mark meadows – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "mark meadows"

White House Offers To Allow Renaming Confederate Bases… In Exchange For Getting Rid Of Section 230

from the who-did-the-what-now? dept

Let’s state upfront that there is no way in hell this is happening, and it’s all just performative nonsense. No one is actually going to do this. However, the NY Times is reporting that White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has floated the idea of “compromise” to get the annual NDAA passed, after President Trump has whined about it requiring the renaming of military bases named after Confederacy leaders. As a bit of background, I still don’t understand why we have literally anything named after leaders who actually tried to leave the country and fought against the US military, in order to continue enslaving people… but that’s just me. The NDAA (the National Defense Authorization Act) is the annual budget allocated by Congress for the military. It’s one of those “must pass” kind of things that some in Congress try to sneak junk into, knowing that it has to pass. President Trump has threatened to veto the bill because of the base renaming bit.

Now the Times is reporting that Meadows is saying Trump would stop fighting the renaming… if Congress uses the NDAA to totally repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Really.

Over the course of several conversations, Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, asked Mr. Meadows what might persuade Mr. Trump to sign the measure with the renaming requirement intact, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Mr. Meadows, according to the people, said that adding a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, considered the most consequential law governing speech on the internet, would help.

Just to put this out there: this is insane. On many different levels. I’ve already expressed my confusion over why there’s any debate at all about these base names, but the idea that Congress should simply wipe out Section 230 in the NDAA just creates an entirely new layer of pure ridiculousness. I mean, in part because this would simply increase uncertainty and liability for internet services, leading to a much higher likelihood that Twitter and other social media sites would take down Trump’s nonsense for fear of having to defend themselves in court over it.

It truly is striking how focused so much of Washington DC has become on Section 230 without even understanding what it currently does, how it works, and what will happen if it gets removed.

Anyway, again, this is not happening. No one is going to go ahead with this. But it’s just yet another example of the ridiculous policy proposals now floating around the White House.

Filed Under: appropriations, confederate bases, congress, donald trump, free speech, funding, mark meadows, military, ndaa, section 230

Four Congressional Reps Ask Bill Barr To Restart His War On Porn

from the we-got-tired-of-dealing-with-issues-our-constituents-want-us-to-deal-with dept

A handful of Congress members seem to think we need a War on Porn to go with our War on Drugs and our War on Terror. They think they have the right person in the DOJ to get this war machine mobilized.

Yes, it’s Bill Barr. The same man who decided the DOJ should start pushing obscenity prosecutions back in 1992 when he was Attorney General is being petitioned by a moral minority in the House to Make America Unconstitutional Again.

The letter, signed by Reps Jim Banks, Mark Meadows, Vicky Hartzler, and Brian Babin, asks Bill Barr to turn the DOJ into an anti-porn organization again. A statement accompanying this attempted First Amendment broadside was sent to the National Review by Rep. Banks. It includes two links to Fight The New Drug — the group of non-medical/psychological experts behind the push to label porn a “public health crisis” — and one to the UK’s infamous Daily Mail, to give you some idea what sources these reps consider credible.

As online obscenity and pornography consumption have increased, so too has violence towards women. Overall volume of human trafficking has increased and is now the third-largest criminal enterprise in the world. Child pornography is on the rise as one of the fastest-growing online businesses with an annual revenue over $3 billion. The United States has nearly 50% of all commercialized child pornography websites. Pornography is ubiquitous in our culture and our children are being exposed at younger ages. Nine in every ten boys under the age of 18 have seen porn. Children are struggling with pornography addiction.

The letter [PDF] reminds Bill Barr of his anti-porn roots and suggests he all but killed the industry nearly 30 years ago before the next administration decided fighting CHILD porn might be a better use of the DOJ’s resources.

There’s a moral panic to be had here. Not a new one, mind you. This moral panic has resulted in multiple states buying what these moralists-posing-as-researchers are selling, as well as the UK’s multiple failed attempts to mandate some sort of porn filtration system for the nation.

It begins with some dubious claims and gets stupider from there:

The Internet and other evolving technologies are fueling the explosion of obscene pornography by making it more accessible and visceral. This explosion in pornography coincides with an increase in violence towards women and an increase in the volume of human trafficking as well as child pornography. Victims are not limited to those directly exploited, however, and include society writ large. This phenomenon is especially harmful to youth, who are being exposed to obscene pornography at exponentially younger ages.

