead, we've been given years of cops pressing the eject button and simply nodding along as allegations remain unaddressed, even when the courts are still supposed to assume plaintiffs' allegations are true.

This won't be the litigation apocalypse cops will claim it to be. Instead, it will put them on the same playing field the rest of us have to work with. Government employees should be holding themselves to higher standards. This bill only demands law enforcement officers abide by the same rules governing non-cop-related litigation.

Filed Under: congress, police, protests, qualified immunity

A Teenaged Tech CEO Tries To Sneak In After Curfew And Finds His Mom Waited Up For Him

from the but-maaaaaaaaahm dept

With Congress spending a lot of time these days demanding answers from big tech firms, you may have noticed a notable similarity in style regarding how they respond to these kinds of inquiries.

Thank you very much for inviting my input on the topic of being grounded. I appreciate the opportunity to engage with Mom regarding this important discussion.

I take living under your roof very seriously. I am proud to be a recognized leader in crucial household initiatives such as making the bed and setting the table. Last year, data rigorously collected by the chores chart on the refrigerator[1] shows that I folded the laundry 48 times, a 200% increase year over year. [2] My contributions in these areas demonstrate my ongoing commitment to this family.

From time to time, I may adjust my going-out policies based on data-driven decision-making and evaluation of the current regulatory environment. My interpretation of curfew is based upon guidance from Dad who said 1:00 a.m. was OK, but you weren’t there, I think you were at the store. If the conclusions I drew from this guidance do not reflect parental intent, I regret the miscommunication and appreciate the chance for clarification.

My policies are consistent with industry best practices in this area. According to my most recent review, Jennifer's mom lets her come home at 1:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and Denise's mom lets her sleep over at a boy's house so long as his mom calls her mom first. Accordingly, I believe that my going-out policy reflects standard parental expectations in the community where I operate.

Should you have any additional requests for information, I can be reached in my room via text message. Mom, gawd, just text me like a normal person. No I won’t hear you knock because I always have my earbuds in. Well I put them in because you complained I was playing my music too loud, JEEZ I CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT I HATE IT HERE [bursts into tears, storms upstairs]

Thank you again for the opportunity to continue the dialogue on this critical issue. I look forward to answering your questions.

[1] See Attachment A.
[2] Id.; see also [REDACTED].

When Riana Pfefferkorn is not writing satirical letters to Congress Mom, she's a Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She can be found online at @Riana_Crypto.

Filed Under: congress, teenagers, testimony

Why Is Congress Pushing For Locking Up More Culture?

from the seems-backwards dept

In a weird bit of performative nonsense, Senators Thom Tillis and Pat Leahy, along with Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Mace, have come together to... try to help kids lock up culture under copyright. Specifically, they want a bill that would allow kids to register a copyright for free for participants in the Congressional Art Competition and the Congressional App Competition. It is not at all clear why this is necessary, other than to perpetuate the myth that you need a copyright to be creative.

First, to be clear, any such unique and original artwork is already covered by copyright. For better or for worse (by which I mean, for worse), the US now says that copyright is automatic from the time the work is "fixed" in a tangible medium (and if you try to point out that computer code is not a tangible medium, it gets them very, very angry, so don't bother...). So no one needs to register their copyright to be protected. Not registering does limit the ability of the copyright holder to sue or to get statutory damages. But if anyone creating works for a Congressional Art Competition is seeking to sue others, well, that seems like a bigger problem right there.

But here's the key point: copyright is supposed to be there solely as an incentive for creation. The entire setup and basis for copyright in the Constitution is so that Congress can create incentives to promote the progress of science and the useful arts (and, copyright was meant for the "science" part, patents are the "useful arts"). I can pretty much assure you that no one creating artwork or apps for a Congressional competition is doing so because they're incentivized by the copyright. They're doing so because of the competition itself and the desire to express themselves (and maybe get some attention for what they've done).

So encouraging locking these things up is bizarre and counterproductive. More to the point, why aren't these elected officials suggesting that the artists and developers entering these competitions explore the many Creative Commons options to help get their works more widely known?

The answer, tragically, is as obvious as it is cynical. This is all driven by the legacy copyright industries who keep trying to push the myth that copyright = creation. And these are their favorite elected officials. Hollywood backed Tillis strongly in the last election, in which he was expected to lose, so he clearly owes them. Leahy has always been extremely close to Hollywood. Beyond being the Senate supporter of SOPA (his version was PIPA), Hollywood always rewards Leahy by giving him small roles in every Batman film. His daughter is also a Vice President and top lobbyist for the Motion Picture Academy, Hollywood's top lobbying body.

