Colorado's Governor Jared Polis Signs Strong Anti-SLAPP Law And Blocks Damaging Licensing Restrictions

from the keep-it-up,-gov dept

When Jared Polis was in Congress, he was one of the (tragically few) reliably good, principled voices on topics that were important to us here at Techdirt: copyright, patents, encryption and more. Now that he's governor in Colorado, it appears he continues to do good things. First up, he's signed an excellent new anti-SLAPP law modeled on California's gold standard anti-SLAPP law. As we've discussed at length over the years, anti-SLAPP laws are a key tool in protecting free speech. They do this in two key ways: by ending bogus lawsuits designed to silence critics by enabling a court to toss them out very quickly (before they get too involved) and (importantly) making it much easier to make the plaintiffs in such cases pay the legal expenses of the defendants they sued. These laws have been in place in about half of the states so far, and they've been incredibly useful in deterring lawsuits that have no merit, but are filed entirely to burden the defendants with costs and general chilling effects of being dragged to court.

Colorado joins nearly 30 states that have adopted measures to curb what are called strategic lawsuits against public participation. Witnesses testified during the legislative session about how they’d been sued for libel or slander simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.

The new law allows a citizen to seek an immediate stay of such a lawsuit by arguing it’s motivated by the citizen’s exercise of First Amendment rights. A higher court can order immediate dismissal of the lawsuit, and plaintiffs can be held liable for court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Democratic Reps. Lisa Cutter and Shannon Bird and Sen. Michael Foote sponsored the bill, which was modeled after a longstanding California statute that is considered one of the nation’s toughest.

On another issue we've talked about, ridiculous occupational licensing laws that go way beyond any "public safety" reason to just block out competition and limit the competitiveness of markets, Polis has responded by vetoing a bill to increase occupational licenses in Colorado. This was a bill pushed by members of his own party, so it's good to see Polis push back on it. His veto statement is worth reading.

Before any unregulated occupation is to be regulated, or any regulated occupation is to be continued, the state should complete its due diligence to ensure that regulation will, in fact, ensure consumer safety in a cost-efficient manner. This bill does not meet that threshold.

As we have previously noted, occupational licensing is not always superior to other forms of consumer protection. Too often it is used to protect existing professional within an occupation against competition from newcomers entering that occupation. Meanwhile, according to the 2019 Current Population Survey, 24 percent of the national workforce is licensed, up from below five percent in the 1950s. Licensing in the United States over the years has at times prevented minorities and the economically disadvantaged from having the ability to access occupations. When the supply of professionals is restricted, the cost of services increases and the poorest among us lose the ability to access these services.

There's a lot more in the statement, but that's the crux of it.

Kudos to Governor Polis. Keep it up.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, colorado, consumer protection, free speech, jared polis, occupational licensing

Bipartisan Bill Would Require A Warrant To Search Americans' Devices At The Border

from the would-be-a-start dept

As we've discussed for many years, Homeland Security and the Justice Department have convinced too many courts that there is some sort of 4th Amendment "exception" at the border, whereby Customs and Border Patrol agents (CBP) are somehow allowed to search through your laptops, phones, tablets and more just because, fuck it, they can. Now bipartisan pairs in both the Senate and the House have introduced a new bill that would require that CBP get a warrant to search the devices of Americans at the border. On the Senate side, the bill is sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul, and in the House, it's Reps. Blake Farenthold and Jared Polis. Honestly, it's absolutely ridiculous that this kind of bill is even needed in the first place, because the 4th Amendment should just take care of it. But with DHS and the courts not properly appreciating the 4th Amendment's requirment for a warrant to do a search, here we are. Here's a short summary of the bill as well, that notes:

The government has asserted broad authority to search or seize digital devices at the border without any level of suspicion due to legal precedent referred to as the “border search exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for probable cause or a warrant.

Until 2014, the government claimed it did not need a warrant to search a device if a person had been arrested. In a landmark unanimous decision, the Supreme Court (in Riley v. California) ruled that digital data is different and that law enforcement needed a warrant to search an electronic device when a person has been arrested.

This bill recognizes the principles from that decision extend to searches of digital devices at the border. In addition, this bill requires that U.S. persons are aware of their rights before they consent to giving up online account information (like social media account names or passwords) or before they consent to give law enforcement access to their devices.

