On Friday, the US House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Act of 2022 almost entirely along party lines. Among other measures, the sprawling 2,900-page bill allocates $52 billion in grants to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing. It also authorizes nearly $300 billion for research and development.

If enacted, the legislation would represent the most comprehensive attempt by the US to match China’s recent technological and industrial dominance. However, as The New York Times points out, it is unlikely to pass in its current iteration. Much of that comes down to ideological differences between how Democrats and Republicans think the federal government can best position the country to compete against China.

Republicans say the legislation includes too many extraneous provisions to address climate change. For instance, it earmarks $8 billion in contributions to the Green Climate Fund, an initiative created by Paris Agreement to help developing countries deal with the crisis. Republicans also say the bill doesn’t do enough to hold China accountable.

However, Democrats and Republicans broadly agree the federal government should spend more money to support local chip production. When Intel announced it was building a $20 billion semiconductor fabrication plant in Ohio last month, the company noted it could eventually invest as much as $100 billion in the facility over the next decade if Congress approves additional support for the industry. According to a recent report from Bloomberg, President Biden sees the lack of domestic chip production as a security issue. Global chip shortages have also played a significant part in fueling inflation in recent months.

With the bill’s passing, it’s now up to the House and Senate to negotiate a compromise. The legislation must pass both chambers before President Biden can sign it into law. The president urged Congress to move quickly. “I look forward to the House and Senate quickly coming together to find a path forward and putting a bill on my desk as soon as possible for my signature,” President Biden said in a statement. “America can’t afford to wait.”

A group of Republican Senators led by Mike Crapo of Idaho has sent the Internal Revenue Service a letter expressing concerns about the agency's partnership with facial recognition service ID.me. Starting this summer, taxpayers will have to register for an ID.me account to be able to access the online services IRS offers, including the ability to file taxes through its website. To be able to sign up, they have to send ID.me a copy of their government ID, a utility bill and a video selfie of themselves. The Senators called the last one the "most intrusive verification item," since it's more than just submitting a picture of one's face and can't be easily replaced like a password. 

In the letter, the group said that it's "deeply concerned for many reasons," starting with the government's "unfortunate history of data breaches." It mentioned the attacks on the Office of Personnel Management back in 2015 as an example. If you'll recall, two separate attacks on the agency compromised the information of millions of then-current and former federal employees and led to the theft of 21.5 million Social Security Numbers. 

The group also cited an IRS report in 2019, wherein it estimated that it faces 1.4 billion cyberattacks a year. "It is highly likely, with personal information on a reported 70 million individuals, including biometric data, ID.me could be a top target for cyber-criminals, rogue employees, and espionage," the Senators wrote. They've asked the agency a series of questions meant to shed light on the partnership in the letter. The Senators want to know if the IRS did due diligence to ensure taxpayers' information would be protected before it approved the partnership and what kind of oversight the agency has over the company. they also asked IRS if it made sure ID.me's system had gone through an independent cybersecurity audit, among many other things. 

The CEO of ID.me recently admitted that the system uses a more powerful method of facial recognition than previously claimed. In a statement, he said ID.me employes a 1:many approach, which means it matches images against those in a database. He previously said it only uses a 1:1 approach that compares one's face to a photo on their government ID. A Bloomberg report published after that said the Treasury Department is reconsidering the IRS's partnership with the company and is now looking for alternatives to its facial recognition software. 

Democrats in Congress on Thursday renewed a push to hold tech companies accountable for bias in their algorithms. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), along with House representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introduced an updated version of a bill that would require audits of AI systems used in areas such as finance, healthcare, housing, education and more. First introduced by Wyden in 2019, the Algorithmic Accountability Act has never passed the committee level in either the House or Senate.

“If someone decides not to rent you a house because of the color of your skin, that’s flat-out illegal discrimination. Using a flawed algorithm or software that results in discrimination and bias is just as bad. Our bill will pull back the curtain on the secret algorithms that can decide whether Americans get to see a doctor, rent a house or get into a school,” said Wyden in a press release.

A wave of studies found evidence of racial and gender bias in AI tools and automated systems used in everything from approving mortgages and credit cards to prescribing pain medication. Civil rights groups in recent years have lobbied Congress to hold companies accountable for flawed and biased algorithms.

The bill would require companies to perform an audit of their AI systems and report their findings to the Federal Trade Commission. It would also require the FTC to force companies to make high-profile AI decision making public. Under the bill, the FTC would create a public database where consumers can review critical decisions that have been automated by companies.

The legislation would require companies that use AI tools in “critical decision making” to evaluate the outcomes of such tools and regularly report their findings to the FTC. According to an analysis of the bill released by Wyden’s office, this includes any decisions by businesses that are related to the “cost, terms, or availability of education and vocational training, employment, essential utilities, family planning, financial services, healthcare, housing or lodging, legal services, or any other service, program, or opportunity that has a comparably legal or similarly significant effect on a consumer’s life as determined by the Commission through rulemaking.”