On the House side, the legacy copyright industry has been cultivating a close relationship with Jeffries for a while now, including setting up a neat fundraiser for him in which if you just pay him (and Jerry Nadler) $5k each you get to hang out with Jeffries at the Grammies. Nice work if you can get it. Nancy Mace is new to Congress, so she may just be along for the ride here.

The problem with all of this is just how cynically corrupt this seems. Even if it's in the form of "soft corruption," the connection of a few Senators and Representatives pushing a misguided line of thinking -- that completely undermines the very basis for copyright law -- in favor of the myth pushed by Hollywood and the legacy recording industry, it just makes everyone actually respect copyright even less.

This isn't what copyright is for, and it's shameful that these elected officials are pushing the myth forward.

Filed Under: congress, congressional app competition, congressional art competition, copyright, copyright office, copyright registration, culture, hakeem jeffries, nancy mace, pat leahy, thom tillis

Section 230 Lets Tech Fix Content Moderation Issues. Congress Should Respect That

from the soft-law-works dept

Congress is on the brink of destroying the internet as we know it.

Bipartisanship in Congress is usually rare to see, but odd alliances have formed in the Capitol against Section 230, a law that regulates content moderation online which is in large part responsible for the incredible growth and diversity of the internet. Republicans accuse Facebook and Twitter of censoring conservative users on their platforms. Democrats accuse these companies of not doing enough in removing extremist or false content. While both sides agree that S230 has got to go, they’re at war with each other over who will drive regulatory efforts on content moderation. In the end, it won’t really matter who wins. Either way, the spoils of this war will be a gutted S230 or its repeal. That’s bad news for everyone.

Before they ruin the internet entirely, Democrats and Republicans should take a step back and let industry standards catch up with the times.

Removing Section 230 because of actors like Facebook and Twitter would mean harming other websites that haven’t done anything wrong and putting companies in the crossfire. On the other hand, too many new restrictions would cripple the competitive edge our tech sector has over the rest of the world. In both cases only larger companies like Facebook and Twitter would survive, while small businesses — like a family restaurant in Steubenville, Ohio, whose social media presence is driven entirely by customer reviews — would suffer and likely close.

This doesn’t mean that nothing should be done. Something should be done, and soft law is the way.

Soft law is not “law” in the normal sense. It refers to the diverse tools used by private or government bodies to guide how industries should develop. Common soft laws include industry standards created by public-private partnerships, the LEED rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council, and the guides on how to treat COVID by the Center for Disease Control. The uniqueness of soft law is that, instead of coming primarily from government regulators, it can come from anywhere. And instead of focusing on setting strict rules, it focuses on methods to attain ideal outcomes. This makes it “soft” because interpretation of the ‘law’ will differ between participants, who will not be fined for going their own way. Soft law provides guidance while encouraging innovation in reaching industry goals. In this way, it beats the rigidity of hard law.

Soft law is already heavily utilized in artificial intelligence and automated vehicles, so legislators, regulators, and private companies advocating for this approach would have a strong precedent to point to as Section 230 talks continue. Moreover, this wouldn’t be the first time that we tried to regulate the internet with soft law. The early internet was ‘regulated’ by the Clinton administration through The Framework for Global Electronic Commerce, which established principles of how the federal government would regulate internet activities and how it expected the private sector to act. Most importantly, it stated that, “…governments should recognize the unique qualities of the Internet. The genius and explosive success of the Internet can be attributed in part to its decentralized nature and to its tradition of bottom-up governance.”

As legislators look to revise regulations on the internet, it's essential they preserve that bottom-up governance that made the internet such an explosive success. To that end, rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach to content moderation, the government should encourage companies to develop their own standards and make those standards publicly accessible. Instead of prescribing a single set of rules for the internet, the government should hold up companies developing their unique standards as models for the industry at large.

A great example of one such model is the Oversight Board of Facebook, which recently announced its first series of case complaints against the company. The board, composed of former Prime Ministers, think tank leaders, and legal scholars, deliberated and overturned four out of five cases of censorship. Facebook released a statement saying they would abide by the decisions and work to create clearer content moderation policies. Facebook’s approach is innovative for tech giants like itself, but smaller companies require different standards for their audience. Nonprofits like Wikipedia handle this with their own open-source system that encourages volunteer administrators collaborating on content issues. Smaller companies like AllTrails bring moderation to their entire user-base to suggest new trail maps and edit current ones based on user feedback.

