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The Trump administration forced Apple to turn over lawmakers’ data. Democrats are outraged.

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Democratic lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the Trump administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and its use of subpoenas to obtain device metadata belonging to at least two members of Congress. They say it’s a disturbing attack on the separation of powers, the principle of keeping the operations of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches generally separate from one another.
The calls for oversight follow a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/us/politics/justice-department-leaks-trump-administration.html">New York Times report</a> revealing that the DOJ made Apple turn over records from several people associated with the House Intelligence Committee — including Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Eric Swalwell, their staff and family, one of whom was a minor — in the midst of an investigation into people leaking classified information. While the seizure of this data happened back in 2017 and 2018, a DOJ gag order kept Apple from informing the representatives until just last month when they received an email notification from the company. Now, members are <a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1403417754544316420">reportedly racing</a> to gather more details from Apple about the scope of the DOJ subpoena.
That the Department of Justice sought the private phone data of US lawmakers without their knowledge is remarkable and disturbing. While details are still emerging, the exchange sets a concerning precedent about the ability of the executive branch to obtain the digital records of lawmakers as well as tech companies’ roles in complying with such orders. Attention has now turned to both Apple and the DOJ, and it has raised concerns over how each approaches controversial government demands for sensitive data.
It’s unclear what data Apple actually handed over. Apple did not respond to Recode’s request for comment.
Still, Democrats are outraged, calling the seizure of this data “<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=separation%20powers&src=typed_query">an assault</a>” on the separation of powers. They say the subpoenas constituted dangerously broad government surveillance deployed in service of the political interests of then-President Donald Trump.
“President Trump repeatedly and flagrantly demanded that the Department of Justice carry out his political will and tried to use the Department as a cudgel against his political opponents and members of the media,” Rep. Schiff told Recode in a statement. “It is increasingly apparent that those demands did not fall on deaf ears.”
The DOJ’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/11/trump-doj-secretly-seized-phone-data-reps-schiff-swalwell/7651271002/">announced</a> on Friday that he will start a review of the agency’s actions under the Trump administration and will look at “whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations.” Sen. Ron Wyden <a href="https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1403357383997407232">has also promised</a> to introduce legislation aimed at “reform[ing] the abuse of gag orders” and increasing transparency into government surveillance.
Companies like Apple frequently hand over user data when government agencies demand. Here’s how Recode’s Sara Morrison explained it <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/24/21133600/police-fbi-phone-search-protests-password-rights">last year</a>.
<blockquote>
Depending on what law enforcement is looking for, it may not need physical possession of your device at all. A lot of information on your phone is also stored elsewhere. For example, if you back up your iPhone to Apple’s iCloud, the government can get it from Apple. If it needs to see whose DMs you slid into, law enforcement can contact Twitter. As long as they go through the proper and established legal channels to get it, police can get their hands on pretty much anything you’ve stored outside of your device.
You do have some rights here. The Fourth Amendment protects you from illegal search and seizure, and a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-121">provision</a> of the <a href="https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1285">Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986</a> (ECPA) dictates what law enforcement must obtain in order to get the information. It might be a subpoena, court order, or warrant, depending on what it’s looking for. (WhatsApp actually does a good job of explaining this <a href="https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/26000050">in its FAQ</a>.) A section of the ECPA, known as the Stored Communications Act, says that service providers must have those orders before they can give the requested information to law enforcement.
But, assuming the government has the right paperwork, your information is very obtainable.
</blockquote>
On Apple’s US-focused <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apple.com%2Flegal%2Ftransparency%2Fus.html&referrer=vox.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2Frecode%2F2021%2F6%2F11%2F22530070%2Ftrump-doj-apple-data-schiff" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank" has-subtag="true" data-cdata='{"rewritten_url":"https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516588\u0026xs=1\u0026url=https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html\u0026referrer=vox.com\u0026sref=https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/11/22530070/trump-doj-apple-data-schiff\u0026xcust=___vx__p_22294111__m_m-placeholder__s_s-placeholder__t_w__c_c-placeholder__r_r-placeholder__d_d-placeholder","subtag_max_length":50,"subtag_delim_length":3,"subtag_key":"xcust","subtag_data":{"id":"66960X1516588","xs":"1","url":"https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html","referrer":"vox.com","sref":"https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/11/22530070/trump-doj-apple-data-schiff","xcust":"___vx__p_22294111__m_m-placeholder__s_s-placeholder__t_w__c_c-placeholder__r_r-placeholder__d_d-placeholder"},"encode_subtag":false}'>transparency website</a>, the company says it can receive government requests related to a person’s device identifier, financial identifiers, customer data related to account information, and customer data requested in the midst of an emergency. In the case of the DOJ’s investigation into leaks, Apple <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/us/politics/justice-department-leaks-trump-administration.html">turned over metadata and account information</a>, according to the Times.
“These demands for lawmakers’ private data are especially disturbing because they threaten the separation of powers. But the problem is far bigger,” ACLU senior attorney Patrick Toomey told Recode in an email. “The government seizes the sensitive information of vast numbers of people each year, often without any notice to the people affected.”
Tech companies do have some power when they receive these kinds of requests. They can try to reject a government request as being invalid, though they often don’t. Apple says that between January and June 2020, the company provided data 82 percent of the time when a government agency requested identifying information about a particular device. Tech companies can also try to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/google-says-it-fought-gag-orders-in-wikileaks-investigation/2015/01/28/e62bfd04-a5c9-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html">fight a gag order</a>. In this case, a gag order seemed to remain in place.
This is concerning. At the same time, the seizure of this kind of data is a dark reminder that companies like Apple continue to hold onto vast amounts of user data, and that they can be legally obligated to hand it over to the government without a user ever knowing.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/11/22530070/trump-doj-apple-data-schiff">https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/11/22530070/trump-doj-apple-data-schiff</a>