The bill has been endorsed by a handful of civil liberties and digital rights groups, including EPIC, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Fight for the Future, and others. “Color Of Change commends Sens. Wyden and Booker and Rep. Clarke for advancing racial justice equities in tech regulation. We hope Congress will pass this instrumental legislation,” said Arisha Hatch, Vice President of Color Of Change, in a statement.

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill will next need to be reviewed and voted on by their relevant committees in Congress. The date for this vote has yet to be scheduled.

Engadget has reached out to the bill’s co-sponsors for further details on the legislation and its next steps in Congress, and will update when we hear back.

The Biden administration is determined to eliminate combustion engine vehicles from federal fleets, and it's not thrilled that one agency might be holding it back. According to The Washington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency and White House Council on Environmental Quality have sent letters to the US Postal Service urging it to rethink a proposal to mostly buy gas-powered next-gen delivery trucks in a project worth up to $11.3 billion. The current strategy is a "lost opportunity" to more drastically reduce the carbon footprint of one of the world's largest government fleets, EPA associate policy administrator Vicki Arroyo wrote.

Only 10 percent of the USPS' new trucks would be electric under the existing proposal, and the overall effort would only improve the fleet's fuel economy by 0.4MPG. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy previously claimed the Postal Service couldn't afford more electric mail vehicles, and has argued his agency needs to focus on basic infrastructure improvements over technology. The USPS is required by law to be self-sufficient, and can't simply request government funds.

There may be an uphill battle to make any changes. DeJoy has staunchly refused to alter the purchasing plan, and the USPS rejected California officials' January 28th request for a public hearing on the plans. The service also largely ignored EPA advice when it created the analysis guiding its plan. The environmental regulator accused the USPS of using "biased" estimates that preferred gas-based trucks. The mail institution reportedly assumed battery and gas prices would remain static even decades later, and that the existing charging infrastructure wouldn't grow. It further overestimated the emissions from plug-in vehicles, according to the EPA.

The Postal Service might be forced to change regardless. The EPA has the option of referring its disagreements to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which can mediate disputes like this. The letters gave the USPS a last chance to voluntarily rethink its proposal before the Council stepped in, sources for The Post claimed. Environmental groups are also likely to sue if the gas-centric plan moves ahead, and the law firm Earthjustice told The Post the USPS might lose when its proposal often lacks supporting evidence. You may well see a transition toward mail-carrying EVs, even if the transition is particularly messy.

The EARN IT Act is a piece of legislation, first introduced in 2020 by Republican Senator Lindsay Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Its sponsors, of which there are many, say that the bill will tackle the proliferation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) posted online. Its critics say that the bill uses an emotive subject as cover to force tech companies to further erode online privacy protections and curtail freedom of speech. Much like FOSTA/SESTA before it, the bill’s key target is further weakening the legal protections of Section 230 Communications Decency Act, better known as the “26 words that created the internet.”

Originally tabled March 5th, 2020, the bill received plenty of bipartisan support in the Senate and was passed to committee soon after. It did not, however, receive a full vote at the time, likely due to the fact that COVID-19 massively disrupted the legislative process. It has now been reintroduced in largely the same form as before, and is being discussed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, February 3rd, 2022.

Broadly speaking, the bill seeks to launch a new national commission, led by a committee of senior law enforcement officials. This body would develop a series of so-called best practices to prevent online platforms distributing CSAM. Any platform that did not adopt these best practices would subsequently lose their immunity provided to them by Section 230. It also places a lot of power to regulate internet providers directly in the hands of state legislatures.

One of the bill’s more troubling moves is to outsource the key decision-making power to a politically-chosen body. The committee would involve the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security and appointees with a background in law enforcement. There is an understandable concern that such a group would be unrepresentative in terms of the broader debate around this issue, and unaccountable for the decisions that it reaches.

This lack of accountability and the fact that the bill repeats many of the same mistakes that marked the passage of FOSTA/SESTA, advocacy groups are worried. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for instance, believe that the law’s broad scope could be used to erode basic online freedoms at the whims of politicians. At the time the bill was initially introduced, the Attorney General was William Barr, a prominent critic of encryption. Barr said, many times, that tech companies “can” and “must” put back doors into their products. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said that such a move would enable “law enforcement agencies, from the FBI down to the local police, to scan every message sent online.” The fact that the new text explicitly nods that the use of encryption could be a reason to lose liability protection makes this even more troubling. And even if that clause is watered-down, the broad-brush power handed to the committee overall means it just takes a change in leadership and encryption is gone for good.

