2020 is the challenging year that just wont go away, however much we wish it would, as many current issues over First Amendment freedoms flop over into the new year.

In the broad realm of freedom of speech, theres little doubt debate will continue in the new Congress around the tangential First Amendment controversy over legal protections for companies hosting content on the web aka Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

The law largely removes liability from companies for user-posted content on their sites. While not directly a First Amendment issue, the fight does have major implications for users free speech on the web, as we know it today, as well for as social media companies rights.

President Donald J. Trump and conservatives claim the provision is being used to hide partisan discrimination by major technology companies against right-wing voices. Liberal critics say the law removes incentives for such online operations to seriously fight misinformation.

Advocates for keeping the law as is say that without it, social media companies would face a myriad of potential lawsuits and thus dramatically limit what users can freely post on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram. No company will be able moderate the webs current traffic, they say, estimated by multiple sources at 500,000 hours of user video uploaded to YouTube, 188 million emails and 18 million texts every minute.

Controversy will also continue surrounding the First Amendments two least-known freedoms petition and assembly as multiple state legislatures consider increasing criminal and civil penalties for demonstrators who block streets or sidewalks or simply participate in events where, at some point, a violent act occurs.

Critics of the proposals, many of which have been introduced over the past five years, say their real motives are the stifling of dissenting or minority views, though advocates claim the new provisions are rooted in legitimate law and order concerns about violence and property damages.

In the area of religious liberty, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this spring on Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involving both the First Amendments free exercise and establishment clauses. In the case, a religious-backed foster care agency is challenging a city decision to cancel a contract because the agency refused to provide services to married same-sex couples, citing religious grounds.

There is no doubt that as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on public gatherings continue into the new year, so will legal challenges rooted in the First Amendments protection of religious liberty.

There are some new First Amendment issues for 2021 as a result of the incoming Biden administration, though even here, many are tinged by actions or views from the Trump years.

A top concern for free-press advocates is the potential for the Supreme Courts new conservative majority to review the 1963 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which provided wide protection from defamation claims by government officials and other public figures if actual error was inadvertent or not caused by reckless disregard for the truth.

A longstanding target of press critics and Trump, the decision is rooted in the theory that such protection is needed to foster the widest possible debate on public issues. Trump and others claim the decision makes it virtually impossible for officials and public figures to successfully repair deliberate damage to their reputations and that it gives journalists free license to report so-called fake news.

Of concern for some is the potential return to Obama-era regulations reversed by Trump that were aimed at combatting sexual harassment on college campuses, which critics said stepped on free-speech protections, particularly where online comments were deemed to be sexual in nature.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide in January whether to hear an appeal of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that public school authorities may not punish student speech made away from school grounds. Other circuits have made differing decisions.

Some First Amendment experts also are concerned the incoming administration may be open to reducing or eliminating the First Amendment protections for what some deem hate speech or speech demeaning to women or minority religious groups. At present, such speech generally is protected, with some arguing that in addition to a core right to voice ones own views, it is necessary to hear such speech to effectively argue against it.

Free-press supporters are already calling on President-elect Joe Biden to actively repudiate the Trump claim that mainstream news media are the enemy of the people, with some calling for new legislation to aid financially ailing local news operations seen by some as counterintuitive for a free press along with an international-U.S. effort to support free-press principles and journalists globally.

Welcome to the First Amendment in 2021 with its echoes of 2020s year of pandemic, protest and presidential-political turmoil.

Gene Policinski is a senior fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum, and president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Institute. He can be reached at gpolicinski@freedomforum.org, or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

Here is the original post:

First Amendment issues won't go away in 2021 - Sunbury Daily Item

30 December 2020

Foley Hoag LLP

To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.