vox The Trump administration forced Apple to turn over lawmakers’ data. Democrats are outraged.

Democratic lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the Trump administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and its use of subpoenas to obtain device metadata belonging to at least two members of Congress. They say it’s a disturbing attack on …

What the new IG report about the gassing of protesters around Lafayette Square actually says

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A new inspector general <a href="https://www.doioig.gov/site-page/statement-inspector-general-mark-lee-greenblatt-regarding-special-review-report-review-us">report</a> about the chain of events that led to protesters being teargassed near the White House last June is generating headlines <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/police-clear-lafayette-park-area-trump-hold-bible/story?id=78171712">like</a> “Police did not clear Lafayette Square so Trump could hold ‘Bible’ photo op: Watchdog” <a href="https://greenwald.substack.com/p/yet-another-media-tale-trump-tear">and</a> “Yet Another Media Tale — Trump Tear-Gassed Protesters For a Church Photo Op — Collapses.”
But a close reading of the report in question reveals there are still some unanswered questions.
Last summer, large Black Lives Matter protests were occurring throughout cities across the country in response to the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. Initially, many of these protests in Washington, DC, were held near the White House, including in Lafayette Square, a park that sits in front of the building.
On June 1, 2020, as the Black Lives Matter protests were escalating, President Donald Trump, in an effort to project power and restore a sense of “law and order,” decided to walk across the street from the White House and hold aloft a Bible outside St. John’s Church, which had been damaged during a protest the night before.
He was able to do so because the crowd of protesters in Lafayette Square, which abuts the church, had been forcibly cleared by law enforcement in what some outlets referred to as an “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21277611/white-house-tear-gas-attack-trump-george-floyd">attack</a>” — officers from various law enforcement groups used horses, riot shields, batons, pepper spray, and tear gas to clear the area.
Reporters and onlookers understandably linked Trump’s desire to hold a photo op with the operation to forcibly clear protesters. But the new IG report has prompted a reevaluation of that linkage with its conclusion that “the evidence we obtained did not support a finding that the USPP (United States Park Police) cleared the park to allow the President to survey the damage and walk to St. John’s Church.”
“Instead, the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow the contractor to safely install the antiscale fencing in response to destruction of property and injury to officers occurring on May 30 and 31,” it says.
But the report does not clarify everything about what happened on June 1. For example, it does not offer perspective on whether the injury to officers actually necessitated clearing the park — a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/2/21278559/tear-gas-white-house-protest-park-police">question raised immediately after protesters were removed</a>. Nor does it definitively state that Trump had nothing to with how the clearing was carried out.
In fact, the report also suggests that other law enforcement agencies that were on the scene that day, such as the Secret Service, may have had reasons for taking aggressive action to clear protesters that went beyond the desire to install new fencing.
But because the IG report is limited to the actions of the USPP and did not include interviews with the Secret Service or the attorney general at the time of the incident, Bill Barr — who spoke with law enforcement before the operation began — important questions about the chain of events that led to protesters being forcibly cleared from the area on that day remain unanswered.
The display of force against protesters in and around Lafayette Square marked a turning point of sorts for Trump’s presidency. In the days that followed, former Defense Secretary James Mattis offered a remarkable rebuke of a president he recently served, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/">saying</a> Trump’s handling of the situation — and the involvement of military officials — made him “angry and appalled.”
“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution,” Mattis added. “Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
Days later, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, who took part in the photo op, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/politics/trump-milley-military-protests-lafayette-square.html">apologized</a>, saying, “I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”
Mattis and Milley made these comments amid a drumbeat of media reports that directly linked Trump’s Bible photo op with the effort just before it to clear the area of protesters — chaotic scenes captured in this video shot by journalist Hunter Walker.
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CNN, for instance, framed its coverage of the conflict in Lafayette Square with a <a href="https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d832101-1287-4a46-8140-19257ca24b6d_1984x996.png">chyron</a> that read, “Peaceful Protesters Near White House Tear-Gassed, Shot With Rubber Bullets So Trump Can Have Church Photo Op.” Along similar lines, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/us/floyd-protests-live.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur">wrote</a> that “Police officers used flash grenades to disperse a crowd so the president could visit for a photo opportunity.”
The new IG report is being used by some <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenM/status/1402730158205935625">Trump supporters</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1402781887391752200">anti-anti-Trumpers</a> to revisit coverage of that sort and argue that it unfairly assigned blame to Trump. While some mainstream outlets have misleadingly suggested the new IG report proves Trump didn’t order protesters to be cleared out, Trump supporters have gone even further and have used it to try to discredit the media in general.
Donald Trump Jr., for instance, suggested it serves as the latest evidence that the media was wrong not just about what happened in Lafayette Square but also in much of its reporting about his father.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
In the last week alone, we’ve learned that the media, so-called fact checkers and their Big Tech enforcers lied to us about the lab-leak theory, Hydroxychloroquine and the clearing of Lafayette Square.
All to hurt Donald Trump.
What else are they lying about?
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1402793169067155456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2021</a></blockquote>
