Text Messages, Emails Show KBI Had Full Knowledge Of Raid On Kansas Newspaper’s Office
from the ohhhhh-THAT-small-town-paper-raid dept
On August 11, the Marion County PD — with the assistance of the Kansas Department of Revenue, the county sheriff’s office, and (for some fucking reason) the local fire marshal — raided the office of the Marion County Record, along with the home of its co-owner, 98-year-old Joan Meyer.
The raid was prompted by the very expansive reading of two state laws, one involving identity fraud and the other involving computer crimes. The first response from nearly everyone but Police Chief Gideon Cody was a denial of knowledge, much less involvement.
But as reporters kept digging into the story, the denials — starting with the county attorney Joel Ensey’s claim of innocence when he asked a court to quash the warrants — began to unravel. The DA claimed he’d never seen the warrants prior to their service. But an email exposed this lie, showing Chief Cody had informed of his plans to search the paper’s office, as well as sent him copies of the warrants he planned to deploy.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) strode onto the scene, presenting itself as a force of good, here to get to the bottom of this pile of constitutional violations.
It, too, claimed it had nothing to do with the raids.
Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has oversight of the KBI, told reporters on Aug. 16 that the KBI “was not notified of the searches prior to their taking place.”
That statement is, at best, misinformed. Perhaps Kobach just didn’t know. But the KBI sure did. It, too, had been informed of Chief Cody’s unconstitutional plans. Not only that, it apparently approved of them, as Jessica McMaster reports for KSHB:
Text messages obtained by the KSHB 41 I-Team reveal Gideon Cody claimed the Kansas Bureau of Investigation was “100 percent behind” him one day after the raids on Marion County Record and two homes.
The text messages, provided by a source and independently verified by KSHB 41, are between Cody and Joel Ensey, Marion County Attorney, who revoked Cody’s warrants within days following the raids.
More evidence of KBI’s involvement and prior knowledge. And more evidence of the county attorney’s prior knowledge and direct involvement.
Now, it could have been that Chief Cody was putting words in the mouth of the KBI. But if so, he was doing it constantly. A text sent to county attorney Ensey on August 9, two days before the raids, said “KBI will be lead in the investigation.” One day after the raids, Chief Cody sent Ensey another text referring to KBI’s apparent support of his actions.
The final message from Cody on the subject of KBI and the newspaper raid stated KBI was taking its own route with the investigation. Not an investigation of the raids themselves, mind you.
Cody sent another response: “They want to use an independent lab not affiliated with [the] government for forensics, and they appear to be taking this case over. I will let you know.”
So, the staties wanted to do their own digging into the seized electronics using an “independent lab,” whatever that means in this context. The KBI never got a chance to do it. The court ordered all devices and data returned to paper and its employees before they were ever in the hands of the KBI.
Additional emails obtained by KSHB contain even more evidence of foreknowledge and approval, if not direct involvement.
One day before the raids, Todd Leeds, KBI special agent, sent an email to a Marion police officer. He wrote, “Did you guys execute this today?”
The police officer responded, “No. My understanding is that the county attorney wasn’t in the office today.”
The subject of that email is, “Additional SW for Eric Meyer’s Residence.”
Given these facts, it would make zero sense for KBI to be allowed to engage in an investigation of the Marion County PD and its actions. It has already let everyone know what it thinks about what happened here and seems unlikely to discover anything damning when doing so would mean damning itself.
Hopefully, this latest bit of news means the KBI will be stepping away from this entirely.
Multiple sources confirm an outside law enforcement agency has joined Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the events surrounding the raid on the Marion County Record newspaper.
Eric Meyer, publisher of Marion County Record, Deb Gruver, former reporter of the Record, and Ruth Herbel, vice mayor of Marion, told the KSHB 41 I-Team an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has reached out to them about the case.
According to those who spoke to KSHB after speaking to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent, CBI is definitely not digging into the actions of the newspaper or its employees. It wants to know why this investigation was initiated by the Marion County PD and why it decided the best plan of action was an all-day assault on constitutional rights.
Hopefully, the CBI will expand its investigation to include the KBI, which is certainly far from blameless. This debacle — every small part of it — needs to be dragged out into the sunlight. The last thing the KBI should be allowed to do is creep back into the shadows while everyone’s paying attention to an outside agency and its apparently far more competent investigative work.
