Trump Campaign Gets Pissed At Wireless Carriers For Blocking Unwanted Political Spam

from the thanks-but-no-thanks dept

While the United States talks a lot about our heroic efforts to combat robocalls and unwanted text messages, the reality is we just aren't very good at it. Most of our initiatives go comically out of their way to fixate exclusively on "scammers," ignoring that the biggest source of unwanted robocalls and spam texts is usually legitimate companies and debt collectors, who often utilize many of the same tactics to harass targets they know can't pay. And while we like to crow often about "record" fines levied against bad actors, the FCC has only collected $6,790 in actual penalties of the $208 million in fines doled out so far.

When it comes to text message spam campaigns, we've bungled that as well. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 is a dated piece of befuddling legislation that's been interpreted to mean that you can't send unsolicited text message spam en masse. But marketers and political campaigns have long wiggled around the restrictions via P2P text message efforts, which still let you send blanket text message campaigns -- just somewhat individually via pre-scripted templates. These efforts were ramped up by the Sanders campaign, and have since been heavily embraced by the Trump campaign.

But there was trouble in paradise earlier this month when anti-spam companies working for wireless carriers blocked a massive new text message fund raising campaign by the Trump administration, purportedly because wireless carriers were worried the effort would violate the 1991 law and wireless industry guidelines. Carriers clearly felt the Trump administration wasn't doing enough to gain consumer consent for the message, especially given there are several lawsuits that have already been filed against both the Trump and Sanders campaigns for just this sort of thing.

Wary of angering Trump, wireless carriers pussyfooted around defending themselves, and as a result couldn't even be bothered to comment on the record:

"Representatives for the telecom companies declined to comment for the record. But people close to Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T said the decision was not made by them, but rather by third-party administrators they employ to monitor text messaging and protect consumers from spamming. They strenuously denied that there was any partisan intent and say they were merely following guidelines conveyed by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group that represents mobile phone outfits.

The organization declined to specify what the Trump campaign had done wrong, but said in a statement, “We expect all senders — whether airlines, schools, banks or campaigns — to include clear opt-out language and gain prior consent before sending a text."

It's fairly clear the wireless industry, traditionally fans of Trump, didn't believe the campaign adhered to the rules. Likely because it didn't obtain prior consent. But as is usually the case with the Trump administration, it was quick to run for its victimization cloak, insisting the blockade was a form of "partisan censorship" (there's zero evidence to support that claim). Also much in character for the Trump administration and its FCC, when journalists pressed it for clear answers as to how exactly its campaign adhered to the law, the campaign couldn't muster a response:

"We asked the Trump campaign to explain exactly why the texts are legal and shouldn't have been blocked but did not get a response. The Trump campaign also did not answer our questions about how many people it tried to send the texts to and about whether the texts were unsolicited or sent to people who had signed up for campaign communications.

We also asked both the Trump campaign and carriers if they've come to any agreement on how to handle texts for the rest of this year's presidential campaign but did not get any answers."

As usual, this is all largely a self-inflicted wound. Our 1991 cornerstone law governing this stuff desperately needs updating, but Congress doesn't want to because it might make it harder for giant corporations to spam you. Regulators have also routinely issued rulings that muddy the water, usually because they're trying to carve out giant loopholes for debt collectors and deep-pocketed corporations. Add a lovely dose of regulatory capture to ensure enforcement is feeble, and it shouldn't be particularly surprising that our robocall and text spamming protections, like most US consumer protections, are a confusing and heavily-litigated mess.

Filed Under: bernie sanders, donald trump, fundraising, sanders campaign, tcpa, text messaging, trump campaign
Companies: at&t, t-mobile, verizon

Bill Would Ban Broadband Shutoffs Until COVID-19 Pandemic Eases

from the going-nowhere-fast dept

A few weeks back, the Trump FCC put on a big show about a new "Keep America Connected Pledge." In it, the FCC proudly proclaimed that it had gotten hundreds of ISPs to agree to not disconnect users who couldn't pay for essential broadband service during a pandemic. The problem: the 60 day pledge was entirely voluntary, temporary, and because the FCC just got done obliterating its authority over ISPs at lobbyist behest (as part of its net neutrality repeal), it's largely impossible to actually enforce.

Shockingly, numerous ISPs immediately proceeded to ignore that promise, and began kicking customers offline. Several ISPs even kicked disabled folks offline, despite repeatedly promising not to. And despite making a big stink about the pledge, the Ajit Pai FCC's response to this was to do nothing. Not only has the FCC done nothing, it has tried to claim that the reason we're seeing a surge in these complaints is somehow thanks to the FCC's half-assed efforts on this front:

"Although we have received some disconnection complaints recently, we think it may reflect increased attention on the FCC's work to keep people connected," the spokesman said."