The First Circuit's recent opinion in Project Veritas Action Fund v. Rollins, upheld a challengeto the Massachusetts anti-wiretap law, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, 99, carving out an exceptionfor certain activity protected by the FirstAmendment. The opinion begins:

Massachusetts, like other states concerned about the threat toprivacy that commercially available electronic eavesdroppingdevices pose, makes it a crime to record another person'swords secretly and without consent. But, unlike other concernedstates, Massachusetts does not recognize any exceptions based onwhether that person has an expectation of privacy in what isrecorded. See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, 99 (Section99). As a result, Massachusetts makes it as much a crime fora civic-minded observer to use a smartphone to record from a safedistance what is said during a police officer's mistreatmentof a civilian in a city park as it is for a revengeseeker to hide atape recorder under the table at a private home to capture aconversation with an ex-spouse. The categorical and sweeping natureof Section 99 gives rise to the important questions under the FirstAmendment to the United States Constitution that the challengesthat underlie the consolidated appeals before us present.

Section 99 violates the First Amendment by prohibiting thesecret, nonconsensual audio recording of police officersdischarging their official duties in public spaces. We also affirmthe District Court's order dismissing Project Veritas'sFirst Amendment overbreadth challenge for failing to state a claimon which relief may be granted.

The 72-page opinion has a lengthy description of the origins ofSection 99 and is worth reading for that alone. On the merits, theFirst Circuit equated unauthorized recording to more traditionalforms of newsgathering:

a citizen's audio recording of on-duty policeofficers' treatment of civilians in public spaces whilecarrying out their official duties, even when conducted without anofficer's knowledge, can constitute newsgathering every bitas much as a credentialed reporter's after-the-fact effortsto ascertain what had transpired.

However, the court declined to invalidate all of Section 99under First Amendment overbreadth concepts.

Originally Published by Foley Hoag, December 2020

To view Foley Hoag's Security, Privacy and The LawBlog please click here

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

POPULAR ARTICLES ON: Privacy from United States

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Excerpt from:

First Circuit Creates Exception To Massachusetts Wiretap Statute Based On First Amendment Rights, Allows Citizens And Press To Record Police Activity...

Over on social media, far-right Virginia State Senator Bill DeSteph (R) is busy claiming that he has prevailed in his efforts to compel the General Assemblys Democrat [sic] majority leadership to provide office space for in-person, public access to legislators. DeSteph further claims that [t]his is a huge victory for the First Amendment and for open access to government for all Virginians. DeStephs argument is that the decision to close the Pocahontas Building was a clear violation of the First Amendment and communicated an eagerness by Senator Locke, Speaker Filler-Corn, and the Northam Administration to shut out public input in the legislative process.

The big question, of course, is whether ANY of this is true. Sadly, given DeStephs track record over the years see Hes Just a Genie in a BottleVirginia State Sen. Bill DeSteph (R) Wore Costume with Rub Me Lamp Protruding from Crotch, Bad on all sorts of levels GOP Sen. Bill DeSteph sparks backlash over another conflict of interest , Virginia State Sen. Bill Rub Me Lamp DeSteph (R) Shared Video by Anti-Muslim Activist on His Official Facebook Page, Bill DeSteph: Muslems Build Mosques to Represent Islamic Supremacy Over Their Enemy, etc. its hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. And in this case, thats the case yet again. For starters, check out the following (click to enlarge) from Susan Clarke Schaar, Clerk of the Senate, emailed yesterday:

Following the hearing in Federal court yesterday it was determined that to ensure the health and safety of the constituents of Virginia, essential legislative staff and members the Pocahontas Building and the Capitol will remain closed for the 202[1] session. T[h]e buildings will only be open to current members and credentialed legislative staff.

The Clerk of the House and I will explore possibilities of space in close proximity to the Pocahontas Building or the Science Museum that would afford meeting space for members to meet with their constituents. A reservation system will be set to reserve rooms. A member may reserve a room for one hour. No more than ten people may be in the meeting with themember and EVERYONE must wear a mask or face shield. Failure to follow these guidelines will result in loss of the meeting space privilege.