Filed Under: 4th amendment, eric meyer, gideon cody, joan meyer, journalism, kansas, kbi, marion county, marion county pd
Companies: marion county record
Josh Hawley Back To Try To Hotline His Awful AI/Section 230 Bill
from the this-bill-is-so-bad-i'd-almost-think-an-AI-hallucinated-it dept
Last week, we wrote about the potential for Senator Josh Hawley to “hotline” the bill that he put together with Senator Richard Blumenthal to remove Section 230 from anything touching artificial intelligence. As we noted at the time, even if you hate both generative AI technology and Section 230, the bill was so poorly drafted that it would create all kinds of problems for the internet.
While there were reports that Hawley would try to rush the bill through using the “unanimous consent” hotline process (which only requires one Senator to step in and block) it was unclear last week if anyone would actually do the blocking (to be fair, it was also unclear if a companion bill would make it through the House, but you don’t want to get that far).
For whatever reason, we heard that Hawley decided to hold off until today, and there are now reports that he’ll push for the unanimous consent (basically avoiding a full vote and hoping that no one objects) today at 5:30pm ET/2:30pm PT. In other words, soon.
A very diverse group of organizations (who often don’t agree with each other on much else), including the ACLU, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Americans for Prosperity, and the Electronic Freedom Foundation along with many others have all signed a letter put together by TechFreedom, detailing the horrors this bill would create (our own Copia Institute also signed on).
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, write to express serious concerns about the “No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act” (S. 1993). S. 1993 would threaten freedom of expression, content moderation, and innovation. Far from targeting any clear problem, the bill takes a sweeping, overly broad approach, preempting an important public policy debate without sufficient consideration of the complexities at hand.
Section 230 makes it possible for online services to host user-generated content, by ensuring that only users are liable for what they post—not the apps and websites that host the speech. S. 1993 would undo this critical protection, exposing online services to lawsuits for content whenever the service offers or uses any AI tool that is technically capable of generating any kind of new material. The now widespread deployment of AI for content composition, recommendation, and moderation would effectively render any website or app liable for virtually all content posted to them.
As the letter notes, the bill would cut off any debate regarding the proper relationship between generative AI output and Section 230 (something that’s been quite spirited over the last year or so). It would also create a world that greatly benefited vexatious and malicious actors:
A core function of Section 230 is to provide for the early dismissal of claims and avoid the “death by ten thousand duck-bites” of costly, endless litigation. This bill provides an easy end-run around that function: simply by plausibly alleging that GenAI was somehow involved with the content at issue, plaintiffs could force services into protracted litigation in hopes of extracting a settlement for even meritless claims.
And it includes examples of possible abuse that this law would enable:
Consider a musician who utilizes a platform offering a GenAI production tool to compose a song including synthesized vocals with lyrics expressing legally harmful lies (libel) about a person. Even if the lyrics were provided wholly by the musician, the conduct underlying the ensuing libel lawsuit would undoubtedly “involve the use or provision” of GenAI—exposing the tool’s provider to litigation. In fact, the tool’s provider could lose immunity even if it did not synthesize the vocals, simply because the tool is capable of doing so.
Like any tool, GenAI can be misused by malicious actors, and there is no sure way to prevent such uses—every safeguard is ultimately circumventable. Stripping immunity from services that offer those tools irrespective of their relation to the content does not just ignore this reality, it incentivizes it. The ill-intentioned, knowing that the typically deep pockets of GenAI providers are a more attractive target to the plaintiffs’ bar, will only be further encouraged to find ways to misuse GenAI.
Still more perversely, malicious actors may find themselves immunized by the same protection that S. 1993 strips from GenAI providers. Section 230(c)(1) protects both providers of interactive computer services and users from being treated as the publisher of third-party content. But S. 1993 only excludes the former from Section 230 protection. If Section 230 does indeed protect GenAI output to at least some degree as the proponents of this bill fear, the malicious user who manipulates ChatGPT into providing a defamatory response would be immunized for re-posting that content, while OpenAI would face liability.
This is a really important point. As the bill is currently worded now, a malicious actor could deliberately use AI to try to defame someone, and they (the malicious actor) might be immune, while the generative AI tool they coaxed to write a defamatory statement would be liable. That flips basic concepts of liability on their head.
There’s a lot more in the letter. Hopefully, even those supporting this bill recognize how half-baked it is. However, in the meantime, we still have to hope that at least one Senator out there recognizes its problems as well and stops the bill from moving forward in this manner (I won’t even get into whether or not any reporter is willing to ask either Hawley or Blumenthal why they’re pushing this monstrosity, because both have made it crystal clear that the answer is because they hate the internet and relish any opportunity to break it).
Filed Under: ai, generative ai, josh hawley, liability, richard blumenthal, section 230
Daily Deal: TexTalky AI Text-to-Speech
from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept
Turn any text or script into a lifelike natural human voice in easy 3 steps using Textalky, a powerful AI text-to-speech synthesizer. No robotic voices. TexTalky uses the latest cloud-based AI technology powered by Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon. It covers more than 140 international languages and dialects, and over 900 kinds of lifelike human voices that meet most of your needs. It’s on sale for $38.
Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.
Filed Under: daily deal
Community Notes Is Great Until It Challenges Elon, And Then It’s Being ‘Manipulated’ By State Actors
from the amazing-that-state-actors-only-target-elon dept
Oh Elon. As we’ve discussed, Elon is infatuated with Community Notes as a sort of crowdsourced alternative to actually funding a trust & safety staff and tooling. And while we actually like Community Notes and think more social media should use similar tools, it’s simply not a full trust & safety replacement.
But, over the past year, we’ve seen that Elon loves to point out when Community Notes supports his priors, and repeatedly claims victory when Community Notes debunks (or even quibbles with) content that Musk doesn’t like. If you look, you can find him cheering on Community Notes time and time again.
Not too long ago, ExTwitter changed the terms of its creator payout system such that creators who regularly get fact-checked via Community Notes will no longer get payouts.
But… how does the man in charge feel about things when he gets fact checked via Community Notes? Well, it appears that his tune quickly changes. While there have been a few times he’s been Community Noted in the past, and he’ll sometimes brush it off with a “yes, even I’m open to having such notes placed on my account,” when it’s a higher profile thing he seems to freak out.
Over the weekend, Tucker Carlson started pushing a very misleading story regarding YouTube sensationalist Gonzalo Lira who made his name as one of those jackass “dating coaches,” (i.e., “pickup artists”) who became a pro-Russia propagandist once the invasion of Ukraine began. Carlson’s version of the story pitched Lira as a “journalist” who was “imprisoned in Ukraine” for “criticizing Zelensky.”
Lira was arrested earlier this year for violations of Ukraine’s criminal code. There are many legitimate questions that can be asked regarding the nature of Ukraine’s laws regarding propaganda and free speech. But, the underlying accusations against Lira seem more focused on how he was revealing the identity and location of both Ukrainian soldiers and western journalists covering the war.
Either way, Musk picked up on Carlson’s story, falsely claimed Lira had been imprisoned for 5 years, and trying to demand answers as to what was happening with him. Community Notes quickly stepped in to first point out that Carlson’s description of Lira’s situation was misleading, and then that Elon’s tweets were also misleading.
After discovering that his own posts were being Community Noted (will he lose access to monetization?), he started claiming that “state actors” were “gaming” Community Notes. And then, hilariously, claimed that this was really a “honey pot” to catch those gaming the system.
The Community Notes folks quickly hit back:
They pointed out that:
Community Notes requires agreement from contributors of differing perspectives, as such is highly resistant to gaming. The entire Community Notes algorithm and data is open source, and can be reviewed by anyone…
Community Notes ftw.
Soon after that, the Community Notes on Elon’s post disappeared. Funny that.
And… soon after that, a different Community Note appeared on Elon’s tweet again pushing back on the idea that Community Notes was easy to game:
So, yes, any such system of crowdsourcing things can be gamed, though ExTwitter’s implementation of Community Notes (a modification of the tool Polis) is done in a way that, at the very least, makes it resistant to such gaming. It’s not impossible to game, but it’s also not easy given the way it’s set up.
But, still, given how often Elon acts like Community Notes is an infallible system that solves most of his trust & safety issues, it’s interesting to note that apparently it’s only “gamed” by “state actors” when its calling out his own false tweets. The rest of the time Community Notes is so accurate that the company can base payment information on it. So, when Community Notes supports Elon’s views, it’s a key part of ExTwitter’s platform strategy. When it goes against Elon’s views, it’s being abused by state actors.
What an astounding coincidence.
Filed Under: community notes, crowdsourcing, elon musk, fact checking, gonzalo lira, state actors, tucker carlson
Companies: twitter, x
The Telecom Industry Is Very Mad Because The FCC MIGHT Examine High Broadband Prices
from the to-the-fainting-couch dept
We’ve long noted how the FCC (regardless of party) largely ignores how muted competition and monopolization drives up prices for consumers. The agency often talks a good (if ambiguous) game about “bridging the digital divide,” but they don’t collect and share pricing data proving market failure, nor are they capable of admitting monopolies exist and are harmful in public-facing messaging.
As part of the Communications Act, the FCC is tasked with giving periodic reports on whether broadband is being delivered to all Americans on a “reasonable and timely basis.” If the answer is no, the regulator is theoretically supposed to, you know, actually do something about it.