That's of course nonsense. ISPs were never going to adhere to a voluntary promise pushed by a feckless, captured FCC with no authority to punish them. A powerless FCC was their reward of the recent, scandal-plagued net neutrality repeal. It's also worth noting that the FCC doesn't track disconnection complaints, because, well, America.

Enter a new bill sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden, Bernie Sanders, and Jeff Merkley that would make it illegal to terminate the connections of broadband subscribers during the pandemic (barring instances of network abuse). From the announcement:

"Now—as millions of Americans hunker down, work from home, and engage in remote learning—would be the absolute worst time for Americans to lose a critical utility like internet service,” said Merkley. “Oregonians and people across America deserve to know that as we weather the social and economic consequences of this storm together, they will still have be able to go to work, go to school, buy groceries, and stay connected to loved ones—all of which many depend on the internet to do. Congress should include this protection in the next coronavirus response bill."

Of course the bill will never, ever pass thanks to a Senate slathered in telecom campaign contributions. But I guess it's the thought that counts.

Filed Under: account shutoff, ajit pai, authority, bernie sanders, covid-19, fcc, jeff merkley, keep america connected, pandemic, ron wyden

Bogus Automated Copyright Claims By CBS Blocked Super Tuesday Speeches By Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg, And Joe Biden

from the copyright-as-censorship dept

Another day, another example of copyright out of control. The latest, as highlighted by Matthew Keys, is that bogus (almost certainly automated) copyright claims by CBS ended up blocking a live stream of a Bernie Sanders speech, but similar notices also interrupted speeches by Mike Bloomberg and Joe Biden.

It's not difficult to guess at what's going on here: most of these streams were using "pool" cameras that anyone can tap into and use. CBS was using the same stream as everyone else, but because copyright must rule everything, CBS assumes that anything it streams, it holds the copyright on -- and sends automated notices to places like Twitter and Facebook to stop people from streaming live off of CBS News. But, here, it was CBS using someone else's feed -- but thanks to the nature of copyright, we get a situation where Presidential candidates can't even live stream their own speeches.

This was the kind of thing we've warned about, specifically in the context of the EU's Copyright Directive, which will effectively require a filter like this to be functioning at all times on basically all platforms. The fact that it will inevitably catch the wrong things -- like here -- is something that never seems to concern the Hollywood types who push for these laws and technologies to be used. Yet here we have Presidential candidates not able to broadcast themselves.

This is especially ironic for Joe Biden, considering that he's long been one of Hollywood's biggest supporters when it comes to pushing ever more draconian copyright law. So, perhaps, he got what he deserved.

Filed Under: automated takedowns, bernie sanders, censorship, copyright, eu copyright directive, filters, free speech, joe biden, mike bloomberg, political speech
Companies: cbs, facebook, twitter

Bernie's Broadband Plan Gives A Big Green Light To Community Broadband

from the dysfunction-junction dept

We've long noted how community broadband networks are often an organic response to the expensive, slow, or just-plain unavailable service that's the direct product of a broken telecom market and regulatory capture. While you'll occasionally see some deployment duds if the business models aren't well crafted, studies have shown such local networks (there are 750 and counting now in the States) offer cheaper, faster service than many incumbents. Chattanooga's EPB, for example, was rated the best ISP in America last year by Consumer Reports.

This direct grass roots threat to incumbent revenues is a major reason why ISP lobbyists have passed protectionist laws in around 20 states trying to block your town's ability to even consider the option. It's why industry cozy FCC officials have falsely tried to suggest community broadband is an ominous assault on free speech. And it's why you'll find an endless parade of telecom-linked think tankers, consultants, and lobbyists routinely trying to portray this organic response to market failure as "vile socialism" or an inevitable boondoggle.

Enter Bernie Sanders, whose new broadband plan was released last week and appears to have been cobbled together from the collected nightmares of AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast executives. The plan would not only restore the FCC's net neutrality authority and the agency's authority over ISPs in general, but it would restore the FCC's broadband privacy rules scuttled in 2017 by telecom lobbyists. It would also ban arbitrary and unnecessary broadband usage caps and overage fees, and ban the sneaky fees ISPs use to covertly jack up the advertised price post sale.

But the plan takes some extra time to highlight how a Sanders administration would embrace community broadband, including the elimination of protectionist state laws, and the doling out of $150 billion to be used largely toward building alternatives to the private sector telecom status quo:

"Municipalities across the country running their own internet services have proved they can deliver high-quality service at a fraction of the price of established monopolies. Cities can run their own networks just like a water or electric utility or build out an open access network to allow multiple providers to compete on price and service, rather than one or two conglomerates gouging customers and setting their own prices. Bernie believes it’s time to stop relying on profit-focused corporations to get to universal broadband. Bernie will provide the necessary funding for states, cities, and co-ops to build out their own broadband networks, and ensure all households are connected by the end of his first term."

Needless to say, the telecom sector isn't going to much like any of this. Especially given the fact that the sector has been immensely successful in convincing government to void all meaningful oversight of these natural monopolies in recent years. Yeah, most of this will never come to pass without a significant shake up in Congress. And yeah, telecom lobbyists will do everything in their power to scuttle Sanders before he ever reaches the Presidency. Still, it's pretty clear the Sanders team has been paying close attention to the broken sector and is at least offering up a proposal, whereas most other Democratic candidates (outside of perhaps Warren and Klobuchar) have offered little more than vagaries.

The proposal isn't without its problems. Several economists versed in telecom and media tell me that the proposals to retroactively break up giants like Comcast NBC Universal and AT&T Time Warner are little more than pipe dreams that would be logistical nightmares in actual practice. And the Sanders camp also oddly opposes so-called "one touch make ready" rules (which allow any qualified third party to move pole equipment instead of just incumbent ISPs) despite widespread support of such proposals (unions tell me "one touch" poses a safety and security risk, but those claims are hotly contested).

Still, the plan at least acknowledges the US telecom sector, which ranks in the middle in nearly every broadband metric that matters, is a broken mess thanks to consolidation, regulatory capture, limited competition, and corruption. That's something countless experts and lawmakers refuse to acknowledge. Bernie's plan is certainly no more ludicrous than the US' current and most favored approach: gutting regulatory oversight, throwing billions of unaccountable dollars at predatory monopolies, then standing around with a dumb look on our collective faces wondering why Comcast is such an immeasurable shitshow.

Filed Under: bernie sanders, broadband, competition, municipal broadband

Bernie Sanders' Campaign Joins Too Many Other Presidential Campaigns In Abusing Trademark Law

from the so-presidential dept

I shouldn't have to start this post this way, but after someone flipped out in my last post about the treatment of Hillary Clinton and her emails, accusing me of being nothing more than a "BernieBro," I'll just make this explicit: I don't currently support any of the current Presidential candidates, and am pretty sure I've mocked all of them for ignorance around issues that concern those of us at Techdirt. Either way, I wonder how the guy insisting I was just a secret Bernie supporter will respond to this article...

Yes, because now Bernie Sanders' campaign is the latest in a long list of presidential candidates to abuse trademark law to try to stifle criticism. His campaign joins those of Hillary Clinton, Ben Carson, Ron Paul and more as presidential candidates, past and present, abusing trademark law.

In this case, Sanders' campaign apparently went after Dan McCall, who was also on the receiving end of the threat from Hillary Clinton's SuperPAC (oh, and also the NSA went after him over trademark as well). Specifically, the Sanders campaign threatened him over the following graphic: You can understand why the Sanders campaign might not like such a graphic, which tries to tie the self-declared democratic socialist with famed communist leaders. Leaving aside whether or not democratic socialism has anything to do with communism (or even whether or not such an image would even have much of an impact on likely voters), there's nothing that is "infringing" in such an image. But that's not what the Sanders campaign argues:

Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1125) prohibits use in commerce of “any word, term, name, symbol or device . . . which is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the origin, sponsorship or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person.” Your use of the Official Logos is likely to cause exactly such confusion. Additionally, by using the distinctive logo of Bernie 2016, Inc., Liberty Maniacs has violated the U.S. Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 501) and is liable for falsely applying the Bernie 2016, Inc. name and logo to Liberty Maniacs’ products. 17 U.S.C. § 1202. This list of Liberty Maniacs’ unlawful conduct is not exhaustive.

So this actually goes beyond just trademark law to copyright and election law. Which is insane. There is no confusion here. The image is clearly protected expression. No one is going to be "deceived" into thinking that Sanders supports this image or that it's from his campaign. The lawyer, Claire Hawkins, from Garvey Schubert Barer, also lies about what the campaign's obligations are:

As an intellectual property owner, our client is obligated to take steps to protect its trademark and copyright rights and to protect the good will built up in its name and brand.

