Tech Policy Leaders

African American Women Engineers' Silent Struggle Against Indifference

I had a hard time finding a title for this post. I wanted to come up with something that would speak to what people were already searching for. So I went to Google Trends and entered "black women in engineering". The results showed zero interest over the past 5 years. I tried "African American women in engineering". Again, no one was searching for these terms, according to Google. I tried narrowing the search to just the United States. Still, there was nothing.

It takes me an average of about 4 hours to produce each podcast episode. This includes curating the news, writing the news summaries, recording the interview, editing the interview, writing the script for the show, recording the show, and a host of other tasks. Suddenly I found myself spending 45 minutes on the title alone.

I thought that perhaps I wasn't entering the correct search terms, or that something was wrong with Google's algorithm. Then, after a longer period of time than it probably should have taken, I realized that this is exactly the problem. I concluded that the lack of search inquiries for "African American women in engineering" over half a decade is further proof of an epidemic. African American women engineers are almost completely invisible. To make matters worse, no one cares.

My Google Trends results for "African American women in engineering"

But you're going to find out today that only part of my conclusion was true. While African American women engineers are indeed working in near-anonymity, my guest today does care about them. Nicole Yates cares about the dearth of African American women engineers and she wants to do something about it, which is why she edited a recent paper entitled Ignored Potential: A Collaborative Roadmap for Increasing African American Women in Engineering. The paper pulls together insights from some of the best minds working on improving diversity, inclusion and retention in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

The paper is solutions-focused, but its recommendations address two central statistics:

• African Americans comprised just 4% of engineering degrees awarded in 2015, which is down a full percentage point, from 5%, in 2006.
• The number of engineering bachelor's degrees awarded to African American women has declined from 1,100 in 2005, to 809 in 2011 (Slaughter, J. B., Tao, Y., & Pearson, W. (2015). Changing the face of engineering: The African American experience. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press).

I hope you'll take some time to explore this issue further and include Nicole and her colleagues in your efforts.

Bio Nicole Yates is the National Society of Black Engineers' Senior Research Analyst and Applications Specialist. In this role, she conducts training, produces original research, and coordinates with an external network of researchers who support NSBE's mission. Nicole holds a Master's degree in Psychology from Stanford University. Her original thesis research focused on the dearth of women in STEM fields, an issue that personally concerns her. Nicole also completed her undergraduate degrees at Stanford (B.A., Psychology and B.A., Drama), where she participated in numerous activities including political advocacy, volunteer tutoring, and service-oriented trips. Prior to joining NSBE, Nicole served as an adjunct faculty member at Grand Canyon University in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Resources Reports

Ignored Potential: A Collaborative Road Map for Increasing African-0American Women in Engineering edited by Nicole Yates (NSBE, 2017)

Websites

National Society of Black Engineers

10K Black Engineers Annually by 2025

Books

Working Smarter Not Just Harder by Carl Reid

Changing the Face of Engineering edited by Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, Yu Tao and Willie Pearson, Jr.

News Roundup

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI issued a joint report warning that hackers have penetrated the computer networks of companies that operate nuclear power plants. Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post confirmed on Saturday that government officials have officially attributed the hacks to Russia. Russia has taken down entire electric grids in Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. At this time, however, U.S. officials are not reporting an imminent threat to civilians as the hacks were executed against administrative and business systems rather than nuclear power operations. However, the hack could be part of larger scale planning operations. Further, the report came with an amber alert, which is the second highest threat level.

The U.S. is gradually lifting its laptop ban on flights into the U.S. from majority-Muslim countries. Qatar Airways announced last week that the U.S. government has lifted the laptop ban against it. Qatar Airways joins Emirates, Turkish Airlines, and Etihad Airways on the list of airlines on which the U.S. has lifted its laptop ban. The laptop ban on direct flights originating in Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey is still in effect on passengers traveling with Royal Jordanian, Kuwait Airways, EgyptAir and Royal Air Maroc.

Amazon and Reddit have joined the list of companies that will be participating in an organized, online protest on July 12th against the FCC's proposed measure to repeal the Obama-era net neutrality rules. Details of what the protest will entail have been kept under wraps. However, Etsy, Mozilla and others will also be participating.

Microsoft has announced more layoffs. The company, which is in the midst of a reorganization, announced last week that it would be cutting some 18,000 sales jobs. This is in addition to the nearly 3,000 jobs the company announced it would be cutting last July.The company is shifting its focus and strategy to cloud-based services according to a memo leaked to the press back on June 30th.

Diane Bartz at Reuters reports that President Trump is supporting Apple in the company's appeal against a European Union decision ordering it to pay 13 billion euros ($14.8 billion) in back taxes to Ireland. The Trump administration filed an application to intervene in the appeal which is likely to take place in 2018. The European Commission ruled last year that Ireland granted Apple illegal tax subsidies.

District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California is allowing Twitter's lawsuit against the United States government to proceed. The U.S. government routinely makes data requests in the course of criminal investigations but only allows Twitter and other tech companies to report to the the public the number range of requests it has received from the feds rather than the exact number. For example, if the government made 2, 700 data requests from Twitter, Twitter might only be able to disclose to the public that the government made between 2,000 and 3,000 data requests. Twitter is arguing, among other things, that this is tantamount to a prior restraint on free speech and that it should be allowed to disclose the exact number of data requests the government has made.

The phrase "only in New York" has special meaning for Uber and Lyft. Noam Scheiber at The New York Times reported that the ride sharing companies may have been ripping off their drivers by manipulating their collection of sales tax in New York City. Actual ride receipts show Uber deducted New York State sales tax from what drivers were paid rather than passing the sales tax on to passengers, which is what is required by law. Uber argues the sales tax is built into the base fare. But taxi advocates aren't buying it because receipts from other states show Uber added sales tax to the passengers' final bill. A local investigation into Uber's taxi receipts also showed Uber used the same base rate in both New York City and Connecticut even though Connecticut has different tax laws.

The FCC has a new Chief Economist. Jerry Ellig was a Senior Fellow at the conservative Mercatus Center at George Mason University where he had worked since 1996.

The Department of Homeland Security is delaying a rule that would help make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs and investors to enter the United States. The rule -- the International Entrepreneur Rule-- was set to go into effect on July 17, but DHS announced today that it's pushing it back at least until March 14, 2018. DHS claims this will give it enough time to solicit comments from the public on the new rule. Harper Neidig in the Hill has the story.

African American Women Engineers' Silent Struggle Against Indifference

I had a hard time finding a title for this post. I wanted to come up with something that would speak to what people were already searching for. So I went to Google Trends and entered "black women in engineering". The results showed zero interest over the past 5 years. I tried "African American women in engineering". Again, no one was searching for these terms, according to Google. I tried narrowing the search to just the United States. Still, there was nothing.

It takes me an average of about 4 hours to produce each podcast episode. This includes curating the news, writing the news summaries, recording the interview, editing the interview, writing the script for the show, recording the show, and a host of other tasks. Suddenly I found myself spending 45 minutes on the title alone.

I thought that perhaps I wasn't entering the correct search terms, or that something was wrong with Google's algorithm. Then, after a longer period of time than it probably should have taken, I realized that this is exactly the problem.  I concluded that the lack of search inquiries for "African American women in engineering" over half a decade is further proof of an epidemic. African American women engineers are almost completely invisible. To make matters worse, no one cares.

My Google Trends results for "African American women in engineering"

But you're going to find out today that only part of my conclusion was true. While African American women engineers are indeed working in near-anonymity, my guest today does care about them. Nicole Yates cares about the dearth of African American women engineers and she wants to do something about it, which is why she edited a recent paper entitled Ignored Potential: A Collaborative Roadmap for Increasing African American Women in Engineering. The paper pulls together insights from some of the best minds working on improving diversity, inclusion and retention in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

 

The paper is solutions-focused, but its recommendations address two central statistics:

• African Americans comprised just 4% of engineering degrees awarded in 2015, which is down a full percentage point, from 5%, in 2006.
• The number of engineering bachelor's degrees awarded to African American women has declined from 1,100 in 2005, to 809 in 2011 (Slaughter, J. B., Tao, Y., & Pearson, W. (2015). Changing the face of engineering: The African American experience. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press).

I hope you'll take some time to explore this issue further and include Nicole and her colleagues in your efforts.

Bio Nicole Yates is the National Society of Black Engineers' Senior Research Analyst and Applications Specialist. In this role, she conducts training, produces original research, and coordinates with an external network of researchers who support NSBE's mission.   Nicole holds a Master’s degree in Psychology from Stanford University. Her original thesis research focused on the dearth of women in STEM fields, an issue that personally concerns her. Nicole also completed her undergraduate degrees at Stanford (B.A., Psychology and B.A., Drama), where she participated in numerous activities including political advocacy, volunteer tutoring, and service-oriented trips. Prior to joining NSBE, Nicole served as an adjunct faculty member at Grand Canyon University in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Resources Reports

Ignored Potential: A Collaborative Road Map for Increasing African-0American Women in Engineering edited by Nicole Yates (NSBE, 2017)

Websites

National Society of Black Engineers

10K Black Engineers Annually by 2025

Books

Working Smarter Not Just Harder by Carl Reid

Changing the Face of Engineering  edited by Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, Yu Tao and Willie Pearson, Jr.

News Roundup

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI issued a joint report warning that hackers have penetrated the computer networks of companies that operate nuclear power plants. Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post confirmed on Saturday that government officials have officially attributed the hacks to Russia. Russia has taken down entire electric grids in Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. At this time, however, U.S. officials are not reporting an imminent threat to civilians as the hacks were executed against administrative and business systems rather than nuclear power operations. However, the hack could be part of larger scale planning operations. Further, the report came with an amber alert, which is the second highest threat level.

The U.S. is gradually lifting its laptop ban on flights into the U.S. from majority-Muslim countries. Qatar Airways announced last week that the U.S. government has lifted the laptop ban against it. Qatar Airways joins Emirates, Turkish Airlines, and Etihad Airways on the list of airlines on which the U.S. has lifted its laptop ban. The laptop ban on direct flights originating in Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey is still in effect on passengers traveling with Royal Jordanian, Kuwait Airways, EgyptAir and Royal Air Maroc.

Amazon and Reddit have joined the list of companies that will be participating in an organized, online protest on July 12th against the FCC's proposed measure to repeal the Obama-era net neutrality rules. Details of what the protest will entail have been kept under wraps. However, Etsy, Mozilla and others will also be participating.

Microsoft has announced more layoffs. The company, which is in the midst of a reorganization, announced last week that it would be cutting some 18,000 sales jobs.  This is in addition to the nearly 3,000 jobs the company announced it would be cutting last July.The company is shifting its focus and strategy to cloud-based services according to a memo leaked to the press back on June 30th.

Diane Bartz at Reuters reports that President Trump is supporting Apple in the company's appeal against a European Union decision ordering it to pay 13 billion euros ($14.8 billion) in back taxes to Ireland. The Trump administration filed an application to intervene in the appeal which is likely to take place in 2018. The European Commission ruled last year that Ireland granted Apple illegal tax subsidies.

District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California is allowing Twitter's lawsuit against the United States government to proceed. The U.S. government routinely makes data requests in the course of criminal investigations but only allows Twitter and other tech companies to report to the the public the number range of requests it has received from the feds rather than the exact number. For example, if the government made 2, 700 data requests from Twitter, Twitter might only be able to disclose to the public that the government made between 2,000 and 3,000 data requests. Twitter is arguing, among other things, that this is tantamount to a prior restraint on free speech and that it should be allowed to disclose the exact number of data requests the government has made.

The phrase "only in New York" has special meaning for Uber and Lyft. Noam Scheiber at The New York Times reported that the ride sharing companies may have been ripping off their drivers by manipulating their collection of sales tax in New York City. Actual ride receipts show Uber deducted New York State sales tax from what drivers were paid rather than passing the sales tax on to passengers, which is what is required by law. Uber argues the sales tax is built into the base fare. But taxi advocates aren't buying it because receipts from other states show Uber added sales tax to the passengers' final bill. A local investigation into Uber's taxi receipts also showed Uber used the same base rate in both New York City and Connecticut even though Connecticut has different tax laws.

The FCC has a new Chief Economist. Jerry Ellig was a Senior Fellow at the conservative Mercatus Center at George Mason University where he had worked since 1996.

The Department of Homeland Security is delaying a rule that would help make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs and investors to enter the United States. The rule -- the International Entrepreneur Rule-- was set to go into effect on July 17, but DHS announced today that it's pushing it back at least until March 14, 2018. DHS claims this will give it enough time to solicit comments from the public on the new rule. Harper Neidig in the Hill has the story.

 

 

Can Using Emojis Get You in Trouble?

You know what emojis mean. Otherwise, you wouldn't use them.

Right?

One recent University of Minnesota study found that there can be vast differences between what you and your recipient think that emoji means.Use the wrong emoji, and you may have some explaining to do. What you think is a smile on your iPhone could look more like a grimace on the recipient's end who is using a different device.

Cases in which courts must determine what emojis mean are few and far between, but they do appear from time to time. In one case, a University of Michigan law student accused a fellow student of stalking. The fellow student had texted the victim messages calling himself a "petty bastard" and saying that he wanted to make her "feel crappy". The fellow student attempted to argue that the "wry" emoticons he used negated the threatening and harassing nature of the other texts. The court disagreed and held that the emoticons did not change the meaning of the texts.

My guests today believe that while litigation involving emojis is sparse, uncertainty around what emojis mean could have important implications in legal proceedings down the road.

Bios

Joe Sremack (LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joesremack) is the Owner of Boxer Analytics. Joe has over a decade of information technology and consulting experience. He develops and implements solutions to advise corporate and legal clients in matters involving complex technology issues. Mr. Sremack's expertise is in IT assessments, electronic discovery, and complex data analytics involving transactional and disparate data.

A computer scientist by training, Mr. Sremack has conducted numerous matters involving system investigations, data analysis, and the evaluation of technology solutions. He has advised clients across the United States and internationally in matters such as class-action settlement distribution, intellectual property theft, bankruptcy, financial fraud, healthcare regulatory investigations, and antitrust disputes. He has worked with clients in industries including telecommunications, finance, healthcare, energy, government, retail, and insurance. He is a frequent publisher and speaker on issues related to electronic discovery and transactional data. He attended the College of Wooster where he majored in Computer Science and Philosophy, and North Carolina State University, where he earned his Masters in Computer Science.

Gabriella Ziccarelli (@IPwithGZ) is an Associate specializing in Intellectual Property at the law firm of Blank Rome. Ms. Ziccarelli has extensive experience advising and securing successes for her clients on a wide array of intellectual property matters. She provides full service intellectual property strategic guidance to her clients in a wide range of industries, including hardware and software, broadcast television, electrical power, and government contracting. Prior to joining private practice, Ms. Ziccarelli served as a volunteer law clerk to the Honorable Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the Northern District of California. She has also worked in-house at a variety of high-technology companies.

During law school, she was an active member of the intellectual property community where she helped forge important relationships between intellectual property students, academics, and practitioners through symposia, speaking engagements, and hiring events. She also served as the editor-in-chief of the nationally ranked Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal. Ms. Ziccarelli was recognized for her excellence in the field as a 2013 nominee for the prestigious American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation Jan Jancin Award for excellence in Intellectual Property Law.

Before law school, Ms. Ziccarelli was an advocate for higher education initiatives and served as student body vice president to a more than 40,000-person constituency at the University of Arizona while working closely with the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona Students' Association. She co-founded the Junior Cats Youth Mentoring program for at-risk youth and was a volunteer for the Pima County Attorney's Office Community Justice Board.

Ms. Ziccarelli is an engaged member of both the intellectual property and high-tech communities. Ms. Ziccarelli speaks on a variety of issues that pertain to women in the technology profession and women in the law. She is also a regular contributor to American Intellectual Property Law Association publications. Ms. Ziccarelli is an Inaugural Fellow of the Internet Law and Policy Foundry. She is also a graduate of the Leading Women in Technology Wilpower program for female leaders in the technology industry. Ms. Ziccarelli currently serves as an advisory board member for Seed Spot DC, a startup accelerator serving minority entrepreneurs.

Ms. Ziccarelli a graduate of the University of Arizona and the Santa Clara University School of Law. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Resources Websites

Blank Rome LLC

Boxer Analytics

IP with GZ

Books

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

Truth in Comedy: The Manual for Improvisation by Charna Halpern

News Roundup

Cybercriminals executed another massive, worldwide ransomware cyberattack last week which primarily hit the Ukraine, but also reached Russia, India, the United States and several other countries. The so-called Petya virus again used an exploit that was developed by the National Security Agency. Even Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko was hit. Andrew Roth and Ellen Nakashima report in the Washington Post. Many experts suspect Russia is responsible. Dustin Volz and Justin Menn report for Reuters that U.S. Senators are highly suspicious of Russia-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs and they are seeking to ban the U.S. military from using Kaspersky.

The E.U. has fined Google $2.7 billion. The E.U.'s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Google suppressed its competitors' shopping search results in favor of its own. According to a blog post by Google SVP and General Counsel Kent Walker, the company is considering an appeal. The implications for Google in the U.S. are unclear as, in recent weeks, President Trump has sought to engage Alphabet and Google in his effort to revamp government technology. Michael Birnbaum reports in the Washington Post.

Wireless and cable companies are trying to figure out how to consolidate in an increasingly saturated and competitive marketplace. Cable companies are concerned about cord-cutters. Wireless companies are worried about a saturated mobile market in which most customers are already spoken for. To address these challenges, Sprint is in talks to provide wireless service to Charter and Comcast, according to the Wall Street Journal. Comcast and Charter would invest in Sprint's network, and Sprint would give Comcast and Charter access to its wireless network. Shalini Ramachandran, Ryan Knutson and Dana Mattioli report this in the Wall Street Journal.

Julia Floretti at Reuters reports that major social networks are combining efforts to take down terrorist content. Facebook, Google's YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft have formed a working group dubbed The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. The group will share solutions for dealing with content posted by terrorist organizations and individuals. In a separate matter, German lawmakers have passed a measure which would fine social networks up to $57 million for failing to take down hate speech within a reasonable period of time. That's set to take effect on October 1st . Anton Troianovsky and Schechner report in the Wall Street Journal.

A federal court in Northern California is allowing the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust case against Qualcomm to proceed. The federal government is accusing Qualcomm of anticompetitive practices in the mobile device chip market in which Qualcomm has a near monopoly. Stephen Nellis has the story in Reuters.

Dan Primack at Axios reported last week that Uber is in the process of negotiating with the Securities and Exchange Commission a way to allow Uber to share equity with its drivers. Industry experts see such an arrangement as a way to slow down driver turnover rates.

Finally, a new GAO report has found significant fraud and abuse with the FCC's Lifeline program. The Lifeline program subsidizes broadband for low-income consumers. The GAO audit found that it couldn't verify whether some 36% of subsidy recipients were actually eligible. As much as $1.2 million went to recipients who didn't exist or who were dead. Mike Snider has the story in USA Today.

Can Using Emojis Get You in Trouble?

You know what emojis mean. Otherwise, you wouldn't use them.

Right?

One recent University of Minnesota study found that there can be vast differences between what you and your recipient think that emoji means.Use the wrong emoji, and you may have some explaining to do.  What you think is a smile on your iPhone could look more like a grimace on the recipient's end who is using a different device.

Cases in which courts must determine what emojis mean are few and far between, but they do appear from time to time. In one case, a University of Michigan law student accused a fellow student of stalking. The fellow student had texted the victim messages calling himself a "petty bastard" and saying that he wanted to make her "feel crappy". The fellow student attempted to argue that the "wry" emoticons he used negated the threatening and harassing nature of the other texts.   The court disagreed and held that the emoticons did not change the meaning of the texts.

My guests today believe that while litigation involving emojis is sparse, uncertainty around what emojis mean could have important implications in legal proceedings down the road.

Bios

Joe Sremack (LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joesremack) is the Owner of Boxer Analytics. Joe has over a decade of information technology and consulting experience. He develops and implements solutions to advise corporate and legal clients in matters involving complex technology issues. Mr. Sremack’s expertise is in IT assessments, electronic discovery, and complex data analytics involving transactional and disparate data.

A computer scientist by training, Mr. Sremack has conducted numerous matters involving system investigations, data analysis, and the evaluation of technology solutions. He has advised clients across the United States and internationally in matters such as class-action settlement distribution, intellectual property theft, bankruptcy, financial fraud, healthcare regulatory investigations, and antitrust disputes. He has worked with clients in industries including telecommunications, finance, healthcare, energy, government, retail, and insurance. He is a frequent publisher and speaker on issues related to electronic discovery and transactional data. He attended the College of Wooster where he majored in Computer Science and Philosophy, and North Carolina State University, where he earned his Masters in Computer Science.

Gabriella Ziccarelli (@IPwithGZ) is an Associate specializing in Intellectual Property at the law firm of Blank Rome. Ms. Ziccarelli has extensive experience advising and securing successes for her clients on a wide array of intellectual property matters. She provides full service intellectual property strategic guidance to her clients in a wide range of industries, including hardware and software, broadcast television, electrical power, and government contracting. Prior to joining private practice, Ms. Ziccarelli served as a volunteer law clerk to the Honorable Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the Northern District of California. She has also worked in-house at a variety of high-technology companies.

During law school, she was an active member of the intellectual property community where she helped forge important relationships between intellectual property students, academics, and practitioners through symposia, speaking engagements, and hiring events. She also served as the editor-in-chief of the nationally ranked Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal.  Ms. Ziccarelli was recognized for her excellence in the field as a 2013 nominee for the prestigious American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation Jan Jancin Award for excellence in Intellectual Property Law.

Before law school, Ms. Ziccarelli was an advocate for higher education initiatives and served as student body vice president to a more than 40,000-person constituency at the University of Arizona while working closely with the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona Students’ Association. She co-founded the Junior Cats Youth Mentoring program for at-risk youth and was a volunteer for the Pima County Attorney’s Office Community Justice Board.

Ms. Ziccarelli is an engaged member of both the intellectual property and high-tech communities. Ms. Ziccarelli speaks on a variety of issues that pertain to women in the technology profession and women in the law. She is also a regular contributor to American Intellectual Property Law Association publications. Ms. Ziccarelli is an Inaugural Fellow of the Internet Law and Policy Foundry. She is also a graduate of the Leading Women in Technology Wilpower program for female leaders in the technology industry. Ms. Ziccarelli currently serves as an advisory board member for Seed Spot DC, a startup accelerator serving minority entrepreneurs.

Ms. Ziccarelli a graduate of the University of Arizona and the Santa Clara University School of Law. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Resources Websites

Blank Rome LLC

Boxer Analytics

IP with GZ

Books

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

Truth in Comedy: The Manual for Improvisation by Charna Halpern

News Roundup

Cybercriminals executed another massive, worldwide ransomware cyberattack last week which primarily hit the Ukraine, but also reached Russia, India, the United States and several other countries. The so-called Petya virus again used an exploit that was developed by the National Security Agency. Even Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko was hit. Andrew Roth and Ellen Nakashima report in the Washington Post. Many experts suspect Russia is responsible. Dustin Volz and Justin Menn report for Reuters that U.S. Senators are highly suspicious of Russia-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs and they are seeking to ban the U.S. military from using Kaspersky.

The E.U. has fined Google $2.7 billion. The E.U.'s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Google suppressed its competitors' shopping search results in favor of its own. According to a blog post by Google SVP and General Counsel Kent Walker, the company is considering an appeal.  The implications for Google in the U.S. are unclear as, in recent weeks, President Trump has sought to engage Alphabet and Google in his effort to revamp government technology.   Michael Birnbaum reports in the Washington Post.

Wireless and cable companies are trying to figure out how to consolidate in an increasingly saturated and competitive marketplace. Cable companies are concerned about cord-cutters. Wireless companies are worried about a saturated mobile market in which most customers are already spoken for. To address these challenges, Sprint is in talks to provide wireless service to Charter and Comcast, according to the Wall Street Journal. Comcast and Charter would invest in Sprint's network, and Sprint would give Comcast and Charter access to its wireless network. Shalini Ramachandran, Ryan Knutson and Dana Mattioli report this in the Wall Street Journal.

Julia Floretti at Reuters reports that major social networks are combining efforts to take down terrorist content.  Facebook, Google's YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft have formed a working group dubbed The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. The group will share solutions for dealing with content posted by terrorist organizations and individuals. In a separate matter, German lawmakers have passed a measure which would fine social networks up to $57 million for failing to take down hate speech within a reasonable period of time. That's set to take effect on October 1st . Anton Troianovsky and Schechner report in the Wall Street Journal.

A federal court in Northern California is allowing the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust case against Qualcomm to proceed. The federal government is accusing Qualcomm of anticompetitive practices in the mobile device chip market in which Qualcomm has a near monopoly. Stephen Nellis has the story in Reuters.

Dan Primack at Axios reported last week that Uber is in the process of negotiating with the Securities and Exchange Commission a way to allow Uber to share equity with its drivers. Industry experts see such an arrangement as a way to slow down driver turnover rates.

Finally, a new GAO report has found significant fraud and abuse with the FCC's Lifeline program. The Lifeline program subsidizes broadband for low-income consumers. The GAO audit found that it couldn't verify whether some 36% of subsidy recipients were actually eligible. As much as $1.2 million went to recipients who didn't exist or who were dead. Mike Snider has the story in USA Today.

 

America's History of Recalcitrance De jure discrimination

Racism online is evolving in a way that is consistent with the way racism has always evolved--from explicit to subtle.

Plaintiff-side civil rights lawyers have found it easiest to win -- if civil rights cases can ever said to be "easy"-- in cases in which they can convincingly demonstrate defendants' explicit discriminatory policies.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and their subsequent cases and amendments comprise the bulk of American civil rights law. The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Brown held segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.

In interpreting a statute, judges will consider Congressional intent, which includes the circumstances under which Congress enacted the law. Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act in an era of widespread de jure segregation in the South. Every 6th grader knows that, prior to Brown, state and local authorities in the South required "colored" and "white" students to attend segregated schools. Black students usually attended inferior schools with old books and in dilapidated buildings. Southern authorities also required colored and white citizens to use separate facilities such as water fountains, restrooms, waiting rooms, and buses. They also enabled most private establishments, such as restaurants and hotels, to segregate as they pleased.

Following Brown, Southern racists remained undeterred. For example, on June 11, 1963, fully 9 years after Brown, Alabama Governor George Wallace famously "stood in the schoolhouse door" to prevent Vivian Malone and James Hood from entering and registering for classes at the University of Alabama. President Kennedy deployed the National Guard to remove Wallace, which they did.

Virginia's response to Brown is also illustrative of the Southern response to it. Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. and his brother-in-law, Virginia General Assembly leader James M. Thomson, together pursued a "Massive Resistance" strategy to oppose desegregation. Under Massive Resistance, the Virginia Assembly passed laws to prevent and punish local school districts for integrating in accordance with Brown. Further, Virginia authorities continued to enforce Massive Resistance initiatives well into the 1960s, even after federal and state courts ordered them to end their recalcitrance.

The Civil Rights Act finally codified the nation's civil rights policy.

Given the context in which the Civil Rights Act was enacted, courts are most likely to strike down laws and policies that contain explicit "suspect" classifications; namely, those that refer to race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Indeed, courts subject such de jure discrimination statutes and policies to the Constitutional "strict scrutiny" standard--the highest standard of judicial review. Paradoxically, laws designed to help traditionally marginalized groups, and which mention those groups explicitly, are also subject to strict scrutiny and thus likely to be struck down. (The intricacies of the strict scrutiny standard go well beyond the scope of this post. However, if you are interested in learning more about strict scrutiny and the other levels of scrutiny courts are likely to apply in interpreting the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, click here.)

De facto discrimination

After many years of resisting civil rights laws, racists in the North and South had an a-ha moment. If they could figure out a way to maintain their supremacy using things that looked like something else, but achieved the same ends, they were golden! And so de facto discrimination--laws and policies that are not discriminatory on their face, i.e. they are facially neutral, but have discriminatory effects, have been the order of the day ever since. Stop-and-frisk? Check. Insanely long prison sentences for minor offenses? Check. School segregation based on merit? Check. Proposed cuts to Medicaid? Check. Voter re-districting? You get the point.

Welcome to the age of stealth racism.

"I thought this post was about racism online."

It is.

The same racist ideologies that prevailed in 1964 prevail today. Since 1964, opponents of the Civil Rights Movement, many of whom are still alive today, and their descendants and allies, have persisted in their efforts to preserve their supremacy. They have taken racism online.

This is the story of some of the measures the tech sector has taken, such as Google's Conversation AI, to curtail racism online and how defiant hate speakers have evaded those measures by creating their own code language.

Hate speech is indeed protected speech and that's the problem.

Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology peeled back the top layer of the internet and found hate speech teeming underneath.

My guest today is Rijul Magu (@RijulMagu). Rijul co-authored, along with Shitij Joshi and Jiebo Luo at the Rochester Institute of Technology, a report entitled "Detecting the Hate Code on Social Media". He's the lead author. Rijul is currently a Masters Student at RIT and he earned his undergraduate degree at Jaypee Institute of Information Technology in Noida, India.

Resources

University of Rochester School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Department of Computer Science (homepage of Graduate Studies Faculty Advisor Jiebo Luo)

Detecting the Hate Code on Social Media by Rijul Magu, Kshitij Joshi, and Jiebo Luo

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

News Roundup

The New York State Commission on Forensic Science has adopted a new controversial policy regarding the use of suspects' DNA evidence. The Commission voted 9-2 to allow police to collect not just suspects' own DNA evidence, but also the DNA evidence of close relatives. While the measure has the support of prosecutors, opponents of the bill pointed out procedural flaws with some describing the new policy as a kind of genetic stop and frisk. Nathan Dempsey has the story at Gothamist.

A Department of Homeland Security official --Jeanette Manfra, acting deputy undersecretary of cybersecurity and communications for the agency's National Protection and Programs Directorate -- told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that Russia targeted election systems in 21 states during last year's presidential election. Ranking Member Mark Warner wrote Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to make public the names of the states that were targeted. However, Secretary Kelly has thus far not released that information claiming that to do so would harm national security. Edward Graham covers this in Morning Consult.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has resigned following the fallout from former Attorney General Eric Holder's report on the company's frat boy culture. However, several employees have attempted to have Kalanick reinstated. Rebecca Savransky has the story in the Hill. The Congressional Black Caucus wrote a letter Monday to Uber leadership urging them to improve racial and ethnic diversity in hiring and promotions at the company.

A new Politico and Morning Consult report shows 60% of Americans either strongly or somewhat support the FCC's current net neutrality rules the new Trump-era FCC under Ajit Pai appears to be in the process of overturning. Two-thousand and fifty one registered voters were surveyed.

The FCC has recommended a $122 million fine on a suspected robocaller--the highest-ever FCC fine. Officials suspect the alleged robocaller, Adrian Abromovich, a Florida man, made some 100 million robocalls over three months. Harper Neidig has the story in The Hill.

The FCC also unanimously passed a rule change last week that will allow law enforcement to bypass blocker called IDs belonging to callers making imminent threats. Harper Neidig has this one in The Hill as well.

We may soon be able to access Internet via an internet connection made from space. Doing so would significantly speed up upload and download speeds. The FCC approved a plan of Greg Wyler who plans to link up 720 satellites to deliver high speed broadband from space as soon as 2019. Brian Fung has the full story in the Washington Post.

President Trump met with tech executives, including drone developers last week. The president said he'd work to give tech companies the "competitive advantage they need" and "create lots of jobs". David Shepardson covers the story in Reuters.

In a unanimous 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled last week that a North Carolina law that prevents registered sex offenders from going on Facebook is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Lydia Wheeler covers this in the Hill.

FCC Chaiman Ajit Pai testified at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week about the agency's budget. Pai recommended a budget cut of over 5.2% since last year, or $322 million, which Chairman Pai conceded would come from the elimination of over 100 Commission jobs.

America's History of Recalcitrance De jure discrimination

Racism online is evolving in a way that is consistent with the way racism has always evolved--from explicit to subtle.

Plaintiff-side civil rights lawyers have found it easiest to win -- if civil rights cases can ever said to be "easy"--  in cases in which they can convincingly demonstrate defendants' explicit discriminatory policies.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and their subsequent cases and amendments comprise the bulk of American civil rights law.  The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Brown held segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.

In interpreting a statute, judges will consider Congressional intent, which includes the circumstances under which Congress enacted the law. Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act  in an era of widespread de jure segregation in the South. Every 6th grader knows that, prior to Brown, state and local authorities in the South required "colored" and "white" students to attend segregated schools. Black students usually attended inferior schools with old books and in dilapidated buildings.  Southern authorities also required colored and white citizens to use separate facilities such as water fountains, restrooms, waiting rooms, and buses. They also enabled most private establishments, such as restaurants and hotels, to segregate as they pleased.

Following  Brown, Southern racists remained undeterred. For example, on June 11, 1963, fully 9 years after Brown, Alabama Governor George Wallace famously "stood in the schoolhouse door" to prevent Vivian Malone and James Hood from entering and registering for classes at the University of Alabama. President Kennedy deployed the National Guard to remove Wallace, which they did.

Virginia's response to Brown is also illustrative of the Southern response to it. Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. and his brother-in-law, Virginia General Assembly leader James M. Thomson, together pursued a  "Massive Resistance" strategy to oppose desegregation. Under Massive Resistance, the Virginia Assembly passed laws to prevent and punish local school districts for integrating in accordance with Brown. Further, Virginia authorities continued to enforce Massive Resistance initiatives well into the 1960s, even after federal and state courts ordered them to end their recalcitrance.

The Civil Rights Act finally codified the nation's civil rights policy.

Given the context in which the Civil Rights Act was enacted, courts are most likely to strike down laws and policies that contain explicit "suspect" classifications; namely, those that refer to race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Indeed, courts subject such de jure discrimination statutes and policies to the Constitutional "strict scrutiny" standard--the highest standard of judicial review. Paradoxically, laws designed to help traditionally marginalized groups, and which mention those groups explicitly, are also subject to strict scrutiny and thus likely to be struck down. (The intricacies of the strict scrutiny standard go well beyond the scope of this post. However, if you are interested in learning more about strict scrutiny and the other levels of scrutiny courts are likely to apply in interpreting the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, click here.)

De facto discrimination

After many years of resisting civil rights laws, racists in the North and South had an a-ha moment. If they could figure out a way to maintain their supremacy using things that looked like something else, but achieved the same ends, they were golden! And so de facto discrimination--laws and policies that are not discriminatory on their face, i.e. they are facially neutral, but have discriminatory effects, have been the order of the day ever since. Stop-and-frisk? Check. Insanely long prison sentences for minor offenses? Check. School segregation based on merit? Check. Proposed cuts to Medicaid? Check.  Voter re-districting? You get the point.

Welcome to the age of stealth racism.

"I thought this post was about racism online."

It is.

The same racist ideologies that prevailed in 1964 prevail today. Since 1964, opponents of the Civil Rights Movement, many of whom are still alive today, and their descendants and allies, have persisted in their efforts to preserve their supremacy. They have taken racism online.

This is the story of some of the measures the tech sector has taken, such as Google's Conversation AI, to curtail racism online and how defiant hate speakers have evaded those measures by creating their own code language.

Hate speech is indeed protected speech and that's the problem.

Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology peeled back the top layer of the internet and found hate speech teeming underneath.

My guest today is Rijul Magu (@RijulMagu). Rijul co-authored, along with Shitij Joshi and Jiebo Luo at the Rochester Institute of Technology, a report entitled "Detecting the Hate Code on Social Media". He's the lead author. Rijul is currently a Masters Student at RIT and he earned his undergraduate degree at Jaypee Institute of Information Technology in Noida, India.

 

Resources

University of Rochester School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Department of Computer Science (homepage of Graduate Studies Faculty Advisor Jiebo Luo)

Detecting the Hate Code on Social Media by Rijul Magu, Kshitij Joshi, and Jiebo Luo

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

News Roundup

The New York State Commission on Forensic Science has adopted a new controversial policy regarding the use of suspects' DNA evidence.  The Commission voted 9-2 to allow police to collect not just suspects' own DNA evidence, but also the DNA evidence of close relatives. While the measure has the support of prosecutors, opponents of the bill pointed out procedural flaws with some describing the new policy as a kind of genetic stop and frisk. Nathan Dempsey has the story at Gothamist.

A Department of Homeland Security official --Jeanette Manfra, acting deputy undersecretary of cybersecurity and communications for the agency’s National Protection and Programs Directorate --  told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that Russia targeted election systems in 21 states during last year's presidential election. Ranking Member Mark Warner wrote Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to make public the names of the states that were targeted. However, Secretary Kelly has thus far not released that information claiming that to do so would harm national security. Edward Graham covers this in Morning Consult.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has resigned following the fallout from former Attorney General Eric Holder's report on the company's frat boy culture. However, several employees have attempted to have Kalanick reinstated. Rebecca Savransky has the story in the Hill. The Congressional Black Caucus wrote a letter Monday to Uber leadership urging them to improve racial and ethnic diversity in hiring and promotions at the company.

A new Politico and Morning Consult report shows 60% of Americans either strongly or somewhat support the FCC's current net neutrality rules the new Trump-era FCC under Ajit Pai appears to be in the process of overturning. Two-thousand and fifty one registered voters were surveyed.

The FCC has recommended a $122 million fine on a suspected robocaller--the highest-ever FCC fine. Officials suspect the alleged robocaller, Adrian Abromovich, a Florida man, made some 100 million robocalls over three months. Harper Neidig has the story in The Hill.

The FCC also unanimously passed a rule change last week that will allow law enforcement to bypass blocker called IDs belonging to callers making imminent threats. Harper Neidig has this one in The Hill as well.

We may soon be able to access Internet via an internet connection made from space. Doing so would significantly speed up upload and download speeds. The FCC approved a plan of Greg Wyler who plans to link up 720 satellites to deliver high speed broadband from space as soon as 2019. Brian Fung has the full story in the Washington Post.

President Trump met with tech executives, including drone developers last week. The president said he'd work to give tech companies the "competitive advantage they need" and "create lots of jobs". David Shepardson covers the story in Reuters.

In a unanimous 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled last week that a North Carolina law that prevents registered sex offenders from going on Facebook is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Lydia Wheeler covers this in the Hill.

FCC Chaiman Ajit Pai testified at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week about the agency's budget. Pai recommended a budget cut of over 5.2% since last year, or $322 million, which Chairman Pai conceded would come from the elimination of over 100 Commission jobs.

What is a SLAPP Suit?

Let's say you own a small business called "Policy Town Fajitas". You think your business is second-to-none. You've invested in it--time, sweat, money and otherwise ... But then, all of a sudden, one of your customers doesn't fancy your business as much as you do. So they post a negative review about your business on a site like Yelp. They say your "chicken fajitas taste like pigeon and that's how I know it's not authentic Mexican food."

If you're like most businesses, you try to improve (such as by switching to chicken meat). But some businesses try to turn the tables by putting the reviewer on the defensive.

Let's call the reviewer Mrs. Davis. So you file a lawsuit against Mrs. Davis that is simply designed to drive her absolutely nuts. Eventually, you hope, Mrs. Johnson will decide to delete her review.

That lawsuit is called a "strategic lawsuit against public participation", but we just call them SLAPP suits.

Now, we know you would NEVER serve up pigeon fajitas. But what are the policy implications of SLAPP suits, particularly as they relate to online freedom of speech?

Here to discuss SLAPP suits is Laurent Crenshaw (@LCrenshaw), Yelp's head of Federal Public Policy in Washington DC. At Yelp Laurent has championed the company's federal efforts to protect consumer freedom of speech on the Internet, and worked to implement Yelp as a tool for the federal government.

Prior to joining Yelp in 2013, Laurent worked in the House of Representatives for over 11 years. During his tenure he served as the Legislative Director for Representative Darrell Issa focusing on technology policy issues, particularly in the areas of intellectual property, telecommunications and Internet law; and also worked in the offices of the House Majority Whip and House Republican Conference. Laurent successfully worked on numerous legislative efforts including the passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act in 2011 and the fight to defeat SOPA and PIPA in Congress. Additionally, Laurent also serves on the board of directors for Public Knowledge and as a member of the American Library Association's Public Policy Advisory Council.

Laurent obtained his undergraduate degree in International Relations from Stanford University in 2002 and his Juris Doctor degree from American University's Washington College of Law in 2010.

Resources

Yelp's Public Policy Blog

SPEAK FREE Act (Congressional Anti-SLAPP Suits legislation)

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

News Roundup

Amazon is acquiring Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Experts see the move as a direct hit on big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, whose shares tumbled sharply on news of the announcement. Analysts see it as a significant step by Amazon to substantially expand its warehouse and local supply chain operations. Laura Stevens has more at the Wall Street Journal. One interesting thing to note is that on May 30th, Amazon filed a patent for technology that allows it to block customers from using their phones to "window shop", or check the prices of other stores, while they're on site at an Amazon property. Brian Fung reports on that in the Washington Post.

President Trump has officially nominated former Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to return to the agency. Rosenworcel has strong Democratic support. Her previous four-year term ended last year when the Senate failed to reconfirm her term before it expired. Still open at the FCC is the third Republican seat. Brendan Carr--a current advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai -- is considered the front-runner for that seat although, as of Monday evening, the White House has not yet made the official nomination.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a joint announcement saying North Korea has been executing cyberattacks against institutions worldwide since 2009. North Korean government actors calling themselves "Hidden Cobra" are the culprits, according to the statement, and they have been attacking aerospace, financial and other institutions in the U.S. and around the world. Deb Reichmann reports for the Associated Press.

Verizon has completed its $4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo. Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer resigned with a $23 million package. Alina Selyukh has the story at NPR.

The Federal Trade Commission will be opposing the proposed merger of DraftKing and FanDuel--the two largest fantasy sports sites. In a statement released Monday, the FTC wrote that the combined company would control more than 90% of the market.

The families of prison inmates could see their phone charges for calling incarcerated loved ones shoot back up to as much as $14 per minute. The Obama-era FCC had placed caps on those calls that ranged to between 14 and 49 cents per minute. But the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the FCC did not have the authority to regulate those rates. The Court ruled that the FCC lacked the authority to regulate those rates because they pertained to intrastate calls, and not interstate calls, and thus they fall outside the FCC's federal jurisdiction. Zoe Tillman covers this for BuzzFeed.

The Indian woman who was raped by an Uber driver in India is suing the company in the U.S. for violating her privacy and for defamation of character. The plaintiff, a Texas resident, has filed as a Jane Doe. Apparently, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had said publicly that the company would do everything it could to ensure the rapist would be brought to justice. However, behind the scenes, the victim alleges that Uber obtained her medical records in India and then worked to use the information to claim the rape was all a ruse that was orchestrated by Uber's main competitor in India. Julia Carrie Wong summarized this story in the Guardian. Uber has been embroiled in numerous controversies of late. These culminated last week in Kalanick being placed on an indefinite leave of absence and top ranking executives being let go. These latest developments were in response to a report spearheaded by former Attorney General Eric Holder that recommended these and other changes at Uber.

Facebook has outlined a strategy for weeding out terrorist content on its platform. The company released a blog post last week saying that it has about 150 people on staff nationwide whose job it is to remove all content posted by or in support of terrorists. The company also uses artificial intelligence and other technology to take down content that promotes terrorism on Facebook and its other properties, according to the post.

Finally, remember President Trump's Twitter typo a few weeks ago, when he tweeted the word "covfefe" instead of "coverage"? Well, The Hill's Harper Neidig noticed last week that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had more than 30 trademark requests containing the word "covefefe" since the flub.

What is a SLAPP Suit?

Let's say you own a small business called "Policy Town Fajitas". You think your business is second-to-none. You've invested in it--time, sweat, money and otherwise ... But then, all of a sudden, one of your customers doesn't fancy your business as much as you do. So they post a negative review about your business on a site like Yelp. They say your "chicken fajitas taste like pigeon and that's how I know it's not authentic Mexican food."

If you're like most businesses, you try to improve (such as by switching to chicken meat). But some businesses try to turn the tables by putting the reviewer on the defensive.

Let's call the reviewer Mrs. Davis. So you file a lawsuit against Mrs. Davis that is simply designed to drive her absolutely nuts. Eventually, you hope, Mrs. Johnson will decide to delete her review.

That lawsuit is called a "strategic lawsuit against public participation", but we just call them SLAPP suits. 

 

Now, we know you would NEVER serve up pigeon fajitas. But what are the policy implications of SLAPP suits, particularly as they relate to online freedom of speech?

Here to discuss SLAPP suits is Laurent Crenshaw (@LCrenshaw), Yelp's head of Federal Public Policy in Washington DC. At Yelp Laurent has championed the company’s federal efforts to protect consumer freedom of speech on the Internet, and worked to implement Yelp as a tool for the federal government.

Prior to joining Yelp in 2013, Laurent worked in the House of Representatives for over 11 years. During his tenure he served as the Legislative Director for Representative Darrell Issa focusing on technology policy issues, particularly in the areas of intellectual property, telecommunications and Internet law; and also worked in the offices of the House Majority Whip and House Republican Conference. Laurent successfully worked on numerous legislative efforts including the passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act in 2011 and the fight to defeat SOPA and PIPA in Congress. Additionally, Laurent also serves on the board of directors for Public Knowledge and as a member of the American Library Association’s Public Policy Advisory Council.

Laurent obtained his undergraduate degree in International Relations from Stanford University in 2002 and his Juris Doctor degree from American University’s Washington College of Law in 2010.

Resources

Yelp's Public Policy Blog

SPEAK FREE Act (Congressional Anti-SLAPP Suits legislation)

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

News Roundup

Amazon is acquiring Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.  Experts see the move as a direct hit on big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, whose shares tumbled sharply on news of the announcement. Analysts see it as a significant step by Amazon to substantially expand its warehouse and local supply chain operations. Laura Stevens has more at the Wall Street Journal. One interesting thing to note is that on May 30th, Amazon filed a patent for technology that allows it to block customers from using their phones to "window shop", or check the prices of other stores, while they're on site at an Amazon property. Brian Fung reports on that in the Washington Post.

President Trump has officially nominated former Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to return to the agency.  Rosenworcel has strong Democratic support. Her previous four-year term ended last year when the Senate failed to reconfirm her term before it expired. Still open at the FCC is the third Republican seat. Brendan Carr--a current advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai -- is considered the front-runner for that seat although, as of Monday evening, the White House has not yet made the official nomination.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a joint announcement saying North Korea has been executing cyberattacks against institutions  worldwide since 2009. North Korean government actors calling themselves "Hidden Cobra" are the culprits, according to the statement, and they have been attacking aerospace, financial and other institutions in the U.S. and around the world. Deb Reichmann reports for the Associated Press.

Verizon has completed its $4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo. Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer resigned with a $23 million package. Alina Selyukh has the story at NPR.

The Federal Trade Commission will be opposing the proposed merger of DraftKing and FanDuel--the two largest fantasy sports  sites. In a statement released Monday, the FTC wrote that the combined company would control more than 90% of the market.

The families of prison inmates could see their phone charges for calling incarcerated loved ones shoot back up to as much as $14 per minute. The Obama-era FCC had placed caps on those calls that ranged to between 14 and 49 cents per minute. But the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the FCC did not have the authority to regulate those rates. The Court ruled that the FCC lacked the authority to regulate those rates because they pertained to intrastate calls, and not interstate calls, and thus they fall outside the FCC's federal jurisdiction. Zoe Tillman covers this for BuzzFeed.

The Indian woman who was raped by an Uber driver in India is suing the company in the U.S. for violating her privacy and for defamation of character. The plaintiff, a Texas resident, has filed as a Jane Doe. Apparently, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had said publicly that the company would do everything it could to ensure the rapist would be brought to justice. However, behind the scenes, the victim alleges that Uber obtained her medical records in India and then worked to use the information to claim the rape was all a ruse that was orchestrated by Uber's main competitor in India.  Julia Carrie Wong summarized this story in the Guardian. Uber has been embroiled in numerous controversies of late. These culminated last week  in Kalanick being placed on an indefinite leave of absence and top ranking executives being let go. These latest developments were in response to a report spearheaded by former Attorney General Eric Holder that recommended these and other changes at Uber.

Facebook has outlined a strategy for weeding out terrorist content on its platform. The company released a blog post last week saying that it has about 150 people on staff nationwide whose job it is to remove all content posted by or in support of terrorists. The company also uses artificial intelligence and other technology to take down content that promotes terrorism on Facebook and its other properties, according to the post.

Finally, remember President Trump's Twitter typo a few weeks ago, when he tweeted the word "covfefe" instead of "coverage"? Well, The Hill's Harper Neidig noticed last week that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had more than 30 trademark requests containing the word "covefefe" since the flub. 

Privacy, Searches, Seizures and the Law

The digital age is challenging the way our judicial system balances privacy against the needs of law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

Our devices, as well as cloud-based services like Dropbox, have revolutionized our concept of what information should be considered private. For example, in U.S. v. Graham, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland applied the so-called "third party doctrine". In that case, the court held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect historical cell site location data. Therefore, law enforcement officers do not require warrants to obtain access to that data. The court reasoned that the defendant communicated the data to a "third party", namely the cell phone provider.

These technologies also pose significant Constitutional challenges. For example, who should set the standard of what constitutes a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in the first place? Should judges or the public determine such reasonableness?

My guest today is Professor Bernard Chao --a professor at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law, where he co-Directs the law school's Empirical Justice Program. Chao has written that, up until now, judges have had to guess about what constitutes reasonableness. Historically, judges have had to place themselves in the shoes of a hypothetical reasonable person. However, according to Chao, judges are now in a position to gather empirical data via public surveys. This data has the potential to inform judges about what members of the public actually think constitutes reasonableness in a given context.

Further, the demographic characteristics of most judges in no way reflects the far more diverse demographics of the population as a whole. Judges are often white, male and wealthier than the average citizen. Thus, their notions of reasonableness exclude other diverse perspectives. Indeed, some of Chao's research has shown that members of certain minority groups had higher standards of privacy than did the control group.

Professor Chao is the lead author of a forthcoming California Law Review article he is co-authoring along with Catherine Durso, Ian Farrell and Christopher Robertson entitled "Why Courts Fail to Protect Privacy: Race, Age, Bias, and Technology".

Resources

Denver Empirical Justice Institute

HUGO Consulting

Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age by Neil Richards

News Roundup

Uber, as you know, has a laundry list of controversies ... Susan Fowler a former Uber engineer, accused the company of fostering a hostile, sexual harassment culture. Google is suing Uber for stealing trade secrets from its self-driving car unit, Waymo. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been caught on video berating an Uber driver. The company has been hemorrhaging money, showing billions in losses, in quarter after quarter, despite revenue growth …

Now, Covington and Burling Partners Eric Holder-- who is former President Barack Obama's former Attorney General-- and Tammy Albarrán are wrapping up an independent investigation they've been conducting on behalf of the company. It looks like Uber may be on the brink of requiring Kalanick to take at least a 3 month leave of absence. We'll know more when Uber releases Holder's report to employees on Tuesday. But the Board has already indicated that it would be accepting all of Holder's recommendations. One of the recommendations is to fire Emil Michael--Kalanick's chief deputy. In the meantime, you can check out Ali Breland's complete summary in the Hill.

--

Tony Romm at Recode reported that current FCC General Counsel Brendan Carr and former FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel are the two front-runners President Trump is considering to fill the two remaining Commissioner slots at the FCC.

-

The federal government is accusing yet another NSA contractor with leaking classified information to the public. Last week, federal agents arrested twenty-five year old Reality Leigh Winner, who had a top secret security clearance. The feds have accused Winner of sending information about Russian hacking activities to the Intercept--the online newspaper. She had served in the Air Force for 6 years prior to becoming a contractor at Pluribus International Group in Augusta, Georgia. The leaked documents revealed that Russia may have hacked a U.S. voting system manufacturer just prior to last year's presidential election. Madison Park has a full summary at CNN.com.

--

Finally, Jon Brodkin reported in Ars Technica on comments made by FCC Chair Ajit Pai and Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson on WTMJ Radio last week in which both Pai and Johnson called net neutrality a "slogan". Johnson seemed to advocate for fast lanes (paid prioritization). But paid prioritization is a practice the Wheeler-era net neutrality rules specifically prohibits. The DC Circuit has upheld those rules, and the current FCC is now in the midst of a proceeding to overturn them. Brian Fung reports in the Washington Post that several tech companies including Etsy, Kickstarter, Mozilla, Reddit, Y Combinator, and Amazon will change their websites on July 12th to protest the FCC's apparent plan to reverse the net neutrality rules.

Privacy, Searches, Seizures and the Law

The digital age is challenging the way our judicial system balances privacy against the needs of law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

Our devices, as well as cloud-based services like Dropbox, have revolutionized our concept of what information should be considered private. For example, in U.S. v. Graham, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland applied the so-called "third party doctrine". In that case, the court held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect historical cell site location data. Therefore, law enforcement officers do not require warrants to obtain access to that data. The court reasoned that the defendant communicated the data to a "third party", namely the cell phone provider.

These technologies also pose significant Constitutional challenges. For example, who should set the standard of what constitutes a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in the first place? Should judges or the public determine such reasonableness?

My guest today is Professor Bernard Chao --a professor at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law, where he co-Directs the law school's Empirical Justice Program. Chao has written that, up until now, judges have had to guess about what constitutes reasonableness. Historically, judges have had to place themselves in the shoes of a hypothetical reasonable person. However, according to Chao, judges are now in a position to gather empirical data via public surveys.  This data has the potential to inform judges about what members of the public actually think constitutes reasonableness in a given context.

Further, the demographic characteristics of most judges in no way reflects the far more diverse demographics of the population as a whole. Judges are often white, male and wealthier than the average citizen. Thus, their notions of reasonableness exclude other diverse perspectives. Indeed, some of Chao's research has shown that members of certain minority groups had higher standards of privacy than did the control group.

Professor Chao is the lead author  of a forthcoming California Law Review article he is co-authoring along with Catherine Durso, Ian Farrell and Christopher Robertson entitled "Why Courts Fail to Protect Privacy: Race, Age, Bias, and Technology".

Resources

Denver Empirical Justice Institute

HUGO Consulting

Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age by Neil Richards

News Roundup

Uber, as you know, has a laundry list of controversies ... Susan Fowler a former Uber engineer, accused the company of fostering a hostile, sexual harassment  culture. Google is suing Uber for stealing trade secrets from its self-driving car unit, Waymo. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been caught on video berating an Uber driver.  The company has been hemorrhaging money, showing billions in losses, in quarter after quarter, despite revenue growth …

Now, Covington and Burling Partners Eric Holder-- who is former President Barack Obama’s former Attorney General-- and Tammy Albarrán are wrapping up an independent investigation they’ve been conducting on behalf of the company. It looks like Uber may be on the brink of requiring Kalanick to take at least a 3 month leave of absence. We’ll know more when Uber releases Holder’s report to employees on Tuesday. But the Board has already indicated that it would be accepting all of Holder’s recommendations. One of the recommendations is to fire Emil Michael--Kalanick’s chief deputy.  In the meantime, you can check out Ali Breland’s complete summary in the Hill.

--

Tony Romm at Recode reported that current FCC General Counsel Brendan Carr and former FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel are the two front-runners President Trump is considering to fill the two remaining Commissioner slots at the FCC.

-

The federal government is accusing yet another NSA contractor with leaking classified information to the public. Last week, federal agents arrested twenty-five year old Reality Leigh Winner, who had a top secret security clearance. The feds have accused Winner of sending information about Russian hacking activities to the Intercept--the online newspaper. She had served in the Air Force for 6 years prior to becoming a contractor at Pluribus International Group in Augusta, Georgia. The leaked documents revealed that Russia may have hacked a U.S. voting system manufacturer just prior to last year's presidential election. Madison Park has a full summary at CNN.com.

--

Finally, Jon Brodkin reported in Ars Technica on comments made by FCC Chair Ajit Pai and Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson on WTMJ Radio last week in which both Pai and Johnson called net neutrality a “slogan”. Johnson seemed to advocate for fast lanes (paid prioritization). But paid prioritization is a practice the Wheeler-era net neutrality rules specifically prohibits. The DC Circuit has upheld those rules, and the current FCC is now in the midst of a proceeding to overturn them. Brian Fung reports in the Washington Post that several tech companies including Etsy, Kickstarter, Mozilla, Reddit, Y Combinator, and Amazon will change their websites on July 12th to protest the FCC’s apparent plan to reverse the net neutrality rules.