Government & Communications

A Los Angeles-based tech company is resisting a federal demand for more than 1.3 million IP addresses to identify visitors to a website set up to coordinate protests on Inauguration Day — a request whose breadth the company says violates the Constitution.

“What we have is a sweeping request for every single file we have” in relation to DisruptJ20.org, said Chris Ghazarian, general counsel for DreamHost, which hosts the site. “The search warrant is not only dealing with everything in relation to the website but also tons of data about people who visited it.” The request also covers emails between the site’s organizers and people interested in attending the protests, any deleted messages and files, as well as subscriber information — such as names and addresses — and unpublished photos and blog posts that are stored in the site’s database, according to the warrant and Ghazarian.

A bipartisan quartet of Senators want the Government Accountability Office to fork over some details about the waste, fraud and abuse it identified in the Federal Communications Commission-administered Lifeline low-income broadband subsidy program. Sens Tom Carper (D-DE), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) sent the letter to the GAO asking it to send to the FCC and the FCC inspector general (currently David Hunt) details on the specific instances it identified in a report on Lifeline released by McCaskill in June.

They want the FCC IG to be able to identify and pursue the culprits if warranted. The senators also added a plug for the GAO report's recommendations on how the FCC can improve oversight of the program, something new chairman Ajit Pai has long called for. They also want GAO to turn over the results of its undercover testing of the Lifeline program to the committee.

President Donald Trump and CNN’s Jim Acosta traded barbs Aug 14 when the reporter pressed President Trump to take questions about his response to the weekend white supremacist rally in Charlottesville (VA). President Trump made a statement earlier on Aug 14 and said that “racism is evil” and specifically criticized the KKK, Nazis and other groups that organized the rally for the first time. But he did not take questions from reporters, despite later calling it a "press conference." At a second announcement later in the day, President Trump said he is launching an investigation into China’s trade practices. As that announcement ended, Acosta asked Trump if reporters could ask him questions about his remarks on Charlottesville. “It doesn’t bother me at all, but I like real news, not fake news,” Trump said, pointing at Acosta. “You’re fake news.” “Haven’t you spread a lot of fake news yourself, sir?” Acosta shot back.

The administration of President Donald Trump is scoffing at a federal lawsuit by Twitter users who claim that their constitutional rights are being violated because the president has blocked them from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle. "It would send the First Amendment deep into uncharted waters to hold that a president's choices about whom to follow, and whom to block, on Twitter—a privately run website that, as a central feature of its social-media platform, enables all users to block particular individuals from viewing posts—violate the Constitution." That's part of what Michael Baer, a Justice Department attorney, wrote to the New York federal judge overseeing the lawsuit.

In addition, the Justice Department said the courts are powerless to tell Trump how he can manage his private Twitter handle, which has 35.8 million followers. "To the extent that the President's management of his Twitter account constitutes state action, it is unquestionably action that lies within his discretion as Chief Executive; it is therefore outside the scope of judicial enforcement," Baer wrote. Baer added that an order telling Trump how to manage his Twitter feed "would raise profound separation-of-powers concerns by intruding directly into the president's chosen means of communicating to millions of Americans."

House Commerce Committee Ranking Democratic Reps are demanding answers from the Federal Communications Commission about its “favorable treatment” of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has been cashing in on a series of agency moves that are easing restrictions on its control of local television stations. In a 12-page letter sent to Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Aug 14, Reps Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) seized on multiple media reports detailing how the agency has been delivering on Sinclair’s deregulatory wish list. “We hope this letter will serve as an opportunity to respond to reports suggesting you have failed to exercise adequate independence as FCC Chairman and that may have resulted in the agency giving unusual and possibly preferential treatment to Sinclair," the three Democrats wrote. They asked Pai to come forward with more information about his office’s contacts with the White House and Sinclair on proceedings related to the broadcaster. They want any correspondence between Pai's office and Sinclair, including any lobbyists or lawyers, and whether Sinclair requested a short time frame.

