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Intelligence Nominee Urges Reup of Controversial Surveillance Program
President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the nation’s largest intelligence-gathering organization pushed hard at his confirmation hearing Wednesday to reauthorize a controversial surveillance authority before its expiration at the end of the year.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, remains essential to providing intelligence to the highest levels of government despite a history of misuse against Americans.
The administration has been arguing that Section 702, which allows intelligence agencies to snoop on emails and other electronic communications of foreigners abroad, needs to be reupped and that they’ve already made significant reforms to its use. But after disclosed memoranda revealed that the FBI had used it to spy on Americans, a number of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have argued it needs a major revamp.
Biden nominated Haugh, currently the second in command at the U.S. Cyber Command, to lead both Cyber Command and the National Security Agency in late May, where he would succeed General Paul Nakasone, who held the same dual-command.
FTC Investigates OpenAI Over Data Leak and ChatGPT’s Inaccuracy
The Federal Trade Commission has opened an expansive investigation into OpenAI, probing whether the maker of the popular ChatGPT bot has run afoul of consumer protection laws by putting personal reputations and data at risk.
The agency this week sent the San Francisco company a 20-page demand for records about how it addresses risks related to its AI models, according to a document reviewed by The Washington Post. The salvo represents the most potent regulatory threat to date to OpenAI’s business in the United States, as the company goes on a global charm offensive to shape the future of artificial intelligence policy.
Now the company faces a new test in Washington, where the FTC has issued multiple warnings that existing consumer protection laws apply to AI, even as the administration and Congress struggle to outline new regulations. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has predicted that new AI legislation is months away.
The FTC called on OpenAI to provide detailed descriptions of all complaints it had received of its products making “false, misleading, disparaging or harmful” statements about people. The FTC is investigating whether the company engaged in unfair or deceptive practices that resulted in “reputational harm” to consumers, according to the document.
A Proposed Law Would Force Internet Companies to Spy on Their Users for the DEA
Internet drug sales have skyrocketed in recent years, allowing powerful narcotics to be peddled to American teenagers and adolescents. It’s a trend that’s led to an epidemic of overdoses and left countless young people dead.
Now, a bill scheduled for a congressional vote seeks to tackle the problem, but it comes with a major catch. Critics worry that the legislative effort to crack down on the drug trade could convert large parts of the internet into a federal spying apparatus.
The Cooper Davis Act was introduced by Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in March and has been under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee for weeks.
Named after a 16-year-old Kansas boy who died of a fentanyl overdose two years ago, the bipartisan bill, which the committee is scheduled to vote on Thursday, has spurred intense debate. Proponents say it could help address a spiraling public health crisis; critics, meanwhile, see it as a gateway to broad and indiscriminate internet surveillance.
FBI Chief Chris Wray Grilled by GOP Over Social Media Collusion, Censorship: ‘They Lied’
House Judiciary Committee Republicans took aim Wednesday at FBI Director Christopher Wray after a federal judge ruled that the bureau colluded with social media companies to throttle free speech that “was conservative in nature.”
Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) kicked off a tense hearing by citing a Louisiana federal judge’s decision last week that revealed government agencies reached out to Big Tech to help suppress posts about COVID-19 vaccines, masking measures, lockdowns and the authenticity of first son Hunter Biden’s laptop, among other issues.
“The FBI is not in the business of moderating content or causing any social media company to suppress or censor,” Wray replied.
“That is not what the court has found,” Johnson said, adding that the FBI also suppressed online information about the so-called “lab leak theory” of COVID-19’s origins. “The FBI was the only agency in the entire intelligence community to reach the assessment that it was more likely than not that that was the explanation, but your agents pulled it off the internet, sir. That’s what the evidence in the court is.”
Professors Sue Texas Over TikTok Ban, Signaling First Amendment Fight
A group of college professors is suing Texas for banning TikTok on public-university computers and phones, saying it has undermined their ability to teach students and research one of the world’s most popular apps.
Because the ban covers faculty phones and campus WiFi networks, the professors said the ban immediately halted research projects into TikTok and derailed their plans to lead classes discussing the app’s benefits and risks.
In a lawsuit filed in Austin on Thursday against Abbott and top Texas officials, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, an advocacy group whose members include professors in Texas, argued the ban had infringed on their academic freedoms and constitutional rights.
Data Brokers to Be Barred From Selling Your Location Data Under Proposed Massachusetts Law
A law under consideration in Massachusetts would ban data brokers from selling cell phone location data, Gizmodo reports.
For those who have been living under a rock, data brokers are constantly selling cellular location data to various entities, including state, federal, foreign, and local governments. While the data is supposed to be anonymized, it can very easily be de-anonymized.
The Location Shield Act would outlaw “selling, leasing, trading, or renting location data” in the state of Massachusetts, and would require companies to obtain user consent if they want to collect or process such data. Noncompliance with the law would expose companies to state legal action via the AG’s office, along with class-action litigation.
Musk Predicts ‘Digital Superintelligence’ Will Exist in 5 to 6 Years
Elon Musk said he believes “digital superintelligence” will exist in the next five or six years, during a conversation with Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) hosted on Twitter Spaces on Wednesday.
“The definition of digital superintelligence is that it’s smarter than any human, at anything,” he added, explaining, “That’s not necessarily smarter than the sum of all humans — that’s a higher bar.”
In the conversation, the trio discussed the dangers and potential benefits of AI, and all three agreed on the need for some sort of regulatory framework — though they diverged on details.
Musk, too, expressed his desire for some sort of oversight of AI “just as we have regulation for nuclear technology. You can’t just go make a nuclear barrage, and everyone thinks that’s cool — like, we don’t think that’s cool. So, there’s a lot of regulation around things that we think are dangerous.”