Back in November, the agency issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) pondering whether they should more seriously analyze the cost of broadband when making those determinations (yes, duh). As per tradition, the FCC NOI is pretty vague about things, but does acknowledge the importance of affordability:
“To truly close the connectivity gap and ensure that all Americans have access to advanced telecommunications capability, broadband services must be affordable.”
Keep in mind this is just the FCC saying they’re thinking about taking a more consistent look at high broadband prices as part of their policy approach. It doesn’t mean they’ll actually do it, do it well, or punish any of the companies found to be monopolizing access and squashing competition to jack up market prices.
But even the faint possibility of the FCC looking at expensive U.S. broadband has been enough to send telecom lobbyists into a tizzy, with cable lobbying organizations arguing in filings that even asking the question is “inappropriate”:
“While the Commission has reiterated that it has no interest in any kind of rate regulation, the proposal to make a traditional deployment analysis contingent on whether the Commission determines that broadband pricing is sufficiently affordable suggests that rate regulation in some form is potentially on the table.”
The majority of Americans live under a monopoly or duopoly for broadband access protected by state and federal corruption. This muted competition consistently results in spotty coverage, high prices, slow speeds, and comically terrible customer service. And again, FCC officials can’t even openly admit there’s a monopoly/duopoly problem, much less field concrete solutions to the problem.
Keep in mind, between the Trump era and the first two years of Biden term (where the FCC lacked a voting majority due to the attacks on Gigi Sohn), the FCC was basically a cardboard cutout for six straight years. The telecom industry has grown fat and comfortable with the FCC performing regulatory theater where its functions are entirely decorative. A sort of regulatory simulacrum.
The fact that it’s 2023 and the FCC and NTIA have only fairly recently realized they should be considering affordability in broadband access policy genuinely speaks for itself.
And in the U.S., where Comcast, Verizon and AT&T dictate the lion’s share of all telecom policy, the idea of rate regulation is treated as the most extreme possibility imaginable. Having a regulator ponder things like affordable wholesale access or any sort of rate caps is genuinely treated the same way you’d treat a batshit, naked streaker in a public mall.
But the FCC is making it very clear they lack the political backbone to get anywhere near price regulation. The net neutrality restoration similarly makes it very clear that price regulation is off the table. But the simple act of even looking more closely at pricing data — so that the public has a clearer understanding of the impact of muted competition — is apparently a bridge too far for unchecked monopolists.
Filed Under: broadband, broadband access, broadband prices, fcc, prices
NYPD Still Shelling Out Millions In Lawsuit Settlements Every Year, Still Protecting Its Worst Officers From Accountability
from the bleeding-the-city-dry dept
The NYPD’s refusal to engage in nearly any form of accountability means it’s up to the city’s residents to pay billions for police work that adds tens of millions to the tab with lawsuit settlements.
In 2022, the NYPD cost residents $121 million in settlements. This came on top of the NYPD’s budget, which cleared $11 billion. Sure, it’s the largest local law enforcement agency in the United States, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be doing something to cut expenses that should be considered discretionary. Imposing better discipline would deter officers from violating rights and regulations so often it takes another hundred million to set things right.
NYPD officers routinely engage in misconduct, racking up thousands of complaints. The NYPD routinely refuses to discipline officers, preferring to exonerate them in closed sessions that rarely result in discipline of any severity.
This total of 207 substantiated force allegations is based on the data provided to OIG-NYPD by CCRB. The total number of substantiated force allegations represents approximately 2.0% of the more than 10,000 allegations of force received by CCRB from 2010 to 2014.
That’s from an Inspector General’s report published in 2015. Despite nearly a decade of being provided the opportunity to learn from its mistakes (along with a constant stream of high-profile incidents that highlighted endemic problems in US policing), the NYPD remains as awful as ever.
Last year’s total was $121 million in settlements. This year isn’t looking much better, according to the numbers compiled by Akela Lacy for The Intercept. In fact, it might be even worse by the time the final totals are in.
The New York Police Department has been making headlines for the huge settlements paid out by the city in misconduct cases. In the first half of 2023, New York City paid more than $50 million in lawsuits alleging misconduct by members of the NYPD.
That figure is on track to exceed $100 million by the end of the year — but even that total doesn’t capture how much the city has to spend in cases where its cops are accused of everything from causing car accidents to beating innocent people.
The $100 million figure does not include lawsuits settled by the city prior to litigation, which reached $30 million in the first nine months of this year, according to data obtained from the office of the New York City Comptroller through a public records request. Pre-litigation settlements from July 2022 through September of this year totaled $50 million — meaning the city’s payouts in such suits since July 2022, including those settled after litigation, rose to a total of around $280 million.
