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Texas House Passes Three Amendments to CISPA-Like Bill

Ben Sherman — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:00:00 GMT

On Tuesday, the Texas House added three amendments to the CISPA-like bill flying through the Legislature. Clearly, all the attention now directed at this terrible bill is spurring action by state lawmakers. But the amendments completely fail to address the bill's serious privacy violations and some make the bill even worse.

Amendment 2

This amendment changes the target of government seizures from "an electronic communications service" to a "remote computing service". All this does is make it more clear that websites not based in Texas are going to be forced to comply with this bill.

The amendment also appears to remove the limit on how far back the state could seize personal records. The bill previously only applied to electronic communication that was less than 180 days old (so it prevented really old fishing expeditions). Under this version of the bill, it appears the government could seize years - or even the totality - of a person's online communication. This is a terrible change.

The amendment also made an important change by removing the ability of a "Designated law enforcement office or agency" to collect the data, leaving it to authorized peace officers. But this doesn't improve the bill very much - authorized peace officers are state agents who also should not be empowered with these broad abilities to seize private communications. It removes the ability for some political hack in a specific office or agency to file a request for electronic information - which is a good thing - but doesn't address the glaring privacy violations in this bill.

Read about the rest of the amendments below the jump.
Amendment 3

This amendment spells out exactly how a law enforcement officer must ask a judge for a warrant in order to acquire data that would show someone's location via a cell phone GPS. It seems that the original bill was so broad that it would let any law enforcement officer get that data.

The amendment also requires probable cause search warrants for cell-phone GPS location data. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the permeating problem of unlimited seizures of private communication from third-party holders, the exposure of others' private communication, or how that information is handled.

The Texas Electronic Privacy Coalition celebrated the amendment. "That means government needs a warrant based on probable cause to read a person's digital content or track a person's location, regardless of where the data is stored or in what format," Coalition volunteer Scott Henson said in a press release. "Today, the Texas House took a major step forward." I fear their enthusiasm is premature.

Amendment 4

This amendment is poorly written and would make nonsensical law. It reads: "Use of Facial Recognition Technology by Retail Establishment Prohibited. A retail establishment may not use facial recognition technology for any purposes."

If you use Facebook at all, you know well that it has facial recognition technology. This amendment is probably aimed at banning retail stores from using surveillance cameras, but it was written so quickly and poorly that it appears to target Facebook and other websites with this technology. Ironically, on the day this amendment was introduced and passed, Google announced its new highly advanced facial and objection recognition software for Google+.

Once again, a tiny change to the bill actually makes it worse. It is blatantly clear that the Texas Legislature has rushed a bad bill through without serious consideration, and it must be scrapped completely.

These amendments show that Texas Legislature is feeling the pressure from Texans not to pass this bill. Please keep applying the pressure on members of the Texas Legislature to kill the bill by calling their offices or calling Governor Rick Perry at 512-463-1782 and telling him to veto the bill if it comes to his desk.

If we keep at it, we can scrap this bill and protect our privacy rights.

What Will Happen if Texas CISPA-Like Bill Passes?

Ben Sherman — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:10:38 GMT

Hey Texans - hope you like 404 messages.

The Texas CISPA-like bill, SB 1052 - is being debated today and may very well pass the Texas Legislature.

The Texas CISPA bill could soon affect the ability of Texas users to access specific websites -- and every website and Internet provider in the country that serves data to Texans will be forced to comply with the law. Call Governor Rick Perry @ 512-463-1782 and tell him to veto the bill if it makes it to his desk.

Supporters of the legislation have shortsightedly attempted to circumvent the national CISPA law by empowering their own law enforcement agents to use search warrants to seize any electronic data/communications "regardless of whether the customer data, contents of communications, or other information is held at a location in this state or at a location in another state." That is - from any websites or Internet service providers "under a contract or a terms of service agreement with a resident of this state." This is extremely broad and encompasses the endless copyright claims all across the Internet that CISPA targeted.

