The U.S. is panicking over TikTok. After President Trump announced that he was considering banning the popular video-sharing app, Reuters reported that the administration has given Microsoft a 45-day deadline to finalize an acquisition of TikToks U.S. operations from the apps parent company, ByteDance. In doing so, the president is responding to legislators'and policymakers worries about the Chinese government using the app as a vector for espionage and election interference, perhaps through tweaking the TikToks algorithm to favor or disfavor videos supporting one candidate or another. In response, TikTok has claimed independence from the Chinese government and argued that any U.S. government action will be unfounded and discriminatory.

So do American politicians' concerns over TikTok have any merit, or is this just an instance of overblown fearmongering? ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has a more complicated relationship with the Chinese government than many American critics may realize. But if the government were intent on pressuring ByteDance to help with some kind of interference abroad, the company has little wiggle room.

In discussing the potential dangers of technology from China, Americans often lump TikTok together with Huaweiimagining these companies as run by faithful party members toiling ceaselessly to spread Xi Jinping Thought. But there is an important generational split between TikTok and Huawei. Huaweis CEO Ren Zhengfei, while certainly inspired by American managerial thinking, served in the Peoples Liberation Army and modeled much of his mindset on Mao Zedong, framing Huaweis expansion as a point of national pride. But ByteDance is run by a new generation of leaders with a very different relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming, just 38, is this cohorts leading man. He is part of a group of nerdy software engineers who are much more liberal and open to the west than their forebears. These founders were promised a China opening to the West and were all active online back when the Chinese internet was much more open than it is today. (For instance, Zhangs posts on the microblogging platform Weibo from the early 2010s positively contrasted Americas freedom of speech with restrictions in China.) Many spent years in Silicon Valley or worked for top American tech firms in China, as Zhang did after graduate school for Microsoft. For them, to compete against Western firms overseasas TikTok has succeeded in doingis a natural evolution after saturating a domestic market. These CEOs probably want nothing to do with Chinese foreign policy.

At the end of the day, however, there is very little that these firms can do to push back in a party-state environment. ByteDance has already been repeatedly forced to bend the knee to party authority at home. Most punishingly, in April 2018, the government compelled ByteDance to shut down its popular Neihan Duanzi (inside jokes) app for good due to its vulgar content. In response, Zhang issued a letter of self-criticism, a textbook maneuver of the CCP used initially to control wayward cadres and now occasionally forced upon businesspeople. Our product took the wrong path, and content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values, Zhang wrote. He also promised that the firm would in the future, Further deepen cooperation with authoritative [official party] media, elevating distribution of authoritative media content, ensuring that authoritative [official party] media voices are broadcast to strength. Compare this to the relatively free reign that American tech leaders enjoy.

These nods to the party are readily apparent to users in China. I noticed that after the government crackdown on ByteDance products in 2018, advertorial-style Douyin videos about the Chinese police and army started to appear more frequentlydriven, presumably, by internal tweaks to the recommendation algorithm. Yet while such actions may reinforce ByteDances standing domestically, the firms connection to and reliance on the CCPs goodwill risks becoming a liability as the platforms market abroad grows.

For the first few years of TikToks existence, ByteDance did its best to sidestep these political issues by making a fun-only app completely divorced from politics. The original app allowed users to record just their a beautiful life, as the tagline for Douyin, the domestic Chinese version of TikTok, reads. This would include shopping sprees, snapshots of happy farmers, exercise videos and lighthearted jokes, but certainly no videos of police brutality, camps in Xinjiang or domestic protests within China.

Even as TikToks user base outside China grew, it seemed that TikTok might be able to keep politically charged content off the platform by banning political advertising and upholding a more restrictive content policy than Facebook or YouTube. The platform received some bad press early on when, in November 2019, it banned an American user who had posted a video discussing Chinas treatment of Uighurs. However, the recent surge of U.S. political activism following George Floyds killing will likely make it difficult for TikTok to keep any further meddling along these lines under the radar. Once Gen Z had its political awakening earlier this year, they simply would not have put up with a platform that suppressed their speech on political topics. Indeed, Americans on the app complained loudly when, in the week after Floyds death, posts with the hashtags #blacklivesmatter and #georgefloyd displayed on the app as having zero viewsleading TikTok to apologize and blame the issue on a technical glitch.

