New America

Congress has until December 31 to renew the FISA Amendments Act or it will expire, and with it, the highly controversial, large-scale surveillance authorities under Section 702. As Congress debates whether to renew Section 702, it must consider needed reforms so that surveillance will be narrowly tailored to the law’s stated purpose - stopping both terrorism and espionage - and so that millions of Americans’ communications will no longer be swept up in its net. The Open Technology Institute’s Section 702 reform priorities include:

• Limit the Scope of Collection Under Section 702
• Enhance Post-Collection Protections for Americans’ Communications that are Swept Up Under Section 702
• Increase Transparency for the Government and Companies

Some have argued the Federal Communications Commission should not have privacy authority at all because it lacks privacy “expertise, personnel, or understanding.” But Congress should not heed those arguments.

The FCC has long protected the privacy of telephone customers and would use that expertise in enforcing broadband privacy. Nor should Congress attempt to gut the Federal Trade Commission’s authority by, for instance, capping the time period of consent decrees at eight years rather than the typical 20 years, which Congress has indicated it wants to do. The FTC has been an effective privacy protector for the past two decades in part because it has many tools to protect consumers. Congress would be making a mistake should it undermine either agency’s authority in the name of “protecting” consumer privacy. Americans want and deserve better privacy protections—and they almost got them. Unfortunately, Congress and the president had different plans and have made it more difficult for consumers to protect their privacy. But there are still some paths forward, even if less optimal, to protect broadband privacy. The battle lines have been redrawn, and we have to adjust—quickly.

[Commentary] Are organizations taking sexual harassment allegations against powerful men seriously? Given that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly will soon be taking a permanent vacation from the network in light of sexual assault allegations, you might think, yes, of course they are. But I doubt even this move will add up to real change. To investigate why, we ought to look at a defining feature of networks like Fox—the fact that they’re run almost exclusively by men—and what this frequently means for pushing back against sexual harassment in the workplace.

[Commentary] By all means, let’s use the President Donald Trump fuss about spying to foster a discussion about so-called “incidental” spying that collects the American side of a conversation with a targeted foreigner without a warrant. Let’s be honest that “incidental” spying—to identify potential spies or terrorists collaborating with foreigners—is a big part of the point of the spying. But let’s not let political expediency completely muddle that discussion and, in the process, misrepresent where the greatest risks in America’s spying programs lie.

[Marcy Wheeler is a journalist specializing in national security and civil liberties]

The Federal Communications Commission privacy guidelines would have put some of this control back in consumers’ hands: They required broadband providers to obtain opt-in consent from consumers to use and share sensitive information, and to allow users to opt out of the use and sharing of non-sensitive information, meaning the companies could use and share non-sensitive information until the consumer tells them otherwise.

Internet service provider lobbyists and the current FCC chairman have argued that these privacy regulations are unfair because they single out telecommunications companies, whereas “edge providers”—companies that run internet platforms and services like Google or Facebook—aren’t being regulated in the same way. Put differently, this argument basically says that companies like Google are already keeping records of users’ search history, so why can’t broadband providers also keep records of users’ browsing history? But this sort of “race to the bottom” mentality misses the point, and it’s harmful from a privacy standpoint. Both types of companies should be more explicit about their practices for handling user information, and both should give users control over how this information is used, regardless of whether it’s required. Users’ trust, not to mention their business, is on the line.

Fake news is simply the canary in the coal mine of a much larger systemic failure—the crumbling of an entire set of institutions in the face of seismic forces shaking our society. Our democracy itself is far shakier than most of us could ever have imagined. Teaching our students to read newspapers of record as part of teaching them to develop critical thinking skills is part of a long-term solution. But for the adults in the room, sending money and providing subscriptions will not substitute for sustained and immediate civic action on all our parts.

Consumer Reports is launching a new initiative to develop a digital standard to measure the privacy and security of products, apps, and services with the goal of helping companies prioritize consumers’ data security and privacy needs. The standard was developed in partnership with leading privacy, security, and consumer rights organizations.

Ranking Digital Rights, a non-profit research initiative housed at New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI), was a partner in the collaborative effort. Ranking Digital Rights works with an international network of partners to set global standards for how companies in the information and communications technology sector should respect freedom of expression and privacy, and will be launching their 2017 Corporate Accountability Index on March 23. The Index evaluates 22 of the world’s most powerful telecommunications, internet and mobile companies on disclosed commitments and policies affecting users’ freedom of expression and privacy. The digital standard draws from the Ranking Digital Rights research methodology along with other technical testing and research methodologies developed by other coalition partners.

[Commentary] New America’s Open Technology Institute has been working on answering this question: how do you get companies to do the right thing? We’ve studied three positive privacy and security practices that have been adopted by internet companies over the years—first by a few companies as an innovative new practice, then as a best practice by more companies, and finally as an established standard practice by most of the industry—so that we could chart the different events and influences that helped make that widespread adoption possible. Our hope was that by looking across several cases, we could identify what types of political, technical, and social interventions were most likely to help spur widespread change at the industry level, and could maybe even provide a roadmap for future advocates to follow.

Specifically, OTI’s new “Do The Right Thing” project has mapped the key milestones along the road to adoption for three major privacy and security practices that have now become standard in the internet industry: (1) publishing transparency reports that detail government demands for user data, (2) encrypting web traffic by default (as of the end of last year, over half of all web traffic is now encrypted!) and (3) offering two-factor authentication (2FA) to better guard your online accounts against unauthorized intruders.

New America is pleased to announce the appointment of former White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Muñoz to direct a major new initiative in public interest technology and to lead the New America National Network, starting April 1, 2017. The emerging field of public interest technology allows professionals to use their technology expertise in service of the common good. But opportunities to deploy these skills across sectors remain rare, and the career path is often uncertain. With a major five-year grant from the Ford Foundation and Reid Hoffman, New America seeks to become a unifying hub for these professionals. The initiative—which is expected to grow with additional funders—will apply research, fellowships, interdisciplinary programming, and encourage cross-sector collaboration among different civic organizations, the private sector, and academic institutions. Muñoz will serve as Vice President for Policy and Technology and Director of the New America National Network. New America is building hubs across the country, beginning with New York, California, and Chicago, to support, connect, and publicize successful efforts to tackle important public problems from the bottom up.

The incoming US administration will face unprecedented challenges to internet freedom, and without strong leadership by the world’s major democracies, internet users can expect that their freedom of expression and access to information will continue to decline, even as they suffer from increasingly aggressive attacks by a range of state and non-state actors. Our newly elected officials will need to act swiftly and decisively to protect a free and open internet.

Several months prior to the election, a team at New America’s Open Technology Institute began to develop a set of recommendations for the 45th presidential administration to preserve and advance the cause of internet freedom—regardless of the final outcome. Drawing upon these recommendations which we have seen to resonate across the domestic political spectrum, we have released a paper that we hope can serve as a useful policy reference and roadmap, containing concrete policy steps that will enable the new administration to assert global leadership in advancing global internet freedom.