Hmmmdoes that sound like what DeSteph was saying? Nope, didnt think so. Also, see below for one-page ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which says:

For the reasons stated during the on-the-record call with counsel on December 30, 2020, the Court hereby DENIES Plaintiffs Motion (ECF No. 10). Additionally, for the reasons stated during the call, the Court FINDS that Plaintiffs proposed witnesses Dr. Roxann Robinson, David LaRock, Meg Graham and Carrie Coyner are precluded from testifying during the hearing on December 31, 2020.

In short, Clerks agreed to find space for State Senators to meet with groups smaller than 10 at the Science Museum and/or near the Pocahontas Building, as long as everyone wears masks. Sen. DeSteph wanted the Pocahontas Building opened; the judge said NO. Finally, as you can see below in the Amended Joint Stipulation of Facts:

Soyeah, DeSteph claimed that he achieved a huge victory for the First Amendment and for open access to government for all Virginians. Exceptnope, he definitely did NOT do any of that, given that the Court hereby DENIES Plaintiffs Motion. But whatever, details detailsLOL.

UPDATE Saturday 1 pm Im informed that DeStephs lawsuit was tossed, but also that the order I posted which was sent to me by an attorney isnt the one that shows that what DeStephs saying is NOT what the court order says. If and when I receive the actual order that denies DeStephs request to reopen the Pocahontas Building, Ill post it here.

Visit link:

Far-Right VA State Senator Claims huge victory for the First Amendment and for open access to government for all Virginians. Except That the Court...

from the double-tapping-Glik dept

More than a decade ago, Simon Glik was arrested by Boston police officers for the "crime" of recording them in public. This was made possible by a law passed in the mid-60s, which turned Massachusetts into a "two-party" recording state. Unless the person doing the recording has the consent of the person being recorded, it's a violation of the state's wiretap law.

Glik successfully challenged this law, securing an Appeals Court ruling that stated the law was unconstitutional as applied to the recording of police officers in public places. This didn't immediately end the bogus arrests. Five years later, the government was taken to court again for enforcing this law in a way the Appeals Court said it couldn't. Also along for the ride was James O'Keefe's "Project Veritas," which argued the law was unconstitutional when applied to any public official in nearly any setting.

The federal court said the Glik decision applied to the recording of police officers, whether surreptitious or not. It pointed out the Boston Police Department had issued new guidance based on the Glik decision, but falsely portrayed acceptable recordings as limited to those cops knew were happening. Not so, said the court. Even surreptitious recordings of cops in public spaces are protected by the First Amendment. It didn't come to the same conclusion about Project Veritas' arguments, finding the law was not overbroad when it applied some minimal restrictions to recording public officials.

The Commonwealth still wants to abuse its bad law. It appealed this decision, sending it to the same court that had found its application of the law to the recording of cops unconstitutional nearly a decade ago. The First Circuit Court of Appeals says [PDF] the government's arguments are no better nine years later. Surreptitious recordings of police officers performing their public duties does not interfere with their work. Citizens are under no obligation to tell police officers they're being recorded. The government's interpretation of the law would just provide cover for misconduct.

Because the recording here will not be done in plain sight or with the actual knowledge of the officers whose words will be recorded, they will not even be aware that such recording is occurring. For that reason, they will not be on specific notice of a need to take precautions to ensure that words that they do not wish to have recorded are not. But, insofar as the mere prospect of being recorded leads officers to feel the need to refrain from uttering words or engaging in actions that would constitute misconduct, it hardly interferes with their capacity to perform their official duties.

Citizens deserve transparency and accountability. And if law enforcement agencies aren't willing to provide that on their own, citizens have the Constitutional right to gather information about police activities.

Accordingly, we conclude that the statute's outright ban on such secret recording is not narrowly tailored to further the government's important interest in preventing interference with police doing their jobs and thereby protecting the public. [...]

Rather, despite a record that does little to show how secret, nonconsensual audio recording of police officers doing their jobs in public interferes with their mission, Section 99 broadly prohibits such recording, notwithstanding the myriad circumstances in which it may play a critical role in informing the public about how the police are conducting themselves, whether by documenting their heroism, dispelling claims of their misconduct, or facilitating the public's ability to hold them to account for their wrongdoing.

