OTT #19: OTI Summer 2019
LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
Dear Friends,
Who ever said August was quiet in D.C.? This summer has been quite the whirlwind, as OTI has been busy on a whole host of issues. We launched several reports, filed comments, gathered public interest and industry partners for events, and much more. We’ve also made some important structural changes, the biggest of which is that Sharon Bradford Franklin, who has led our work at OTI around surveillance, encryption, and cybersecurity since early 2018, is now OTI’s policy director. This important change gives me the ability to focus on my own new role as OTI’s director and on running our great organization—it is also a first step in better synthesizing OTI’s diverse policy portfolio. I’m thrilled to be supported by Sharon’s leadership.
Rest assured, this change doesn’t mean I’ve stepped completely away from our policy work. On Tuesdays and Fridays, when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals typically releases its Opinions, you’ll find me biting my nails and refreshing the Court’s webpage, waiting for a decision in Mozilla v. FCC, the case challenging the FCC’s 2017 repeal of net neutrality, and in which we are party. I’ve also been doing longer term thinking about the next frontier of OTI’s work as technology continues to evolve at breakneck pace, creating new challenges (and opportunities) at each turn.
In the coming months, OTI will roll out several exciting projects and reports, and I look forward to sharing much more soon. Until then, I hope you enjoy the updates about how we spent our summer.
Warmly,
Sarah Morris
Director, New America’s Open Technology Institute
sarmorris@opentechinstitute.org
LIVE AT OTI
Paying for Our Privacy
“Free” services have dominated the internet for nearly two decades, but “free” has come to mean that users trade information about themselves in exchange for using the service. As a result, companies collect staggering amounts of user data, often with inadequate transparency and accountability. OTI hosted a panel that discussed how potential privacy legislation could affect existing online business models, what other business models could succeed, and whether legislation should prohibit certain business models completely.
The Future of Free Expression Online in America
The rise of hate speech, disinformation, and terror content online has put pressure on internet platforms and governments around the world to regulate online content while upholding free speech principles. In the U.S., the First Amendment limits the government’s ability to intervene, leaving vital free expression decisions in the hands of internet companies. OTI and the First Amendment Coalition hosted a panel on what best practices platforms could follow, and what role, if any, the government could play in supervising online speech.
You can see all of OTI's recent events here.
NEW AND NOTEWORTHY
Everything in Moderation
Under public pressure to stop the spread of hate speech and violence online, internet platforms are increasingly deploying artificial intelligence to take down harmful or objectionable posts. In a new report, OTI’s Spandana Singh analyzes the significant challenges that come with reliance on AI tools, including racial bias, inaccuracy, and a lack of transparency, and provides recommendations for how platforms can improve their policies and procedures. This report is the first in a series that will explore how algorithms are shaping the content we see and engage with online.
Centering Civil Rights in the Privacy Debate
Following up on an event in May, OTI and Color of Change partnered to release a report on how commercial data practices have created myriad civil rights concerns for marginalized communities. The report highlights how housing and employment discrimination, disproportionate surveillance, socioeconomic inequality, and other threats to civil rights have all been exacerbated by a lack of privacy protections. This event and report are the first in a series focusing on how the evolving privacy debate will affect consumers, companies, policymakers, and more.
The Data Portability Act: More User Control, More Competition
Internet users want more control over their personal information online, which highlights the need for a right to data portability. The ability to take the data a company has collected from you and about you—including content, friends and followers, preferences, and more—and transfer it to another service is crucial to the future of privacy rights and competition in the tech sector. OTI’s Eric Null and Ross Schulman published a memo outlining our draft legislation, the Data Portability Act, and how it would afford users increased control over their information while allowing new tech companies to enter the market.
Separating the Fact from Fiction: Attorney General Barr is Wrong on Encryption
In recent remarks at Fordham University, U.S. Attorney General William Barr attacked strong encryption protections and re-stated law enforcement’s weak, misguided case for tech companies to build special backdoors into their encrypted products. OTI pushed back against Barr’s arguments, and OTI’s Andi Wilson Thompson published a Fact vs Fiction brief, supported by six other organizations, debunking the misleading statements and faulty reasoning in Barr's speech.