It’s an obvious problem, one that results in at least another $100 million in expenditures, year after year after year after year. What has the NYPD done to stem the constantly rising tide of lawsuits and their subsequent settlements? Well, as Akela Lacy reported in October, it’s done things like this:
NYPD Sgt. David Grieco, a cop with the street nickname of “Bullethead,” was named in at least 17 suits between his hiring in 2006 and his first promotion in 2016. After advancing to the rank of sergeant in 2017, he was named in at least eight more suits. That promotion came less than one week after Grieco was named in his 28th suit. Since his last promotion, Grieco has been named in at least 27 additional lawsuits. Payouts for suits naming Grieco exceeded $1 million this year.
[…]
Lt. Henry Daverin started at the NYPD in 2008 and promoted to sergeant in 2013. Daverin was named in at least 19 suits between 2013 and 2017, when he was promoted to his current role as lieutenant. Settled police misconduct suits that named Daverin have paid out at least $1.5 million since 2013.
[…]
Detective Abdiel Anderson was hired as a police officer in 2003. He was named in two lawsuits shortly afterward. In 2008, he was promoted to detective. Anderson has been named in at least 43 suits since then, with settled cases paying out more than half a million dollars.
That’s how the NYPD is handling its misconduct. Whatever isn’t deliberately ignored or immediately exonerated is apparently treated as an indicator of future success within the NYPD.
Not that the NYPD wants anyone to know this. Its misconduct record portal is deliberately incomplete, forcing those seeking complete information about officer misconduct to scour court records and file public records requests, the latter of which tends to result in litigation to actually liberate records the NYPD is legally required to hand over to records requesters.
Make no mistake: the laws in the NYPD’s so-called “transparency” effort are deliberate. They’re as deliberate as the pre-trial settlements, which allow the NYPD to purchase presumed innocence by tying settlements to statements averring no admission of wrongdoing. Every time it does this, it keeps another misconduct record from entering its “transparency” portal.
It’s just insults piled on top of financial injury. Residents are already expected to cover the $11 billion-plus the NYPD demands just to cover its day-to-day expenses. Then they’re asked to cover tens of millions in settlements, many of them occurring pre-trial, which means the city doesn’t feel these are winnable despite the multiple immunity options (and rights exceptions) it has at its disposal. Throughout all of this, officers named in multiple lawsuits are rising through the ranks. And rather than get better at their jobs, their promotions tend to increase the frequency in which they’re named in complaints and lawsuits.
The city is paying billions to pay a workforce with steadily decreasing value. And yet, little will change because the NYPD is too big and too powerful. And far too often, it has been given blanket support by whoever happens to be sitting in the mayor’s office. The NYPD runs the town. Everyone in it is just expected to keep giving ’til it hurts. And then give some more.
Filed Under: civil rights, nypd, settlements
Brew Works’ Rude Elf’s Reserve: How IP Bullying Birthed The Brand That Remains 20 Years Later
from the lasting-power dept
One of my favorite ways that lame trademark fights end is when the victim of the bullying makes slight changes to their branding such that it pokes the bully in the eye while still getting the victim out of legal harm’s way. When you couple that with the beer industry, all the more so. After all, much like everyone’s most favorite SCOTUS Justice: I like beer. For example, when Voodoo Brewery found itself staring down a C&D notice from the University of Pittsburgh over its “H2P IPA”, the name of which was a nod to the school, the company changed the name of the brew to “NON-TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT ALMA MATER IPA.” Not subtle, of course, but chef’s kiss all the same.
Which brings me to Brew Works, out of Pennsylvania. Brew Works is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its seasonal holiday beer “Rude Elf’s Reserve.” The beer itself is actually a bit older than that, actually, which has to do with the origin story for its current name.
It was 20 years ago this week when The Express-Times reported that the Bethlehem brewery got a cease-and-desist letter over its Rudolph’s Reserve special holiday beer. Apparently, using the name Rudolph with a label depicting a reindeer with a crimson snout ran afoul of a trademark by The Rudolph Co., a subsidiary of Character Arts LLC, which demanded that Brew Works find a new name and label for the following year.
“The funny part is, now it’s a collector’s item,” the newspaper quoted Brew Works co-owner Jeff Fegley on Dec. 4, 2003, under a headline referring to a “trademark brew-ha-ha.”
Yup, the licensing company that manages the rights for the for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer complained via a C&D that the Rudolph’s Reserve beer violated the company’s trademarks. And, yes, the original copyright on the Rudolph story and character is still covered by copyright protection, having been published in 1947 after being given away for free starting in 1939 in Chicago by the Montgomery Ward’s department store when an employee created the story to give to children when their parents came shopping. And, yes, all of that is completely insane, but here we are.