The Commonwealth also raised the argument that people interacting with police might be recorded without their consent. Again, the court points out there's minimal expectation of privacy in conversations with cops in public areas. While some citizens may not want to be recorded, talking to officers in the earshot of other members of the public is hardly a private conversation. And the precedent cited by the DA is completely off base.

In pressing this point, the District Attorney contends that special attention must be paid to the fact that "when a recording is made surreptitiously, the person being recorded unwittingly becomes a captive." She supports this argument by invoking the Supreme Court's captive-audience cases.

[...]

But, the captive-audience line of authority concerns restrictions on expression that the government may impose to protect persons from being subjected to speech they wish to avoid. The risk of being subjected to unwanted speech, of course, is not a concern here. Moreover, the only individuals who will be recorded by the Martin Plaintiffs are those in public spaces who are within earshot of police officers and choose to speak. Thus, we do not see how -- across the board -- the proposed secret recording results in "substantial privacy interests . . . being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner."

Project Veritas' case, however, fails to move the court. Veritas wanted the law invalidated in its entirety, claiming it deterred it from recording public officials and those interacting with public officials without limitation. But the examples it provided of speech is was being "deterred" from engaging in was far more limited than the relief it sought.

Project Veritas alleged in connection with this challenge that it seeks to record "government officials who are discharging their duties at or around the State House in Boston and other public spaces" in hopes of learning those officials' unvarnished thoughts about "immigration policy and deportation"; "to capture whether antifa public events and protests are peaceful, whether police or other public officials interactions with antifa members are non-violent," and to otherwise report on those events; and that its "journalists would have attended" "a large public event" related to "the ongoing PVA 'antifa' investigation" but for Section 99.

Thus, Project Veritas gives no indication that it intends to investigate any and every type of civil servant, no matter their function or place in the governmental hierarchy. But, if we take Project Veritas at its word and construe the term "government officials" as broadly as "officials and civil servants," that category covers everyone from an elected official to a public school teacher to a city park maintenance worker.

The court says it's not willing to completely upend the law when narrower reading might both serve the First Amendment and the state's governmental interests. This plaintiff asks the court to consider all recordings equal. The court says that's not realistic.

The concern that this disconnect renders this dispute hypothetical and abstract rather than real and concrete is compounded by the fact that the First Amendment analysis might be appreciably affected by the type of government official who would be recorded. It is hardly clear that a restriction on the recording of a mayor's speech in a public park gives rise to the same First Amendment concerns as a restriction on the recording of a grammar school teacher interacting with her students in that same locale while on a field trip or public works employees conversing while tending to a city park's grounds.

Veritas' case will go back to the court for some additional exploration -- but only if, given a third chance to write a complaint, the activist group actually finds something worthy of discussion by the court. But the ruling here is clear: recording cops in Massachusetts isn't a crime, no matter how much Massachusetts wishes it would be.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyones attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

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Filed Under: 1st amendment, 1st circuit, civil rights, free speech, massachusetts, recording police, simon glik

Continue reading here:

First Circuit Appeals Court Reaffirms Its 2011 Decision: The First Amendment Protects The Recording Of Cops - Techdirt

2020 is the challenging year that just wont go away, however much we wish it would, as many current issues over First Amendment freedoms flop over into the new year.

In the broad realm of freedom of speech, theres little doubt debate will continue in the new Congress around the tangential First Amendment controversy over legal protections for companies hosting content on the web aka Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

The law largely removes liability from companies for user-posted content on their sites. While not directly a First Amendment issue, the fight does have major implications for users free speech on the web, as we know it today, as well for as social media companies rights.

President Donald J. Trump and conservatives claim the provision is being used to hide partisan discrimination by major technology companies against right-wing voices. Liberal critics say the law removes incentives for such online operations to seriously fight misinformation.

Advocates for keeping the law as is say that without it, social media companies would face a myriad of potential lawsuits and thus dramatically limit what users can freely post on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram. No company will be able moderate the webs current traffic, they say, estimated by multiple sources at 500,000 hours of user video uploaded to YouTube, 188 million emails and 18 million texts every minute.