Government needs to understand that what works for Facebook won't work for everyone else, and targeting Section 230 to fix all content moderation problems is the wrong approach. The key idea of Facebook’s Oversight Board, Wikipedia’s volunteer administrators, and AllTrails’ public moderation is that they all accomplish the same goal in very different ways. And that’s the essence of soft law. Protected by Section 230, and without an overarching government agency or document requiring them to reach a prescribed standard, companies should be able to create innovative methods in content moderation all on their own.

Some argue that self-regulation is a big nothing burger — that it’s little more than a facade shielding companies from having to take any real responsibility for content posted on their sites. But that’s not true. Leaving content moderation solely to the companies makes them accountable to the public. By now we should all know just how compelling the public can be. For instance, last June public perception of Facebook’s ability to make good decisions on content moderation was overwhelmingly negative, with about 80% not trusting ‘Big Tech,’ but trusting the government even less. It’s no coincidence that Facebook launched its Oversight Board that summer. Other examples of companies imposing standards voluntarily to meet the public’s demand for accountability include Reddit’s “Transparency Report” which is issued every year allowing the public to see what content is being removed and the reasons for doing so. This report is a part of Reddit’s interpretation of the Santa Clara Principles, a soft law effort led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU, and several other non-profits. Following these principles allows the public to hold companies accountable to their own promises, addressing a major issue in customer trust while maintaining the integrity of Section 230.

Section 230 allowed entrepreneurs the protection and flexibility to explore new directions in tech that lead to some of the greatest economic and technological advancements in US history. Instead of gutting a law that made the internet what it is today, regulators should respect soft law alternatives brought by the private sector and encourage companies to find what works, helping users and businesses that rely on platforms currently protected by Section 230. Innovation is what will win the war of the web. We’ll only have a free internet as long as we can keep it.

Luke is an economics graduate student at George Mason University focusing on entrepreneurship, health, and innovative technology. You can follow him on twitter @LiberLuke.

Filed Under: congress, content moderation, section 230, soft law

Congressman Asks House Education Committee To Look At Pre-Crime Program Targeting Florida Schoolkids

from the legitimate-use-of-'won't-someone-think-of-the-children?' dept

Late last year, the Tampa Bay Times broke the news the local sheriff's office had set up a "pre-crime" program targeting schoolkids in Pasco County. The same program used by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office to harass residents into "moving or suing" (yes, those are the Sheriff's words) had been retooled to target minors, utilizing highly questionable access to students' records.

Some deputies made dozens of visits a year to residents that the Office had declared pre-criminals, citing them missing mailbox numbers or overgrown grass. What's in line for students being subjected to the same scrutiny isn't clear, but the Sheriff's broad list of indicators is pretty disturbing. According to the Sheriff, potentially criminal minors were students with low grades, spotty attendance, and/or were victims/witnesses of domestic violence.

The program itself was disturbing. But the Sheriff's access to student records appeared to be illegal. A privacy group dug into the laws surrounding the use of student records and came to the conclusion this program violated federal privacy protection laws, namely FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act).

While educators may have been able to share some records with School Resource Officers working with the Sheriff's Department, they were forbidden from sharing those records with the Sheriff's Office -- at least not without parental consent. Parental involvement in any of this pre-crime BS appears to be minimal. In fact, most parents (and administrators) appeared to be unaware the program even existed before the Tampa Bay Times uncovered it with public records requests.

Now the program has drawn the attention of Congress.

Denouncing the program as promoting “racial bias” and further feeding the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a U.S. congressman Tuesday called for a federal investigation into the Pasco school district’s practice of sharing student data with law enforcement.

“This use of student records goes against the letter and the spirit of (the federal student privacy law) and risks subjecting students, especially Black and Latino students, to excessive law enforcement interactions and stigmatization,” said U.S. Rep. Robert C. Scott, a Virginia Democrat and the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, in a letter to the acting federal education secretary.

The letter [PDF] points out the Sheriff's program blatantly ignores FERPA to give the Office a way to turn students into criminals, even if they have never committed a crime in their (short) lives.

Despite these clear restrictions, a recently uncovered “Intelligence-Led Policing Manual” indicates that a public school district has been releasing FERPA-protected education records to its local sheriff’s office, so that the sheriff can “identify at-risk youth who are destined to a life of crime.” The sheriff’s office collects information from FERPA-protected records on “student’s grades, attendance, and behavior.” Using these records, the sheriff categorizes students by what it claims is their likelihood of “becoming prolific offenders” effectively creating a school to prison pipeline and determining their outcomes for them. Additionally, the sheriff collects data from other state agencies on children’s social networks and whether children have experienced abuse or other trauma, which it claims “significantly increase[s] their likelihood of developing into serious, violent, and chronic . . . offenders.” To be clear, though the sheriff’s intelligence report refers to these children as “potential offenders,” this is not a list of juvenile offenders, but a list of children that may have committed no crimes.

