LOS ANGELES—In early July, the “Eliminating Abuse and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technology Act,” better known as the EARN IT Act, advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, enjoying a bipartisan, unanimous thumbs-up from the committee members. The bill now awaits a full debate and vote on the Senate floor.
But according to a new analysis by technology CEO and broadband expert Anurag Lal, published by Security Magazine, the bill could “undermine privacy, promote censorship and jeopardize the right to free speech.”
Lal’s analysis, though not specifically addressing concerns of sex workers, echoes criticism by sex worker advocates. They say that the bill — which requires internet sites to abide by a vague set of so-called “best practices” to prevent online sex trafficking — could open the door to increased surveillance, arrest and persecution of sex workers, for alleged crimes that have nothing to do with “sex trafficking.”
According to the analysis by Lal, the bill “requires device makers and internet platforms to scan all data before and after encryption,” to monitor communications for “abusive material.” The American Civil Liberties Union has called that provision, and others in the bill, “a disaster for online speech and privacy.”
The bill, in the amended form that passed through the Judiciary Committee, leaves it to individual states to create their own standards for how content posted by users on internet platforms should be scrutinized. But as AVN has reported, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act prevents platforms from being held responsible for user-posted content. Section 230 has become known as the “First Amendment of the internet,” because its provisions allow for free communications online — without platform owners being forced to monitor or censor every piece of content posted by third-party users.
While Lal acknowledges that combatting actual online sexual abuse and trafficking is “a serious problem,” he says that “Congress should go back to the drawing board on the EARN IT Act and develop measures that achieve this without limiting free speech or compromising security.”
Especially with the coronavirus pandemic causing an increased reliance on the internet for even basic forms of communication, “security measures such as end-to-end encryption are now more important than ever,” Lal wrote.
But the EARN IT Act is not the only threat to online privacy now making its way through Congress. Also in July, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham — the mead EARN IT Act sponsor — Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn introduced the “Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act,” a bill that would stage a “a nuclear assault on encryption in the United States, and, by extension, on security, privacy, and speech online,” according to a Brookings Institute analysis.
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