Missing Legal Defense Documents, Meta's Extremism Machine, and an AZ Ethics Rollback
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** CfA's February 17, 2023 Newsletter
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With your support, Campaign for Accountability is working to expose corruption and hold the powerful accountable.
** This Week's Updates:
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CfA Calls Out House Transparency Failure, Missing Byron Donalds Documents
This week, CfA sent a letter ([link removed]) to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies about a series of documents related to members’ legal expenses that are missing from the Legislative Resource Center (LRC). When members want to establish a Legal Defense Trust for themselves, they must receive written permission from the House Committee on Ethics to spend money on legal fees incurred while in office or during their campaign. The goal of this policy is to prevent the abuse of legal funds, as members must submit quarterly spending reports to the committee.
Now, it seems that some of these documents are missing from the LRC, and that the Committee on Ethics may never have transmitted them for multiple members of Congress. The most egregious example ([link removed]) concerns missing paperwork for Rep. Byron Donalds – a member who has incurred “unusually high” ([link removed]) legal expenses. Now, CfA is urging House leadership to examine the situation and restore access to these reports.
Forbes covered CfA’s letter. ([link removed])
TTP Report: Meta’s Extremism Machine: Creating Content for ISIS
On Thursday, CfA's Tech Transparency Project (TTP) released a new report revealing that Facebook has automatically generated more than 100 pages for U.S.-designated terrorist groups, despite Meta’s blanket ban on these organizations. Facebook’s auto-generation features are meant to pull as much of the real world as possible onto its platform – if a small business hasn’t made a Facebook page, but one of its workers lists them as an employer, Facebook will automatically make a page for the business. Despite repeated ([link removed]) criticisms ([link removed]) on the heels of a 2019 whistleblower complaint ([link removed]) , Facebook has allowed this same feature to generate pages for
terrorist organizations and hate groups.
In this latest report, TTP observed that Facebook had created pages for terrorist organizations where users could check in, tag friends, and make posts. Facebook claims that its algorithms are specially trained to identify content from ISIS and Al Qaeda, but TTP found auto-generated pages associated with both organizations. This research raises questions about Facebook’s ability to keep terrorist organizations off its platform, and to prevent itself from becoming a recruiting tool for extremists. The story was covered by Vice News. ([link removed])
Arizona State Legislature Attacks Ethics Requirements
On Thursday, the Arizona Capitol Times ran an op-ed ([link removed]) by CfA Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith calling out the state legislature for gutting their own transparency requirements and banning members of the public from filing ethics complaints. Under the legislature’s new rules, only sitting members of the state House or Senate can file complaints, which they have no incentive to do.
While Arizona recently passed some promising campaign finance reforms ([link removed]) via ballot measure, the legislature’s latest gambit has truck a serious blow to transparency and accountability in the state.
** What We're Reading:
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FEC presses Santos to identify campaign treasurer ([link removed] )
SEC charges Do Kwon, Terraform with fraud in connection with Terra collapse ([link removed] )
FTC launches technology office to keep up with Silicon Valley giants ([link removed] )
** Follow Our Work:
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We thank you for your continued support. Without people like you, our work would not be possible.
Here is how you can stay involved and help us accomplish our mission:
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Be on the lookout for more updates about our work in the upcoming weeks. Thanks again for signing up to be a part of CfA!
Sincerely,
Michelle Kuppersmith
Executive Director, Campaign for Accountability
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