On July 29, TikTok USA CEO Kevin Mayer reiterated the platforms claims to neutrality, declaring that We are not political, we do not accept political advertising and have no agendaour only objective is to remain a vibrant, dynamic platform for everyone to enjoy. As much as he would like that to be true, the fact is that once TikTok outgrew its origins as a lip-syncing and dancing app for preteens and into a major national platform, it was untenable to stop Western users from uploading political content.

Now that TikToks users have mobilized politically, ByteDances power to channel that energy with its algorithm is worrisome. Many analyses of TikToks potential dangers highlight the issue of data privacybut the threat of political interference through algorithmic manipulation is, in my view, more concerning. While TikTok vacuums up user data, so too do Facebook and Google; meanwhile, and thanks to Chinas successful hacking of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 2015, Chinese intelligence services have more interesting personal data on current and former U.S. government employees and contractors than they know what to do with. Anything it could learn about these individuals through their TikTok usage is probably not nearly as relevant.

The potential for Chinese government interference in ByteDance is considerableand like other tech firms in China, theres little the company can do about it. The Chinese government is no stranger to using orchestrated networks on Western platforms to influence foreign opinion and interfere in elections. It has run massive Twitter operations and surreptitiously bankrolls pro-CCP Youtube channels. It worked to get pro-Beijing candidate Han Kuo-Yu elected as mayor in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung and posted thousands of tweets opposing the reelection of anti-reunification Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in 2020. Before, when TikTok was mostly apolitical, it would have been difficult to interfere in an election by meddling with the platformsuch an effort would require more subtle forms of manipulation, like pushing happier videos to people you wanted to encourage to vote. But now that TikTok is chock-full of political contentand with tens of millions of daily active users in Americapushing certain videos to promote one candidate over another would be trivial.

Chinese tech firms are not enthusiastic partners in these sorts of foreign policy endeavors. Aside from the occasional government offer of free office space and tax benefits, these companies would generally prefer to have nothing to do with the government. Take the ridesharing company DiDis initial response to police requests for datain one instance, after twice outright refusing the request on privacy grounds, DiDi finally printed out a few boxes of documents that for the polices purposes were nearly useless. Likewise, Zhang, ByteDances CEO, is surely not happy to have to issue apology letters and face mandated shutdowns of popular products.

But Chinas national intelligence law, according to one interpretation, gives total authority to the government to compel firmsand with no independent judiciary, even extralegal pressure is very hard to resist. CCP regulators can take massive bites out of market capitalization at will, and have in the past thrown ByteDance senior leadership in jail on corruption charges. This makes keeping officials at home happy ByteDances first priority, regardless of reputational risks abroad.

So faced with increasing pressure from the United States, what can TikTok do? Kevin Xu, author of the Interconnected blog, has proposed the most reasonable path for the company to get around this dilemma. TikTok, he suggests, should make public who has access to what parts of the apps code base; this, he writes, could help prove that Chinese engineers are indeed off limits from American user data. This logic could potentially extend to the TikTok algorithm, sealing the CCP off from forcing employees based in the mainland from any nefarious manipulation.

Its not clear whether it would be technically feasible to make TikTok open-source to such a degree as to preclude the possibility of any funny business. But regardless, it doesnt look like Zhang is all that interested in pursuing the open-source pathand currently, ByteDance is sticking to Huaweis script of loudly proclaiming that it would never accede to Chinese government requests. Whats more, even if ByteDance makes gestures toward this with initiatives like transparency centers purportedly allowing independent observers to peek into the TikTok algorithm, the fundamental issue is a problem of trust and accountability. While Zhang has been trying to offshore more of the functions of ByteDances overseas products, this process is so early along that the U.S.-based engineers dont even report to Mayer, TikTok USAs CEO.

