I Fear These Things

AI Policy and the Uncanny Valley Freakout.

, , ,

We have been debating, on and off, about the issues around artificial intelligence and AI governance for some time now. Here at Public Knowledge, we published our first white paper on the subject in 2018. But the last few months have seen an explosion of interest and a sudden consensus that powerful AI tools require some sort of regulation. Hardly a day goes by without a new editorial calling for regulation of AI, or a high-profile story on the potential threat of AI to jobs (ranging from creative jobs such as Hollywood writers or musicians to boring lawyers), or a story on new AI threats to consumers, or even how AI poses an existential threat to our democracy. A recent Senate Hearing produced a rare bipartisan consensus on the need for new laws and federal regulation to mitigate the threats posed by AI technology. In response, technology giants such as Google and Microsoft have published new proposed codes of conduct and regulatory regimes that include not merely the usual calls for self-regulation, but also actually invite government regulation as well.

Or, to quote my colleague Sara Collins, “AI is having a moment.” Unfortunately, that moment turns out to be a total uncanny valley freakout. Yes, there are serious issues here — and some very smart folks have been talking about them for years. But suddenly a chatbot starts hitting on people and it’s all “AAAAAGGHHH!!! We are doomed!! Doomed!!! The AIs are coming for us, and none of them look like Scarlett Johansen!” One does not have to totally agree with Adam Conover that AI hype is total baloney to recognize the signs of a full-blown irrational panic. And, as a general rule, total panic freakouts rarely lead to good policy outcomes.

 

Continue reading

What (Not) to Wear on Election Day; or, Would You Rather Vote or Be a Test Case.

, , , , ,

As we run the home stretch to Election Day 2020 (November 3! Don’t forget to vote! And vote down ticket, too! Local races are important, as are ballot question! You can also volunteer to be an election judge, or take part in voter protection projects. Make every vote count by making them count every vote!)

 

O.K., that opening line got hijacked by PSAs. Let’s start again.

 

As we get closer to election day, we have a fun decision to make: what to wear to the polls. I don’t just mean coordinating your mask with your outfit. I mean whether wearing a t-shirt that expresses some suitable sentiment depending on your politics might violate your state’s election rules. The situation is especially complicated this year as this is the Presidential election year since the Supreme Court decided MN Voters Alliance v. Mansky (2018) (opinion here). While this is not legal advice, I thought it might be helpful given the current circumstances (especially the likelihood of extremely aggressive poll watchers eager to challenge folks advertising their sympathy for the other side and a shortage of election judges due to COVID to resolve the challenges quickly) to review some basics to avoid hassle. Sure, if you prefer to be a test case rather than necessarily get to vote, you should wear that “Ruth Sent Me” or “Blue Lives Matter” t-shirt. But you should know what you are potentially getting into, first.

 

More below . . .

Continue reading

The Revolution Will Not Be Focus Grouped

, , ,

Inspired by the incredibly powerful “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” By Gil Scott-Heron

 

 

The Revolution will not be focus grouped

The Revolution will not come with cute and inoffensive hashtags

Audience tested by right-leaning independents and critical age demographics

The Revolution will not be focus grouped

 

 

The Revolution will not be focus grouped

The Revolution will not filter for the sake of November

It will not have carefully thought out tie-ins approved by the Leadership, carefully vetted,

Designed to roll off the tongue, soothe your nerves and ease your fears

The Revolution will not be focus grouped

 

 

The Revolution is not about living your best life

There will be no pictures of kittens or fun memes

There will be no control on who Tweets what or when

You will not stop the enemy from taking things out of context

Making up lies

Causing confusion

Acting in bad faith

Repeating the same debunked disinformation over and over

No change of hashtag will stop Fox News or OANN

From Owning the Libs and pwning the powerless

Tucker Carlson will not be fair and balanced

Laura Ingraham will not care about your hashtag

The Revolution will not be focus grouped

 

 