More locally, the Pasco County Parents and Teachers Association is calling for the school district to reconsider its data-sharing agreements with the Sheriff's Office and to ensure its participation is actually lawful. More reasonable parents are demanding the program be stopped completely.

So far, the school district has only offered this vapid statement:

The school district said it planned to “assure the PTA County Council that our agreements with the Sheriff’s Office are routinely reviewed and, when appropriate, revised or updated.”

Obviously, this isn't true. If they were routinely reviewed, someone who actually gave a damn would have spotted the federal privacy law violations well before a local newspaper and privacy activists did. This statement means nothing more than the district is waiting for the furor to die down before getting back to pre-crime business as usual.

And the last sentence of this paragraph pretty much directly contradicts the hollow claim data-sharing agreements are "routinely reviewed."

But asked directly, [the district] declined to say whether it would act on any of the PTA’s requests, whether it was reviewing the Sheriff’s Office program, or whether Superintendent Kurt Browning had learned anything about the program since he told a reporter he was unaware data was being used this way in September.

The district's apparent plan to wait this thing out isn't working. At least not yet. It's been on the radar since last November. And now it's going federal. Someone's going to be forced to take some action soon. Hopefully, it will be the school district reaching for the program's cord and pulling the plug on this abomination attempting to pass itself off as good police work.

Filed Under: congress, ferpa, florida, pasco county, pre-crime, privacy, robert scott

House Lawmakers Question Telecom Giants Over Broadband Price Gouging During A Pandemic

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

House lawmakers say that telecom giants are exploiting a national health and economic crisis to make an extra buck.

The subject of their ire are broadband usage caps, which we've long made very clear are little more than price gouging of captive customers in uncompetitive US broadband markets. Such restrictions don't manage congestion, aren't technically necessary, and serve no financial function outside of price gouging, given flat rate broadband is already hugely profitable, and "heavy" users can already be bumped to business class tiers.

Broadband caps are a monopolistic toll on captive customers. And while the Trump FCC struck a temporary pinky swear agreement with ISPs to suspend them during the first few months of the pandemic (which many ignored), ISPs like Comcast and AT&T were not only quick to return to the punitive charges, some ISPs like Comcast actively expanded them. Sure, millions of Americans are struggling to pay for essential services and rent, but monopolies are always going to monopolize unless they face one of two things: penalties via competition, or penalties via functional regulators. The US broadband sector has neither.

Regulators inclined to look away from the problem of US telecom monopolization in normal times have found it harder to do so via COVID, even if that usually doesn't result in any serious repercussions. This week, House Energy & Commerce Committee members Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr, Mike Doyle, and Jerry McNerney lambasted companies like Comcast for doubling down on their greedy bullshit during an economic crisis:

"Over the last ten months, internet service became even more essential as many Americans were forced to transition to remote work and online school. Broadband networks seem to have largely withstood these massive shifts in usage. Unfortunately, what cannot be overlooked or underestimated is the extent to which families without home internet service — particularly those with school-aged children at home — have been left out and left behind.” “This is an egregious action at a time when households and small businesses across the country need high-speed, reliable broadband more than ever but are struggling to make ends meet."

This is all a very polite way of saying monopolies are ripping customers off during a tragic crisis. The lawmakers in question fired off equally polite letters to most telecom CEOs, asking for more detail on the timing of many capping decisions.

Granted this is empty rhetoric until the incoming administration arrives and the makeup of Congress shifts away from GOP control. For four years, the Trump administration was literally incapable of even acknowledging that US broadband isn't competitive, resulting in mediocre service in nearly every global metric that matters, and some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world. They similar turned a blind eye as telecom monopolies used a universe of bogus surcharges to jack up the cost of broadband and TV services post sale, a tactic that effectively lets them falsely advertise lower rates.

Again, lawmakers were happy to turn a blind eye to this stuff in normal times, but as the wheels of government shifts its focus to providing COVID aid to struggling Americans, broadband monopolies' relentless efforts to price gouge captive customers who can't vote with their wallets is going to find itself increasingly in the spotlight. Which is why Comcast recently expanded its broadband caps now when it knows nobody in government gives a damn.