I am sympathetic to arguments that it would be a bad look for the U.S. to ban consumer-facing tech firmsbehavior that echoes Chinas ban of Facebook. However, the motivations for China banning Facebook and a potential U.S. government demand for ByteDance to divest TikTok USA would be completely different. TikToks ban wouldnt impinge on the First Amendment in the slightest, and the Chinese state-backed propaganda is still distributed in the U.S.: CGTN comes in my cable channel package and Chinese state-made videos get millions of views on YouTube.

Samm Sacks has recommended that the U.S. develop country-agnostic regulation to ensure a safe and level playing field for speech on online platforms. It would be a tall order to create this sort of regulatory regime in time for the 2020 elections, and even so I dont think a mass market Chinese consumer-facing social media app would have an easy time meeting its standards.

So what should be done? I think the U.S. government has no choice but to limit TikToks access to the U.S. market or force a sale.

The government has several options, as Bobby Chesney has explained. According to Reuters, the 45-day deadline on a ByteDance-Microsoft deal was set by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The committee could compel ByteDance to sell TikToks American operations to a U.S. company, in the same way that it has already forced the Chinese buyers of Grindr and PatientsLikeMe to divest their acquisitions. This would certainly be a messy and expensive process, as TikTok USA relies on a Beijing-based codebase and the vast majority of ByteDances engineers are located in China.

The administration also has the option to have the Commerce Department put ByteDance on the entity list, a move that would effectively stop American firms from doing business with the company. This tactic, used previously on Chinese hardware companies like ZTE and Huawei, would force American firms to stop buying ads on TikTok and prevent the App Store and Google Play from allowing ByteDance to push TikTok updatestwo moves that would dramatically impact the long term future of the business. As Beau Barnes, S. Nathan Park and Wade Weems write in Foreign Policy, Trump could also invoke new powers granted to the Commerce Department under the 2019 International Emergency Economic Powers Act and force Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores. If the sale to Microsoft falls through or Trump decides that actually banning TikTok is the right way to go, he has the authority to unilaterally cripple TikToks global operations.

TikTok is not the only China-based app that has raised concerns within the U.S. of late. Theres also WeChata messaging app owned by Chinese company Tencent, which the White House has floated restricting access to. But WeChats situation is different, and less urgent, than TikToks.

Unlike TikTok, WeChat is first and foremost a messaging app, and the prime bridge for anyone outside of China communicating with the mainland. If the standard is whether these apps give the Chinese government an undue opportunity to subversively influence American public opinion, perhaps the best argument in WeChats defense is its scale: The app only has a few million daily active users in America, who spend most of their time on WeChat talking with friends and colleagues as opposed to ingesting algorithmically-recommended content. There certainly is censorship and surveillance on versions of WeChat outside the U.S., but these factors alone dont merit a ban for the time being.

If companies like ByteDance and Tencent are hoping to buy some time, a good place to build trust would be allowing outside researchers and governments to see exactly how content performs on their apps. But given where things stand now, it seems unlikely that WeChat will ultimately be able to deliver the transparency that the U.S. should require from large-scale platforms.

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The U.S. Is Right to Worry About TikTok - Lawfare

As we transition to a new team of fellows this fall, and celebrate almost one year of publishing this newsletter, wed love to learn more about you and get your feedback on how we can improve This Week in Technology and Press Freedom. Please take a few moments tofill out this surveyto help us understand what content you want to see, when you want to hear from us, and more. The survey should take about five minutes, and well keep it open until 5 p.m. ET on Aug. 24. We really appreciate your feedback!

Heres what the staff of the Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is tracking this week.

On July 23, TPFPs Linda Moon joined author and digital strategist Tim Schwartz for a presentation titled Press Rights and Digital Safety During Pandemic and Protest.

During the virtual discussion hosted by Alley, a digital consulting firm, Moon and Schwartz discussed source protection, the right to record police and protests, and collaborating with colleagues safely while working from home.