[Commentary] Today, US technology companies adhere to a wide array of requirements from repressive governments that undermine Internet freedom and privacy. These demands violate international law, including the right to freedom of expression. But the enormous benefits of market access outweigh the relatively low costs associated with accepting repressive governments’ demands.

Undoubtedly, there are circumstances in which requests for information or access to accounts are reasonable, such as when investigating terrorism and major crimes. But the misuse and abuse of this power by authoritarian governments are routine. Unless the U.S. government stands in support of companies that refuse to comply with wrongful requirements, authoritarian regimes will feel emboldened to make ever-increasing and unreasonable demands. And while U.S. technology companies should be able to invest in Internet-restricting countries, if their choices directly facilitate the persecution of these governments’ political opponents, then they should bear the costs.

[Jared Genser is an international human rights lawyer based in Washington.]

[Commentary] At a certain point, we must all pause to ask: How is it that the only time our mouthy, straight-shooting, politically incorrect president seems to bite his tongue is when he is called upon to denounce white supremacists? Does it have much to do with the fact that he lines the senior ranks of his administration with outspoken white supremacists, including Steve Bannon, formerly of Breitbart? And why is the administration so interested in curbing civil rights investigations and stopping funding for counter-white nationalism efforts? These questions should trouble every American, and therefore be on the tip of the tongue of every journalist.

Until we get real answers, it’s time to stop calling the president’s favored political zealots by their favored self-identifying term. Journalists can’t allow agents of hatred to set how they are defined. Their rebrand is little more than a cover-up for white supremacists to continue to commit foul acts of disrespect, intimidation, and violence.

[Shaya Tayefe Mohajer is a freelance journalist in Los Angeles.]

[Commentary] Here is what President Donald Trump said August 12 about the violence in Charlottesville (VA) sparked by a demonstration of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides." Here is what a presidential president would have said:

"The violence Friday and Saturday in Charlottesville, Va., is a tragedy and an unacceptable, impermissible assault on American values. It is an assault, specifically, on the ideals we cherish most in a pluralistic democracy — tolerance, peaceable coexistence and diversity....Under whatever labels and using whatever code words — ‘heritage,’ ‘tradition,’ ‘nationalism’ — the idea that whites or any other ethnic, national or racial group is superior to another is not acceptable. Americans should not excuse, and I as president will not countenance, fringe elements in our society who peddle such anti-American ideas. While they have deep and noxious roots in our history, they must not be given any quarter nor any license today."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions became the latest official in the Trump administration to defend the president's comments following the car-ramming attack in Charlottesville (VA), while promising the Department of Justice would take "vigorous action" to defend the rights of Americans to protest bigotry.

"Well [Trump] made a very strong statement that directly contradicted the ideology of hatred, violence, bigotry, racism, white supremacy — those things must be condemned in this country," Sessions said. "They’re totally unacceptable, and you can be sure that this Department of Justice, in his administration, is going to take the most vigorous action to protect the right of people, like Heather Heyer, to protest against racism and bigotry...We’re going to protect the right to assemble and march and we’re going to prosecute anybody to the fullest extent of the law that violates the right to do so, you can be sure about that," Sessions said.

Newly minted Republican Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr was among the public officials to make a definitive statement denouncing the white nationalists behind a deadly protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. "These racists & white nationalists have only evil as their pedigree. Sickening," he wrote in a tweet. "It will always be beaten as justice & equality will prevail." FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry also slammed the "hatred, bigotry, and white nationalism on display in Charlottesville" in a post, which was later shared by Chairman Ajit Pai. A number of Republicans - including Sens. Cory Gardner (CO), Ted Cruz (TX) and Orrin Hatch (UT) - have spoken up against the white supremacist groups behind the rally, where a woman was killed after a car rammed through a crowd of counter-protesters. President Donald Trump has been criticized for failing to specifically name and condemn the extremists in his remarks.