Filed Under: broadband, congress, covid, fcc, pandemic, price gouging

Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed

from the we're-doing-what-now? dept

Well, the government is closing out the year with quite a mess. As threatened, President Trump today vetoed the massive National Defense Authorization Act, living up to his promise to veto it if it didn't include the complete revocation of Section 230 of the Communications Act, which has nothing to do with funding our military. Trump, for no reason at all, says that repealing Section 230 is important for "national security", which makes no sense at all (nor does he provide any rationale for this statement). Senate Armed Service chair and Trump buddy Senator Jim Inhofe had already threatened to override the veto should Trump go this route -- and has (correctly!) said that 230 has nothing at all to do with the NDAA. Inhofe has already responded to Trump's veto by asking Congress to "join me in making sure our troops have the resources and equipment they need to defend this nation." In other words, he's asking Congress to override the veto.

As for 230, Inhofe (ridiculously) claims that he does support a repeal of the law, but it should be in a separate legislative vehicle, and not the NDAA:

Meanwhile, the other big bills -- the omnibus government funding bill and the COVID relief bill, which are now tied together at the hip -- have also somehow been dragged into the Section 230 mess. Pretty much everyone assumed that after Congress voted overwhelmingly for both bills on Monday (as stupid as they were), Trump would sign them. After all, the White House was a part of the negotiations with Congressional leadership to come to the "compromise" that made it through.

But, last night, Trump threw a wrench in the works by claiming he wouldn't sign either unless the amount going to qualified individuals was $2,000 rather than $600. This seriously messed with his Republican colleagues who had pushed repeatedly to keep that number as low as possible. But the Democrats rightly seized on Trump's demands for $2,000 to agree with him and say they'll offer a revised bill with that more generous number.

Somehow, Section 230 had remained outside of the discussion over the funding bill and the stimulus bill, but Senator (who else?) Lindsey Graham has brought the two together by saying that he'll support the $2,000 part of the stimulus bill... if it also revokes 230. He's been tweeting more and more about this all day, and is now claiming that a refusal to revoke Section 230 means that Congress "cares more about big tech than working Americans."

That is, of course, utterly ridiculous. Section 230 protects working Americans more than it protects "big tech." It protects us posting on social media. It protects us forwarding emails. It protects us when we retweet nonsense. It makes the open internet possible, and enables the next generation of competitors to "big tech" to exist. Lindsey Graham's weird grandstanding about this is nonsense. Taking away 230 wouldn't rein in big tech, it would lock in big tech. They have large legal teams and can handle the disruption. This is why Facebook already supports major 230 reform. Zuckerberg knows that it would harm upstart competitors way more than Facebook.

There can be legitimate debates about Section 230 and how the open internet should work. The fact that it's suddenly being held hostage as part of the negotiations on three massive -- and totally unrelated to the internet -- bills is simply a case study in how broken Congress is, and how cynical politicians like Lindsey Graham have become.

Filed Under: congress, covid, donald trump, government funding, jim inhofe, lindsey graham, ndaa, omnibus, section 230, stimulus

Congress (Once Again) Sells Out To Hollywood: Sneaks CASE Act And Felony Streaming Bill Into Government Funding Omnibus

from the but-why? dept

As we warned about earlier this month, it appears that Congress has in fact put two very controversial copyright provisions into the government funding "omnibus" bill that will be voted on later today. As you may have heard, last night Congress worked out a "deal" on both a $900 billion Covid relief/stimulus package and the giant $1.4 trillion omnibus government funding bill, which is being voted on today. There had been concerns raised all month about how -- under pressure from Hollywood -- Congress might try to sneak two dangerous copyright provisions and one trademark provision into the omnibus.

Since the "deal" was announced last night, people have been scrambling to find out what's actually in the fucking bill which is being voted on shortly. It's just come out that, indeed, all three controversial copyright and trademark provisions are in the bill. The CASE Act will supercharge copyright trolling exactly at a time when we need to fix the law to have less trolling. And the felony streaming bill (which was only just revealed last week with no debate or discussion, includes provisions that are so confusing and vague no one is sure if it makes sites like Twitch into felons.

The fact that these are getting added to the must pass government funding bill is just bad government. And Congressional leadership should hear about this.

The full omnibus bill is over 3,000 pages long, so you can search through it for your favorite bit of nonsense. Felony streaming is on page 72. The CASE Act starts on page 77.

There's a reason that copyright is generally controversial. Small changes can not only have a massive impact, that impact can be on the public's ability to express themselves. The idea that two such bills should be jammed through in this manner is a total and complete travesty. People should be mad about this and should hold the Congressional leadership of both parties responsible. This is not good governance. This is sucking up to Hollywood at the expense of the public.

Filed Under: case act, congress, copyright, felony streaming, free speech, omnibus, small claims, thom tillis