Sadly, Brother Scott-Heron was wrong

There will be pictures of pigs shooting down brothers

All over Twitter and Instagram

You will see brave sisters clubbed, groped and tazered by police

On YouTube or wherever you stream user content

You will see old people, young people, black, brown, white

Every color of the Rainbow and every sex and gender

Standing up to a tide of Blue in the black smoke with

The tear gas and the flash bangs and the rubber bullets flying

And you will see it over and over and over and over

Black people are in the street, demanding a brighter day

And they are not alone

The Revolution will not be focus grouped

 

The Revolution will not be artistically backlit, or retroactively gaslit

You will not hear about it from teaser trailers or viral videos made by commercial studios

You will not get woke from The View or set free by The Five

The Revolution will not be convenient to binge watch

The Revolution is not a dinner party

The Revolution is Black Men, Black Women, Black Children

All Shouting “I can’t breathe, and You WILL GET THE FUCK OFF MY NECK RIGHT NOW!”

The Revolution will not be tone policed.

The Revolution will not use polite language.

The Revolution will not be focus grouped.

The Revolution will not be focused grouped

The Revolution will not be focused grouped

 

 

The Revolution is hashtag live!

 

 

 

Will The FCC Ignore the Privacy Implications of Enhanced Geolocation In New E911 Rulemaking?

, , ,

NB: This originally appeared as a blog post on the site of my employer, Public Knowledge.

Over the last three months, Motherboard’s Joseph Cox has produced an excellent series of articles on how the major mobile carriers have sold sensitive geolocation data to bounty hunters and others, including highly precise information designed for use with “Enhance 911” (E911). As we pointed out last month when this news came to light, turning over this E911 data (called assisted GPS or A-GPS), exposing E911 data to third parties — whether by accident or intentionally, or using it in any way except for 911 or other purposes required by law violates the rules the Federal Communications Commission adopted in 2015 to protect E911 data.

Just last week, Motherboard ran a new story on how stalkers, bill collectors, and anyone else who wants highly precise real-time geolocation consumer data from carriers can usually scam it out of them by pretending to be police officers. Carriers have been required to take precautions against this kind of “pretexting” since 2007. Nevertheless, according to people interviewed in the article, this tactic of pretending to be a police officer is extremely common and ridiculously easy because, according to one source, “Telcos have been very stupid about it. They have not done due diligence.”

So you would think, with the FCC scheduled to vote this Friday on a mandate to make E911 geolocation even more precise, the FCC would (a) remind carriers that this information is super sensitive and subject to protections above and beyond the FCC’s usual privacy rules for phone information (called “customer proprietary network information,” or “CPNI”); (b) make it clear that the new information required will be covered by the rules adopted in the 2015 E911 Order; and (c) maybe even, in light of these ongoing revelations that carriers do not seem to be taking their privacy obligations seriously, solicit comment on how to improve privacy protections to prevent these kinds of problems from occurring in the future. But of course, as the phrase “you would think” indicates, the FCC’s draft Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) does none of these things. The draft doesn’t even mention privacy once.

 

I explain why this has actual and potentially really bad implications for privacy below.

Continue reading

Pai Continues Radical Deregulation Agenda. Next On The Menu — SMS Texting and Short Codes

, , , , , , , , , , ,

In December 2007, Public Knowledge (joined by several other public interest groups] filed a Petition For Declaratory Ruling asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to clarify that both SMS Text Messaging and short codes are “Title II” telecommunications services. Put another way, we asked the FCC to reaffirm the basic statutory language that if you use telephones and the telephone network to send information from one telephone number to another, it meets the definition of “telecommunications service.” (47 U.S.C. 153(53)) We did this because earlier in 2007 Verizon had blocked NARAL from using its short code for political action alerts. While we thought there might be some question about short codes, it seemed pretty obvious from reading the statute that when you send “information between or among points of the users choosing, without change in the form or content as sent and received” (definition of “telecommunications”), over the phone network, using phone numbers that it is a “telecommunications service.”

 

Sigh.

 

On the anniversary of the repeal of net neutrality, FCC Chair Ajit Pai now proposes another goodie for carriers – classifying both short codes and text messages as Title I “information service” rather than a Title II telecommunications service. As this is even more ridiculous than last year’s reclassification of broadband as Title I, the draft Order relies primarily on the false claim that classifying text messaging as Title I is an anti-robocall measure. As we at PK pointed out a bunch of times when the wireless carriers first raised this argument back in 2008 – this is utter nonsense. Email, the archetypal Title I information service, is (as Pai himself pointed out over here) chock full of spam. Furthermore, as Pai pointed out last month, the rise in robocalls to mobile phones has nothing to do with regulatory classification and is primarily due to the carriers not implementing existing technical fixes. (And, as the Wall St J explained in this article, robocallers have figured out how to get paid just for connecting to a live number whether or not you answer, which involves a kind of arbitrage that does not work for text messages.)

 

As if that were not enough, the FCC issued a declaratory ruling in 2015, reaffirmed in 2016, that carriers may block unwanted calls or texts despite being Title II common carriers. There is absolutely nothing, nada, zip, zero, that classifying text messages as Title II does that makes it harder to combat spam. By contrast, Title II does prevent a bunch of blocking of wanted text messages as an anticompetitive conduct which we have already seen (and which is occurring fairly regularly on a daily basis, based on the record in the relevant FCC proceeding (08-7). This includes blocking immigrants rights groups, blocking health alerts, blocking information about legal medical marijuana, and blocking competing services. We should therefore treat the claims by industry and the FCC that only by classifying text messaging as “information services” can we save consumers from a rising tide of spam for what they are – self-serving nonsense designed to justify stripping away the few remaining enforceable consumer rights.

 

Once again, beyond the obvious free expression concerns and competition concerns, playing cutesy games with regulatory definitions will have a bunch of unintended consequences that the draft order either shrugs off or fails to consider. Notably:

 

  1. Classifying texting as Title I will take revenue away from the Universal Service Fund (USF). This will further undermine funds to support rural broadband.

 

  1. Classifying texting as Title I disrupts the current automatic roaming framework established by the FCC in 2007.

 

  1. Classifying texting as Title I may, ironically, take it out of the jurisdiction of the Robocall statute (Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991).

 

  1. Trashing whatever consumer protections, we have for text messages, and taking one more step to total administrative repeal of Title II completely. Which sounds like fun if you are a carrier but leaves us operating without a safety net for our critical communications infrastructure (as I’ve been writing about for almost ten years).

 

I unpack all of this below.

 

Continue reading

How DEA Got It’s Revenge For Getting Called On Abusing Authority — And Why This Will Make Things Like Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Harder

, ,
I love neither DEA or PhARMA, but the business about Congress passing a last year to make it “harder for DEE to stop drug companies selling drugs to drug dealers” is a load of crap. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is a brilliant example of how the DEA and other police organizations retaliate against lawmakers who curb their authority when they abuse it, and how an easily manipulatable press and easily manipulatable public eats it up with a spoon.
 
Here’s the infamous 2016 final statute. If you click through to the text, and then look at the statute amended (21 U.S.C. 824), you will observe that what the 2016 statute did was require that before DEA arbitrarily stripped companies of their license to ship controlled substances (like opioids), they had to (a) identify what law they thought was being broken, and (b) had to show that there was a real likelihood the drugs would be diverted for misuse, rather than just arbitrarily decide that hospital X or pharmacy Y had already received “too much” Oxycontin for the month. 
 
As usual, explaining something like this is complicated. Short version, the bill curbed a bunch of nasty abuses by the DEA. Of course PhARMA spent millions to get it passed. DEA is obscenely powerful and their abuses in this regard are fairly disruptive and legendary in the pharmacy and hospital world. And the thorough nature of their revenge here shows how DEA gets away with it. By spinning a bill that curbed DEA’s extra-legal abuses as a corrupt bargain between the hated drug makers and corrupt members of Congress, DEA has made it very clear what happens when you cross them. If you wonder why so few lawmakers want to take on issues like police brutality, civil asset forfeiture, or even horrendously price gouging prison phone rates, this is why.
I explain in great detail below.

