{"id":93112,"date":"2022-02-09T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/?post_type=insight&p=93112"},"modified":"2022-02-09T08:34:24","modified_gmt":"2022-02-09T13:34:24","slug":"2022-earn-it-act-coalition-letter","status":"publish","type":"insight","link":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/insights\/2022-earn-it-act-coalition-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"CDT Leads Broad Human Rights Coalition Urging Senate to Drop EARN IT Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A portion of the coalition letter has been copied and pasted below. Read the full coalition letter here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Re: Opposition to the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2022 (EARN IT Act)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Grassley, and members of the Committee:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The undersigned organizations write to express our strong opposition to the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2022<\/a> (EARN IT, S.3538). We support curbing the scourge of child exploitation online. However, EARN IT will actually make it harder for law enforcement to protect children. It will also result in online censorship that will disproportionately impact marginalized communities and will jeopardize access to encrypted services. Dozens of organizations and experts warned this committee of these risks when this bill was previously considered, and all of those same risks remain. We urge you to oppose this bill.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 (as amended, 47 U.S.C. \u00a7 230) generally shields online intermediaries from liability for the content users convey on their platforms. This helps to promote free expression online, which is further supported by the use of strong end-to-end encryption. Section 230 has never been a bar to federal criminal prosecution of intermediaries and current federal law imposes criminal liability on service providers who have knowledge that they are distributing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). And current law requiring providers to report these images results in millions of reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children every year. EARN IT would vastly expand the liability risk of hosting or facilitating user-generated content by permitting states to impose criminal liability when providers are \u201creckless\u201d or \u201cnegligent\u201d in keeping CSAM off their platforms; EARN IT also exposes them to civil liability under state laws with similar mens rea requirements but subject to much lower standards of proof. These changes will threaten our ability to speak freely and securely online, and threaten the very prosecutions the bill seeks to enable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EARN IT Act would have devastating consequences for everyone\u2019s ability to share and access information online, and to do so in a secure manner. We urge you to oppose this bill. Congress should instead consider more tailored approaches to deal with the real harms of CSAM online. Please direct any questions about this letter to the Center for Democracy & Technology\u2019s Emma Llans\u00f3, Director of the Free Expression Project at ellanso@cdt.org<\/a> or Greg Nojeim, Director of the Freedom, Security & Technology Project at gnojeim@cdt.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Access Now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocacy for Principled Action in Government<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocating Opportunity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American Civil Liberties Union<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American Library Association<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ARTICLE 19<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aspiration<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black and Pink<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black and Pink Massachusetts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Center for Democracy & Technology<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago House & Social Service Agency<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copia Institute<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defending Rights & Dissent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due Process Institute<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fight for the Future<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free Press Action<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free Speech Coalition<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freedom Network USA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freedom to Read Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GLAAD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global Partners Digital<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global Voices<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human Rights Campaign<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Institute for Local Self-Reliance<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internet Society<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISOC India, Hyderabad Chapter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JCA-NET (Japan)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law and Technology Research Institute of Recife (IP.rec)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LGBT Technology Partnership<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media Alliance<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mnemonic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mozilla Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National Center for Lesbian Rights<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National Center for Transgender Equality<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National Coalition Against Censorship<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New America’s Open Technology Institute<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oakland Privacy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old Pros<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OpenMedia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PEN America<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Privacy and Access Council of Canada<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progressive Technology Project<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public Knowledge<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R3D: Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranking Digital Rights<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reframe Health and Justice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Restore the Fourth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S.T.O.P. \u2013 The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Society of Professional Journalists<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Software Freedom Law Center, New York<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SWOP Behind Bars<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tech for Good Asia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TechFreedom<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tutanota<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wikimedia Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woodhull Freedom Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X-Lab<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youth Forum for Social Justice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full coalition letter here.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":93116,"template":"","content_type":[793],"area-of-focus":[7253,800,76,77,798,78,7252],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight\/93112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/insight"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight\/93112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93127,"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight\/93112\/revisions\/93127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=93112"},{"taxonomy":"area-of-focus","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdt.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/area-of-focus?post=93112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}