Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh.
As disappointed as I was in the response, I'm glad that EFF makes it really easy to reach out to reps. Took me less than a minute to send out my stance against the Earn IT act to my representatives https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-our-....
This is a crtl-C ctrl-V of my own previous commentary:
I'm working on the wording of this that I intend to use in any such discussion of fake attempts at "think of the children":
Whenever a politician invokes "think of the children", ask them about their funding of Child Protection Services.
Any political action that's said to be under the umbrella of "think of the children" that doesn't provide massive amounts of additional funding into Child Protection Services (boots on the ground, education programs, etc), is hiding something, and actively working against helping children because it's distracting from the actual efforts that Child Protection Services are providing as well as spending money on entirely "something else".
I'll go one further: I have child porn of myself online and I don't support the Earn-IT Act. Then again, having my online presence wiped out after 7.5 years at the age of 12 when COPPA went into effect made me really cynical.
As did the fact that nobody listened to the few of us who were children online back then. It's always based on these weird, interesting hypotheticals.
(This isn't to minimize child abuse or trafficking, of course.)
Edit: Also I'll say as someone who's been online for almost 30 years (age 4 to now almost 34) that the harassment and sexual abuse I received/was subject to were at their highest levels from the ages of 14 to 25.
> Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh.
This is a decades-old response, along with terrorists, drug dealers, and organized crime:
Of course if people are willing to do one illegal activity (CP), what's to stop them from doing a second illegal activity (strong crypto) to protect themselves against detection of the first activity?
We've been here before: if the US (or any other jurisdiction) limits strong crypto, it will simply be offshored:
Ah yes the old child abuse argument, because it would never happen without crypto.
We only have how many 1000 years of proof otherwise.
The thing is mothers really believe that. When I told a friend's wife that there should be no regulation on what people can post online she replied with "even child abuse". And I was caught unprepared.
Of course I don't want children or any other people to be abused but outlawing crypto is not the solution to that problem.
I sadly cannot say that I am surprised at the reply. "won't someone think of the children?" has been a convenient political go-to for so many years now.
seeing it with Earn-IT and also the "don't say gay" bill.
everyone thinks that they are "protecting the children."
This is the copy/paste response I got from Duckworth: (Which is disappointing)
Thank you for contacting me about S. 3538, Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act of 2022. I appreciate you taking the time to make me aware of your concerns on this important matter.
The EARN IT Act would establish a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention, which would be responsible for developing recommended best practices for providers of interactive computer services, such as email or cloud storage providers or social media services like Facebook or WhatsApp. These best practices would pertain to how best to prevent, reduce or respond to the online sexual exploitation of children, in particular the proliferation of online child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
This bill would also amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Section 230 in its current form creates a so-called “safe harbor” for providers of interactive computer services from legal or civil liability for the content posted on their sites. For example, if a user posts defamatory information on Twitter that individual may be sued and held liable, but Twitter as a company may not be held liable. The EARN IT Act would require these service providers to earn that safe harbor by complying with the recommended best practices developed by the Commission. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced the bipartisan EARN IT Act on January 31, 2022, and it was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The proliferation of child sexual abuse material has a devastating effect on its victims, their families and their communities. Like you, I believe there is no place in society for this material. However, some internet privacy advocates have expressed concern that the EARN IT Act may unintentionally drive CSAM purveyors into the dark net, where these horrific criminals would become more difficult to track, identify and ultimately build a case that is required for a successful prosecution. Please know that I will keep your thoughts in mind should a majority of the Judiciary Committee decide to favorably report S. 3538 to the full Senate for consideration.
Thank you again for contacting me on this important issue. If you would like more information on my work in the Senate, please visit my website at www.duckworth.senate.gov. You can access my voting record and see what I am doing to address today’s most important issues. I hope that you will continue to share your views and opinions with me and let me know whenever I may be of assistance to you.
I 100% support and demand E2E encryption be legal and available for anyone to use whenever they want to.
On the other hand, I also completely agree with the need to fix Section 230. The stories I've heard about providers essentially turning a blind eye to taking down things like revenge porn after victims have won in court is a huge problem. There's an entire Darknet Diaries episode on Kik that goes into just how bad the problem really is.
Want to smear somebody? Just post a business review on Google or Yelp. The person and the business will be fairly helpless to get it taken down. One place I worked years ago saw a review posted about the business accusing one of the Director's of an affair. The review remained up for over 6 months because of the complete lack of accountability.
Something absolutely has to be done to combat that type of harassment because it's slanted way to far in favor of the harassers right now. If service providers have no responsibility to take this stuff down it's never going to get any better.
Depends on the politician. A few years ago, I wrote emails to my US House representative and one of my senators. They didn't come from a template. I wrote a few short paragraphs stating my wish, my reasons, and a bit of praise for something they recently did.
The representative sent back an obvious copy-paste. Could've been the response to any email about the topic, and sounded like a campaign pitch.
The senator (or at least a staffer) replied with reasoning. I didn't agree with the reasoning or conclusion, but somebody definitely read my email and responded specifically to it. I appreciated the respect they showed that way.
Wrote to a state legislator regarding a specific bill.
They voted opposite of what I requested, then wrote back giving a synopsis of the bill and mentioning it passed without even mentioning their vote against the bill.
One time they sent back a letter assuming I opposed a position that I actually supported. In fact, I think the senator supported it too, but probably only got letters from people opposing it.
My representative called me to talk about it. He told me he hadn't seen the bill but he agrees that isn't where the FBI should be spending their energy. It seems like the bill never got off the ground.
My guess is the prewritten letters are probably less considered.
They almost certainly do not. However they do count them (well, maybe the intern counts them, but they are counted). And if the counts get big enough, they do start paying attention.
> And if the counts get big enough, they do start paying attention.
This is a while back, now, but I vaguely remember a Reddit AMA by people working for US federal politicians where they indicated that "big enough" is often as few as two for the right type of correspondence (bespoke letters and / or letters to the editors of voter-relevant newspapers, especially if the politician get specifically called out)
Things may well have changed in the interim, but given how often engagement begins and ends at signing on to a form letter, I wouldn't be surprised if this was still the case today.
As disappointed as I was in the response, I'm glad that EFF makes it really easy to reach out to reps. Took me less than a minute to send out my stance against the Earn IT act to my representatives https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-our-....