Part of the broader context around Section 230 is the myth, intentionally propagated by some lawmakers and journalists, that online platforms are censoring conservative voices. Time and again, prominent figures on the right decry outfits like Facebook when it takes down content that violates its terms of service. They say that it’s partisan censorship, despite the fact that Facebook has in fact bent overbackwards to accommodate and keep prominent right-wing figures on its site. The attacks on S230 are to be seen as both a political cudgel to ensure major platforms continue to carve out exceptions for prominent Republicans, and as a way of censoring huge swathes of internet speech.

No discussion of Section 230 can exist without talking about the harms created by the passing of FOSTA/SESTA. That bill had a similar aim of weakening the protections of Section 230, passed under the aegis of preventing sex trafficking. Once signed into law in 2018, a number of websites dealing with sex, sex work and sexual education were forced offline. Democrats in 2019 were sufficiently concerned by the fallout from the bill that they unsuccessfully attempted to pass a bill that would study the impact of FOSTA/SESTA on vulnerable individuals.

Freedom Network, a body that works to prevent trafficking, and provide support to its victims, spoke out against EARN IT at the end of 2020. It, along with a number of other groups, backed a letter (.PDF) saying that the bill was flawed and wouldn’t succeed in its supposed aims. It said that the bill would repeat the mistakes of FOSTA/SESTA, explaining that “instead of narrowly targeting sex trafficking which used digital platforms, the law de-platformed and erased the existence of many, including sex workers, harm reduction workers and sex educators.” It added that the bill could cause disproportionate harm to LGBTQ communities who would be starved of vital educational material and access to a broader community.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, wrote to Graham and Dianne Feinstein in June 2020 to lodge its own opposition to the bill. It said that “the EARN IT Act not only jeopardizes privacy and threatens the right to free expression but also fails to effectively protect children from online exploitation.”

Since the bill has reemerged, these same criticisms have been leveled against it, given that little has changed about its construction. The Center for Democracy and Technology said on Tuesday that its changes “in some cases, makes things worse.” It remains to be seen, however, if these criticisms will get through to the politicians who will begin debating the bill in earnest later today.

The Federal Communications Commission could soon make it more difficult for telemarketers to leave ringless voicemails on your cellphone. On Wednesday, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared a proposal that seeks to force callers to obtain your consent before they can leave a message directly in your voicemail box.

The proposal would effectively extend the protections of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to cover ringless voicemails. The 1991 law prohibits telemarketers and other groups from using automated systems to make non-emergency calls to your mobile phone without first obtaining your consent. In March 2017, a company called All About the Message asked the FCC to rule that the TCPA did not cover ringless voicemails. Rosenworcel’s proposal would deny that petition.

“Ringless voicemail can be annoying, invasive and can lead to fraud like other robocalls—so it should face the same consumer protection rules,” said Rosenworcel. “No one wants to wade through voicemail spam, or miss important messages because their mailbox is full. This FCC action would continue to empower consumers to choose which parties they give permission to contact them.”

The FCC didn’t say when it plans to hold a full commission vote on the proposal. The agency’s next open meeting is scheduled for February 18th, but addressing ringless voicemails isn’t listed on the day’s agenda. There’s no guarantee the FCC will approve the proposal, but compared to a topic like net neutrality, combating spam callers is something most Americans want more action on from the government.

The Treasury Department is reconsidering the Internal Revenue Service’s use of ID.me for access to its website, according to Bloomberg. A department official said the agencies are exploring alternatives to the controversial facial recognition software, though that official didn’t specifically cite the privacy concerns around ID.me for the decision.

“The IRS is consistently looking for ways to make the filing process more secure,” Treasury Department spokesperson Alexandra LaManna told Bloomberg. “We believe in the importance of protecting the privacy of taxpayers, while also ensuring criminals are not able to gain access to taxpayer accounts.”

Citing a “lack of funding for IRS modernization,” LaManna also said it’s been “impossible” for the agency to develop its own in-house identification solution, and noted US taxpayers aren’t required to file their taxes online. Toward the end of last year, the IRS began requiring individuals to use ID.me to access certain parts of its website, including those sections related to services like the American Rescue Plan. Starting this summer, the agency will also require that people enroll with ID.me before they can file their taxes online. That’s a process that will require taxpayers to provide their government ID, a copy of a utility bill and a video selfie to the Virginia-based company.

The Treasury Department’s decision to reevaluate its use of ID.me comes in the same week that the company disclosed its use of one-to-many facial matching. Blake Hall, the CEO of ID.me, said the company employs the technology to verify selfies tied to government programs that are frequently targeted by organized crime elements. Hall made the statement after previously claiming the company did not use the “more complex and problematic” one-to-many approach.