First of all, that's not even remotely true when it comes to copyright, where there is no obligation to protect. On trademark, there is an obligation, but it's quite frequently overstated. It doesn't mean you have to block any use -- especially when those uses are clearly non-infringing.

Thankfully, Dan McCall has Paul Levy as a lawyer (disclaimer, he's represented us as well), and Levy has responded and, as always, Levy's letters are well worth reading. It opens with the following line:

Bernie Sanders should be ashamed of your trademark bullying on his behalf.

And then...

It is your contention, apparently, that an ordinary and reasonably prudent consumer would tend to be confused about whether it is the Sanders campaign that is promoting Sanders' candidacy by associating him with the 19th Century theoreticians of the communist movement as well as with three ruthless Communist Party dictators.

That contention is absurd. You cannot use trademark theories to silence members of the American public who disagree with your client's views and oppose his candidacy. They can hardly express their views in that respect without identifying the candidacy about which they wish to speak; and it is precisely because the logo is so recognizable that it is an excellent way of specifying which "Bernie" is the subject of commentary. Moreover, it is very common for people to express their views about presidential candidates, completely independent of the campaign; such expression is so common that it defies belief that a reasonably careful consumer would believe that a shirt or bumper sticker associating your client with Communists necessarily came from the campaign itself.

Levy also explains fair use and the First Amendment to Hawkins. He also points out that while the letter talks about copyright, she never mentions what the campaign is talking about:

Your letter also refers in passing to your client's ownership of the copyright in logos; the PDF of the letter was labeled "Notice of Copyright Infringement," and that characterization was in the subject line of the email by which you transmitted the letter. However, you do not say that the copyright has been registered. Not only would you need to register the copyright before you can file suit for its infringement, but any such suit would run directly into the copyright fair use defense, which is heightened in the case of an obvious parody like this one....

It goes on beyond that as well. If history is any indication, the Sanders campaign will likely back down, because that's its only non-insane move to make in this situation. Of course, it would have been much smarter to never have sent such a letter in the first place.

Filed Under: bernie sanders, dan mccall, first amendment, free speech, presidential campaigns, trademark

Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight

from the you're-all-wrong dept

I guess this isn't that surprising, but as the big legal fight heated up this week between Apple and the Justice Department over whether or not Apple can be forced to create a backdoor to let the FBI access the contents of Syed Farook's iPhone, all of the major Presidential candidates have weighed in... and they're all wrong. Donald Trump is getting the most attention. Starting earlier this week he kept saying that Apple should just do what the FBI wants, and then he kicked it up a notch this afternoon saying that everyone should boycott Apple until it gives in to the FBI. Apparently, Trump doesn't even have the first clue about the actual issue at stake, in terms of what a court can compel a company to do, and what it means for our overall security.

Meanwhile, most of the other candidates didn't go as far, but tried to stupidly pretend there was some sort of compromise between the two positions. Bernie Sanders did the "on the one hand/on the other hand/I won't actually take a stand" thing:

“I am very fearful in America about Big Brother. And that means not only the federal government getting into your emails or knowing what books you’re taking out of the library, or private corporations knowing everything there is to know about you in terms of your health records, your banking records, your consumer practices,” Sanders said.

“On the other hand, what I also worry about is the possibility of another terrorist attack against our country. And frankly, I think there is a middle ground that can be reached.”

If you think there's a "middle ground" you don't understand the issue.

Hillary Clinton did the same thing, trying to straddle the line by admitting a backdoor sounds problematic, but really, if the nerds just nerd harder, can't they figure something out:

Clinton called the situation a “difficult dilemma.” She discussed some of the main concerns Apple has “about opening the door, creating what they call a backdoor into encryption.” And she pointed out that the capability could be abused by authoritarian regimes like “the Chinese, Russian, Iranian governments” who want the same kind of access.

But she concluded with a favorite law enforcement talking point: that the smart people in America can surely solve this problem and find a way to help the FBI access encrypted communications with a little brainstorming and teamwork. “As smart as we are, there’s got to be some way on a very specific basis we could try to help get information around crimes and terrorism,”

Again, the thing that they don't get is that the "nerd problem" here is: How can you make a security vulnerability that only can be used by the good guys? That's impossible. Creating a security vulnerability opens things up to the bad guys. Period.

And, of course, neither of those answers tackle the actual issue at stake, which is to what level the US government can force a company to hack its own customers and undermine its own systems' security. They're really answering a different question. Because either they don't understand the issue or they don't actually want to be pinned down on it.