Controversy will also continue surrounding the First Amendments two least-known freedoms petition and assembly as multiple state legislatures consider increasing criminal and civil penalties for demonstrators who block streets or sidewalks or simply participate in events where, at some point, a violent act occurs.

Critics of the proposals, many of which have been introduced over the past five years, say their real motives are the stifling of dissenting or minority views, though advocates claim the new provisions are rooted in legitimate law and order concerns about violence and property damages.

In the area of religious liberty, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this spring on Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involving both the First Amendments free exercise and establishment clauses. In the case, a religious-backed foster care agency is challenging a city decision to cancel a contract because the agency refused to provide services to married same-sex couples, citing religious grounds.

There is no doubt that as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on public gatherings continue into the new year, so will legal challenges rooted in the First Amendments protection of religious liberty.

There are some new First Amendment issues for 2021 as a result of the incoming Biden administration, though even here, many are tinged by actions or views from the Trump years.

A top concern for free-press advocates is the potential for the Supreme Courts new conservative majority to review the 1963 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which provided wide protection from defamation claims by government officials and other public figures if actual error was inadvertent or not caused by reckless disregard for the truth.

A longstanding target of press critics and Trump, the decision is rooted in the theory that such protection is needed to foster the widest possible debate on public issues. Trump and others claim the decision makes it virtually impossible for officials and public figures to successfully repair deliberate damage to their reputations and that it gives journalists free license to report so-called fake news.

Of concern for some is the potential return to Obama-era regulations reversed by Trump that were aimed at combatting sexual harassment on college campuses, which critics said stepped on free-speech protections, particularly where online comments were deemed to be sexual in nature.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide in January whether to hear an appeal of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that public school authorities may not punish student speech made away from school grounds. Other circuits have made differing decisions.

Some First Amendment experts also are concerned the incoming administration may be open to reducing or eliminating the First Amendment protections for what some deem hate speech or speech demeaning to women or minority religious groups. At present, such speech generally is protected, with some arguing that in addition to a core right to voice ones own views, it is necessary to hear such speech to effectively argue against it.

Free-press supporters are already calling on President-elect Joe Biden to actively repudiate the Trump claim that mainstream news media are the enemy of the people, with some calling for new legislation to aid financially ailing local news operations seen by some as counterintuitive for a free press along with an international-U.S. effort to support free-press principles and journalists globally.

Welcome to the First Amendment in 2021 with its echoes of 2020s year of pandemic, protest and presidential-political turmoil.

Gene Policinski is a senior fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum, and president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Institute. He can be reached at gpolicinski@freedomforum.org, or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.

Excerpt from:

Happy new and old year: 2020 just won't go away when it comes to first amendment issues in 2021 - Hopkinsville Kentucky New Era

Law360 (January 3, 2021, 12:02 PM EST) -- The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether a California regulation requiring farms to allow organizers onto their properties violates the Fifth Amendment, a new wave of litigation over profane outbursts by workers could find its way to the National Labor Relations Board and the board doctrine that shields unions from being ousted while collective bargaining agreements are in effect is under the microscope in 2021.

Here, Law360 looks at the notable labor cases and trends to watch in the upcoming year.

High Court Mulling Union Access

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether a California regulation requiring agricultural businesses...

In the legal profession, information is the key to success. You have to know whats happening with clients, competitors, practice areas, and industries. Law360 provides the intelligence you need to remain an expert and beat the competition.

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Read more from the original source:

Labor Cases And Trends To Watch In 2021 - Law360

If there was any question about the gravity of problems with police use of face surveillance technology, 2020 wasted no time in proving them dangerously real. Thankfully, from Oregon to Massachusetts, local lawmakers responded by banning their local governments' use.

On January 9, after first calling and threatening to arrest him at work, Detroit police officers traveled to nearby Farmington Hills to arrest Robert Williams in front of his wife, children, and neighborsfor a crime he did not commit. He was erroneously connected by face recognition technology that matched an image of Mr. Williams with video from a December 2018 shoplifting incident. Later this year, Detroit police erroneously arrested a second man because of another misidentification by face recognition technology.