That last part is especially important, given how eager Homeland Security has been to start demanding social media passwords as you deplane. Unfortunately, the bill as written only applies to "US Persons" as defined here, meaning that it may not be of much help for a new DHS proposal, also revealed this week, to more aggressively pursue phone and social media searches of foreigners. This is a bad idea for a whole host of reasons we've already discussed, but the short version is that it's bad for security, it's bad for tourism, it's bad for Americans' safety (because other countries will reciprocate). It's just a bad, bad idea.

At the very least, this new bill would block this from happening for American citizens or otherwise legal aliens, but it should go much further. And, of course, who knows if this bill will get any traction, or get signed by the President.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, blake farenthold, border search, border search exception, devices, jared polis, rand paul, ron wyden

House Overwehelmingly Passes Amendments Blocking Funding For Undermining Encryption

from the closing-the-backdoor dept

As we've been saying, the passage of the USA Freedom Act is just a small first step in the long road to real surveillance reform. On Wednesday, the House took another small step, voting overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment to an appropriations bill put forth by Rep. Thomas Massie that blocks funding to the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) for working with the NSA or CIA to undermine or backdoor encryption. This appears to be quite similar to part of the similar amendment last year that banned both this kind of NIST coordination, but also the NSA's use of backdoor searches under Section 702. As far as I can tell, this new amendment does not include that latter bit. Either way, this amendment passed 383 to 43.

It appears that another amendment, put forth by Rep. Ted Poe also passed by voice vote and it would block the use of funds from the DOJ/FBI from being used "to mandate or request that a person alter the product or service of the person to permit electronic surveillance of any user or service" except in cases required under existing wiretapping law.

Both of these are very big deals, and the fact that they passed so easily suggests that the House is nowhere near done on pushing for real surveillance reform. Of course, whether or not these actually go anywhere is another story. As you may recall, after passing overwhelmingly last year, under pressure to get a big omnibus bill done at the end of the year, the House leadership agreed to drop those provisions under pressure from the intelligence community.

Also, one other interesting amendment also appears to have passed easily by voice vote, which is an amendment put forth by Jared Polis, and would make it clear that the DEA cannot do bulk collection under its subpoena authority. As was detailed a few weeks ago, for many years, the DEA had been using this authority to collect tons of phone records, and the program only ended once the administration realized that the claims it was using in support of the NSA's bulk collection didn't apply to the DEA's collection, and thus they couldn't really continue it. Polis's amendment means that this particular loophole is closed for good (not that others might still be open...).

Again, all three of these may not survive all the way into law, but it does show that there's still a very strong interest in the House to continue pushing back against surveillance abuse.

Filed Under: backdooring encryption, bulk collection, cia, dea, doj, encryption, fbi, jared polis, nist, nsa, subpoenas, ted poe, thomas massie

This Is Important: Federal Anti-SLAPP Legislation Introduced

from the make-it-happen dept

For many years now, we've talked about the importance of a federal anti-SLAPP law, that would protect the First Amendment. As we've explained, it is not uncommon for people to abuse our judicial system to file a lawsuit against someone for saying things that they don't like, knowing that no matter how frivolous, the threat (and cost) of the lawsuit is often enough to get them to shut up. That's why such "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation" (SLAPP) are so popular. As it stands, anti-SLAPP laws are a complete hodgepodge of state laws. Some states have no anti-SLAPP laws. Others have weak ones. And a few have strong ones (though even some of those are under attack).

While there have been some attempts in the past, it appears that some in Congress are trying, once again, to create a federal anti-SLAPP law. This one has been introduced by Reps. Blake Farenthold and Anna Eshoo (with co-sponsorship from Reps. Darrell Issa, Jared Polis and Trent Franks).

The SPEAK FREE Act of 2015, will protect citizens from frivolous lawsuits that target their First Amendment Rights. Based on the Texas Citizens Participation Act, this bill will prevent bad actors from using a lawsuit to silence public opinion simply because they don’t agree with it. These lawsuits, known as SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), pose a threat not only to free speech, but to the modern information economy. Protecting our right to free speech drives economic opportunity by paving the way to new forums for expression, like YouTube, or by facilitating the rise and fall of products or services through competition and honest buyer feedback.