Continue reading

My Response to Charlottesville.

, , ,

I’m sorry this is off topic for this blog. It doesn’t have anything to do with telecom. But extraordinary events require a response, and now is when all of us who believe in the Rule of Law need to raise our voices.

 

The issue is not right v. left. The issue is those who believe in preserving the fundamental rights of protest and respecting the rule of law v. those who believe they are a law unto themselves.

 

Our country allows supporters of even the most evil, hateful ideologies to preach their beliefs on the principle that it is the right — nay, the duty — of those who oppose these beliefs to counter-protest. Let hundreds of hate-mongers, racists and antisemites gather to be confronted by tens of thousands of people appalled at their open embrace of evil. Let those who hate their fellow American shout their obscenities at the overwhelming masses of Americans counter-protesting. Let the world see that while a few thousands may be drawn to the “largest rally” of racists, fascists and Nazis wannabes, tens of thousands will rise in anger and condemnation.

 

It is those who turn to violence and view themselves as a law unto themselves that are “the other side.” To be clear, I do not speak of those who merely defend themselves. If an armed mob assaults protesters, then those assaulted have the right to defend themselves. No, the “other side” are those who think that they have been provoked so that the rule of law no longer applies. Those who think they are a law unto themselves, empowered to deal death and violence for their ‘sacred cause.’ These who consider themselves their own law, and those who encourage them, are the “other side.” They are the enemy that needs to be condemned.

Continue reading

My Letter To Trump On Why I Need to Hear Him Say: “Anti-Semitism Is Bad.”

, , , , ,

Dear Mr. President.

 

Why is it so hard for Donald Trump to say “Anti-Semitism is bad, and the US government will protect all people from hate crimes no matter what their race or religion”? This is really getting deeply troubling.

 

Yes, I get it. Jared, Ivanka, the grandkids. You love Israel. You get on great with Bibi. You have lots of Jewish friends. I’m sure Trump Tower makes the best falafel and humous on Israel Independence Day, and the best chopped liver on Rosh Hashanah.

 

But for some reason, in several consecutive press conferences, the rather simple and straightforward statement that “Anti-Semitism is bad. The government of the United States will not tolerate threatening Jews with violence, vandalizing synagogues or Jewish institutions, or otherwise treating Jews differently than anyone else,” or words to that effect, have not come out of your mouth. And that is a real problem for me.

 

I’m an Orthodox Jew. I’m generally supportive of the State of Israel. And, if Trump Tower had a hechsher, I’m sure I’d love your felafel or chopped liver. I’m also an American, and very proud of that. I have always been proud of being an American citizen. I have thrilled with pride when I testify before Congress on super boring telecommunication policy that here I am, wearing my kippah, being all open Jew person, and not here just to testify on Israel of some other Jewish topic. I walk through the “Halls of Power” not as a supplicant petitioning for favors — as my ancestors in Europe and the Middle East were forced to do — but as a proud citizen exercising my First Amendment right to “petition the government for redress of grievances.”

 

I have spent the bulk of my professional life in public policy, because I passionately believe in the promise and ideals of the United States of America.

 

And yes, you are my President. True, I voted against you. I oppose just about every policy decision you have made so far. But you are still the man who was elected President of the United States under the rules of the Constitution. That makes Donald Trump the President of the United States, and therefore my President.

 

So please understand. I really, really need to hear my President say: “The President of the United States denounces anti-Semitism. You, Harold Feld, have the same rights as every other American.” Not “hey, I’ve got Jewish grandkids” or “I’m the least Anti-Semitic person ever.”

