Washington Post

[Commentary] A combination of legislation, technology, law and advocacy can improve online life. We need laws that acknowledge harassment by proxy and that attribute actions of the incited mob to the original upstream offender.

Rep Katherine M. Clark (D-MA) is in the vanguard, introducing legislation stopping some of the most formidable online acts. One bill criminalizes the malicious publication of private information, another prevents blackmailed demands for sexual acts, and a third punishes people who falsely report emergencies causing SWAT teams to be dispatched. Other important proposed legislation penned by Rep Clark is focused on the infrastructure of law enforcement – one requiring the Justice Department to publish statistics related to cybercrimes and funding, another providing funding to hire and train law enforcement officers to investigate cybercrimes and to procure advanced computer forensic tools. Meanwhile, Rep Jackie Speier (D-CA) introduced the Intimate Privacy Protect Act in 2016, to criminalize non-consensual pornography, with co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle.

[Carrie Goldberg is an attorney in Brooklyn at CA Goldberg, PLLC and a board member at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative.]

In June, a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a horrific spate of violence at a gay nightclub in Orlando (FL). Now, the families of some of the victims are suing Google, Twitter and Facebook, arguing that the tech companies had a role in radicalizing the shooter.

The families are accusing the companies of providing support to the Islamic State, the terrorist organization that appeared to inspire the attack. Although the gunman, Omar Mateen, did not appear to have official ties to the Islamic State, also referred to as ISIS, the victims' families say the group's indirect influence over the gunman is at least partly attributable to its “unfettered” ability to recruit fighters on social media. Through their data-driven business models, companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook even “profit from ISIS postings through advertising revenue,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in a Michigan federal court Dec 19. The families of Tevin Eugene Crosby, Juan Guerrero and Javier Jorge-Reyes are demanding a trial and unspecified monetary compensation. “Without … Twitter, Facebook, and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible,” the lawsuit reads.

The FBI told a federal judge that it needed to search a computer to resume its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server because agents had found correspondence on the device between Clinton and top aide Huma Abedin but they did not know what was being discussed, according to newly unsealed court documents. The bureau argued that Clinton and Abedin were previously on e-mail chains in which classified information was discussed, and so there was probable cause to search a computer belonging to Abedin’s estranged husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, for information potentially related to the Clinton e-mail case.

That search — along with FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to tell Congress that the investigation into Clinton’s e-mail practices had resumed — came less than two weeks before the election and upended the presidential campaign. US Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox approved a search warrant in the case, but the FBI is likely to draw criticism that it relied on flimsy evidence to resume its Clinton probe.

[Commentary] Why do democratic governments so often engage in violent covert actions? The United States is roiled by controversy over Russia’s broad covert operation to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election and Western democracy in general. But the US government has interfered in other democracies’ decisions with violent clandestine operations that go back generations. We examined unclassified Central Intelligence Agency documents and historical academic research on US interventions to identify 27 US clandestine operations carried out between 1949 and 2000. Most US “secret wars” were against other democratic states.

[Mariya Y. Omelicheva is associate professor in the department of political science at the University of Kansas. Christian Crandall is professor in the department of psychology at the University of Kansas.Ryan Beasley is senior lecturer in the school of international relations at St. Andrews University.]

President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to create an infrastructure “task force” that will help carry out the ambitious federal spending program he intends to undertake upon taking office, according to several individuals briefed on his plans.

Key members of Trump’s team — including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, senior counselor Stephen K. Bannon, senior adviser Stephen Miller and Gary Cohn, whom Trump has tapped to head the National Economic Council — are all involved in the discussions. The task force head is “not Cabinet level,” but would play a critical role in coordinating among federal, state and local officials as well as private investors as the new administration prepares to inject hundreds of billions of dollars into projects across the country. The task force would also have to help identify what qualifies as infrastructure, a word that has been used to describe everything from roads to broadband, from bike trails to electric transmission lines.

Reporters hung out with Donald Trump over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, though American news consumers won’t be reading too much about the event. That’s because it was all off-the-record, meaning that Trump could say anything he wanted, and the journalists who heard it all couldn’t pass along a single word.

Mike Allen, the former Politico mainstay turned correspondent for start-up Axios, tweeted some pictures from the event. Those were allowed by the authorities.

There is plenty of precedent for reporters doing off-the-record discussions with presidents, and the tradition remained strong in the Obama years. The rationale for attending is that journalists can get a window into the president’s thinking on stuff. And the rebuttal to that rationale is that the president uses the opportunity to spin reporters on his position, without any fingerprints on the transaction. It’s a way of getting the media to internalize the official view of things.

New York Times Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller said, “Our policy on off-the-record with presidents and presidents-elect is to push long and hard to do things on record.” However: “With journalists, you need some insight into the president-elect’s thinking. We have found in the past that this has helped us with Obama,” says Bumiller, arguing that the exposure has given the newspaper the “thought and direction to pursue stories afterward.”

Consumer advocates have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission charging that Google violated user privacy through a policy change that gives the company more leeway to build profiles of people as they browse the Web and use Google services. The complaint, submitted by advocacy groups Consumer Watchdog and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, alleges that Google acted in a “highly deceptive manner” in changing its privacy policy in June to allow the merging of data collected by various services owned by the company, such as Google Maps, Google search and the DoubleClick online advertising service. The result, the groups say, allows for the gathering of more comprehensive information on most people who use the Web. The changes, which were activated if users opted in when prompted by a query, were widely covered by tech-oriented news sites at the time.

Argentina: In the thin air of the salt flats here, nearly 13,000 feet above sea level, the indigenous Atacamas people face a constant struggle. Yet beneath their ancestral land lies a modern-day Silicon Valley treasure: lithium.

The silvery-white metal is essential for the lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, laptops and electric vehicles, and the popularity of these products has prompted a land rush here. Mining companies have for years been extracting billions of dollars of lithium from the Atacama region in Chile, and now firms are flocking to the neighboring Atacama lands in Argentina to hunt for the mineral known as “white gold.” But the impoverished Atacamas have seen little of the riches. One lithium company, a joint Canadian-Chilean venture named Minera Exar, struck deals with six aboriginal communities for a new mine here. The operation is expected to generate about $250 million a year in sales while each community will receive an annual payment — ranging from $9,000 to about $60,000 — for extensive surface and water rights.

[Commentary] With Donald Trump’s Presidency at hand, the news-media landscape is unlike anything we’ve seen before. What can we expect in the months ahead? With the help of some expert observers, here are a few:
1. Unprecedented conflict between the administration and the media.
2. Journalism that follows the money — but may not hit home.
3. The weakening of journalism in the heartland.
4. More pressure than ever on dominant news organizations.

President Barack Obama didn't get terribly animated during his annual year-end news conference Dec 16. Except, that is, when talking about how the media covered the 2016 election.

Asked about the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and some top operatives in Hillary Clinton's campaign, President Obama offered up a media critique: "This was an obsession that dominated the news coverage. So I do think it is worth us reflecting how it is that a presidential election of such importance, of such moment, with so many big issues at stake and such a contrast between the candidates came to be dominated by a bunch of these leaks." President Obama was then asked about Clinton and whether her loss could be laid at the feet of the Russian hack. Again, he turned to a media-focused answer: "I couldn't be prouder of Secretary Clinton, her outstanding service, and she's worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people, and I don't think she was treated fairly during the election. I think the coverage of her and the issues was troubling."