All the legal protections for journalists and sources do not change because youre working remotely or outside of your newsroom, Moon said. Everything that applied before still applies in the remote setting.

The protections do vary, however, depending on where you are and who is interested in the materials you want to keep confidential. California and New York, for example, have strongshield laws, but there is no federal shield law that applies to federal law enforcement just federal case law, which varies by jurisdiction, and the Justice Departments internal media policy.

The pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests have also raised questions about the legal right of reporters to travel and report during coronavirus lockdown orders and protest-related curfews, althoughmost orders have included exemptionsfor newsgathering. Courts have not squarely addressed whether such orders are required to exempt journalists, but Moon said a lockdown order without a media exemption may violate the First Amendment.

Working from home highlights the risk that law enforcement can seize a journalists communication records from electronic service providers without the journalist knowing about it.Thats becausegag orderscan prevent the service providers from informing the reporter that their information has been shared.

Law enforcement tools and discovery orsubpoenasin civil suits can be used to compel disclosure of sensitive information, and journalists have also beensubject to malware attacks.

In the face of these challenges, Schwartz, author of A Public Service: Whistleblowing, Disclosure and Anonymity, said that information control is key to preserving source confidentiality.

For communicating securely with sources, Schwartz recommended using systems, like Signal or Wire, that have end-to-end encryption, limit logging, and have a track record of publicizing any requests they receive from law enforcement.

Finally, Schwartz encouraged people to think about the security of their phones when they are at a protest, including how it unlocks (it is easier to forcefully unlock a phone that uses facial recognition than one with a passcode) and whether to leave metadata on or use a burner.

The most important thing, though, is to think about security ahead of time and practice it.

Make it a priority to talk about security with those you work with, whether its sources or those you collaborate with at work, Schwartz said. Make it a top-down and bottom-up priority.

Register hereto watch the entire webinar.

Abe Kenmore

On July 23, a Superior Court judge in King County, Washington, ruled that the Seattle Times and four local TV stationsmust comply with a Seattle Police Department subpoenafor unpublished photos and video taken during a May 30 protest against police brutality. The news organizations argued that the subpoena would harm journalists by making them seem like an extension of law enforcement rather than neutral observers. Attorneys for the Reporters Committee filed afriend-of-the-court briefarguing the subpoena would violate the First Amendment and state law in addition to putting reporters at risk.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorseyapologized on July 23for a security breach that allowed hackers, as part of a bitcoin scam, to access 130 accounts and tweet from 45 of them. The hackers also viewed private messages for 36 of the accounts. Dorsey said the company is cooperating with the FBI to investigate the incident, which allegedly occurred after the manipulation of several Twitter employees.

Seventeen internet freedom organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Wikimedia, filed afriend-of-the-court briefin a case againstMichael Pack, the newly appointed head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, for exceeding his authority when he fired the directors of the Open Technology Fund. Their brief emphasizes the importance of OTFs independence from the government to ensure it can fulfill its anti-censorship mission worldwide.

According to Department of Justice emailsreleasedin response to a Freedom of Information Act request, a DOJ official told Neil McCabe, a One America News Network reporter, that McCabe should reach out to FBI in response to McCabes email asking if the DOJ was cool with National Public Radio hosting an encrypted tip line. How is it then, that federal government employees could be running their own private silo for information about crimes or national security risks? McCabe asked in one email to the DOJ, mistakenly referring to NPR reporters as government employees.

A federal judge issued atemporary restraining orderbarring federal law enforcement in Portland from arresting and enforcing dispersal orders against journalists and legal observers. As Judge Michael Simon wrote, Without journalists and legal observers, there is only the governments side of the story to explain why a riot was declared and the public streets were closed and whether law enforcement acted properly in effectuating that order.

Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who has critically covered President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs, moved to dismiss asecond cyber libel complaintfollowing her conviction for an initial cyber libel charge in June, both filed by the same business executive. The basis for the second complaint is a tweet Ressa posted, after being arrested for the first charge, linking to a 2002 news story about the executive that alleged he was involved in a murder. The Reporters Committee has previouslydetailedthe problematic implications when governments invoke cybercrime laws like the one here to silence reporters and their sources.