Privacy advocates have criticized both approaches. Research indicates most facial recognition systems struggle to identify people with darker skin tones. Experts have also voiced concerns about the security risks of storing biometric data.

A federal appeals court voted unanimously on Friday to uphold California’s SB-822 net neutrality law, reports The Verge. One year after the Federal Communications Commission repealed net neutrality rules that applied nationwide, the state passed its own set of laws. Those rules barred internet service providers from blocking, as well as throttling select websites and services. However, California could not begin enforcing those laws due to two separate legal challenges.

The first came from the Department of Justice. Under former President Donald Trump, the agency sued the state, arguing its laws were pre-empted by the FCC’s repeal of the Obama-era Open Internet Order. In February 2021, the Justice Department dropped its complaint. Later that same month, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state in a separate lawsuit involving multiple telecom trade groups. This week’s ruling upholds that decision.

In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the lower court “correctly denied” the preliminary injunction brought against California by the telecom industry. It said the FCC “no longer has the authority” to regulate internet services in the way that it did when it previously classified them as telecommunications services. “The agency, therefore, cannot preempt state action, like SB-822, that protects net neutrality,” the court said.

The four trade groups behind the original lawsuit – the American Cable Association, CTIA, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and USTelecom – said they were “disappointed” by the decision and that they plan to review their options. “Once again, a piecemeal approach to this issue is untenable and Congress should codify national rules for an open Internet once and for all,” the groups told CNBC.

After months of stalemate at the FCC, federal action on net neutrality could come soon. Next week, the Senate Commerce Committee will decide whether to advance Gigi Sohn’s nomination to a full vote of the Senate. President Biden picked Sohn to fill the final empty commissioner seat on the FCC. Her confirmation would give Democrats a three to two edge on the FCC, allowing it to advance the president’s telecom-related policies.

Twitter is no longer taking action on tweets spreading misinformation about the 2020 US elections, the website has revealed to CNN. Elizabeth Busby, the company's spokesperson, told the news organization that the social network hasn't been enforcing its "civic integrity policy" when it comes to content about the Presidential elections for almost a year now — since March 2021. Busby said that's because the policy was meant to be used within the duration of an event and that President Biden has already been in office for more than a year.

The website amended its civic integrity policy before the Presidential elections to add labels to tweets with "false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process." In some cases, Twitter could remove tweets under the policy. The rules cover tweets "inciting unlawful conduct to prevent a peaceful transfer of power or orderly succession." If you'll recall, former President Trump was banned on the social network following the 2021 Capitol attack after deciding that his tweets can be used to incite violence. The rules also cover unverified information "election rigging," which the administration's opponents are echoing until this day. In fact, YouTube has just removed a copy of a TV ad by Missouri Rep. Billy Long that claims "the Democrats rigged the election" in 2020.

YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi explained the Google-owned website made it clear that "false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election" are prohibited on the platform. Long said YouTube's action was "un-American and straight from the communist playbook," though, and that it just proves "Big Tech certainly has and will continue to influence elections."

The pandemic pushed US lawmakers to provide provisions to expand medical coverage for telehealth in 2020, speeding up a process that would otherwise have taken years. Since then, there have been efforts to make the change permanent, through things like the Telehealth Expansion Act of 2021. But there is an interim period that could present some uncertainty over whether people can get crucial telehealth services while permanent legislation is drawn up. Today, a bipartisan group of 45 lawmakers, led by Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), said they're "calling for the extension of expanded coverage of telehealth services to be included in must-pass legislation in February."

The group published a letter addressing Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as their minority counterparts and notable signees include Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). 

The letter states "While Congress prepares to enact permanent telehealth legislation, we urge you to include an extension of the pandemic telehealth authorities in must-pass government funding legislation in February." 

Currently, pandemic telehealth decision-makers have temporary authority, and that's tied to the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration. As stated in today's letter, the emergency declaration is renewed in three-month increments. "Without more definitive knowledge about the duration of the pandemic and Medicare’s long-term coverage of telehealth, many organizations have been hesitant to fully invest in telehealth."

In addition to providing more confidence to providers that investing in telehealth will be a sound long-term investment, adding an extension to telehealth coverage while making it permanent will also "reassure patients that their care will not end abruptly."

The lawmakers called for "An extension to maintain expanded coverage of Medicare telehealth services for a set period of time," which the letter said "would provide much-needed certainty to health care providers and patients." They believe an extension would also allow additional time for studies to be conducted on the impact of telehealth, which "could help inform Congress's next steps on permanent telehealth legislation and appropriate program integrity and beneficiary protections."

Therefore, the group is also asking to ensure that "an extension not include unnecessary statutory barriers in accessing telehealth services during this data collection and analysis period," which could prevent people from getting essential care.