That means that if you are a company in Iowa, or California, or New York, and you have Texas users who visit your site or have accounts, you could be required to turn over their user data, communications with other users, and any other information about the user that you may be storing - and you could be forced to turn it over in as little as 4 days.

The bill states that the maximum amount of time that a site or Internet service provider can delay turning over records is between 15 and 30 days, depending on the court order. The bill also criminalizes any delay by a website or service provider, and lets the local jurisdiction decide whether to file contempt of court charges against a director/owner of a website or service provider who fails to comply within the short window.

What are websites and Internet service providers going to do, in order to prevent themselves from being at the whim of every court and law enforcement agent in Texas? One simple solution: Texans could be blocked from websites that don't want to comply with an extremely broad definition of "electronic communications".

Read more below the jump.
This bill also sticks its claws deep into the private communication of tens of millions of Americans across the country. Imagine the Facebook conversations of just one person being handed over. Hundreds if not thousands of people could get swept up in the electronic fervor of one local judge. How many people have you tweeted with? How many people have you re-tweeted? What huge data sets will some local judge be sweeping up with this bill?

In short, this bill is dangerous both for all Americans' privacy and Internet access for Texans.

How will this data be managed to prevent data leaks? Will every tiny courthouse in the state have the data stored on some non-encrypted hard drive? Who by name will ensure that data leaks don't occur? Will there be some big defense contractor that swoops in to help organize the data?

One final question remains- will Texas Governor Rick Perry give the rest of the Internet the finger by signing this bill into law? Call Perry's opinion hotline at (512) 463-1782 and ask if Perry will veto the Texas CISPA bill.

We don't know exactly how this bill will affect Internet privacy across the country, but the bill was rushed to vote, and Texas has hastily tried to circumvent laws being debated in Congress.

Come this time next week, will Rick Perry be the Governor who turned off the Internet for Texas?

Deadly Texas Tornadoes Kill Six, Injure Dozens, Displace Hundreds

Ben Sherman — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

On Wednesday night, as many as 12 tornadoes hit around north Texas' Granbury, killing six people and destroying nearly one hundred houses. Dozens were injured and 250 were displaced in Granbury. Seven people remain unaccounted for.

Hood County Sherrif's Lt. Kathy Jiveden said officers "are going house to house" looking for residents trapped under rubble, injured or dead near Lake Granbury.

"We have never seen a community catastrophe with as many injuries as we did through last night," Kyle McCombs, chief of staff at Lake Granbury Medical Center, told USA Today.

The tornadoes also impacted other cities in the area. In Cleburne, 25 miles southeast of Granbury, Mayor Scott Cain declared a disaster citing "wide damage, some injuries and loss of property." Millsap and Decatur were also hit.

The United States hasn't seen such deadly tornadoes since six people were killed in Woodward, OK in April 2012.

Watch interviews with Texans affected by the tornadoes below the jump.
The Associated Press made this sobering video of Granbury residents talking about watching the tornadoes rip apart their homes:

Texas CISPA Bill Scheduled for Monday Vote

Ben Sherman — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:00:00 GMT

Read more about the contents of the bill here.

The Texas CISPA bill, approved unanimously by the House last week, may be passed by the Legislature within 24 hours. It has been scheduled for a vote on Monday.

The bill, now slightly altered SB 1052 in the Senate, does the following:

Requires any Internet provider that serves Texans to hand over private communication and files.
Sets no standard for warrants for such seizures, enabling arbitrary violations of Texans' privacy.
Forces Internet providers to respond within 15-30 days (and sometimes 4-30), giving them almost no time to protect information not targeted.
Makes it a crime for an officer, director or owner of a company to not comply with the request within the 15-30 day window.
Opens the door to politically-motivated seizures of online communication.

Read more below the jump.
This bill is a sneaky way to pass CISPA legislation. Don't be tricked: since just about every major tech company does business in Texas, this bill will have national consequences.

Our entire online privacy is at stake tomorrow and we need to speak up. Call the offices of our state senators and tell them to oppose this insane law.