In written testimony submitted ahead of a House Natural Resources Committee hearing, Major Adam DeMarco of the D.C. National Guard said thatpolice sped up clearing efforts and used excessive forceon protesters in Lafayette Square on June 1. Contradicting statements from Park Police and Attorney General William Barr,DeMarco said the planwas initially to clear out protesters after the 7 p.m. curfew, but was carried out earlier for President Trumps photo op. The Reporters Committeesent a letterto the committee in connection with an earlier hearing, expressing concern about the Park Polices attack against an Australian news crew.

Smart read

Speaking of legal protections for journalists, thisarticleargues that in cases implicating First Amendment concerns similar to those in leak prosecutions, those considerations have historically been a mitigating factor at sentencing.

Gif of the Week:Trying to explain some of this social media news to our older relatives.

Like what youve read?Sign up to get This Week in Technology + Press Freedom delivered straight to your inbox!

The Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press uses integrated advocacy combining the law, policy analysis, and public education to defend and promote press rights on issues at the intersection of technology and press freedom, such as reporter-source confidentiality protections, electronic surveillance law and policy, and content regulation online and in other media. TPFP is directed by Reporters Committee Attorney Gabe Rottman. He works with Stanton Foundation National Security/Free Press Fellow Linda Moon, Legal Fellows Jordan Murov-Goodman and Lyndsey Wajert, Policy Interns Abe Kenmore and Joey Oteng, and Legal Intern Sasha Peters.

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This Week in Technology + Press Freedom: Aug. 2, 2020 - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

After the horrendous killing of George Floyd, people in Portland, Ore., joined with thousands across the country in demonstrations to address police reform and widespread systemic racism. The leaders of the Portland Police Bureau denounced this tragic death, and we reiterated our willingness to engage in reforms.

But Portland has now faced weeks of extreme difficulties and drew intense national attention after federal officers were deployed here.

As police officers, our duty is to uphold the rights of anyone to assemble peacefully and engage in free speech. But over the months of protests, a concerning dynamic developed. People protested peacefully, while others engaged in dangerous activities that could have resulted in injury and even death.

The night of May 29 was a pivotal moment for our city. Hundreds of people, in a coordinated effort, attacked the Justice Center, which includes our Central Precinct station and the Multnomah County Detention Center. They broke into the building, destroyed the first-floor interior and lit fires. Afterward, there was looting and destruction downtown.

Yet in the following weeks, thousands of people demonstrated peacefully in an awesome expression of First Amendment rights. The Police Bureau had little to no interaction with members of this group, because they did not allow criminal activity to impede their message.

As a Black man and a public servant, I have a unique perspective. I agree with a local pastor, E.D. Mondain, who stated these spectacles are drowning out the voices that need to be heard to make positive change. This violence is doing nothing to further the Black Lives Matter movement.

On one night, for example, individuals screwed the doors of our North Precinct station shut, barricaded other entrances and lit the station on fire with people inside. Nearby businesses, owned by people of color, were damaged and looted. On other nights, there were multiple attempts to breach the Justice Center. Other law enforcement facilities were targeted, including the union building, which was broken into and had fires set within.

Violence and destruction have also been directed at the federal courthouse, which sits next to the Justice Center. The president sent additional federal agents to Portland, and our city became national news.

Gov. Kate Brown recently negotiated an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to remove federal agents in stages and have them replaced by Oregon State Police. The governor acknowledged that this might not be the end of the violence. I hope she is wrong.

Portland is a beautiful and vibrant city with smart, progressive people, and I am hopeful we can come together to move beyond the unrest and refocus on critical issues.

The Portland Police Bureau remains committed to protecting life and responding to events as appropriate. I am proud of our efforts in extreme circumstances few in the country have faced.

During these events, our agency has responded to assaults, stabbings, shootings, people with guns and the stockpiling of explosives. Shooting off commercial-grade fireworks and mortars is not peaceful protest. We are fortunate that no one has been killed.

