Guess what's in bloom this season
It's not just the cherry blossoms — it's also a ton of bad tech regulations! Good thing we've got plenty of analysis to share on intelligence collection, broadband "nutrition labels," and more.
Every year, springtime brings two foreign entities (of varying degrees of beauty) to D.C.: cherry blossoms and tourists. This week was peak bloom for the former, and if you’re on social media, I’m sure you’ve seen dozens of Washingtonians posting pictures. The blossoms aren’t actually native to D.C. — they were initially a gift from Japan back in 1912, meant to symbolize friendship between their country and ours! Since then, the commemoration has continued with further gifts and annual cherry blossom festivals.
If you’re enjoying the cherry blossoms from D.C. like me, it’s worth scouting out the best locations to walk through and take pictures, as well as the area’s most tantalizing seasonal food, drink, and afternoon tea specials. And if you’re from out-of-district, there’s still time to come explore! Friends of TechFreedom are the best tourists.
Surveillance. Last week, we joined a coalition letter with 44 other organizations, calling on Congress to hold hearings on two CIA secret bulk collection programs uncovered in documents that were declassified last month. These programs prove that current law is ineffective at safeguarding Americans from government surveillance. Given their scope, Congress must act now to establish the rules governing intelligence surveillance of Americans, or risk diminishing its own authority to conduct intelligence oversight.
Broadband. We filed reply comments in the FCC’s proceeding on broadband “nutrition labels.” Jim points out how the DC “Christmas Tree Effect” has led policy wonks to root for the addition of their favorite topics in the label, easily defeating the purpose of providing easy-to-understand labels that don’t overwhelm consumers with too much information. Any attempt to display a “what you can use this connection for” label must be truthful, and we lay bare the false arguments that everyone needs 100/100 Mbps or 1 gigabit speeds to live their best lives. You can share our comments here.
Jim was in Lansing, Michigan this week appearing on a panel on broadband deployment hosted by the Mackinac Center. Watch Jim describe how the Internet works and how this impacts policy decisions in less than seven minutes (starting at the 22:55 mark)!
Our work on net neutrality continues attracting attention as Berin was quoted in The Center Square regarding California’s net neutrality law. The article references our concerns that the efforts in California could “crack open further the Pandora’s Box of state-by-state Internet regulations.” Check out our other work on the subject including our amicus brief in the Second Circuit earlier this month, an amicus brief we joined last month with Washington Legal Foundation, and another brief we filed last April.
Social Media Regulation. Not for the first time — and not for the last! — we talked about state social media speech-code laws on the Tech Policy Podcast. In this episode, we cover an important, but often overlooked, aspect of such laws: their attempts to impose government-mandated “transparency” on social media services. Increasingly aware that the First Amendment bars them from simply ordering websites to host certain speech, politicians are turning to “transparency” rules as a second-best way to try to control how websites moderate content. In a forthcoming law review article, “The Constitutionality of Mandating Editorial Transparency,” Eric Goldman, professor at Santa Clara Law, prolific writer on tech law and policy, and tireless defender of Section 230 and Internet freedom, explains why mandated “transparency” rules, too, violate the First Amendment. Prof. Goldman joins the show to discuss his paper, analyze the “transparency” provisions in Florida’s SB 7072 and Texas’s HB 20, and explain why this is such a crucial moment for free speech on the Internet.