April 26, 2024

Congress

Roll Call: States move to label deepfake political ads

By Gopal Ratnam

.....Unlike the states, Congress seems explicitly interested in regulating the content of deepfakes. Several bills would prohibit their circulation, including a measure backed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Chris Coons, D-Del.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Pete Ricketts, R-Neb.; and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., that would prohibit the distribution of AI generated material targeting a candidate for federal office.

Another backed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Hawley would remove protections under Section 230 of a 1996 communications law for AI-generated content, which would force online platforms to face legal liability for posting such material, thereby likely forcing their removal.

Deepfakes have targeted presidential, congressional, and even local elections, Blumenthal, said at a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Blumenthal is chair of the panel.

Reason: This Bill Would Give the Treasury Nearly Unlimited Power To Destroy Nonprofits

By Matthew Petti

.....A bipartisan bill would give the secretary of the treasury unilateral power to classify any charity as a terrorist-supporting organization, automatically stripping away its nonprofit status. The bill, H.R. 6408, already passed the House of Representatives in November, and a companion bill, S. 4136, was introduced to the Senate by Sens. John Cornyn (R–Texas) and Angus King (I–Maine) last week.

In theory, the bill is a measure to fight terrorism financing. At least, that's what sponsor Rep. David Kustoff (R–Tenn.) claimed...

Financing terrorism is already very illegal. Anyone who gives money, goods, or services to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization can be charged with a felony under the Antiterrorism Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. And those terrorist organizations are already banned from claiming tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Nine charities have been shut down since 2001 under the law.

New York Times: Johnson Calls to End Pro-Palestinian Protests, Including by Military Means

By Annie Karni

.....Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday said President Biden should take action, including potentially sending in the National Guard, to quell pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and on other campuses across the country that he said had grown violent and antisemitic.

“There is executive authority that would be appropriate,” Mr. Johnson said during a news conference on the steps of Columbia’s Low Library, where he was booed and heckled by some onlookers. “If these threats are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard. We have to bring order to these campuses.”

A number of hard-right Republican lawmakers, including Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, have recently called for troops to be sent in to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Mr. Cotton did the same in 2020 when he said military force should be used to put down riots across the country amid the civil unrest that followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by the police in Minneapolis.

Free Expression

UnHerd: UT Austin protests challenge governor’s free speech vow

By Laurel Duggan

.....Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott is once again back-pedalling on campus free speech in the name of fighting antisemitism.

“Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period,” he wrote in a social media post on Wednesday, alongside footage of state troopers dispersing a campus protest. “Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety, on Abbott’s orders, arrested more than 30 students on Wednesday during a pro-Palestine protest at the University of Texas at Austin. One journalist, who was carrying a large camera, was pulled to the ground by state troopers and detained. DPS mentioned criminal activity, including trespassing, in a press statement, but free speech advocates have portrayed their response as excessive and a violation of the First Amendment, particularly in light of Abbott’s focus on the content of protesters’ speech.

“This chilling show of force is a disproportionate response to an apparently peaceful protest,” Will Creeley, Legal Director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told UnHerd. “Sending in a phalanx of law enforcement threatens protected speech where it should be at its most free: a public university like UT Austin. Unfortunately, Governor Abbott’s public commentary makes his disregard for the First Amendment’s protection of political speech clear.”

Reason: Texas Public Colleges Crack Down on Peaceful Anti-Israel Protests

By Emma Camp

.....As pro-Palestine demonstrations erupt at college campuses across the nation, several public colleges in Texas have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful protests. While public universities are bound by the First Amendment, a March executive order by Gov. Greg Abbott forces colleges to suppress antisemitic speech, seemingly motivating some of the universities' responses this month…

Students from the University of Texas at San Antonio told the San Antonio Current that, during a pro-Palestine demonstration on Wednesday, administrators told protesters they could not use the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" in their chants, nor could they use the words "Zionism" and "Israel."

The UT San Antonio students said administrators told them the phrases counted as antisemitic speech and that they were also barred from chanting in Arabic. 

While the students allege a galling suppression of their First Amendment rights, their claims have not yet been fully verified. The San Antonio Current wrote that a university spokesperson who was present during the protest "couldn't immediately comment" on the allegations. A day earlier, UT San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy released a statement warning that the school would "not tolerate disruptive behavior, vandalism, or antisemitism." 

Wall Street Journal: Some Anti-Israel Protesters Are Paid

By Ira Stoll

.....Since at least the Vietnam War, exasperated observers of student protests have rolled their eyes and thought: Get a job. In some cases today, activism is a job. Two of America’s largest philanthropic foundations are behind a group that has paid some of the anti-Israel activists for the kind of antics disrupting campuses across the country.