Republican Judge Forces Lesbian Texan Out of Her Home For Helping Raise KIds

Ben Sherman — Sun, 19 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Judge John Roach, 296th Judicial District Court

This month in McKinney, just outside of Dallas, Republican judge John Roach kicked Page Price, a lesbian, out of her home. Why? Because she was helping raise her partner's two children. As of May 7th, Price has 30 days to evacuate her home.

This sick, anti-family judge is involved at all because Price's partner, Carolyn Compton, is going through a divorce. Compton's husband rarely sees the children and was once charged with stalking Carolyn Compton, though he plead the charge down to a misdemeanor. Roach inserted a "morality clause" into Compton's divorce papers which forbids her from having anyone she is not related to "by blood or marriage" in her home past 9:00 p.m. if the children are present. The aptly named Roach wrote that he didn't approve of Compton's "lifestyle". Her lifestyle of living with the person she loves and raising two kids.

"Our children are all happy and well adjusted. By his enforcement, being that we cannot marry in this state, I have been ordered to move out of my home," Price wrote on Facebook.

Read more below the jump.
Judge Roach won election to the 296th Judicial District Court in 2006 as "proven conservative" with a "deep" "love for his family, his profession, his friends and his community." Turns out, Roach doesn't give a damn about the kids or the adults trying to raise them in Collin County. Instead, he wants to force Texans to live according to his own, backwards views. His "proven conservative" status means conserving homophobia and insanity in our society. For shame.

Morality clauses like the one Roach used are "a holdover from a time when judges tried to keep people with children from living together outside of marriage," Raw Story explains. "What the clause has become is an extra burden on gay people because they're no more likely to violate it than straight people," Dallas law firm Lambda Legal's Ken Upton told the Dallas Voice. "It's a problem that continues with homophobia."

If Price and Compton appeal, the case could set a new standard for how this morality clause can be applied to same sex couples in the future. Appeals courts, Upton explained, look at whether the home environment is healthy for children and since Price and Compton were already providing a caring home, they stand a good chance to win on appeal.

"This could be an important case in Texas," he said. "I think it's a case to watch."

Big Tobacco Close to Snuffing Out Small Tobacco in Texas

Ben Sherman — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The Texas Senate will vote next week on a bill that would cripple small tobacco companies and violate our state constitution. Texans can expect to see no benefit at all if the bill passes.

In 1998, Texas won a lawsuit against big tobacco companies that manipulated nicotine content, lied about their knowledge of tobacco's effects, and marketed to children. Texas instituted penalty fees on those companies' cigarettes to compensate both the health care costs incurred by the state and the companies' lies.

Since August, three of the biggest tobacco companies - Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Lorillard Tobacco Company - have been pushing the Legislature to pass HB 3536, which would force small tobacco companies to pay the same penalty fees. They've hired a large and well-connected lobbying team to make their case at the Capitol, and that team has been successful since Day One. The bill had 14 cosponsors in the House, including three Democrats (Sylvester Turner, Donna Howard and Eddie Lucio III). The bill passed the House easily on May 7th.

Remember that the small tobacco companies already pay the state sales tax. The big tobacco companies are trying to get them to pay their penalty fees for lying to the state and deceiving consumers. As former Texas Supreme Court Justice Craig Enoch noted in a memorandum on the bill bill, such a move would violate the Equal and Uniform Clause of the Texas Constitution that requires reasons other than nature of the business to impose different taxes on the same kind of business. The Texas Tobacco Settlement clearly meets the "other" reason requirement. Enoch testified in August: "Because a statute that would only tax tobacco manufacturers that were not parties to the Texas Tobacco Settlement (while exempting those that were part of the settlement) has no reasonable basis in the nature of the business and does not apply equally across all members of the class of tobacco manufacturers, it must be rejected as unconstitutional."