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It’s not surprising that Trump Jr. would spin things in service of his father, of course. But a close reading of the report indicates that outlets weren’t necessarily getting ahead of the facts in linking the brutalizing of protesters with Trump’s desire for a media event that made him look strong and in control of the situation.
The key takeaway from the IG report is that the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over Lafayette Square (the United States Park Police, or USPP) wasn’t directly following an order from Trump last June 1 when it forcibly removed protesters from the area, and had actually decided to move to clear the park of protesters well before Trump hatched the idea of the Bible photo op. Here’s the central passage:
<blockquote>
The evidence we obtained did not support a finding that the USPP cleared the park to allow the President to survey the damage and walk to St. John’s Church. Instead, the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow the contractor to safely install the antiscale fencing in response to destruction of property and injury to officers occurring on May 30 and 31. Further, the evidence showed that the USPP did not know about the President’s potential movement until mid- to late afternoon on June 1—hours after it had begun developing its operational plan and the fencing contractor had arrived in the park.
</blockquote>
However, the operation to clear Lafayette Square involved numerous other law enforcement agencies, including Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). And the report makes clear that the various agencies involved in the chaos that unfolded outside the White House that day were not always in radio communication with one another — and overall were certainly not on the same page.
Notably, as lawyer Luppe Luppen highlighted on Twitter, the IG report indicates that Secret Service officers on the scene — who were aware of USPP’s operational plan — escalated the situation by using pepper spray against protesters, and by doing so before USPP officers had a chance to give demonstrators any warnings to disperse. The report says a Secret Service official later apologized to USPP officials for the incident, but didn’t explain why it happened.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
The IG report says the Secret Service, contrary to the Park Police plan and without explanation, instigated the violence with protesters within six minutes of AG Barr’s visit to the park. The IG didn’t interview the Secret Service about its independent decision-making. <a href="https://t.co/PIpw71DHXT">pic.twitter.com/PIpw71DHXT</a>
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1402981802806026241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2021</a></blockquote>
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A few redactions raise similar questions: One, on page 10 of the report, seems to suggest an unnamed official requested USPP change its timeline; another later in the document seems to support that a redacted official or department did in fact ask that the clearing be done earlier. A third redaction conceals parties or an individual who submitted at least two additional requests to clear the area near the White House again. Why someone wanted the area cleared earlier is not yet completely clear, nor is who wanted to see the area cleared a second time — or why.
While the report does make clear that the president and other administration officials didn’t directly order the USPP to clear the park, it suggests Attorney General Barr indicated to USPP officials earlier in the day that he wanted protesters cleared ahead of Trump’s trip to the church:
<blockquote>
The USPP operations commander said the Attorney General asked him, “Are these people still going to be here when POTUS [President of the United States] comes out?” The USPP operations commander told us he had not known until then that the President would be coming out of the White House and into Lafayette Park. He said he replied to the Attorney General, “Are you freaking kidding me?” and then hung his head and walked away.
</blockquote>
On June 2, 2020, the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/barr-personally-ordered-removal-of-protesters-near-white-house-leading-to-use-of-force-against-largely-peaceful-crowd/2020/06/02/0ca2417c-a4d5-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html">reported</a> that Barr “personally ordered law enforcement officials to clear the streets around Lafayette Square just before President Trump spoke Monday, a Justice Department official said, a directive that prompted a show of aggression against a crowd of largely peaceful protesters, drawing widespread condemnation.” Trump at that time cheered on the show of force, tweeting the next morning, “D.C. had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination.”
So while the new IG report established that Trump didn’t order Park Police to forcibly clear protesters from outside the White House for his photo op, it doesn’t foreclose that administration officials may have had the ear of one of the many other law enforcement agencies that took part in the chaotic scenes that day.
There are still some key questions remaining about what happened last June 1.
Journalist Dave Levitan, for instance, points out that even if it’s not the case that protesters were cleared out of Lafayette Square because Trump wanted a photo there, that doesn’t mean that Trump didn’t capitalize on them being cleared out for his trip to the church.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I am not sure there is quite as much distance between "tear-gassed protesters for a photo op" and "took advantage of scheduled tear-gassing of protesters for a photo op" as some people seem to claim there is. <a href="https://t.co/SUY3sJBwH1">pic.twitter.com/SUY3sJBwH1</a>
— Dave Levitan (@davelevitan) <a href="https://twitter.com/davelevitan/status/1402724240328122368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Also unclear is what role Barr played in clearing the park. The report states that it was local police rather than federal forces that deployed tear gas against the protesters, and stresses that USPP leaders made clear no tear gas was to be used; why it was used anyway is not clear. Nor is the role played by groups other than the USPP — including the Secret Service, which was too hasty in using force against the demonstrators.
An investigation that went beyond the USPP and included other parties like the Secret Service would help shine more light on these unresolved ambiguities. Unfortunately, the DHS inspector general — who, like the Interior Department inspector general, is a Trump appointee — has already <a href="https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/dhs-inspector-general-blocked-investigations-into-secret-services-role-in-clearing-protesters-from-lafayette-square-report/">blocked</a> an investigation that would have looked into the Secret Service’s role in the decision to clear protesters.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/11/22527796/ig-report-trump-bible-lafayette-square-protest">https://www.vox.com/2021/6/11/22527796/ig-report-trump-bible-lafayette-square-protest</a>