 

I know I’m not the only one who probably needs to hear that explicitly. I know in these times that other people are under attack for their religion, for their race, for their gender or sexual orientation. I’m pretty sure they want to hear it explicitly from their President (whether they like him or not, whether they believe him or not). But I can only speak personally for me. I can tell you, as an American and Orthodox Jew, that I need to hear from my President that I am still an American who just happens to be Jewish — not a Jew who happens to live in America.

 

If you aren’t sure exactly what to say, here are the words that our first President, George Washington, used to reassure the Jews of Newport Rhode Island. At the time, there was not a single country in the world where Jews enjoyed equal rights as citizens. The best Jews could hope for was “toleration,” which could be withdrawn at any time. President Washington therefore reassured the Jews of America:

 

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

 

It would mean an awful lot to hear you quote those words, or say something similar.

 

Sincerely,
An American Citizen who happens to also be an Orthodox Jew

The George Washington Pledge: “To Bigotry No Sanction, To Persecution No Assistance.”

, , ,

I’m starting what I call the George Washington Pledge.

 

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON PLEDGE

“I pledge to give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. I pledge to work toward a world where everyone may sit under their own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid. A world that scatters light and not darkness in our paths, and makes us all in our several vocations useful here, and in due time and way everlastingly happy.”

 

Where did that come from, what does it have to do with George Washington and don’t I know that George Washington was a bigot who kept slaves? To answer the second question first, yes. I know that it is one of the great and cruel tragedies of history that George Washington himself, while expressing these concepts, was committing the ultimate bigotry and persecution by holding slaves and asserting that those of African descent were not fully human. Nevertheless, while this pledge made by the First President of the United States has never been fulfilled, it time we committed to making it true.

 

We live now in a time when it is the duty of those of us committed to the success of the American Experiment in self-rule to remember the promises and values which the founders of our country made the foundation of governance. Whatever their past success, whatever the sincerity of those who wrote the words, it falls on us to do our part to make these foundational values real. To quote the words of our first President: “If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.”

 

So where do the words of the George Washington Pledge come from? And what do I mean when I commit myself to it? See below . . . Continue reading

Comcast/TWC Merger Explained By Taiwanese News Animation

, , , , , , ,

I will, eventually, have more to say about the Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC). My first reaction, I will admit, was pretty visceral. “My God! Aren’t you already freakin’ BIG ENOUGH Comcast?” But then, I realized that I needed to actually calm myself, and recall that bigness is not necessarily —

OH MY GOD!! YOU COMCAST PEOPLE HAVE NO LIMITS! YOU’RE LIKE SOME GIANT, COAX-TENTACLED CTHULHU-BEAST THAT KEEPS PROMISING TO DEVOUR US ALL BETWEEN 8 A.M. AND NOON BUT DOESN’T ACTUALLY GET AROUND TO DEVOURING US UNTIL AFTER 3 P.M. BECAUSE YOU GOT ‘STUCK IN TRAFFIC’ AND A PREVIOUS DEVOURING RAN LONGER THAN EXPECTED . . . .

Breathe, Harold, breathe. Think policy. [pause for calm] Several folks have posted excellent policy analysis, starting with my Public Knowledge colleague Jodie Griffin in this blog post here to this excellent piece by David Karr to this more general expression of antitrust concern by Paul Krugman —

COMCAST IS ALREADY BUYING A POWER COMPANY! A FREAKING POWER COMPANY!!! YOU ALREADY ARE DOMINATING VIDEO, DATA AND VOICE AND YOU ARE BUYING A POWER COMPANY AND RUN ALARM SYSTEMS AND ARE PROBABLY GOING TO IMPLANT CHIPS IN OUR BRAINS SO WE CAN STREAM XFINITY DIRECT TO OUR EYEBALLS AND —

As you can see, I’m still having a bit of trouble getting over my visceral reaction to the shear size and scope of this deal. So while I am calming down and getting ready to write my Insanely Long Field Guide To the Comcast/TWC Merger, I will simply let the good people at Taiwan’s fine Tomo News capture the moment. Because nothing really says “Comcast/TWC” better than giant robots and tasers.

Stay tuned . . . .