The rest of the Republican field basically did the same thing as Sanders and Clinton. On the one hand this, on the other that. It's classic "don't pin me down" so I don't piss off one constituency politicking. First up, Ted Cruz:

"Apple has a serious argument that they should not be forced to put a backdoor in every cellphone everyone has," said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, echoing Cook's concerns that complying with the court would create a "backdoor" into Apple's encryption that others could exploit.

But in this case, said Senator Cruz, the FBI's interests override Apple's worries about security.

"This concerns the phone of one of the San Bernardino [terrorists], and for law enforcement to get a judicial search order, that's consistent with the Fourth Amendment,” said Cruz.

He also said:

“They have a binding search order,” Ted Cruz said, referring to Apple. “I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can protect ourselves from terrorists and protect our civil rights.”

Yeah, again, that's not the issue. Yes, they have a court order. And that is fine, if Apple had full access to the content and just needed to turn that over. Everyone agrees with that. But that's not the issue here. It's whether or not Apple can be compelled to go much, much further, and build a way to hack their own customers, removing security features, so that the FBI can more easily access encrypted content.

How about Marco Rubio? Same on the one hand/on the other hand bullshit:

“If you create a backdoor, there is a very reasonable possibility that a criminal gang could figure out what the backdoor is," Mr. Rubio said. “We're going to have to work with the tech industry to figure out a way forward on encryption that allows us some capability to access information – especially in an emergency circumstances.”

So, we need to work together to allow some capability... that Rubio himself admits will lead to "a very real possibility that a criminal gang" will exploit. Guess what the larger risk is: a criminal gang targeting your data, or being caught in a terrorist attack? It's the former, not the latter, and yet Rubio is pretending they're the same.

Next up to bat, John Kasich. He's even worse. Not only does he not understand the issue, he doesn't even give one of those on the one hand/on the other hand answers, suggesting he doesn't even know the key part of all of this.

"I don't think it's an example of government overreach to say that, you know, we had terrorists here on our soil and we've got to understand more detail about who they may have been communicating with."

It's not an overreach for them to try to understand. But that's not the debate. The debate is if in trying to collect every possible bit of content, they have the power to commandeer a tech company and have it build tools to undermine that company's own security systems.

Ben Carson, shows his usual level of confusion, suggesting Apple is only doing this because it doesn't trust the government and then giving another wishy-washy answer:

“I think that Apple, and probably a lot of other people, don’t necessarily trust the government these days,” Carson said. “And there’s probably very good reason for people not trust the government. But we’re going to have to get over that because right now we’re faced with tremendous threats, and individuals, radical jihadists, that want to destroy us. And we’re going to have to weigh these things, one against the other.”

“I believe that what we need is a public-private partnership when it comes to all of these technical things and cyber security because we’re all at risk in a very significant way,” Carson said. “So it’s going to be a matter of people learning to trust each other, which means Apple needs to sit down with trustworthy members of the government, and that may have to wait until the next election, I don’t know, but we’ll see.”

This response makes absolutely no sense, and is almost self-contradictory. He's basically admitting that the government might misuse such powers, and even suggests the Obama government in particular would do so. But his government, of course, would be fine. If you're a Presidential candidate and your argument for a powerful surveillance tool is "well I don't trust the other guy to use it, but you can trust me..." you've already lost. And, of course, Carson's answer similarly misses the point altogether. The issue is not about Apple's "mistrust" of the government, but rather whether or not Apple can be compelled to undermine the safety and security of all of its customers. And yeah, "all of these technical things and cyber security." Clear as mud.

I'm not quite sure how, but it looks like Jeb Bush has managed to avoid answering a direct question on this issue, but it's not hard to guess where he'd come down. In the past he's talked about how encryption enables "evildoers":

If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren’t in our midst.

And, in an earlier debate he did one of those non-answer things where he says undermining encryption could harm business, but law enforcement is important... so leadership. Really.

Bush: If you can encrypt messages, ISIS can, over these platforms, and we have no ability to have a cooperative relationship —

Moderator: Do you ask or do you order?

Bush: Well, if the law would change, yeah. But I think there has to be recognition that if we — if we are too punitive, then you’ll go to other — other technology companies outside the United States. And what we want to do is to control this. We also want to dominate this from a commercial side. So there’s a lot of balanced interests. But the president leads in this regard. That’s what we need. We need leadership, someone who has a backbone and sticks with things, rather than just talks about them as though anything matters when you’re talking about amendments that don’t even actually are part of a bill that ever passed.

So, yeah. Basically all of the candidates are absolutely awful on this issue. That's not encouraging.