vox What the new IG report about the gassing of protesters around Lafayette Square actually says

A new inspector general report about the chain of events that led to protesters being teargassed near the White House last June is generating headlines like “Police did not clear Lafayette Square so Trump could hold ‘Bible’ photo op: Watchdog” and “…

What you need to know about the House’s opening bid to rein in Big Tech

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These days, it’s hard to get Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree on anything.
So it’s notable that Democrats on the Antitrust Subcommittee announced a slew of antitrust legislation today aimed at limiting the power of the tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, specifically — with some bipartisan support from their Republican colleagues. Collectively called “A Stronger Online Economy: Opportunity, Innovation, and Choice,” each of the five bills introduced has multiple co-sponsors, including at least one from either side of the aisle.
Broadly, the bills aim at curbing Big Tech’s power by limiting their roles as gatekeepers and their domination of digital markets. The bills also represent the culmination of an <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/6/21505027/congress-big-tech-antitrust-report-facebook-google-amazon-apple-mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-tim-cook">16-month investigation</a> into antitrust issues involving tech companies. If these bills became law, they could significantly contract — or even break up — the key business lines of several major tech companies. They could also change how anti-competitive practices are enforced, whether tech companies can sell or promote their own product on their platforms, and whether they can merge or acquire competing companies at all.
Lobbyist groups for Big Tech have already come out swinging, arguing the bills could jeopardize the economic strength of the American tech sector and inadvertently help competitors in China, as well as limit the ability of tech companies to offer free products to consumers.
On this issue in particular, congressional leaders will likely need even more support from both sides of the aisle if they are going to pass. That’s because the bills will need a wide enough margin in a narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate to pass — meaning they will likely need unilateral or nearly unilateral support from Democrats in addition to Republican support. On a press call on Friday with Democratic and Republican party aides for legislators leading the bills, the group said they anticipate getting more members of Congress to sign on by the end of the day.
Democratic members of the House and Senate have been focusing on how to limit the economic power of major tech companies. And as the Republican co-sponsors on today’s bills show, that desire has some level of support across the aisle.
But other leading <a href="https://about.bgov.com/news/gop-bill-would-ban-tech-from-discriminating-against-users-1/">Republican senators</a> have been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-technology-202/2019/04/11/the-technology-202-this-is-ted-cruz-s-playbook-to-crack-down-on-big-tech-for-alleged-anti-conservative-bias/5cae7278a7a0a475985bd3d3/">more narrowly focused</a> on a whole other set of issues around perceived anti-conservative bias and limiting tech companies’ power to ban conservative figures.
Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who is an original co-sponsor on all five bills, has said he views antitrust legislation as addressing other Republicans’ concerns, because if there are alternatives to Facebook, Google, and Twitter, then there will be more diverse social media companies representing conservative viewpoints.
“Right now, unregulated tech monopolies have too much power over our economy. They are in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices on consumers, and put folks out of work,” subcommittee chairman Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) said in a statement about the bills. “Our agenda will level the playing field and ensure the wealthiest, most powerful tech monopolies play by the same rules as the rest of us.”
The bills have only just been introduced in the House, and there is a long road ahead before they could ultimately pass. In the meantime, here is a brief overview of the bills and what they mean.
This bill, introduced by Cicilline and co-sponsored by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX), is aimed at tech companies that run “designated platforms,” which regulators would define. It would make it illegal for companies to self-preference their businesses in those marketplaces.
It sets some parameters around what kinds of platforms would be included, and they are significant. Only companies that have 50 million or more monthly US users and $600 billion in market capitalization would be subject to these new regulations, so this would not impact smaller tech platforms. Congressional aides on the press call on Thursday said these bills are really targeted at the biggest and most dominant tech platforms.