There has been no increase in violence against women. The number of reported rapes has been declining for four decades straight. So have other forms of violence, including intimate partner homicide. Correlation is not causation, as we all know, but attempting to correlate the increasing accessibility of porn with an “increase in violence” that doesn’t actually exist is a whole new level of intellectual dishonesty. The rest of the paragraph is deliberately vague, invoking some sort of existential threat the actual facts don’t back up. And sooner or later, someone’s going to need to be writing angry letters to the DOJ because fetuses are being exposed to porn, if the “exponentially younger ages” trend continues.

More honestly, this Gang of Four reminds AG Barr that none other than the President himself promised to wipe out porn. The “Children’s Internet Safety Policy” was signed by Trump in 2016, a few months before he was elected. It was crafted by Enough Is Enough, a non-profit warmly regarded by Fight The New Drug. The “pledge” included footnotes that complete the circular reasoning loop, citing the number of “public health crisis” declarations by state legislatures that groups like Enough Is Enough and Fight The New Drug pushed for and co-wrote as evidence of porn’s ability to upset the public health apple cart.

It’s all very stupid and the worst kind of virtue signalling. Unfortunately, it’s also likely to grab Barr’s attention. It’s not even subtle about its intentions to give Barr something he would love to run with because it’s just the sort of thing Barr would love to run with. It opens with “we write to you out of concern for the rule of law,” for fuck’s sake, which is Barr’s thing. No one loves the “rule of law” more than this blue-backing, encryption-threatening, civilian-bullying loudmouth, so this is basically saying the things he’s probably already thinking.

AG Barr has never been too concerned about what the Constitution says his agency can and can’t do. The First Amendment implications of running with this half-assed idea will be shrugged off as well. If Barr wants a war, he can have one. It just won’t be the war he expects.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, bill barr, brian babin, doj, jim banks, mark meadows, obscenity, porn, vicky hartzler, william barr

Bill Introduced To Keep Bored Federal Employees From Viewing Porn While On The Clock

from the and-what's-wrong-with-simply-enforcing-existing-policies? dept

Because federal employees just can’t seem to stop watching porn while on the clock, a legislator is stepping in to do something about it.

Rep. Mark Meadows on Wednesday introduced the Eliminating Pornography from Agencies Act, which he said would prevent government employees from taking their eyes off their work.

“Prevent” is a strong word, considering both the limitations of the nascent bill and federal employees’ willingness to go above and beyond when it comes to porn-watching in the workplace. Meadows’ statement on the bill points out one particular EPA employee who admitted to viewing porn up to 6 hours a day (indeed, he was watching porn when the Inspector General came knocking) and had accessed or downloaded more than 7,000 pornographic images.

It’s not just the EPA. The SEC and FCC also employ their fair share of (apparently) professional porn enthusiasts. But what Meadows is demanding in his bill [pdf] is little more than a reiteration of existing policies.

Except as provided in subsection 9 (b), not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall issue guidelines that prohibit the access of a pornographic or other explicit web site from a Federal computer.

Subsection 9 (b) basically states “unless watching porn is your job” — i.e., investigative work, etc. Given the amount of porn-watching occurring at federal agencies, it would seem that some new “Porn-Watcher Watcher” positions will be opening if Meadows’ bill manages to snag a Presidential signature.

But the bill — as proposed — will have little to no effect on ardent federal porn fans. New guidelines, or even a new firewall (if that’s the direction the OMB goes), won’t stop those intent on whiling away their work hours in a permanent state of arousal. Firewalls can be circumvented and, unless the guidelines contain significant punishments for violating them, new policies will be equally useless.

It can safely be said that no current government policies allow for the accessing of porn with government computers, so we know the policy route is wholly ineffective. The addition of bolded print or ALL CAPS from the OMB isn’t suddenly going to take the lead out of these government pencils. The longevity of the EPA’s porn fan (both in terms of per-day consumption and continued employment) should be all the evidence needed to prove Meadows’ bill useless — something Meadows doesn’t seem to have considered when writing his press release (or the bill itself).

I’m in full agreement that it shouldn’t take a new law to prevent federal employees from abusing themselves and their equipment while on the clock. But it won’t be fixed by a more-disappointed-than-angry press release and bill demanding new policies within 90 days of enactment. The government actually needs to take control of this situation by booting its bored and frisky employees out of their all-too-comfortable positions and hire people willing to treat federal employment with the same respect millions of private employees are expected to treat their jobs. Enforce the policies already on the books. The nation really doesn’t need more laws.

Filed Under: employees, government, mark meadows, porn