So twenty years ago, Brew Works agreed to change the name.
While the label was retired, the beer itself wasn’t. Rudolph’s Reserve became — brilliantly — Rude Elf’s Reserve, a strong sipping beer still served every holiday.
Rudolph’s Reserve, Rude Elf’s Reserve… you get it. They’re nearly phonetically identical, yet this apparently was good enough to keep Santa’s trademark lawyers at bay.
And the lasting power of the beer itself has proven that a little creativity and snark can apparently go a long way. It sure would be nice, however, if we could return copyright law to the realm of the sane and not have to go through all this trouble.
In the meantime, tip one back to Rudolph, or a rude elf. It’s what they would want.
Filed Under: beer, rude elf's reserve, rudolf, trademark
Companies: brew works, character arts llc, the rudolf co.
House Committees Offer Up Competing Section 702 Reform Bills. Only One Has Any Actual Reforms.
from the protecting-all-Americans-vs.-protecting-career-politicians dept
As is the case any time surveillance powers are up for renewal, there’s always a chance to reform them. Most of these efforts tend to get derailed by a majority of legislators who just want to push things through before any lively discussion takes place. Every so often, legislation is passed that modifies authorized powers after the fact.
Despite the fact that declining to renew the powers is always an option, this is a route that has never been taken. Even with plenty of Republicans pushing to severely restrict Section 702 for purely political reasons, no one seems to have the guts to state “Hey, we’re just not going to do this any more.”
But as the clock winds down on the year, nudging everyone closer to voting on a reauthorization, competing reform bills have been brought forward by two different House committees. But one is reform in name only. The other contains actual reforms.
The House Intelligence Committee is pitching a set of reforms that barely contain any reform. Of main concern to most privacy activists and privacy-focused legislators is the FBI’s warrantless access to US persons’ info via Section 702 collections. The FBI has constantly abused this power to turn a foreign-facing NSA collection into a domestic surveillance tool.
The Intelligence Committee’s bill (H.R. 611 [PDF]) reforms hardly anything. It codifies voluntary policy changes enacted by the FBI to limit its own abuses. The only warrant requirement is in cases involving criminal investigations, which is an extremely small subset of FBI backdoor searches.
Rather than protect all Americans from warrantless searches by the FBI, the Intelligence Committee’s bill would only protect the Americans they respect the most: themselves and those similarly situated on Capitol Hill.
The bill also includes numerous provisions that would further protect members of Congress or other high-profile officials, including requiring a lawmaker’s consent before gathering information for a “defensive briefing” about a lawmaker being targeted by a foreign entity. It also requires the FBI to notify a member of Congress, with some limitation, if they have been queried in the 702 database.
These provisions were prompted by the FBI’s (extremely questionable) search of Page’s communications via its 702 powers, as well as notifications received after the fact by other Republican leaders who’d had their communications searched, if not accessed, by FBI analysts.
Not only does it provide a path for (nearly) clean reauthorization of these powers, it extends access to the NSA’s 702 collection to border security agencies to allow them to vet asylum seekers by pawing through any communications they might find in this collection. The FBI spent years abusing this authority to engage in warrantless surveillance. If anyone thinks the ICE, CBP, and other DHS components won’t be just as willing to abuse this access, they’re clearly delusional.
It also expands the definition of “electronic communication service provider” to include “equipment.” This means 702 can be used to sweep up data and content that isn’t housed or transmitted by traditional service providers, like email services or internet providers. With this expanded definition, the only limit is the government’s imagination.
Greg Nojeim, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s (CDT) Security and Surveillance Project, called HR 6611 a “Trojan Horse” and warned it would actually expand surveillance powers.
“This Trojan Horse would take FISA 702 orders beyond the realm of communication services (like email and messaging providers) and pull in anyone who could access equipment on which communications might be sent or stored,” Nojeim said on Friday.
“This could include data centers that merely rent out computer space, hotels and Airbnb owners, and even the local library or coffee shop. Including this provision would seriously impact American businesses far outside the communications and tech sector.”
Fortunately, the House Judiciary Committee has its own proposal — one that actually includes meaningful reforms. H.R. 6570 [PDF] introduces an actual warrant requirement for all searches involving US persons, no matter which agency is performing the search. As the Brennan Center’s Elizabeth Goltein explains on Elon Musk’s Internet Hate Machine Twitter X, the Judiciary’s bill folds in other surveillance reform acts, including Senator Wyden’s “Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act,” which would require warrants to obtain cell location data from data brokers.