This could potentially impact how Apple runs its App Store, or how Amazon deals with its third-party sellers.
This bill is aimed at making sure that major companies can’t stifle competition by acquiring the upstarts in their industry. It would prohibit “dominant firms from acquiring competitors, potential competitors, and firms or assets that would reinforce their monopoly power.”
Facebook seems like one obvious target of this legislation. The subcommittee’s investigation unveiled how the company has employed a “copy, kill, acquire” strategy toward competitors like Instagram. The bill could also impact the other major tech giants like Google that are well known for acquiring their competition.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and co-sponsored by ranking member Buck, the Colorado Republican.
This bill would make it illegal for a “dominant online platform” to own another line of business that is a conflict of interest. It would do this by “removing the ability and incentives of a dominant platform to use its control over multiple business lines to preference itself and disadvantage competitors.”
Introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), a frequent critic of Amazon, the legislation could potentially break up the business of the e-commerce giant. It would do this by striking down how Amazon sells its own Amazon-created products on its website. But more broadly, it could impact all the tech giants.
The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX).
The Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act will require platforms to make user data — defined as any information the platform collects that is linked to a specific person or their device — portable and interoperable with other services.
The logic behind this bill is that once people start using one platform, they won’t move to a competitor because it would be too hard or impossible to move their data over, too. The comparison made here is how switching to a different cellphone carrier <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1519261#:~:text=Phone%20Number%20'Portability'%20Law%20Takes%20Effect%20%3A%20NPR&text=Phone%20Number%20'Portability'%20Law%20Takes%20Effect%20Starting%20Monday%2C%20cell,they%20switch%20wireless%20service%20carriers.">used to mean</a> giving up your phone number, too, which discouraged people from doing so. Platforms would have to keep users by providing the best services, rather than by making it hard to leave.
Perhaps in the hope of showing lawmakers that this bill isn’t necessary, several Big Tech companies have <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-transfer-facebook-photos-videos-to-google-photos">voluntarily</a> <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201196">introduced</a> ways for users to download or transfer their data to other platforms. Facebook, for instance, makes it easy to move your photos and videos to other services, like Google Photos. Obviously, lawmakers didn’t think that was good enough.
The Federal Trade Commission will be charged with establishing interoperability standards to ensure that porting data is possible and will have sufficient privacy protections.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) introduced the bill, which will be co-sponsored by Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT). It could get some bipartisan support in the Senate, too, as a version of it with the same name was <a href="https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2019/10/senators-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-encourage-competition-in-social-media">introduced last Congress</a> by the bipartisan team of Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Josh Hawley (R-MO), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
This bill is meant to provide more funds to the agencies charged with investigating and enforcing antitrust issues — specifically, the FTC and the DOJ — by appropriating hundreds of millions of dollars to those agencies and by raising the fees large companies have to pay when they request approval to merge. This would be the first merger filing fee change since 2001, and it’s estimated that it will bring in an additional $135 million in revenue in the first year alone.
But not every company will see an increase in filing fees. The bill actually reduces fees for smaller proposed mergers while increasing them for larger mergers — like the one between Facebook and Instagram, for example — up to $2.25 million. Currently, the highest filing fee is $280,000. The fees will increase with inflation.
The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act was introduced by Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) and co-sponsored by Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN). It’s a companion to the identically named <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/228/text">bipartisan bill</a> introduced in the Senate last February by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), so there’s bicameral and bipartisan support here.
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22529779/antitrust-bills-house-big-tech">https://www.vox.com/recode/22529779/antitrust-bills-house-big-tech</a>