Read more below the jump.
These fees would cripple Texas's small tobacco companies, which is the clear goal of The Big Three's efforts. Forcing small tobacco companies to pay the fines will add up to millions of dollars for The Big Three's bottom lines. But it could also put many tobacco stores and convenience stores out of business or significantly reduce their earnings.

Jeff Cotton, owner of three small tobacco stores in East Texas, said he is concerned. Customers mostly buy cigarette cartons at Cotton's stores to save money on individual packs. Most buy the small tobacco companies' cartons because they are more affordable. "This bill could possibly put me out of business," he said. "And I don't think it's fair."

The big tobacco companies do fine in Texas despite their fees, selling millions of dollars worth of cigarettes all across Texas each year. Changing the law in their favor would benefit only their bottom lines, not Texans, as proponents have argued. Minnesota's state government recently equalized the penalty fees on tobacco companies, and received far less revenue than they were promised. The small companies can't handle the fees designed for the big companies and as a result, either close their doors or significantly reduce their sales. Notably, the Legislature equalized chewing tobacco prices between the sued and not-sued companies in 2009 and saw massive loss in state revenue from the product. Incredibly ironically, this bill seeks to restore the previous tax structure so that state revenue can go up. This literally acknowledges that equalizing the prices will be a loss for the state while attempting to equalize the cigarette prices.

This is a bill written by The Big Three for The Big Three. It means higher cigarette prices for Texans, harm to small businesses, and less revenue for the state. After passing out of the Senate Finance Committee on Friday night, the bill now moves to a full Senate vote.

Bad news for the Texas constitution.

Texas House Decides to Audit Rick Perry's Texas Enterprise Fund

Ben Sherman — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Rick Perry's Texas Enterprise Fund has granted $485 million in grants to private companies, allegedly to create jobs in Texas. Many of those companies are owned by the governor's largest donors. Since the creation of the fund ten years ago, Perry has collected $2 million in campaign donations from its recipients. It is a slush fund and crony capitalism at its worst.

On Friday, using a simple voice vote, the Texas House decided to audit the fund. The report is due no later than January 2015. But though the Senate approved an earlier version of the bill, the audit is not yet official.

"The measure must pass a final, procedural House vote. It then heads to conference committee to reconcile the latest version with what the Senate previously approved," the Associated Press explains.

Godspeed.

CALL TODAY: Terrible Bill to End Texans' Internet Privacy One Step Away from Rick Perry's Desk

Ben Sherman — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:08:05 GMT

After passing out of the Criminal Justice Committee yesterday, House Bill 2268 is now up for a full vote in the Senate. The bill will allow the government to force Internet providers to hand over Texans' online communications without good cause and within a very short window of time that will put each Texan's private communications in jeopardy. If this bill becomes law, any investigation that can be brought into the Texas jurisdiction would have all the tools of CISPA, in which any private online activity can be easily seized by the government, at its disposal. That is terrible news not only for Texans but for all Americans.

If we don't speak up now, this bill is very likely to become law. But if we show that Texans are paying attention and oppose the bill, we can stop it.

Please call our State Senators and Rick Perry today and tell them to protect Texans' private information by opposing this intrusive law. This easy phone bank tool gives you all the numbers you need and lets you record their responses.

CISPA-Like Bill Moving Quickly Through Texas Legislature

Ben Sherman — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

UPDATE: The Senate will vote on its version of the bill, SB 1052, on Monday.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) was a U.S. Congress bill that would, as the ACLU described it, "create a loophole in all existing privacy laws, allowing companies to share Internet users' data with the National Security Agency, part of the Department of Defense, and the biggest spy agency in the world - without any legal oversight." Fortunately, it was defeated a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, a similar bill passed the Texas House last week and is moving fast through the Senate. House Bill 2268 is designed to make sure Texas law enforcement can seize Texans' electronic information held on servers outside of Texas. The bill requires any Internet provider to people in Texas (that is - just about the entire Internet) to respond to search warrants for online communications in 4-30 days. That is an extremely narrow window which makes it difficult for Internet providers to keep users' other information private.