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely either of these efforts will move forward any time soon. (Hopefully, the Intelligence Committee’s bill will never move forward.) There’s already an agreement in the works to push off the renewal until next April to ensure Section 702 doesn’t expire while it’s still under (heated) discussion.
Not that this punting of the problem until next year is making anything less contentious.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is taking heat from the hard-right conservative wing of his conference over the addition of a short-term extension of the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers in the Defense authorization bill.
The Republicans that simply want the FBI to leave Republicans alone aren’t happy their reform efforts are being put off. The bipartisan Judiciary Committee isn’t thrilled its reforms — which are actual reforms — are being backburnered. And then there are surveillance hawks that firmly believe putting off renewal for any reason is going to set us up for another 9/11.
Johnson has faced significant lobbying on the matter by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the panel, was spotted speaking with Johnson on the House floor earlier this week.
“You can air drop the whole reform bill into the NDAA. And you know, he decided not to do that. OK, that’s fair. But what you can’t do is not have a temporary extension. Because the next likely vehicle for reauthorization is the Jan. 19 successor to the [continuing resolution]. So just that alone is a potential 19-day, no-702 period, which is the period in which Americans get killed,” Himes told The Hill on Tuesday.
Filed Under: 702 reform, fbi, house intelligence committee, nsa, section 702, surveillance
‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Is Also ‘Libel Tourist, Vexatious SLAPPer’ Elon Musk
from the fucking-hypocrites dept
We’ve already talked a bit about Elon Musk’s obvious censorial bullshit lawsuit against Media Matters. It’s quite obvious from the lawsuit that his intent is to intimidate critics and suppress speech about hateful content on ExTwitter. So far, it’s not working, as that lawsuit seems to have inspired more people to find more ads next to more hateful content. It’s also exposed just how many of the ‘free speech’ supporters who cheer on Musk’s every move are a bunch of hypocrites, as they’re now supporting a lawsuit to silence speech.
Incredibly, it seems to be getting even more ridiculous.
Over the weekend, Musk famously reinstated conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, despite early on promising never to do so. On Sunday Jones and Musk did a Spaces together (with a bunch of other nonsense peddlers), in which Musk again (1) insisted that his support for free speech was why he reinstated Jones, and simultaneously (2) that he’d not just continue to sue Media Matters over its free speech, but that he’d sue them in “every country that they operate,” and (3) that he’d sue “anyone funding” Media Matters. His reasoning? That “Media Matters is an evil propaganda machine” that “can go to hell.”
Yes. At the same time he not only was re-platforming and joining an online panel with Alex Jones, one of the most infamous propaganda machines ever, he’s claiming that Media Matters needs to be sued out of existence for being a propaganda machine.
The claim that he’d sue MMFA in “every country” seemed odd, given that the “A” in MMFA is “America.” Media Matters for America is pretty focused on the US. However, soon after that came out, I found a (very light on the details) report that ExTwitter has already sued Media Matters in Ireland as well.
Unfortunately, as of right now, I can only find that single news report about it, and no links to any details to look over, but:
X, FORMERLY TWITTER, has taken legal action in the Irish courts against a US media monitoring site.
Court papers filed this week show that Twitter International Limited Company, the name of its Ireland-based entity for operations, has taken legal action against Media Matters for America.
That’s basically it as details go. A search on the Irish court website does note that a filing has been made, but there’s no complaint. Just a “plenary summons.”
But, um, what the actual fuck?
What kind of “free speech absolutist” decides to go on a libel tourism trip to Ireland, filing a clearly bogus vexatious censorial lawsuit over an issue between two US-based organizations that had fuck all to do with Ireland?
It’s unclear what kind of impact this would have. While jurisdiction for defamation claims works differently in the EU (assuming he even is filing a defamation claim, which he didn’t actually do in the US), assuming MMFA has no operations or assets in the EU, it’s not clear if such a lawsuit can actually do anything. Worst case, ExTwitter wins… and then is blocked from enforcing it in the US thanks to the SPEECH Act (another law that actually protects free speech, which Elon is seeking to undermine).
As for the claim that he’s going to sue funders of MMFA, well that’s equally censorial. It’s an attempt to intimidate donors and silence their speech as well. While there are some exceptions, if the donors are somehow actively involved in a particular tort, the idea of suing donors to a non-profit because you don’t like the (admitted as true) speech of that non-profit is… so extraordinarily ridiculous and censorial that it seems very open to getting sanctioned.
For what it’s worth, it also seems to be backfiring. On social media, I’ve seen a bunch of people who had never donated to MMFA before tossing $10 or $20 their way and then posting the receipts in Elon’s mentions, asking if he’s going to sue them.