vox What you need to know about the House’s opening bid to rein in Big Tech

These days, it’s hard to get Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree on anything. So it’s notable that Democrats on the Antitrust Subcommittee announced a slew of antitrust legislation today aimed at limiting the power of the tech giants — Am…

What are you legally allowed to say at work? A group of fired Googlers could change the rules.

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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the US’s top enforcer of labor rights, just expanded its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/12/3/20992786/google-workers-fired-nlrb-laurence-berland-rebecca-rivers-sophie-waldman-paul-duke">complaint against Google</a> to include three more fired Google workers. Those former employees say the company retaliated against them for protesting its work with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Now that these workers have been added to the complaint, which will be heard before an administrative judge in August, the outcome of the case could result in a shift in what employees can talk about at work without fear of repercussions from their employer.
The NLRB <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgzg8n/heres-the-nlrb-complaint-alleging-google-illegally-fired-and-surveilled-workers">first filed its complaint</a> against Google in December 2020, saying the company was “interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees” who were exercising their legal rights to discuss workplace issues with their colleagues, including firing two employees. In an amended complaint filed this Wednesday, the San Francisco regional office of the NLRB stated Google was similarly in the wrong for firing three other employees involved in workplace organizing around the same time.
Google fired the three former employees who were added to the complaint — Paul Duke, Rebecca Rivers, and Sophie Waldman — in November 2019 after they protested the company’s decision to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-customs-border-protection-testing-google-cloud-anthos-2019-8">provide cloud computing software to CBP</a>. The former employees said they had human rights concerns about the immigration agency’s role in deporting and detaining immigrants.
Google said it fired the five workers listed in the newly joined complaint for violating its data security policies, a charge the employees deny.
“We strongly support the rights our employees have in the workplace, but we also have a strong interest in maintaining and enforcing our data security policies, which in this case were intentionally and repeatedly violated. ... As the hearing on these matters moves forward, we’re very confident in our decision and legal position.” a Google spokesperson wrote in a statement.
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Do you work at Google and have thoughts on what’s going on? Please email Shirin Ghaffary at shirin.ghaffary@protonmail.com to reach her confidentially. Signal number available upon request by email.
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The added cases could expand US employees’ legal rights to protest the societal impact of their company’s work, beyond the more common labor issues of wages and hours. This reflects a growing movement among rank-and-file tech workers who are pushing to have a say in how their work is used. At Facebook, for example, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/6/1/21277108/facebook-employees-protest-mark-zuckerberg-trump-looting-shooting-george-floyd-fact-check">workers protested the company’s reluctance</a> to take down inflammatory social media posts by Trump. And at Amazon, thousands of workers signed a petition urging the company to <a href="https://amazonemployees4climatejustice.medium.com/public-letter-to-jeff-bezos-and-the-amazon-board-of-directors-82a8405f5e38">reduce its carbon emissions</a>.
Meanwhile, tech companies such as <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-10-01/coinbase-ceo-says-no-politics-at-work-some-peers-disagree">Coinbase</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/05/07/994812274/basecamp-blowup-banning-politics-at-work-prompts-over-a-dozen-employees-to-quit">Basecamp</a> have tried to quell internal debate by banning political discussion at work entirely. But the Google NLRB case shows that when politics are inherently intertwined with a company’s business — something that often applies to tech companies when their services are used globally by billions of people, including national governments and world leaders — those boundaries can blur.
Generally, employees don’t have a constitutional right to free speech at work. But under US labor law, companies are not allowed to punish workers for discussing wages or working conditions in what’s called “protected concerted activity.” Typically, though, the type of activities that are protected are ones that more obviously relate to the terms of workers’ employment, like asking for better shifts or refusing to work in an unsafe environment.
In this case, the three Google workers being added to the complaint, all software engineers, were not asking for higher wages or longer lunch breaks. Instead, they were protesting work that they viewed as unethical.
In the summer of 2019, Duke, Rivers, and Waldman began researching and raising concerns internally about Google providing cloud computing software to CBP. They drafted a petition demanding that Google pledge not to work with CBP or other immigration agencies, such as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), stating it’s “unconscionable that Google, or any other tech company, would support agencies engaged in caging and torturing vulnerable people.” <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/14/20805562/human-rights-concerns-google-employees-petition-cbp-ice">Nearly 1,500 Google employees</a> eventually signed the petition.
One of the fired workers in the complaint, Paul Duke, told Recode he started organizing with his coworkers because he didn’t want his work to “exploit, deport, or disrupt” immigrant communities, which were “under attack.” CBP, the agency Google was providing software to, was responsible for executing controversial immigration policies to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/25/18715725/children-border-detention-kids-cages-immigration">detain children</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17443198/children-immigrant-families-separated-parents">separate families</a> at the US-Mexico border.
“Engineering is about making things possible, making things easier. There is this unspoken mindset of ‘you gotta do the task,’” said Duke. “But I wanted to make sure that everybody was also in the mindset to look at their work at a higher level and say, ‘What am I being asked to do? Who is this going to benefit? What is it going to be used for?’”