ISSUES
Sprint/T-Mobile
OTI strongly opposed the Justice Department’s convoluted scheme to allow Sprint and T-Mobile to merge, and criticized the FCC’s subsequent decision to accept the merger without a public comment period. The merger would exacerbate the digital divide and threaten the Lifeline program, which provides low-income households with a monthly subsidy to purchase phone and internet service, extending critical assistance to millions of low-income military veterans, students, and health care recipients. OTI continues to fight the deal, which still faces many legal hurdles. Notably, 16 state attorneys general, including those of Texas, California, and New York, are suing to block the merger.
Universal Service Fund, Lifeline, and E-Rate
In late June, OTI endorsed three pro-consumer amendments to an FCC appropriations bill that went on to pass the House of Representatives. The amendments seek to protect the FCC’s Universal Service Fund budget, block the FCC from preempting local laws shielding consumers from hyper-local broadband monopolies, and push the FCC to finish its investigation into the sale of geolocation data to bounty hunters and other third parties. OTI also filed comments urging the FCC to abandon its proposal to cap Universal Service Fund budgets, which would hamper efforts to improve broadband deployment in rural and hard-to-serve areas and worsen the digital divide. In addition, OTI filed comments calling on the FCC to reject a petition that would harm its E-Rate program, which provides critical assistance to rural and low-income schools and libraries.
Encryption
In addition to our work around AG Barr’s anti-encryption remarks, OTI has continued to press for significant amendments to Australia’s new Assistance and Access Act 2018, which empowers the Australian government to compel tech companies to weaken the security of their products. Parliament enacted the law in December 2018, but simultaneously ordered its review. In July, OTI filed our fifth round of comments on behalf of an international coalition of 36 civil society organizations, tech companies, and trade organizations focusing on seven aspects of the legislation highlighted in the review’s terms of reference. Elsewhere in encryption, OTI’s Ross Schulman followed up on our open letter urging the UK’s GCHQ to abandon its anti-encryption “ghost proposal” with a piece in Just Security explaining how end-to-end encryption works, and why the ghost proposal threatens privacy rights globally.
C-Band Spectrum
In July, OTI’s Wireless Future Project director Michael Calabrese testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the importance of making spectrum in the underutilized 3.7-4.2 GHz band (the “C-Band”) available for use on an unlicensed, shared basis, as well as publicly auctioning off a portion of the band to raise $10 billion or more for improving rural broadband deployment. OTI also filed C-Band comments with the FCC and sent coalition letters to key House and Senate policymakers.
UK Online Harms
OTI joined with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to urge the United Kingdom to protect free expression as the government considers regulating online speech. In July, OTI and EFF filed joint comments regarding the UK’s Online Harms White Paper, explaining that greater clarity is needed around how the UK plans to implement its proposed framework, and that the UK government should avoid adopting rules that would incentivize platforms to engage in broad censorship of free expression online.
Net Neutrality
OTI is still anxiously awaiting a decision from the DC Circuit Court in our lawsuit against the FCC for its 2015 repeal of Net Neutrality rules. In March, OTI stood with Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she introduced the Save the Internet Act, a bill to restore net neutrality that passed the House in April with bipartisan support, but was blocked in the Senate in June.
QUICK TAKE
LAST BYTES
Sharon Bradford Franklin, formerly OTI’s director of surveillance and cybersecurity policy, has been promoted to policy director. In her new role, Sharon will direct the broad range of OTI's policy work on issues including broadband access, cybersecurity, encryption, freedom of expression online, government surveillance, net neutrality, privacy, and transparency and platform accountability.
In July, OTI welcomed Austin Adams as our new communications associate.
We are currently recruiting for several open positions. OTI is hiring a senior policy counsel with a primary focus on surveillance and consumer privacy. Ranking Digital Rights is hiring two research analysts, one with Chinese language experience. OTI's TechCongress project is hiring a deputy director based in DC.
Additionally, TechCongress is currently recruiting its 2020 class of Congressional Innovation Fellows.
Please share these exciting opportunities with your networks!