There are those who say the Portland police have not done enough to quell violence. I ask them to come speak with our officers, who have been responding for two months to protests. They have served with professionalism, courage and resiliency through an extraordinary time. Many have been injured and some have received threats of violence to themselves or their families. They would prefer to return to regular patrol and investigative duties and see peace in our community.

The voices of victims are not heard as well. Because of the protests, officers have not been able to respond to 911 calls or have been delayed for hours. Investigators cases lie on their desks as they work nights to process arrests. We have seen an alarming increase in shootings and homicides. We need to redirect our focus to preventing and solving these crimes that are taking a hugely disproportionate number of minority lives.

I have said frequently that the Portland Police Bureau is committed to reform. We are a progressive agency and have demonstrated our willingness to change over the past eight years. Working with the Department of Justice, we have made significant changes to our policies and training. The Portland Police Bureaus policy on the use of deadly force is more restrictive than state and federal law.

We recently enhanced our Community Engagement Unit to help build trust and legitimacy with the communities we serve. We have also developed several advisory councils that help the Police Bureau make decisions with the benefit of a diverse set of inputs.

The Portland Police Bureau has had an equity and inclusion office for over five years. I recently changed the organizational structure to have it report directly to me, to ensure we are prioritizing its work.

I have confidence in our community and the people who have dedicated their lives to building relationships with police. They have stood up and said no more violence. I stand with them with a servants heart, committed to being leaders in police reform.

Chuck Lovell is the chief of the Police Bureau in Portland, Ore.

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Im the Police Chief in Portland. Violence Isnt the Answer. - The New York Times

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Editorial: Freedom of press and coronavirus - TribLIVE

TAMPA The citys newest public art project appeared over the weekend outside Tampa Police Department headquarters after organizers worked for weeks to get approval from the city for a Back the Blue pro-police mural.

The city didnt approve it, but organizers armed with paint and orange cones created the mural anyway.

Kristen Krutz, one of the organizers, helped spearhead the project along with others from Back the Blue Florida, an online community with more than 5,000 members. She said the mural is meant to show law enforcement personnel that they have support.

Theyre being defunded and things that they need and require to do their job are not going to be provided anymore, said Krutz, 36. Obviously, that would make anybody feel unappreciated, unwanted, and thats the opposite of what we wanted them to see with the mural on the street.

At Tampa City Council meetings, people have called on officials to defund the Tampa Police Department, but Mayor Jane Castor has said shes not on board with the idea.

Krutz and about 40 other people painted the mural Saturday evening in the middle of East Madison Street. The mural spans the block and is painted with the black, white and blue colors of the pro-police thin blue line flag.

Without obtaining a permit, Krutz said, they used orange cones and their personal vehicles to block the road while they worked.

The reason why we decided to proceed without a permit is because Black Lives Matter has murals all over the city that say Black Lives Matter, and they were not permitted, Krutz said.

Krutz said she filed a records request with the city for permits issued for Black Lives Matter murals and was told none were issued. City of Tampa spokesperson Ashley Bauman said the murals were approved as part of the citys Art on the Block day.

Bauman said the Back the Blue mural was in the process of approval. In a statement to the Tampa Bay Times Monday, Mayor Castor who has served as Tampa police chief said any tribute to honor law enforcements service is welcome.

Its unfortunate they didnt see the permitting process through so that our community could participate in showing their appreciation for the brave men and women that service our residents every day, Castor said.

The mural has been criticized on social media as ugly and difficult to read. Some posts suggested accidentally spilling paint over it. The headline in alternative weekly Creative Loafing: Everyones roasting Tampas hilariously bad Bock The Blub street mural.

Cam Parker, an artist from east Tampa, said he felt embarrassed as a resident of the city to see posts about the mural Sunday night. In July, Parker helped create a rainbow fist mural in Tampa Heights on North Franklin Street and West Henderson Avenue, meant to support Black Lives Matter and promote LGBTQ pride. He also created the A in St. Petersburgs Black Lives Matter mural.