Google co-founder and former CEO Sergey Brin <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/28/14428262/google-sergey-brin">publicly protested Trump’s immigrant travel ban at San Francisco’s airport in 2017</a>, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/28/google-chief-sundar-pichai-chides-trump-over-immigration-order-affecting-nearly-200-staffers.html">has also repeatedly</a> <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigration/disappointed-with-trumps-proclamation-on-immigration-sundar-pichai/articleshow/76522086.cms?from=mdr">expressed disapproval of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies</a>, saying he “stands with immigrants.” So some Google employees were surprised to find out about the company’s work with CBP and felt it betrayed the company’s stated values. Employees leading the petition against Google’s work with CBP also said they were organizing on behalf of the many immigrants who work at Google and were directly impacted by Trump’s immigration policies.
Under President Trump’s leadership, the NLRB’s former top lawyer initially dismissed the claims of Duke, Rivers, and Waldman because he found it outside the scope of protected worker organizing. In May, the Biden administration’s new acting general counsel, Peter Ohr, reversed that decision when he asked the regional office of the NLRB to revive the fired Google workers’ claims, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-05/biden-labor-board-counsel-revives-google-illegal-firing-claims?sref=Wg6QzS2e">as Bloomberg reported in May</a>. Ohr’s reopening of these previously dismissed cases reflects a more worker-friendly approach in the agency under the Biden administration. As Ohr has recently stated <a href="https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45833ea1f3">in a public memo</a>, he believes that, in some cases, employees’ “political and social justice advocacy” can be protected under the law — even if it’s not “explicitly connected” to workplace concerns — if that advocacy has a “direct nexus to employees’ ‘interests as employees.’”
The Google workers’ cases are “novel” according to former NLRB chair under the Obama administration, Wilma Liebman, because they could expand the interpretation of what’s considered legally protected worker organizing under what’s called “mutual aid and protection” of other employees.
“There is no question I think that this case is going to push the contours of what existing precedent would consider,” said Liebman.
But while workers are arguing that they should have a say in company matters, Liebman said, companies like Google can also argue that they have the ultimate authority over important business decisions.
“They [company leadership] will say, ‘We decide the business we do. You can protest your working conditions, but not the business of our business.’” Ultimately, Liebman said, it could take several years for the case to go through the legal process, which could entail an appeal to the federal NLRB board and further challenges in federal courts after the initial administrative hearing in August.
Google has denied that it retaliated against employees for drafting the protest letter against CBP, but instead has said that it fired employees for violating data policies, including leaking sensitive documents to the press.
“Our thorough investigation found the individuals were involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work, including distributing confidential business and client information,” a Google spokesperson said in part, in a statement in response to the complaint.
The fired workers have said the information they found wasn’t confidential but publicly accessible to any of Google’s more than 100,000 employees, and that they only shared the information internally at the company. The NLRB, in its recent amended complaint, found that the documents in question regarding Google’s relationship with CBP were “public” and “employee accessible”
“I didn’t leak documents. I didn’t do anything improper,” Rebecca Rivers, one of the fired workers listed in the complaint, told Recode. “We were right in what we did. Hopefully, this case will clear my name.”
In 2019, Trump-appointed NLRB general counsel Peter Robb found that Google had illegally fired two other workers, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, who were fired around the same time as Duke, Rivers, and Waldman. The complaint alleged that Google had taken steps to “discourage employees from engaging in” protected workplace activism by illegally firing, interrogating, and surveilling the two workers. Now, the NLRB will be joining those complaints with the other three — creating a more expansive case against Google.
This isn’t the first time Google has come under fire with the NLRB for issues around workers’ rights. In <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-12-google-employees-political-discussions-workplace-issues-nlrb.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAG18mFGFHb3wma093sDPexTCSu4GmNdORdsmWBDbdI14_UixFTSYIuNjScYxEL6WcvTPubzpxpzynKM2fCqVZnEZLZ0NzRDe-od97ziGM1991JKm9al9bCYSzVRzpKColQ8_wGB1ASjy_3pqGBfxrPyL5b9mWjzkhUGis_N2KLHo">September 2019,</a> the company agreed to publicly remind its employees about their legal rights to talk about and engage in workplace organizing. It was part of a settlement with the US National Labor Relations Board over claims the company was suppressing workers’ protected speech. It was not disclosed whether the complainants received any monetary compensation.
In recent years, Google has cracked down on its once famously open work culture. This came after a wave of employee activism on issues ranging from sexual harassment to its previous work on building AI that could be used in lethal drone technology. The company issued rules <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/23/20829430/google-new-community-guidelines-employees-political-speech-internal-debate">discouraging workers from talking about politics on internal listservs</a>, and created a “need-to-know” policy on sensitive documents.
Google has previously said it’s created stricter rules around workplace communications to avoid employees from being distracted and to avoid interpersonal conflict among staff. But the clampdown on internal communications at Google has made it more difficult for workers to speak out as freely as they used to about controversial company projects.
Some of the Google workers listed in the complaint said they want their case to send a message to large tech companies that there are limits to how much they can tamp down worker activism. They say they hope it inspires more people to speak up on potential wrongdoings.
“I hope going forward that there are more people in the tech industry blowing the whistle,” said Rivers.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22528599/google-workers-nlrb-complaint-paul-duke-rebecca-rivers-sophie-waldman-activism-free-speech">https://www.vox.com/recode/22528599/google-workers-nlrb-complaint-paul-duke-rebecca-rivers-sophie-waldman-activism-free-speech</a>