Elon Musk is not a free speech absolutist. He’s not even a free speech supporter.
He’s a vexatious, anti-speech litigant, eagerly abusing and exploiting the courts in an attempt to silence and suppress voices that criticized him and his companies.
Filed Under: alex jones, donors, elon musk, ireland, libel tourism, slapp
Companies: media matters, twitter, x
Letter From Sen. Wyden To The DOJ Says Governments Are Gathering Push Notification Data From Google, Apple
from the just-another-way-to-collect-it-all dept
If nothing else, Senator Ron Wyden is keeping us on top of the surveillance curve. The privacy-focused senator has asked more uncomfortable questions of more federal agencies than anyone since the Church Committee.
Sometimes it’s new stuff. Sometimes it’s stuff that’s been around for years, but no one bothered to question it until Wyden. Sometimes it’s stuff like this — stuff that seems more like opportunism than a smart new form of intelligence gathering.
If you want data, you go to where the data is. National security agencies collect and store plenty of data, but other governments aren’t allowed to just go rooting through other governments’ virtual file cabinets.
No, the biggest collectors of data are tech companies. Anything that can be collected almost always is collected. Google stands astride multiple data streams, including (apparently) information generated by push notifications sent to Android phones. The same thing can be said about Apple, even though it has taken a few more proactive steps to limit data-gathering and doesn’t have anywhere near the (data) market share Google has, what with its massive suite of ubiquitous services, all capable of gathering vast amounts of info.
So, what’s the (latest) problem? Well, it looks like foreign governments have figured out Google and Apple have another trove of data they can tap, as Raphael Satter reports for Reuters:
Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users via their apps’ push notifications, a U.S. senator warned on Wednesday.
In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google and Apple (AAPL.O). Although details were sparse, the letter lays out yet another path by which governments can track smartphones.
Add that to the list that includes metadata from nearly every internet-based communication, location data gathered by Google/Apple directly or by third-party apps, keywords used by search engine users, etc. Now, there’s this: governments gathering push notification data from Apple and Google just because they can.
Wyden’s letter [PDF] suggests it’s only foreign governments doing this, at least for the moment. (Or at least as far as he knows…)
In the spring of 2022, my office received a tip that government agencies in foreign countries were demanding smartphone “push” notification records from Google and Apple. My staff have been investigating this tip for the past year, which included contacting Apple and Google. In response to that query, the companies told my staff that information about this practice is restricted from public release by the government.
Check out that last sentence. Which government could forbid US companies from releasing information about these data requests? That’s the key sentence. That’s why Wyden is asking the DOJ one question, while informing the public there’s a more direct question he could be asking instead.
This is made even more explicit in the next paragraph of Wyden’s letter:
Apple and Google should be permitted to be transparent about the legal demands they receive, particularly from foreign governments, just as the companies regularly notify users about other types of government demands for data. These companies should be permitted to generally reveal whether they have been compelled to facilitate this surveillance practice, to publish aggregate statistics about the number of demands they receive, and unless temporarily gagged by a court, to notify specific customers about demands for their data. I would ask that the DOJ repeal or modify any policies that impede this transparency.
This strongly suggests it’s domestic demands for push notification data that has kept this under wraps. Wyden’s request that the DOJ modify any policies demanding blanket secrecy be rescinded makes it clear he knows more than he’s willing to state in a public letter to the DOJ.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind DOJ components are demanding this data and demanding these companies not talk about it. There’s simply no way only foreign governments have access to this data. And they certainly don’t have the legal reach to demand eternal silence. But the DOJ does. And if DOJ components are doing it, there’s a good chance other federal agencies are doing the same thing.
Wyden’s letter has provoked at least one useful response, as Satter reports for Reuters:
In a statement, Apple said that Wyden’s letter gave them the opening they needed to share more details with the public about how governments monitored push notifications.
“In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,” the company said in a statement. “Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”
Google said that it shared Wyden’s “commitment to keeping users informed about these requests.”
If it’s now public knowledge (thanks to this letter), these companies can now start telling the public about these data demands. And that may have been the point of Wyden’s letter: freeing up Google and Apple to detail requests for push notification data without having to raise a ton of legal challenges before some court finally decides they actually have standing to challenge these requests.
And if that was Wyden’s intent, it was handled beautifully. It starts with the misdirection of expressing concern about snooping by foreign governments before twisting it the other way to suggest (without ever directly saying so) that the DOJ is doing the same thing and swearing Apple and Google to silence. But now that it’s out, these companies are no longer required to pretend it isn’t happening.
Filed Under: doj, notifications, privacy, push notifications, ron wyden, surveillance
Companies: apple, google
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