thenexusofprivacy

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KOSA is dead! (US) (www.fightforthefuture.org)
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/20332183

Fight for the Future writes:

"The controversial and unconstitutional Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is officially dead in the House of Representatives. Reporting indicates that there was significant opposition to the bill within the Republican caucus, and it faced vocal opposition from prominent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL)."

Evan Greer:

"KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe. I am so proud of the LGBTQ youth and frontlines advocates who have led the opposition to this dangerous and misguided legislation. It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief. It’s infuriating that Congress wasted so much time and energy on a deeply flawed and controversial bill while failing to advance real measures to address the harms of Big Tech like privacy, antitrust and algorithmic justice legislation. "

Thanks to everybody who took action ove the last year to stop this bill!

86
KOSA is dead! (US) (www.fightforthefuture.org)
 

Fight for the Future writes:

"The controversial and unconstitutional Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is officially dead in the House of Representatives. Reporting indicates that there was significant opposition to the bill within the Republican caucus, and it faced vocal opposition from prominent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL)."

Evan Greer:

"KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe. I am so proud of the LGBTQ youth and frontlines advocates who have led the opposition to this dangerous and misguided legislation. It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief. It’s infuriating that Congress wasted so much time and energy on a deeply flawed and controversial bill while failing to advance real measures to address the harms of Big Tech like privacy, antitrust and algorithmic justice legislation. "

Thanks to everybody who took action ove the last year to stop this bill!

 

Legislators are considering attaching KOSA (the anti-LGBTQ+ censorship bill, aka the Kids Online Safety Act) to must-pass legislation authorizing the FAA. As EFF points out, the latest version of KOSA is still a censorship bill.

So if you're in the US, it's once again a good time to contact your Congresspeople. EFF's got an action here that makes it makes it easy, and so does https://www.stopkosa.com/

 

Legislators are considering attaching KOSA (the anti-LGBTQ+ censorship bill, aka the Kids Online Safety Act) to must-pass legislation authorizing the FAA. As EFF points out, the latest version of KOSA is still a censorship bill.

So if you're in the US, it's once again a good time to contact your Congresspeople. EFF's got an action here that makes it makes it easy, and so does https://www.stopkosa.com/

 

if you’re in the US, now’s a great time to contact your Senators. You can either call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or use the Senate directory to look up your legislators’ contact info.

“Stop the FBI from expanding warrantless surveillance of innocent Americans. The House reauthorization contains the largest expansion of FISA Section 702 since it was created in 2008. Please oppose it -- and please oppose any attempt to reauthorize FISA Section 702 that doesn’t include warrant requirements, both for Section 702 data and for our sensitive, personal information sold to the government by data brokers.”

 

I'm not wild about the headline -- it's the Biden administration that's pushing for this bill, so why let them off the hook? It's one of those rare issues that cut across partisan lines, with reformers and surveillance hawks in both parties working together. Still, the article makes some very good points.

The legislation, which would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, includes a provision that would broaden the types of businesses that agencies can compel to help the government spy without a warrant..... The fact sheet says the change closes “a dangerous loophole,” and calls it a “carefully crafted and narrowly tailored fix.”

But experts say the provision is extremely broad — and that it could potentially allow agencies to enlist office landlords, security guards, and cleaning crews as spies, without a warrant, and demand they help the government tap into communications equipment to facilitate data collection.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/15271710

Not a good result. The good amendment to add a warrant requirement failed on a tie vote; bad amendments to expand the scope of warrantless wiretapping passed. Next step: a Senate vote.

 

Not a good result. The good amendment to add a warrant requirement failed on a tie vote; bad amendments to expand the scope of warrantless wiretapping passed. Next step: a Senate vote.

 

EFF's update also has a handy form to contact Congress. Their summary:

"Section 702 is Big Brother’s favorite mass surveillance law that EFF has been fighting since it was first passed in 2008. The law is currently set to expire on April 19.

Yesterday’s decision not to decide is good news, at least temporarily. Once again, a bipartisan coalition of law makers—led by Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Jerrold Nadler—has staved off the worst outcome of expanding 702 mass surveillance in the guise of “reforming” it. But the fight continues and we need all Americans to make their voices heard. "

 

EFF's update also has a handy form to contact Congress. Their summary:

"Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted against considering a largely bad bill that would have unacceptably expanded the tentacles of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, along with reauthorizing it and introducing some minor fixes. Section 702 is Big Brother’s favorite mass surveillance law that EFF has been fighting since it was first passed in 2008. The law is currently set to expire on April 19.