Filed Under: all writs act, apple, ben carson, bernie sanders, donald trump, election, encryption, hillary clinton, jeb bush, john kasich, marco rubio, presidents, ted cruz
Companies: apple

Hillary Clinton Continues To Say Ridiculous Things About Encryption... Without Ever Taking A Real Position

from the because-politics dept

Hillary Clinton certainly has a reputation as a true "politician" -- able to say things without actually saying things. And it appears that's absolutely true when it comes to questions about encryption and backdoors. Back in November, she made comments that pretty clearly suggested that she supported undermining encryption, even as her tech advisers flipped out in arguing she said no such thing. Of course, it was all political tap dancing, signalling things to both sides without actually being pinned down on anything. The key was after saying that encryption was "a particularly tough problem" she said:

So we need Silicon Valley not to view government as its adversary. We need to challenge our best minds in the private sector to work with our best minds in the public sector to develop solutions that will both keep us safe and protect our privacy.

But, of course, that's the exact same language that FBI Director James Comey had used previously in arguing for a backdoor -- that if only Silicon Valley would "work with" the FBI and put its "brightest minds" to the task, there must be some way to create a backdoor. But, again, that ignores the real problem that technologists have raised over and over again. The problem is not in creating a backdoor. Anyone can create a backdoor. The problem is creating a backdoor that only the "good guys" can use. You automatically undermine the safety and security of encryption for everyone when you create a backdoor. That's the problem.

But Clinton is trying to work both sides here. She says stuff that's a dog whistle to law enforcement types about backdooring encryption, without ever actually admitting she supports backdooring encryption. She later doubled down on these dog whistle statements in a TV interview on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

And then, the issue came up again at this past weekend's Democratic Presidential debate, where Clinton again made bizarre comments that didn't really say anything directly, but sure suggested some strange beliefs. From coverage at DailyDot:

Clinton first said that she was “very pleased” to see Obama administration officials meet with tech executives to discuss ways to counter violent extremism online—a meeting at which the more contentious encryption debate was also raised. Debate moderator Andrea Mitchell then pointed out that the tech companies had rebuffed the administration's demands at that meeting. In response, Clinton said, “That is not what I've heard. Let me leave it at that.”

That's an interesting claim. There was plenty of discussion about the meeting, and in particular, the fact that the encryption issue was only raised because Comey refused to participate if that wasn't on the agenda. And multiple parties have revealed that the "discussion" on encryption appeared to focus on Apple CEO Tim Cook berating the White House officials for not taking a clear public stance on supporting strong encryption.

Given that, Clinton's "that's not what I heard" statement sounds like complete bullshit. Dailydot asked the Clinton campaign for more details, and in typical political fashion, the campaign continued tapdancing:

Asked which meeting topic she was referring to, a Clinton campaign spokesman said in an email, “As you can see from the transcript, she was referring to general intelligence cooperation, not specifically about encryption.” But public reporting suggests that the tech companies did rebuff the administration, and the spokesman declined to say where Secretary Clinton was getting her information to the contrary. He also declined to say whether Secretary Clinton supported backdoors.

Of course, none of the other candidates on the stage with Clinton were any good on the issue either. Martin "who's that third guy on the stage?" O'Malley made it clear he didn't even know what the debate was about with his comment:

I believe whether it’s a back door or a front door that the American principle of law should still hold that our federal government should have to get a warrant, whether they want to come through the back door or your front door.

And I also agree, Lester, with Benjamin Franklin, who said, no people should ever give up their privacy or their freedoms in a promise for security.

So we’re a collaborative people. We need collaborative leadership here with Silicon Valley and other bright people in my own state of Maryland and around the NSA that can actually figure this out.

But there are certain immutable principles that will not become antique things in our country so long as we defend our country and its values and its freedoms. And one of those things is our right to be secure in our homes, and our right to expect that our federal government should have to get a warrant.

I also want to the say that while we’ve made some progress on the Patriot Act, I do believe that we need an adversarial court system there. We need a public advocate. We need to develop jurisprudence so that we can develop a body of law that protects the privacy of Americans in the information and digital age.

Everyone's focused on that first sentence. Except that no one's debating the warrant question. It's about whether or not the backdoors should exist. And O'Malley doesn't even touch that, though he does add in another "Silicon Valley" and "bright people" can work with the NSA to "figure this out." Again, that totally misses the point.

And then there was Bernie Sanders, who tried to make it about the big bad internet companies and then, again, suggested that if only Silicon Valley worked on the problem, it could all be figured out:

SANDERS: OK. I just wanted to add, in the previous question, I voted against the USA Patriot Act for many of the reasons that Governor O’Malley mentioned. But it is not only the government that we have to worry about, it is private corporations.

