jared polis – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Utah Governor Absolutely Positive That Social Media Harms Kids Despite Study After Study After Study After Study After Study Saying He’s Wrong

from the do-we-believe-your-kids-or-the-study-looking-at-a-million-kids? dept

Okay, look, at this point, we need to start calling out those in positions of power who insist that it’s unquestionable that social media is harmful to kids when the don’t present any evidence at all to back up those assertions. Because as we’ve been documenting, every single study that comes out these days seems to say the exact opposite. I know that I’ve posted this a few times lately, but I’m going to do so again, because it’s important to understand just how the research consensus is shaping up these days:

That’s not to say there isn’t some sort of mental health crisis going on these days. Almost every expert believes there absolutely is. It’s just that the rush to blame it on social media is simply unsupported by the data. If anything, as the Journal of Pediatrics study shows, it’s the lack of open spaces where kids can be kids without parents watching their every move (which predates the rise of social media) that may contribute the most to the rise in mental health issues among children. Thus, the simplistic, and almost certainly wrong, argument that social media is to blame may even make the problem worse, because social media has become the one place left where kids often can just be kids without parents hovering over them.

Much of the research above — including the APA and Surgeon General’s report — also find that for many teens, social media is actually very useful and helpful for their mental health, in giving them a place to explore, figure out who they are as a person, and to interact with people beyond the narrow set of folks they might meet otherwise.

However, many of the studies also agree that for a small — but still important — group of teens, social media can exacerbate existing mental health problems, when they seek to use it alone as a kind of medication, allowing them to go deeper. And it’s quite clear that we should be looking for, promoting, and encouraging efforts to help those at risk teens, and provide better tools and resources for them.

But that’s very different from insisting (and regulating) social media as if it is universally bad for kids.

That’s all preamble to what this post is actually about. Utah Governor Spencer Cox has already made it clear he hates social media. He signed one of the first bills in the country that (unconstitutionally) tries to ban kids from social media, and mocked those who pointed out it was unconstitutional (we’ll soon find out, as Utah was just sued over that law).

So, I guess it shouldn’t be much of a surprise when he goes on TV and claims that he’s absolutely positive social media is bad for kids.

“I think it’s obvious to anyone who spends any time on social media or has kids — I have four kids. I’ve seen what’s happened to them as they’ve spent time on social media, and their friends, that this is absolutely causing these terrible increases, these hockey stick-like increases that we are seeing in anxiety, depression, and self-harm amongst our youth,” Cox, the chair of National Governors Association, said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that aired Sunday.

Now, if Meet the Press were actually concerned about accuracy, its host might have, you know, pointed out all the studies that say otherwise, and questioned Cox on how his anecdotal insistence can possibly stand up to all of those studies. But, that’s not how the mainstream media acts these days (and especially not those that have a vested interest in slamming the internet).

Cox went even further, though, insisting not only does it harm kids (despite the evidence to the contrary), but also that big tech knows this and doesn’t care:

“They know this is harming our kids,” Cox said of big tech companies. “They’re covering it up. They’re doing everything possible to take advantage of our kids for their own gain. And we’re not going to stand for that. And so we’re still pushing forward.”

Now, it’s always possible that some companies are doing this, but from what I’ve seen, the opposite is true. The research that has come out to date has shown companies studying this stuff in order to figure out ways to minimize the harm.

Of course, with some of the spin on things like Meta’s internal research (which, again, was to look at ways to minimize any harm), which was falsely portrayed as Meta “covering up” or “ignoring” harm caused to kids, it’s actually now going to drive these companies to do less research, and do less to stop any harms. Because politicians like Cox, and media outlets like NBC, are still going to spin any such research as “proof” of “covering it up.”

The whole thing is stupid beyond belief. The evidence shows what the evidence shows, and it’s that right now there’s a giant moral panic going on. There is no evidence that social media is inherently bad for teenagers. There is a ton of research suggesting it’s helpful for most kids, and that any interventions should be clearly targeted to the small group of at risk kids.

But, Spencer Cox is absolutely positive he’s right, apparently because of what he has observed with a tosample size of his own kids. Maybe, given all of these studies, it suggests that Cox has been spending so much time raging about culture war moral panics when he could have, you know, taught his kids how to use the internet properly.

Notably, the other guest on that episode of Meet the Press was the governor of Utah’s neighbor to the east, Governor Jared Polis from Colorado. And despite the GOP constantly insisting it’s the party of “parents’ rights” and “keeping government out” of everyone’s business, it’s Polis who argues that Cox is doing the opposite, and suggests he (correctly) thinks these are issues that parents themselves should deal with:

“I think the responsibility belongs with parents, not the government,” Polis, the vice chair of the NGA, said during the joint interview with Cox.

“I certainly agree with the diagnosis that Governor Cox did, and I have some sympathy for that approach. But I do think at the end of the day, the government can’t parent kids,” he added later.

Polis is still wrong regarding the diagnosis. The evidence pretty clearly says that. But he’s correct that this is an issue for parents and schools, not for the government to step in and effectively ban children from the very social media that many of them find so useful.

Filed Under: anxiety, colorado, depression, evidence, jared polis, mental health crisis, protect the children, social media, social media bans, social media harms, spencer cox, teens, utah

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

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