Wall Street Journal: Antisemitism at Columbia University Is a Disgrace

By Andrew M. Cuomo

.....I understand the right to free speech, the guarantees of the First Amendment, the value of robust debate at academic institutions. But freedoms aren’t without limits, and much of what is going on at Columbia isn’t speech at all. Threats, terror tactics and menacing conduct don’t warrant protection.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Disagreeing with Eugene about the Anti-Hillel Incidents at Northwestern University Last Week

By David Bernstein

.....Dean Mona Dugo was quoted in the Daily as stating she was there to protect the students' right to protest, which, I should note, doesn't seem to have been in any jeopardy. She later told Eugene, in response to his inquiry, that she frequently attends protests to ensure everyone's rights are protected. She added the University, strongly supports Hillel, which is vital to the Northwestern community, and that the University is investigating whether the statements about Hillel that were in the flyer distributed Monday violate our Code of Conduct or Northwestern's discrimination and harassment policies. As Eugene reports, on Sunday the university put out a statement clarifying Dean Dugo's role at the protest, which seems to match what she emailed him.

The Daily then elaborated on her original statement to them at the rally. "I'm not really here to stand with or in opposition to the students. My role as the dean of students is to make sure that students have a right to protest."

Eugene concluded: "It thus seems that she indeed told the reporters that she was there as a neutral, in order both to protesting students' rights and to make sure that they do not 'do[] anything that disrupts or damages our community.' Again, that sounds like her doing her job as an administrator."

I disagree.

Independent Groups

Insider: Hackers stole a pile of cash from an anti-Trump super PAC: report

By Mia Jankowicz 

.....A prominent super PAC vocally opposed to former President Donald Trump has been swindled out of $35,000 by hackers, according to Raw Story.

In its filings to the FEC, the Lincoln Project reported two February transactions, of $15,000 and $20,000, as "under dispute" and marked as "fraudulent."

A spokesperson, Greg Minchak, told Raw Story: "A vendor's email was hacked, with the hackers producing authentic-looking invoices that were sent from our vendor's legitimate email account."

The States

People United for Privacy: Unlikely Allies Thwart Privacy Threat in Oregon

By Alex Baiocco

.....In an effort to ward off a ballot petition that would have imported Arizona’s disastrous nonprofit donor disclosure law to Oregon, lawmakers worked with a broad coalition of advocacy organizations to advance compromise legislation that led to the withdrawal of the petition...

Eventually, a cross-ideological and bipartisan coalition formed to ensure that anti-privacy activists’ IP 9 would not become law. Groups frequently on opposing sides of controversial issues came together in support of everyone’s ability to participate in policy debates. Labor unions, the business community, and nonprofits with views across the spectrum began working with Democratic and Republican lawmakers on legislation that they hoped would convince the backers of IP 9 to withdraw their ballot petition.

The end result of these negotiations, H.B. 4024, was signed into law by Governor Tina Kotek on March 20.

AP News: Connecticut Senate passes wide-ranging bill to regulate AI. But its fate remains uncertain

By Susan Haigh

.....The Connecticut Senate pressed ahead Wednesday with one of the first major legislative proposals in the U.S. to rein in bias in artificial intelligence decision-making and protect people from harm, including manufactured videos or deepfakes.

The vote was held despite concerns the bill might stifle innovation, become a burden for small businesses and make the state an outlier.

The bill passed 24-12 after a lengthy debate. It is the result of two years of task force meetings in Connecticut and a year’s worth of collaboration among a bipartisan group of legislators from other states who are trying to prevent a patchwork of laws across the country because Congress has yet to act.

AP News: Minnesota and other Democratic-led states lead pushback on censorship. They’re banning the book ban

By Steve Karnowski and Mike Catalini

.....Minnesota is one of several Democratic-leaning states where lawmakers are now pursuing bans on book bans. The Washington and Maryland legislatures have already passed them this year, while Illinois did so last year. It was a major flashpoint of Oregon’s short session, where legislation passed the Senate but died without a House vote.

Newark Post: Newark limits public comment to 'real people' amid debate over corporations' free speech rights

By Josh Shannon

.....Newark City Council last week voted to restrict public comment at meetings to “real people” only, rejecting a developer’s argument that someone who controls multiple companies should be allowed a speaking slot for each entity.

The vote came April 18 during the annual organizational meeting, in which newly elected council members are sworn in and the council votes on its rules of procedure for the year. The rules provide a five-minute public comment period for members of the public who wish to speak about an issue being debated.