Yesterday’s decision not to decide is good news, at least temporarily. Once again, a bipartisan coalition of law makers—led by Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Jerrold Nadler—has staved off the worst outcome of expanding 702 mass surveillance in the guise of “reforming” it. But the fight continues and we need all Americans to make their voices heard. "

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yeah, all the scare tactics about how "oh noes national security is at risk if FISA isn't extended!!!!" are garbage; if Section 702 lapses, existing certifications are already approved for the next year, and the government has other authorities it can do the same kind of surveillance with. And the surveillance he's complaining about wasn't even under this section of FISA -- it's the Title III stuff which doesn't need to be reauthorized!

As Howie Klein says on Down With Tyranny FISA Was Always Bad Legislation... It's Still Bad Even If Trump And MAGA Suddenly Oppose It Too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

They did -- FISA shouldn't be extended without reforms. All the scare tactics about how "oh noes national security is at risk if FISA isn't extended!!!!" are garbage; if Section 702 lapses, existing certifications are already approved for the next year, and the government has other authorities it can do the same kind of surveillance with.

As Howie Klein says on Down With Tyranny FISA Was Always Bad Legislation... It's Still Bad Even If Trump And MAGA Suddenly Oppose It Too

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Back in December, they tried to get an even WORSE FISA extension bill through as part of the NDAA -- without even a vote on it -- and the pushback was strong enough that they abandoned the plan. In 2020 grassroots activism kept them from rauthorizing Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act . In 2015 grassroots activism kept them from doing a straight reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. So there really is a track record of it being effective on this issue.

The key dynamic here is that both parties are split on the issue -- progressive Dems along with Libertarian and MAGA Republicans all favor reform. So even representatives in a district that one party always wins have to consider the politics: Republicans wanting to keep their MAGA cred against MAGA challengers, Democrats facing progressive challengers (or progressive Dems who need strong support from their base against centrist challengers). Plus there are a handful of centrist Dems in purple districts who might vote the right way if it can pick up some Republican votes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Technically yes but judges get annoyed if there's absolutely no case, so they rarely do -- and if they threaten when there's no case, larger companies will look at it and say the threat's not real.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The law's defintion of harm is extremely broad. Charlie Jane Anders has a good discussion of this in The Internet Is About to Get a Lot Worse:

"This clause is so vaguely defined that attorneys general can absolutely claim that queer content violates it — and they don't even need to win these lawsuits in order to prevail. They might not even need to file a lawsuit, in fact. The mere threat of an expensive, grueling legal battle will be enough to make almost every Internet platform begin to scrub anything related to queer people."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (5 children)

In practice, when the AG threatens to sue and the law makes it clear that they'll win (which KOSA currently does), companies will typically stop what they're doing (or settle if the AG actually launches a suit)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Yep. There's money to be made here!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Great point. Mike Masnick has said that he wouldn't be surprised if Meta also comes out in support, for similar reasons.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Totally agreed that it opens things up to censorship in general and doesn't actually make kids safer. Charlie Jane Anders' The Internet Is About to Get A Lot Worse sets it in the context of book banning. The LGBTQ part is in the headlines because one big focus of the advocacy against it is highlighting that Democrats who claim to be pro-LGBTQ should not be backing this bill. This has been effective enough that Senators Cantwell and Markey both mentioned it in the committee markup, although it's certainly far from the only problem with the bill.

Sec. 11 (b): Enforcement By State Attorneys General covers this. It's hard to find -- the bill text starts out with all the text removed from the previous amendment, and if you click on the "enforcement" link in the new table of context it takes you to the old struck-out text. It's almost like they want to make it as hard as possible for people to figure out what's going on!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

They get to position themselves as looking out for the children.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

Yes, exactly. For Senators who support LGBTQ+ rights and reproductice rights (or at least say that they do), focusing on the threat anti-trans AGs can be very effective; In Washington state, we put enough pressure on Cantwell last fall about the LGBTQ+ issues that she mentioned it in the hearing (as did Markey). 5calls and EFF's scripts and emails are written to appeal to legislators from both parties (so just talk about the harms to kids and threats from state AGs in general terms), which makes sense for a one-size-fits-all form, but customizing it to your Senators' priorities can make a lot of sense.

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