vox What are you legally allowed to say at work? A group of fired Googlers could change the rules.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the US’s top enforcer of labor rights, just expanded its complaint against Google to include three more fired Google workers. Those former employees say the company retaliated against them for protesting it…

God Has Abandoned Israel

armageddon God Has Abandoned Israel

My thoughts on Israel and how the Church is going down the road of the Pharisees: [embedded content] source https://shoebat.com/2021/06/11/god-has-abandoned-israel/ …

Kim Jong Un Calls For Boosting Military Power: State Media KCNA

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Kim Jong Un chaired a Central Military Commission meeting, state media said Saturday (File)
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Seoul:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un chaired a Central Military Commission meeting, state media KCNA said on Saturday, where he called for boosting military power, but KCNA did not have details of any military activities planned.
The meeting on Friday called for a "high-alert posture" against the "recent fast-changing" situation on the Korean Peninsula, said KCNA, adding that it also addressed organizational issue of dismissing, transferring and newly appointing some military officers.
Kim discussed "important tasks" to make "a fresh turn in the overall work of national defence," KCNA said without elaborating on details.
North Korea's plenary meeting of the ruling party's Central Committee is planned for later in June.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-calls-for-boosting-military-power-state-media-kcna-2462043">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-calls-for-boosting-military-power-state-media-kcna-2462043</a>

news world Kim Jong Un Calls For Boosting Military Power: State Media KCNA

Kim Jong Un chaired a Central Military Commission meeting, state media said Saturday (File) Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un chaired a Central Military Commission meeting, state media KCNA said on Saturday, where he called for boosting militar…