The SPEAK FREE Act will provide a federal backstop to state Anti-SLAPP laws by creating a process similar to that in Texas and California, where expensive court proceedings are delayed and claims can be dismissed if the defendant can show that a SLAPP suit cannot succeed on the merits.

The full text of the bill can be seen at that link (or below), and it does appear to be similar to the ones in Texas and California, making it much easier to dismiss bogus SLAPP suits, to halt discovery and to get awarded attorneys fees for such SLAPP suits. Also, unlike some state laws, it is not limited to just speech about the government, which is important. While there may be some specifics within the bill that are worth tweaking, overall, it seems clearly modeled on the very successful, and well-thought out bills already in place in Texas and California. It would be a huge boost to freedom of expression to have this become law.

Seeing as how some rather wealthy folks have been trying to kill off anti-SLAPP laws in states already, expect to see a lot of FUD come out about this attempt to put in place an anti-SLAPP law that protects free expression across the entire country.

Filed Under: anna eshoo, anti-slapp, blake farenthold, darrell issa, federal anti-slapp, free expression, free speech, jared polis, slapp

Bill Introduced To Fix Broken DMCA Anti-Circumvention Rules

from the but-will-it-get-anywhere dept

It's no secret that the DMCA's section 1201 is extremely problematic. It's the "anti-circumvention" part of the law, that makes it illegal to circumvent "technological protection measures" even if it's for non-infringing purposes. This is a mess -- especially in an age of DRM trying to lock up everything. Try to get around it, and it's a violation of the law -- even if you're not trying to infringe on the underlying material. This is why Cory Doctorow is running a new effort to eradicate DRM with a target placed firmly on Section 1201.

So it's great to see Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Jared Polis team up to introduce a bill to try to reform Section 1201. The full text of the bill (called the "Breaking Down Barriers to Innovation Act of 2015") has a lot of good things in it. It says that circumventing DRM or other technology protection measures for non-infringing reasons should no longer be considered against the law. It also expands other exemptions for things like security research and testing and reverse engineering. It also would automatically renew the exemptions the Librarian of Congress issues every few years so we don't have a repeat of the mess from a few years ago where the Librarian of Congress used the "triennial review" process to first grant an exemption to 1201 for unlocking mobile phones... and then to take that exemption away six years later.

Overall it's a good bill -- and I'm curious to understand how anyone could possibly push back on it, though Hollywood absolutely refuses to consider any changes to Section 1201. Unfortunately, it also seems unlikely that the bill has enough support to actually go anywhere. It seems a bit telling that Wyden released this bill the same day as the fast track bill, suggesting that it's a signal of some sort to people that he's not giving up on fixing copyright law. It's unlikely, however, that this gesture will mollify the folks who are upset that Wyden allowed the fast track bill to move forward in its current form.

Filed Under: 1201, anti-circumvention, copyright, dmca, dmca 1201, exemptions, jared polis, ron wyden, technological protection measures, triennial review

YODA Back, It Is: Law To Let You Actually Own Your Devices Even When Copyright Gets In The Way

from the a-good-start dept

Last year, we wrote about Rep. Blake Farenthold introducing a small, but important piece of copyright legislation, the You Own Devices Act (YODA), which just says that if you buy some piece of computerized equipment, you can sell it with any included software, without having to get permission from the software provider. As we noted, the reality is that this is just making it clear that the first sale doctrine applies to computer equipment too -- which shouldn't need a new law, but some tech companies (especially in the networking space) feel otherwise.

Farenthold has now reintroduced YODA, this time with Rep. Jared Polis as a sponsor as well (giving the bill that necessary "bi-partisan" shine). It's unfortunate that these kinds of bills are even necessary, but such is the state of copyright laws today, that they often mean the devices you buy, you don't even really own.

Also, kudos to Farenthold for playing on the YODA name in his tweet announcing the new version of the bill:

Filed Under: blake farenthold, copyright, devices, dmca, first sale, jared polis, ownership, software, yoda

Can Some Internet Memes Finally Get Congress To Pass New Legislation To Protect Your Privacy Online?

from the the-last-time-we-reformed-our-privacy-laws... dept

For many, many years, we've been talking about the need for ECPA reform. ECPA -- the Electronic Communications Privacy Act -- is an incredibly outdated piece of legislation from the 1980s that governs law enforcement's ability to access email and other electronic communications. This was the era before the internet was anywhere close to the mainstream (though it did exist). Among the various weird parts of the law, it says that any communication that is over 180 days old and still on a server is considered "abandoned" so that the government can access it without a warrant. Think about that in this era when you keep all your communications online. It was written when lawmakers thought people would "download" the messages off a server. That's just the most noteworthy problem -- there are all sorts of different definitions based on messages that have been opened or not opened and other oddities as well, almost none of which make sense.

