by Joe Mullin, Activist Post:
In a free society, people should not have their private correspondence constantly examined. U.S. lawmakers, we would hope, understand that individuals have the right to a private conversation without the government looking over their shoulder.
So it’s dismaying to see a group of U.S. Senators attempting for a third time to pass the EARN IT Act (S. 1207)—a law that could lead to suspicionless scans of every online message, photo, and hosted file. In the name of fighting crime, the EARN IT Act treats all internet users like we should be in a permanent criminal lineup, under suspicion for child abuse.
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What The New “EARN IT” Does
The EARN IT Act creates an unelected government commission, stacks it with law enforcement personnel, and then tasks it with creating “best practices” for running an internet website or app. The act then removes nearly 30-year-old legal protections for users and website owners, allowing state legislatures to encourage civil lawsuits and prosecutions against those who don’t follow the government’s “best practices.”
As long as they somehow tie changes in law to child sexual abuse, state lawmakers will be able to avoid longstanding legal protections, and pass new rules that allow for criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits against websites that don’t give police special access to user messages and photos. Websites and apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect user privacy will be pressured to remove or compromise the security of their services, or they’ll face prosecutions and lawsuits.
If EARN IT passes, we’re likely to see state lawmakers step in and mandate scanning of messages and other files similar to the plan that Apple wisely walked away from last year.
There’s no doubt the sponsors intend this bill to scan user messages, photos, and files, and they wrote it with that goal in mind. They even suggested specific scanning software that could be used on users in a document published last year. The bill also makes specific allowances to allow the use of encryption to constitute evidence in court against service providers.