You would all be amazed, or maybe not, about the amount of information private companies and the government has in terms of the Web sites that you access, the products that you buy, where you are this very moment.

And it is very clear to me that public policy has not caught up with the explosion of technology. So yes, we have to work with Silicon Valley to make sure that we do not allow ISIS to transmit information…

HOLT: But in terms of lone wolves, the threat, how would you do it?

SANDERS: Right. What we have got to do there is, among other things, as I was just saying, have Silicon Valley help us to make sure that information being transmitted through the Internet or in other ways by ISIS is, in fact, discovered.

But I do believe we can do that without violating the constitutional and privacy rights of the American people.

Again, that's got nothing to do with the debate at hand. Also, if the question was about "lone wolves" then those are people who are not actually communicating with ISIS.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a single presidential candidate who actually understood this particular issue?

Filed Under: bernie sanders, encryption, going dark, hillary clinton, martin o'malley
Companies: apple

Bernie Sanders' Campaign DMCAs Wikimedia For Hosting His Logos

from the wrong-on-so-many-levels dept

What is it with political campaigns issuing totally bogus takedown notices? It happens all too frequently, especially with presidential campaigns. But the latest example may be the stupidest one we've seen to date. The folks at the Lumen Database (formerly Chilling Effects) alert us to the ridiculous news that Bernie Sanders' campain issued a bogus DMCA notice to the Wikimedia Foundation, because Wikimedia Commons has hosted some Sanders' logos.

You can read the full takedown letter here, sent by a redacted lawyer at Garvey Schubert Barer, a firm that claims to have expertise in intellectual property law. If that's true, they sure don't show it in this letter. First of all, they're sending a DMCA notice, which only applies to copyright, but posting campaign logos is hardly copyright infringement. When you're talking about logos, at best you're talking trademark, but that's not an issue here either. Whether it's trademark or copyright, Wikimedia hosting campaign logos is clearly fair use. If they're really arguing copyright, then it's an easy fair use call. If it's trademark, there's no "use in commerce" on the Wikimedia side, and no likelihood of confusion. Either one is simply stupid to argue.

Separately, these are campaign logos which are advertising for the campaign. What kind of clueless lawyer thinks the right move is to demand such things get taken down?

And, then of course, there's the inevitable backlash over this. Presidential campaigns trying to censor people -- or worse, a site like Wikipedia -- is always going to backfire. It makes the campaign look thin-skinned, foolish and short-sighted.

I'm guessing that if this makes enough news, the Sanders campaign will back down on this, and say it was an overzealous lawyer or some other such thing, but there's no reason such takedowns should ever be sent in the first place.

Filed Under: bernie sanders, copyright, dmca, takedown, trademark, wikipedia
Companies: wikimedia

Democratic National Committee Punishes Bernie Sanders For Their Own Technical Mistake; Sanders Threatens To Sues

from the turmoil dept

There's a bizarre story about potential computer hackery this morning, involving the Democratic National Committee and the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton -- the two front runners on the Democratic side. Apparently, the DNC was doing some sort of upgrade to its computer systems, and in the process, there was a glitch that very briefly allowed a Sanders staffer, "data director" Josh Uretsky, to access confidential data from Hillary Clinton's campaign -- specifically confidential voter information gathered by Clinton's campaign. Uretsky realized he was able to access the data and did so -- and has apparently since been "fired." In response, the DNC has completely cut off all access to its systems to the Sanders' campaign, saying it won't allow the campaign back in "until it provides an explanation as well as assurances that all Clinton data has been destroyed."

And, now the Sanders campaign is threatening to sue the party, claiming that this move could undermine his entire political campaign.

Yes, accessing a competitor's data seems questionable, but again remember that the mistake here appears to be because of the DNC itself -- or, rather, its computer system vendor NGP VAN. If there's a problem, the DNC should take it up with NGP VAN who fucked up and made the data available across campaigns. That's a pretty big mistake, given the stakes. But to blame the Sanders campaign seems pretty questionable. Yet, the DNC apparently has decided to go full bore against the Sanders campaign instead of admitting to its own error:

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz weighed in with a statement of her own.

"Once the DNC became aware that the Sanders campaign had inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data, and in doing so violated the agreement that all the presidential campaigns have signed with the DNC, as the agreement provides, we directed NGP VAN to suspend the Sanders campaign's access to the system until the DNC is provided with a full accounting of whether or not this information was used and the way in which it was disposed," she said.