Last year we noted that more than half of the House was co-sponsoring a bill put forth by Reps. Kevin Yoder and Jared Polis to reform ECPA in a big way. But even with so many supporting the law, it failed to move. A big hurdle? Both the IRS and SEC (note: not your standard law enforcement agencies) like the fact that they can use ECPA to snoop through electronic communications (without a warrant -- which those agencies can't get on their own anyway).

Yoder and Polis are back again with another attempt, and it's matched by a similar legislation in the Senate from Senators Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee. To get attention for the bill, Yoder, Polis and some other supporters took to Twitter in a bit of a meme fest, highlighting some historical facts to demonstrate just how long it's been since ECPA became law. It's worth scrolling through them all (though, there are a lot), because some are pretty funny:

At this point, it's a complete travesty that such a bill hasn't become law. People have explained the need for it for well over a decade, and more than half of Congress was signed on to co-sponsor it in the last Congressional term. Already this new bill has 228 additional co-sponsors in the House and another 6 co-sponsors in the Senate. The IRS and SEC's objections are simply ridiculous. Having more convenient access to someone's emails is no excuse for not better protecting the privacy of our online communications.

Of course, this isn't the only effort going on to protect privacy. Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Ted Poe and Suzan DelBene have also introduced a bill to update ECPA. It's pretty clear that Congress knows that the law needs to be updated, and it's time to get past whatever objections there are and actually start protecting our privacy.

Filed Under: communications, ecpa, ecpa reform, email, irs, jared polis, kevin yoder, memes, mike lee, patrick leahy, privacy, sec, suzan delbene, ted poe, zoe lofgren

Rep. Jared Polis Calls For 24 Hour Surveillance On Senator Marco Rubio

from the because-polis-is-awesome dept

Rep. Jared Polis has a bit of a history of making hilarious, but incredibly on point, sarcastic and satirical suggestions in response to government officials saying something stupid. Last year, he asked the Treasury Department to ban dollar bills after Senator Joe Manchin asked the Treasury Department to ban Bitcoin. Polis, of course, took the same arguments Manchin used against Bitcoin and highlighted how dollar bills had the same characteristics.

His latest move is in response to Senator Marco Rubio's ridiculous and clueless call for greater levels of mass surveillance of Americans. Rubio calls for new laws to force tech companies to help the government spy on everyone and also a permanent extension of the controversial Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the part of the law that was twisted by the DOJ and the NSA to pretend it means they can demand every phone record on every American because they might be able to sniff through it all and find something interesting.

In response, Polis has asked the US Intelligence Community to begin "24 hour monitoring" of Senator Rubio:

“If Senator Rubio believes that millions of innocent Americans should be subject to intrusive and unconstitutional government surveillance, surely he would have no objections to the government monitoring his own actions and conversations,” said Rep. Polis. “Senator Rubio is asking for American technology companies to ‘cooperate with authorities,’ so I believe he will have no objection to authorities being given access to his electronic correspondence and metadata.  Maybe after his 2016 strategy documents are accidentally caught up in a government data grab, he’ll rethink the use of mass surveillance.”

Rubio’s op-ed called for “a permanent extension of the counterterrorism tools our intelligence community relies on” and said that the tactics were “legally and painstakingly established.” This is in stark contrast with the conclusions of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which found the data collection practices to be illegal, saying the Patriot Act “does not provide an adequate basis to support this program.”

This new focus on Senator Rubio shouldn’t require any additional legislation, as Senators have already been included in intelligence agency monitoring.

Nicely done. While he's at it, Polis might want to ask Rubio to release all of his own metadata publicly anyway. After all, if there's no big deal in snooping through metadata, Rubio shouldn't have any shame in revealing everyone he calls (or who calls him), everyone he emails and every website he visits. Right?