Parker said he can understand supporting law enforcement, but he feels the Back the Blue mural is a retaliation against the Black Lives Matter movement and its murals. Parker said it feels like those who painted the mural are pushing back against people who are just asking not to be killed.

Were not having fun talking about Black Lives Matter, Parker said. I am now staunchly and like, unrelentingly using my voice to do what I can to bring awareness and to let people know its not a fad, its not a trend, its not anything that is going away ever.

Krutzs husband designed the Back the Blue mural. She said said she expects it to be vandalized, even though local Black Lives Matter murals have remained untouched so far. Anyone who would do this shows disdain for First Amendment rights, she said.

Theres no doubt if they go out there and deface this mural that somebody is going to deface theirs, Krutz said. Thats what irritates me. And its not going to be me. But its going to happen.

Krutz said she emailed Castor over several days starting July 16 about getting approval for the Back the Blue mural. Krutz suggested two possible slogans: Blue Lives Matter, and, Back the Blue, along with two possible locations. Krutz was referred to city staff and was sent a guide with steps on painting an intersection in Tampa.

A GoFundMe fundraiser brought in a little more than $1,000 for the mural and Krutz said she sent a petition with more than 1,000 signatures to city officials. Krutz was told the proposal needs to be brought to the City Council for approval.

Jeffrey Stull, an attorney who represents the Tampa Police Benevolent Association, sent a letter Friday to Castor, saying the police union supported the project and asking her to direct city staff to move quickly to grant Krutz permission.

Krutz said she spoke the same day with Marley Wilkes, Tampas director of the office of governmental affairs and strategic initiatives, and was told the city would let her know if she was granted permission.

The mural is only of its kind in the United States painted on a street, Krutz said. A group in New York City called for a Blue Lives Matter mural in July but it hasnt materialized. In Tulsa, after a pro-police group asked for its own mural, the city decided to remove a Black Lives Matter mural rather than let one with a pro-police message stand.

HOW TO SUPPORT: Whether youre protesting or staying inside, here are ways to educate yourself and support black-owned businesses.

WHAT PROTESTERS WANT: Protesters explain what changes would make them feel like the movement is successful.

WHAT ARE NON-LETHAL AND LESS-LETHAL WEAPONS? A guide to whats used in local and national protests.

WHAT ARE ARRESTED PROTESTERS CHARGED WITH? About half the charges filed have included unlawful assembly.

CAN YOU BE FIRED FOR PROTESTING? In Florida, you can. Learn more.

HEADING TO A PROTEST? How to protect eyes from teargas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

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Theres a Back the Blue mural at police headquarters, but Tampa didnt okay it - Tampa Bay Times

College athletes have begun challenging a longstanding pillar, that the college sports industrial complex must hum along as if straight from the pages of Das Kapital on the fuel of exploited labor. Their labor.

Yet, to better understand how the modern-day dynamic works and why players are more stridently calling for a voice in matters like social justice, how their images are used, straight-up pay and playing during the pandemic all thats necessary is to listen to a five-minute, nine-second recording of a phone call between Nick Rolovich, the new football coach at Washington State, and Kassidy Woods, a redshirt sophomore receiver.

It lays clear not with an iron fist, but a velvet hammer just who is in charge.

It begins amiably.

Whats up, coach?

Kass, how are you doing? Whats up?

Woods, who was competing for a starting position, had called to tell Rolovich that he was opting out of the season. Woods explained that he had been diagnosed with the sickle cell trait when he enrolled at Washington State and with so much uncertainty about the coronaviruss lingering effects, he did not feel comfortable playing.

Ive got nothing wrong with that, Rolovich replied.

Then he asked Woods a question: was he joining the Pac-12 Conference unity group?

Rolovich was referring to the Pac-12 football players who announced Sunday they were threatening to sit out the season unless their demands, including more concrete health and safety protocols and measures that would amount to a redistribution of much of the wealth that players generate for their schools, were met.

