If you’ve attended a Super Bowl party (or just lived in North America), you’ve probably enjoyed some totopos. You may be more familiar with their American name: Tortilla chips. Originally a Mexican food, American ingenuity has “improved” them into... Doritos.
Doritos were developed by repurposing stale tortillas (yay!) at Disneyland. They proved so popular that Frito-Lay eventually built a factory that brought stale tortilla chips to a grateful nation. One man's trash (in Mexico) is another man's treasure (in America).
Where was this factory? Tulsa, Oklahoma — better known for its oil refineries, lowest gas prices in America, and world’s largest praying hands. Berin, who clerked in Tulsa after law school, noted: “California may claim the microchip, but Oklahoma can be proud of the minichip!”
And speaking of chipping in… Ari Cohn joined us this week as our first (and best) Free Speech Counsel. Ari is an attorney who specializes in First Amendment and defamation law. Here’s a picture of him in a hat:
He’s come a long way, but not all that long when you think about it.
FTC. A FedSoc webinar explored the Supreme Court’s decision in AMG Capital Management v. FTC. As we said last week, after the FTC lost 9-0, Congress should grant the FTC power to get money back for consumers — but with certain guardrails. Asheesh moderated a discussion among Corbin and FTC alumni Alden Abbott and Maureen Ohlhausen.
Law360 (paywall) covered the event, noting Corbin’s conclusions that (1) the Court’s ruling “reestablished the original intent” behind Section 13(b); (2) the FTC’s “mission creep,” in its use of 13(b), led to the AMG ruling; and (3) that there’s “a very broad baseline agreement” in Congress that a 13(b) fix of some kind is needed.
The House Energy & Commerce held a hearing on a bill introduced by Rep. Cardenas. Berin livetweeted the hearing, noting the disconnected between what FTC Chairwoman Slaughter says the agency needs (to get money back from fraudsters and scammers) and what the Cardenas bill does (allow the FTC to get money back across the board — not just in cases of fraud or dishonest conduct).
Section 230. In a new report on Section 230, the Congressional Research Service cited our work more than anyone else’s — specifically, four points. First, social media sites are necessarily associated with the speech they carry by users, advertisers and civil society. This point will be crucial to litigation over proposed “anti-censorship” laws like Florida’s, which Gov. DeSantis may sign into law any day now. Second, making Section 230 contingent on websites’ “neutrality” would violate the Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine (more). Third, the FCC lacks authority to make rules interpreting 230 with respect to non-common carriers. Fourth, the Section 230(c)(2)(B) immunity protects those who provide moderation tools to others, regardless of their “good faith.”
Broadband. Denying funding for satellite systems to provide broadband to Indian Country makes no sense, we explained in comments about “Rural eConnectivity” before the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS). The launch of massive constellations of NGSO satellites like Starlink and OneWeb makes it possible to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband from space for the first time. The FCC has already recognized this in its Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program, which supports satellite broadband.
Today’s reflection: