December 2015

[Commentary] At the heart of the Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) data mess is a firm that functions as the digital plumbing of the Democratic Party: NGP VAN. Democrats are nearly wholly dependent on it, which is why the breach -- the company says it’s the first in its nearly 20-year history -- and the Sanders campaign’s subsequent cutoff from the system is so rattling the party. While Sen Sanders may have defused the flap by apologizing to front-runner Hillary Clinton during Dec 19’s debate for his campaign’s viewing and downloading of her voter data information, the extent of the damage done to both campaigns isn’t yet clear. If nothing else, it’s reminded Democrats of the risks of leaning so heavily on one private company to provide its technology infrastructure.

Nearly every Democratic campaign across the US uses NGP VAN in some fashion, though critics say that's due in some part to the fact that the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties force candidates do so as part of the package of receiving party support. The arrangement leaves it up to the Democratic Party to decide which campaigns get access to the software, giving it an enormous gatekeeping power of which the Sen Sanders' campaign felt the force during its temporary suspension of access to the data file.

[Commentary] The war on Internet free speech -- spurred by the use of Internet social media by the Islamic State and other radical groups for disseminating propaganda and for recruitment -- is heating up. University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner has now joined their ranks as well, with a more thoughtful (and therefore even more distressing) argument for greater speech curbs.

Terrorist groups, he notes, have become increasingly adept at using Internet social media platforms to “lure young men and women to their mission … without having to risk capture on US soil,” creating a “radicalization echo chamber” that has “given rise to a historic and unprecedented danger from foreign radicalization and recruitment.” Posner then suggests that “there is something we can do to protect people from being infected by the ISIS virus by propagandists”: Do we really want government agents deciding which Internet sites “glorify, express support for, or provide encouragement for ISIS”? That slope is far too slippery for me. Posner suggests that “those who regard free speech as fundamental need to consider whether legal principles that arose centuries ago make sense in the age of Snapchat.” I decline the invitation.

[David G. Post is a Sr. Fellow at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute]