The Cyber Incident Bill Is a Victory for K Street

Episode 383 of the Cyberlaw Podcast

Two major Senate committees have reached agreement on a cyber incident reporting mandate. And it looks like the big winners are the business lobbyists who got concessions from both committees. At least that's my take. Dmitri Alperovitch adds that the bill may still be in trouble because of Justice Department opposition. And Tatyana Bolton not unfairly credits the Cyber Solarium Commission for getting incident reporting this close to passage.

Meanwhile, another piece of legislation, the Secure Equipment Act of 2021, has already been passed by Congress and signed by the President. It will lock a boatload of Chinese equipment out of U.S. markets. Dmitri explains why the FCC needed this additional authority.

Mark MacCarthy explicates the EU court ruling upholding a $2.8 billion award against Google for "self-preferencing" in shopping searches.

If you're surprised by the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, and the strength of his self-defense claims, I argue, you can blame Facebook and Twitter, who astonishingly suppressed posts arguing that Rittenhouse had acted lawfully in self-defense. In a reverse John Adams moment, Twitter even suspended Rittenhouse's defense counsel for defending him. And Facebook declared him guilty of a mass shooting and blocked even searches for his name.  I wouldn't call that content moderation; it's more like content mob-eration. And if you want more censorship of that sort, but this time in your podcast feed, well, no worries: the NYT is on it; the gray old lady is demanding to know why woke censorship hasn't yet come to podcasts.

This has turned out to be a pretty good week for catching bad guys, Dmitri reports. REvil affiliates have been, arrested, indicted, and had some of their ill-gotten gains seized.

Mark unpacks yet another bipartisan tech regulation-cum-competition bill. This one aims to reduce platforms' ability to foist "opaque algorithms" on their users. Tatyana notes that a lot of the bills trying to improve portability and competition are likely to raise cybersecurity concerns.

Dmitri and I aren't impressed by the hoax email sent out in the FBI's name from a poorly designed FBI website. As hacks go, it's barely one step up from defacing the FBI's website. I argue that the bureau ought to give the hacker a low four-figure bug bounty and call it a day, but Dmitri thinks the hacker will be on the FBI's most wanted list for a while. I tend to agree; there is, after all, no greater crime than Knowingly Embarrassing the Bureau.

In quick hits:

• Mark gives us an overview of the states' recently updated antitrust complaint against Alphabet's Google.
• Tatyana and Dmitri talk about the implications of the Commerce Department sending information requests to the world's top chipmakers.
• Tatyana explains (as much as anyone can) Elon Musk's decision to sell a bunch of Tesla stock because that's what Elon Twitter wanted. We note that Elon promised the SEC he'd show his tweets to a lawyer in advance if they might move the market and wonder whether he actually found a lawyer who thought that tweet was a good idea.
• I do a quick victory lap for having suspected that Frances Haugen's incoherent retreat from criticizing Facebook's end-to-end encryption was forced on her by the Silicon Valley version of the Deep State. Thanks to Politico, we now know her European tour was run by a batch of lefty digerati who may hate Facebook, but not as much as they hate the FBI.
• And I mourn the fact that this week the U.S. government finally surrendered to Microsoft and joined the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace.

Download the 383rd Episode (mp3)

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Comments

[Titus PUllo]

The obvious fact is the propagandists at big tech and the media represent a very small group of folks with the same background and even birth geography (NYC). They tend to be far lefties but with very good connections..family members at Hedge Funds or the DNC get them these gigs at Big Tech where they then can push their bolshevik authoritarianism. Its time that Big Tech if there service is selling a digital bulletin board (and that is all they do) can't discriminate based on free speech..they should not be allowed to censor at all...period.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

About a year ago the Washington Post had an exhaustive report about the Rittenhouse incident and after reading it it was clear to me the entire tragedy was instigated by Rosenbaum the suicidal ped0 and that Rittenhouse was acting in self defense. And then I watched the videos and in one other protesters are pleading with Rosenbaum to calm down because his behavior could get him and others shot. So it seemed to me a pretty obvious case of suicide by cop.

[Gandydancer]

Well... Rittenhouse was obviously not a cop, and it isn't at all clear that Rosenbaum's chances of getting his gun away from him weren't high, particularly if he'd snuck up on KR from behind rather than charging him from 20' away. Is it your theory that the suicide was to take place after the gun was taken from Rittenhouse?

And then there's the three other guys who KR ended up shooting at after Rosenbaum was lying on the ground. Presumably their actions were not part of any Rosenbaum plot. As to them your last sentence doesn't apply.

[Gandydancer]

...The interesting part about Baker's comments on the Rittenhouse trial was the bit about how the trial revealed to him facts that he'd never heard from the leugenpresse. The most striking example for me was the business about Rittenhouse's gun being illegal for him to possess. The statute he was charged under https://law.justia.com/codes/wisconsin/2015/chapter-948/section-948.60/ contained an exemption for long guns (948.60(3)(c) (c)) that was plain as day, and I kept wondering if somwhow Wisconsin courts had somehow invented a bogus misreading of the law that ignored this obvious fact but, no, the trial judge finally got around to dismissing that count on exactly that ground. What took so long, and why was this a surprise to practically everyone?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

you can blame Facebook and Twitter, who astonishingly suppressed posts arguing that Rittenhouse had acted lawfully in self-defense.

You were actually astonished by those services suppressing content that runs contrary to their preferred narratives?

Were you also shocked to find that gambling was going on in the casino?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why does a self-described "often libertarian" blog published at an ostensibly libertarian website publish the authoritarian, right-wing stylings of Stewart Baker regularly?

Must be related to the point that some socially awkward people who endorse Ted Cruz think themselves "libertarianish" (or, at least, are disingenuous enough to make the claim).