For Robert Williams, his family, and millions of Black and brown people throughout the country, the research left the realm of the theoretical and became all too real. Experts at MIT Media Lab, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Georgetown's Center on Privacy and Technology have shown that face recognition technology is riddled with error, especially for people of color. It is one more of a long line of police tools and practices that exacerbate historical bias in the criminal system.

2020 will undoubtedly come to be known as the year of the pandemic. It will also be remembered for unprecedented Black-led protest against police violence and concerns that surveillance of political activity will chill our First Amendment rights. Four cities joined the still-growing list of communities that have stood up for their residents' rights by banning local government use of face recognition. Just days after Mr. Williams' arrest, Cambridge, MAan East Coast research and technology hubbecame the largest East Coast City to ban government use of face recognition technology. It turned out to be a distinction they wouldn't retain long.

In February and March, Chicago and New York City residents and organizers called on local lawmakers to pass their own bans. However, few could have predicted that a month later, organizing, civic engagement, and life as we knew it would change dramatically. As states and municipalities began implementing stay in place orders to suppress an escalating global pandemic, City Councils and other lawmaking bodies adapted to social distancing and remote meetings.

As those of us privileged enough to work from home adjusted to Zoom meetings, protests in the name of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd spread throughout the country.

Calls to end police use of face recognition technology were joined by calls for greater transparency and accountability. Those calls have not yet been answered with a local ban on face recognition in New York City. As New Yorkers continue to push for a ban, one enacted bill will shine the light on NYPD use of all manner of surveillance technology. That light of transparency will inform lawmakers and the public of the breadth and dangers of NYPD's use of face recognition and other privacy-invasive technology. After three years of resistance from the police department and the mayor, New York's City Council passed the POST Act with a veto-proof majority. While lacking the community control measures in stronger surveillance equipment ordinances, the POST Act requires the NYPD to publish surveillance impact and use policies for each of its surveillance technologies. This will end decades of the department's refusal to disclose information and policies about its surveillance arsenal.

TAKE ACTION

End Face Surveillance in your community

Building on the momentum of change driven by political unrest and protestand through the tireless work of local organizers including the ACLU-Massachusettsjust days after New York's City Council passed the POST Act, Boston's City Council took strong action. It voted unanimously to join neighboring Cambridge in protecting their respective residents from police use of face recognition. In the preceding weeks, EFF advocated for, and council members accepted, improvements to the ordinance. One closed a loophole that might have allowed police to ask third parties to collect face recognition evidence for them. Another change provides attorney fees to a person who brings a successful suit against the City for violating the ban.

Not to be outdone by their peers in California and Massachusetts, 2020 was also the year municipal lawmakers in Oregon and Maine banned their own agencies from using the technology. In Portland, Maine, the City Council voted unanimously to ban the technology in August. Then in November, the City's voters passed the first ballot measure prohibiting government use of face recognition.

Across the country, the Portland, Oregon, City Council voted unanimously in September to pass their government ban (as well as a ban on private use of face recognition in places of public accommodation). In the days leading up to the vote, a coalition organized by PDX Privacy, an Electronic Frontier Alliance member, presented local lawmakers with a petition signed by over 150 local business owners, technologists, workers, and residents for an end to government use of face surveillance.

TAKE ACTION

End Face Surveillance in your community

Complimenting the work of local lawmakers, federal lawmakers are stepping forward. Senators Jeff Merkley and Jeff Markey), and Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Pramila Jayapal, Rashida Tlaib, and Yvette Clarke introduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2020 (S.4084/H.R.7356). If passed, it would ban federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Customs and Border Patrol from using face recognition to track and identify (and misidentify) millions of U.S. residents and travelers. The act would also withhold certain federal funding from local and state governments that use face recognition.

While some high-profile vendors this year committed to pressing pause on the sale of face recognition technology to law enforcement, 2020 was also a year where the public became much more familiar with how predatory the industry can be. Thus, through our About Face campaign and work of local allies, EFF will continue to support the movement to ban all government use of face recognition technology.

With a new class of recently elected lawmakers poised to take office in the coming weeks, now is the time to reach out to your local city council, board of supervisors, and state and federal representatives. Tell them to stand with you in ending government use of face recognition, a dangerous technology with a proven ability to chill essential freedoms and amplify systemic bias.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2020.

Read this article:

Banning Government Use of Face Recognition Technology: 2020 Year in Review - EFF

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Reuters

The homes of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were vandalized days after Congress failed to approve a measure toincrease coronavirus stimulus checks to $2,000.

Photos captured on Saturday showed the words "WERES MY MONEY" scrawled in white spray paint on the front door of McConnell's Louisville, Kentucky, home. "MITCH KILLS THE POOR" was written in red on a window.

"I've spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest. I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not," the Republican leader said in a statement. "This is different. Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society."

The home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is shown as it was vandalized overnight in Louisville, Ky., Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021.

Timothy D. Easley | AP Photo

McConnell said he and his wife were not intimidated, but "hope our neighbors in Louisville aren't too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum."

The Louisville Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment Saturday.

At Pelosi's San Francisco home, a garage door was defaced on Friday with phrases including "$2K," "Cancel rent!" and "We want everything!"

Police said a pig's head and fake blood were left on the ground.

The San Francisco Police Department's Special Investigations Division is looking into the vandalism, police said in a statement. Pelosi has not yet responded to a request for comment.

The House passed the CASH Act on Monday to increase stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 to help people during the coronavirus pandemic, but it wasblocked by McConnellwho said the bill had "no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate."

"The Senate's not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats' rich friends who don't need the help," he said on the Senate floor.

The act would have increased thechecks from $600to $2,000 and wassupported by President Donald Trump.

Continued here:

McConnell and Pelosi's homes vandalized after Congress fails to pass $2,000 stimulus checks - CNBC

Scholars propose solutions to endless robocalling.

Receiving ominous calls about your cars expiring warranty, even if you do not own a vehicle? Or perhaps vaguely worded voicemails alerting you to an alleged debt you need to pay right away?

Telemarketingunsolicited calls or voicemails selling a product or serviceis not a new phenomenon. Telemarketing operations blossomed in the early 1980s as technology enabled businesses to dial more consumers at a lower cost. Pre-recorded messagesalso known as robocallscould reach thousands of phones at once. Companies invested in telemarketing, finding it to be a productive method for increasing sales, and over the course of the next decade the telemarketing industry grew nearly ten-fold.

In 1991, Congress enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to try to curb the deluge of unsolicited calls to consumers. The problem had gotten so bad that former Senator Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), one of the sponsors of the TCPA, called robocalls the scourge of modern civilization.

Under the TCPA, the penalty for any robocall is $500 per call but can rise to $1,500 per call if petitioners can show in court that the robocallers willfully or knowingly violated the TCPA.

The TCPA was far from the death knell of the robocall, however. In another effort to stymie unsolicited calls, in 2003 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) teamed up with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to launch the National Do-Not-Call Registry. Now administered by the FTC, the National Do-Not-Call Registry allows consumers to add their telephone numbers to a national database specifying that those numbers are, in theory, off limits for certain types of unwanted calls.

But even with the TCPA and the National Do-Not-Call Registry, robocalling has continued to grow. Americans received over 100 billion robocalls in 2019, with the average consumer receiving an unwanted call nearly every day.

In a further effort to address the seemingly unfettered growth of robocalling, Congress enacted the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act) in 2019. The TRACED Act, among other things, increased penalties under the TCPA, gave the FCC greater authority to enforce the TCPA, and required the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice to work together to develop better methods for combatting robocalls.

In this weeks Saturday Seminar, scholars discuss telemarketing, robocalls, and the future of the TCPA.

See the original post:

Can Robocalls Be Stopped? - The Regulatory Review