Yes, sir, Woods said.

Well, the coach said, that would be a problem.

Woodss scholarship would be honored for this year, as is required for anyone who opts out for health reasons, but if he was part of this organized effort, it was going to be handled differently, the coach said. Woods could not work out with the team because it would send a mixed message and his locker should be emptied by Monday.

Rolovich then urged Woods to tell others they would face the same consequences. (Dallas Hobbs, a redshirt junior defensive end, soon found out he needed to empty his locker, too, he said.)

And then the conversation concluded as if it they had discussed dessert options in the dining hall.

All right. Appreciate you, coach, Woods said.

Hows your family? Rolovich asked.

Theyre doing good. I already talked to them about it, Woods answered.

Cool, said Rolovich, who closed the call by saying he would see Woods on a team Zoom call on Sunday night.

When I spoke with Woods on Monday he had sent me a recording of the phone call on Sunday night he said he was devastated, but resolute. He had hoped to become a starter this season and work toward a career in the N.F.L., and had no complaints about his place on the team.

Indeed, Woods was emerging as a leader. He (along with Hobbs) represented the football team on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, served as the social chair of the recently formed Black Student-Athlete Association, and represented Washington State at the Black Student-Athlete Summit in January at the University of Texas. And Woods also served as the teams unofficial barber, commandeering a chair in the Cougars athletic complex and putting to use the skills his mother, a hairdresser, taught him.

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Hed been introduced to Washington State President Kirk Schultz through a Black Student-Athlete Association video conference call and had built up a relationship with the athletic director, Pat Chun.

But by Monday, Woods said he felt abandoned.

Hed called Chun hoping he could still be part of the team, but Woods said the athletic director backed the coach. (Rolovich and Chun declined an interview request.) What also upset him, he said, is that several teammates were cowed into not opting out because he said they felt threatened.

A lot of them have reached out Man, Im sorry, Woods said. If youre here for me, just opt out. If we all did, what is he going to do cut everybody from the team? You say you love me, say Im your brother, but me and Dallas are pretty much ostracized from the team.

He added: Its all about the movement. Me and Dallas have been nothing but a service to Washington State. Our coaches dont have anything bad to say about me. I dont have anything bad to say about them except for dismissing me for being part of this movement.

Woods said his disquiet goes back to late June, when a teammate he was living with texted several days before Woods headed back to campus to say he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Woods said nobody from the school notified him or of any other cases.

He also expressed discomfort with signing a liability waiver when he reported for voluntary workouts on July 1. And when Washington State announced on July 23 that virtually all learning would be remote, Woods said he and his teammates wondered why they were on campus preparing for football.

I asked, if his relationship with Rolovich was good, why did he feel the need to record the call?

Even though he and Hobbs had spoken with Rolovich about the unity groups broad plans without any pushback, Woods said his growing distrust over the waiver, the way he found out about the roommate's test and the practices while students were attending remotely left him unsure how the conversation was going to unfold. He wanted to have a record for his parents to hear.

I knew I was standing up for something, Woods said. You dont really know how its going to go.

Woodss feelings of abandonment, though, are not complete. He said he has received support from players around the country. And his parents and his six siblings have firmly encouraged him. In fact, his mother, Jerline, made public her sons circumstance as a rebuttal to a reporter who tweeted that no players had been cut.

Youre putting all this on your back a target maybe teams dont touch you, said his father John Woods Jr., a basketball captain at Missouri in the late 1990s, who encouraged his son to make the recording public.

But he said that times are different.

Hes just standing up for his First-Amendment rights that need to be addressed, his father said. He didnt do anything wrong and he stands by that. Twenty-five years ago, we wanted to do that, but now theyve got this platform where its OK.

He continued: We cant just dribble, be quiet, run, youve got your scholarship you should be happy. You cant get away with that and intimidate players into not saying those things and make them feel like, oh, its me. Those days are over.

Excerpt from:

A College Athlete Calls His Coach to Opt Out. And Ends Up on the Outs. - The New York Times