Favorite Artificial intelligence technologies (AI) are all the rage in Washington D.C. these days. Policymakers are hearing stories of utopian opportunities and certain doom from technologists, CEOs, and public interest groups and trying to figure out when and how Congress should intervene. Congress should be paying attention to AI technologies. Many are tools with extraordinary…
All posts tagged Legislative Analysis
States Should Not Skirt Federal Rules on Fiber Infrastructure
Favorite Across the country, states are designing broadband plans to begin spending billions of federal dollars made available by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and past COVID-19 rescue dollar investment programs. The Biden administration has consistently made clear that states are to build future-proof infrastructure to deliver broadband that will be useful for…
Your Messaging Service Should Not Be a DEA Informant
Favorite A new U.S. Senate bill would require private messaging services, social media companies, and even cloud providers to report their users to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) if they find out about certain illegal drug sales. This would lead to inaccurate reports and turn messaging services into government informants. The bill, named the Cooper…
This Texas Bill Would Systematically Silence Anyone Who Dares to Talk About Abortion Pills
Favorite Texas State Representative Steve Toth recently introduced a bill that targets the most viable form of safe and effective abortion access today—medication abortion. House Bill (HB) 2690 seeks to prevent the sale and distribution of abortion pills like Mifepristone and misoprostol, but it doesn’t stop there. By restricting access to certain information online, the…
Why is New York City Removing Free Broadband In Favor of Charter?
Favorite In January 2020, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced New York City’s Internet Master Plan, setting a path to deliver broadband for low-income New Yorkers by investing in public fiber infrastructure. The plan was a clear response to the gap created from systemic digital redlining (an industry practice EFF has called…
Stop This California Bill that Bans Affordable Broadband Rules
Favorite The California Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee will soon be the first to consider new and terrible amendments to Assemblymember Quirk-Silva’s A.B. 2749—which is backed by AT&T and other telecommunications interests. The legislation would prohibit the state from implementing affordable broadband rules for broadband companies receiving state subsidies as part of the new…
We Finally Have a Federal Fiber Broadband Plan
Favorite There is a lot to appreciate in the recently published “Notice of Funding Opportunity” (NOFO) by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA). It is arguably the first federal government proposal that seeks to promote infrastructure policies focused on the future, rather than the usual subsidizing “good enough for now” access. That…
The EU Digital Markets Act Places New Obligations on “Gatekeeper” Platforms
Favorite The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a proposal for bringing competition and fairness back to online platform markets. It just cleared a major hurdle on the way to becoming law in the EU as the European Parliament and the Council, representing the member states, reached a political agreement. The DMA is complex…
The EU Digital Markets Act’s Interoperability Rule Addresses An Important Need, But Raises Difficult Security Problems for Encrypted Messaging
Favorite The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) allows new messaging services to demand interoperability (the ability to exchange messages) from the internet’s largest messaging services (like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage). Interoperability is an important tool to promote competition and prevent monopolists from shutting down user-empowering innovation. But an interoperability requirement for messaging services…
What Low-Income People Will Lose with a Deadlocked FCC
Favorite When the massive, bipartisan infrastructure package passed Congress, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was tasked with ensuring equal access to broadband services. That provision is called “Digital Discrimination” and it states, for the first time in federal law, that specifically broadband access cannot be built along the lines of race, income, and other protected…