In a separate interview, Wasserman Schultz further attacked the Sanders campaign:

“The Sanders campaign doesn’t have anything other than bluster at the moment that they can put out there,” she told CNN on Friday. “It’s like if you found the front door of a house unlocked and someone decided to go into the house and take things that didn’t belong to them.”

To some extent, this sounds like the ridiculous legal fights over the CFAA, over what is and what is not "exceeds authorized access" (just wait until the DNC files CFAA claims against the Sanders campaign...). But separate from that, it really looks like the DNC is not just playing favorites with the Clinton campaign here, but so actively trying to blame its own technical failures on the Sanders campaign as to make itself look ridiculous.

Update: Well, that didn't take long. The Sanders campaign has sued the DNC alleging breach of contract (Sanders and the DNC have a contract allowing the campaign access to the system) as well as negligence for letting NGP VAN screw things up so badly.

Filed Under: access, bernie sanders, campaigns, cfaa, debbie wasserman schultz, hillary clinton, voter info
Companies: democratic national committee, dnc

No, Google Isn't 'Pushing' People To Vote For Bernie Sanders

from the push-it-real-good dept

Every political season, the conspiracy theories come out to play. I personally like the one that suggests that all the high ranking world leaders are actually lizard-people from the planet Bilderburg, or however that one goes. But the slightly more believable conspiracy theories can be fun, too, such as the one that says Donald Trump is a Clinton plant to ensure Hillary wins the Presidency on the theory that not enough American voters are actual crazy enough to elect Donald Trump as president. Which... yeah.

Anyway, the fun aside, it's disappointing to see the mainstream media get in on this conspiracy theory action, such as when the Washington Post runs an article with the headline: How Google Is Pushing You To Vote For Bernie Sanders. The actual article doesn't quite live up to that headline, of course, since accusing Google of trying to get Bernie Sanders elected through search results doesn't make any sense on any number of levels. Still, the piece is about an analysis done by Slate that appears to get things exactly wrong in the most un-scientific way possible.

In an analysis published by Slate, Daniel Trielli, Sean Mussenden and Nicholas Diakopoulos tallied the top 10 search results for each of 16 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Then they had a crowdsourced team of reviewers rate whether each of these results painted the candidate in a positive, negative or neutral light.

For instance, if the top search result was a candidate's own Facebook or campaign page, that would qualify as an overwhelmingly positive result. But if a news story critical of a candidate came up in the top 10, it would be coded as negative. In they end, they found that "Democrats fared better than Republicans when it came to supportive and positive sites within the first page of results. Democrats had, on average, seven favorable search results in those top 10, whereas GOP candidates had only 5.9."

Ok, so through the method of getting some people out there to Google a candidate's name and then decide for themselves whether a search result is positive or negative, the general trend is that Democrats get one better search result than Republicans. For anyone outside of the group of my conservative friends that gets their GOP knickers in a twist at the slightest hint of liberal bias anywhere, this is a statistical nothing, particularly given the muted sample size of results. It also seems to think many people are going around and inputting presidential candidates into Google and then making up their minds based on search results. An assumption for which no evidence is provided, mind you.

Even the article notes that nothing about this indicates that Google is trying to influence voters.

Does this mean Google is in the tank for Democrats? No. The authors say that the outcome is "an organic, emergent result constituted from a complex prism of quantification involving hundreds of signals and increasingly complex and opaque artificial intelligence." In other words, we don't know a whole lot about Google's algorithm. But we do know that pages that get a lot of traffic or are frequently linked to on other websites tend to do better in the rankings.

That helps explain why Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders fares so favorably in Google searches -- nine of his top 10 results were rated "very pro" in the analysis. The senator from Vermont has a strong social media presence and a lot of followers on multiple platforms. So his Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts all come up high in the search results, contributing to an overall positive result.

Left out of this conversation is the fact that Sanders, agree with him or not, is a candidate with a populist message. That helps him in the search results as well, as many diverse groups of people will be discussing him and his campaign, likely all linking to one another and so on. But regardless of that fact, the point is that the premise of the article is exactly wrong.

Google search results aren't influencing voters; voters are influencing Google's search results. Coupled with some personalized results, Google search results are all about the most commonly read, linked, used, links out there. The more positive links about Sanders, or any other candidate, are popular, the higher they appear in the results. Same with negative links.

So, while it's tempting to think the big evil corporation is trying to get us to vote for the socialist (because that apparently makes any kind of sense), the truth is more mundane.

Filed Under: bernie sanders, conspiracy theories, presidential candidates, search, search results
Companies: google