Filed Under: fisa, jared polis, marco rubio, metadata, patriot act, section 215, surveillance

More Than Half Of The House Co-Sponsoring Email Privacy Reform; So Why Isn't It Moving?

from the ecpa-reform-now dept

For quite some time we've talked about the importance of ECPA reform. ECPA -- the Electronic Communications Privacy Act -- is woefully outdated. Passed in the 1980s, when the internet was just a small network that connected a few universities, it has allowed law enforcement and other government officials to snoop on your email based on some very outdated definitions and assumptions. As we've discussed in the past, one very obvious example, is the idea that, under the law, emails stored on a server for over 180 days are considered "abandoned" and that there's no need to get a warrant to view those emails. Of course, that was back when people expected old emails to be either deleted or downloaded. No one predicted "cloud" computing with virtually unlimited storage.

For years now, there's been a major effort at ECPA reform, to actually make sure that law enforcement needs a warrant to view your emails. It has had strong support in Congress for some time, but the main folks fighting against it are the SEC and the IRS, who like the fact that they can search through your emails without a warrant. In fact, the SEC seems to revel in its ability to do some very questionable things, in part thanks to ECPA.

Earlier this week, the main ECPA reform bill in the House, sponsored by Reps. Kevin Yoder and Jared Polis, hit a new milestone: it currently has 218 co-sponsors, meaning that more than half of the House now has their name on the bill. And yet, the bill is still stalled out, because House leadership has been scared off by the SEC and IRS. Hopefully, the House will finally move forward on this bill.

And while Yoder notes in that article that the NSA revelations have actually helped give this bill momentum, it's important to note that this is separate from the NSA reform issue. ECPA reform is unrelated to the NSA stuff, but covers what other government agencies can do with your email. Both are important issues, but it would be great to finally get basic ECPA reform through. This is a fight that's been going on for over a decade, and with more than half the House supporting it, how much longer can Congressional leadership ignore it?

Filed Under: 4th amendment, ecpa, ecpa reform, irs, jared polis, kevin yoder, privacy, sec, warrants

Federal Election Commission Says Political Action Committees Can Accept Payment Via Bitcoins

from the converted-into-dollars dept

After some amount of hand-wringing, the Federal Election Commission has said that political action committees (PACs) may accept bitcoin donations, though they can't then buy goods and services with those bitcoins. Furthermore, it has to convert the bitcoins to dollars before depositing them into its campaign accounts. In other words, its effectively allowing the use of bitcoin as a payment system, rather than as a currency. However, at the same time, it will allow campaigns to buy bitcoins as an investment vehicle.

There's also some confusion over what this all means. Rather than issuing a full ruling, the FEC released an "advisory opinion" based on a specific request from the Make Your Laws PAC, which specifically asked for the ability to accept bitcoin donations up to $100. What's not clear is if the FEC is just agreeing to that level of donations or if it's okaying larger donations as well. In fact, it appears that the FEC commissioners don't even agree with each other as to whether there's a limit on donation sizes:

That low sum assuaged the concerns of several commissioners about the risks of the virtual currency, said Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic appointee.

"The $100 limit was really important to us," she said. "We have to balance a desire to accommodate innovation, which is a good thing, with a concern that we continue to protect transparency in the system and ensure that foreign money doesn't seep in."

[....] But FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, a Republican appointee to the panel, disagreed. He said that the advisory opinion treats bitcoin donations as in-kind contributions -- not official currency -- meaning that the only limits that apply are the federal caps on all forms of accepted donations. Those limit individuals to giving $2,600 to a candidate per election and $5,000 to a political action committee. Individuals and corporations can give unlimited sums to super PACs.

"To me, the opinion that the commission approved today supports the right of bitcoin users to contribute as they would all other kind things of value," he said, such as silver dollars and works of art.

So that's likely to create some sort of mess somewhere down the road.

In the meantime, it's notable that well-known techie -- and one of the small group of clued-in Congressional Representatives -- Jared Polis also just happened to announce today that you can donate to his campaign via bitcoin. Looking at that page, I note that the highest amount allowed is... $100. It would appear he's taking no chances with the disagreement over amounts allowed by the FEC. Polis claims to be the first Congressional rep to accept bitcoin, though others have pointed out that Rep. Steve Stockman has been accepting bitcoin for his Senate campaign for a few months now.

Either way, it's yet another step forward in making bitcoin somewhat more mainstream.

Filed Under: bitcoin, campaign funding, donations, federal election commission, jared polis, pacs, steve stockman