Read more below the jump.
The electronic communications at risk include all online communication - emails, Facebook messages, tweets and messages on private list servers. Additionally, the bar is set extremely low for police officers to prove that they may find something important in a person's online communications. "An application made under this subsection must demonstrate probable cause for the issuance of the warrant and must be supported by the oath or affirmation of the authorized peace officer," the bill reads. That is almost not a standard at all.

With a bar so low and a reach so broad, such legislation will lead to widespread abuse and exposure of private information, and enable politically motivated "investigations". This is government overreach and Texans of all political ideologies should oppose it. If this bill becomes law, any investigation that can be brought into the Texas jurisdiction would have all the tools of CISPA, in which any private online activity can be easily seized by the government, at its disposal. That is terrible news not only for Texans but for all Americans.

The bill passed out of the House on May 7th with support from both parties; there were no "Nay" votes. HB 2268 had a public hearing yesterday in the Senate, and will likely be voted on soon by the Criminal Justice Committee and move to a full Senate vote. With the Legislative Session ending May 27th, this bill is moving alarmingly fast and almost without detection. Help change that.

Update: The bill passed out of the Criminal Justice Committee on Thursday and is now up for a full vote in the Senate. Please call our state senators today and let them know you oppose this bill.

Would Ted Cruz Birther Himself?

Ben Sherman — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

The answer is no. But if the Canada-born Cruz runs for president, as he appears likely to do, he'll be a big ol' hypocrite.

You see, Ted Cruz is a constitutional originalist - a person who thinks the Constitution was set in stone in 1787 and none of it is open to interpretation. On the question of eligibility to be president, the Constitution reads: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Clearly, there are many ways to interpret "natural born". Temple University law professor and expert on nationality law recently explained: "It's a question of how our understandings have evolved over time...[recent examples] all pretty clearly establish that the American people are on board with somebody who was born outside of the United States, but who had citizenship at birth." Recent examples of popular interpretation, that is.

But Ted Cruz isn't a fan of constitutional interpretation.

Read more below the jump.
In March, Cruz asked an Obama judicial nominee whether he considered the Constitution a "living document," a characterization to which Cruz clearly objects. At a gun safety hearing in March, Ted Cruz lectured Sen. Dianne Feinstein that "all of us should begin as our foundational document with the Constitution" before explaining that the use of the phrase "right of the people" in the Second Amendment clearly harkens to other uses of the same phrase in, for example, the First Amendment. Here, Cruz was explaining how we can understand the Second Amendment through the broader Constitution's use of the same terminology.

But nowhere else in the Constitution is the phrase "natural born" explained or put into context. While Cruz's aides say it definitely means Cruz is eligible, the requirement is clearly open to interpretation. In fact, a literal reading of the document may most easily lend itself to a physical birth requirement of eligible presidential candidates. "I]n deference to Cruz's own principles, it turns out we'll first have to debate whether the founders would have even allowed him to serve [as president]. If you read the Constitution the way Cruz does, it's not at all clear that they would have," Noam Scheiber of The New Republic [explains. Cruz's "dead document" belief may come alive to cut down his candidacy.

Keep in mind also that Cruz is completely opposed to any pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. In fact, he is considering holding up all immigration reform discussions until a pathway to citizenship is removed from consideration. He has established himself as someone so concerned about citizenship that he wouldn't allow any undocumented immigrant - children included - to become a citizen at any point. It's very easy to imagine Cruz taking "principled" objection to any candidate born outside the United States running for president.

Except himself, of course, because Ted Cruz is a hypocrite in the highest degree. To say that the Constitution is not open to interpretation is itself an interpretation - and a very bad one when you look at the many ambiguities within it. Ted Cruz is intellectually dishonest.

If Cruz does run for president, as Professor Spiro noted later, very few are likely to raise objections. The recent popular interpretation of the eligibility requirement is, ironically, going to save Cruz's candidacy. But Cruz's utter hypocrisy, dishonesty and extremism should all tank his candidacy when he takes them on the fully spotlighted campaign trail.