By Alexandra Hudson

This week, YouTube chose to ban the channel of right-of-center comedian Steven Crowder. This situation is the same as when Twitter banned Milo Yiannopoulos or Facebook banned Louis Farrakhan. In other cases, YouTube is not deleting accounts but simply demonetizing them so that creators can no longer support themselves.

Large-scale platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have, however inadvertently, sowed the seeds of their own destruction and incentivized the creation and ultimate decentralization of media. On one hand, the algorithms of the biggest players favor sensational and bombastic users who play on people’s baser instincts. Yet the moment those same users test the limits of our public discourse, social media platforms are criticized for being the arbiters of what is and is not acceptable.

However, it’s a mistake to think that the policies of technology companies will fix these problems. The problems are much deeper than that, and the solution resides in viewers and American citizens choosing to reward the producers of good content instead of the bad.

In the backdrop here, there is the undeniable coarsening of our political rhetoric — which inevitably leads to platforms like Facebook choosing to censor, or for people to begin clamoring for one legislative fix or another.

If this were a question of what government should do, I could provide the same answers as the framers of the Constitution and the liberal tradition generally: it is not for the government to decide. What we need is maximum freedom to speak in whatever form that takes. But with social media, we are dealing with a different animal: institutions that are slowly migrating themselves from open platforms to become full-scale media platforms. That requires curation.

And here the problems begin. Who is to solve them? That has to be within the realm of the stakeholders in the platform themselves. No one has a human right to access them. This is not a First Amendment issue. It is a question of management. Management is fallible. It is a process of discerning best practices to meet audience demand, and that requires careful thinking about trade-offs.

On a deeper level, it is a question for all of us to manage ourselves in a civil way that is consistent with the kind of society we want to live in.

The future of free speech depends not on laws, but on America’s commitment to civility — consciously restricting our own expression for the sake of others. Civility is a form of “private governance,” a phrase economist Edward Stringham is fond of using. As we lose both free speech and civility, we lose our democracy. Judge Learned Hand observed over 70 years ago, “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.”

America’s free speech rights are among the most protective in the world. We should take pride in them, but we must also protect them through the decisions we make every day. That our nation protects free speech means that our laws permit a wide range of expression, even when it is seditious, offensive, or false. This reflects a good and noble principle, but the practical reality is that public toleration of dangerous or offensive speech is only finite. If the public square becomes increasingly inhospitable, Americans will demand — as they already have — that the government more strictly regulate speech.

Public support for free speech depends on how we use our freedom of expression each day. Pseudonymous blogger Scott Alexander formulates the dynamic thus: “Every time we invoke free speech to justify some unpopular idea, the unpopular idea becomes a little more tolerated, and free speech becomes a little less popular.”

Free speech is unpopular, especially among young people — a problematic notion, considering the future of this constitutional principle depends on them. In one study, fewer than half of 18- to 21-year-olds agreed that people should be free to voice nonviolent opinions if those opinions are offensive to minorities. Another study of American college students showed a sharp decrease in the portion of students who think the right to freedom of speech is secure — down to 64 percent this year from 73 percent in 2016. These trends reveal the urgency of renewing our country’s commitment to freedom of speech, but also the responsibilities that come with that freedom.

Those committed to freedom of speech must recognize that, valuable as it is, the principle is not costless. But, at least historically, we have decided as a nation that the benefits of this freedom outweigh the costs of offensive and harmful speech. But in our divided and violent era, people — even classical liberals — are concluding that costs of offensive and violent speech are too great to bear.

A free society can function without strict governmental restraints only when individuals exercise self-restraint. In the context of our public discourse, civility constitutes this self-restraint. Edmund Burke, in his Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, wrote, “Statesmen … ought to know the different departments of things; what belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. To these, great politicians may give a leaning, but they cannot give a law.”

America continues to tolerate more objectionable speech than other countries. We are right to do so. With freedom comes responsibility, and we must wield our freedoms wisely. For this tolerance, and the principle of free speech that underlies it, to survive, we must not depend on the nine robed oracles working at 1 First Street, Congress, or social media giants to be the arbiters.

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To address this complicated problem, we must rely on innovation, diversification, decentralization, settled cultural norms, and individual discipline. Which is to say, we must rely on ourselves.

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Alexandra Hudson is a Research Fellow for the American Insitute for Economic Research. She earned her graduate degree from London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar and is working on a book on civility.

This article was sourced from AIER.org

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By Mac Slavo

A Harvard student has been denied entry to the United States because of what friends of his posted on social media. Ismail Ajjawi reportedly had his visa canceled after hours of questioning at Boston’s airport by the USSA.

Silicon Valley is already hard at work manipulating behavior, taking on the role of an authoritarian government, and attempting to punish people for not acting the way they see fit. But it’s gone a step further.  The government is now rejecting entry to the country for foreigners based on their friends’ actions and social media posts.  This is the dystopian future George Orwell warned us about in his iconic book, 1984.

Written 70 years ago, 1984 was Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984, the year, has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever.

Ajjawi’s friends posted “political points of view that oppose the United States,” reported CNET. The U.S. government is obviously probing visa applicants’ social media profiles and punishing people for their friends’ opinions. Ajjawi, from Lebanon, didn’t actually do anything wrong.  He’s “guilty by association.”  The U.S. government is one of totalitarian control and wants ultimate power over everything, including your very thoughts and opinions.  This is a truly horrific time in human history. 

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson Michael McCarthy said in an emailed statement that he couldn’t offer specific details on Ajjawi’s case due to confidentiality clauses. “This individual was deemed inadmissible to the United States based on information discovered during the CBP inspection,” he wrote. Ajjawi, who got a scholarship to study in the U.S., returned home to Lebanon over the weekend. He and the university are working to resolve the matter before classes start next Tuesday.

The establishment is working extra hard to make sure that their official narrative is the only acceptable line of thought.

This article was sourced from SHTFPlan.com

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By Saira Hussain and Sophia Cope

Media outlets reported this week that an international student at Harvard University was deported back to Lebanon after border agents in Boston searched his electronic devices and confronted him about his friends’ social media posts. These allegations raise serious concerns about whether the government is following its own policies regarding border searches of electronic devices, and the constitutionality of these searches and of social media surveillance by the government.

As the Harvard Crimson reported, Ismail Ajjawi alleges that after he arrived at Logan International Airport, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers subjected him to hours of questioning, including about his religious practices. Officers also had him unlock his cell phone and laptop, and took the devices out of his sight for approximately five hours. A CBP officer ultimately confronted Ajjawi about political posts that his friends had made on social media, cancelled his visa, and denied his admission to the United States.

How Did CBP Officers Gain Access to Ajjawi’s Friends’ Social Media Posts?

CBP’s policy on border searches of electronic devices expressly prohibits officers from accessing data stored in the cloud, that is, “stored remotely” (see § 5.1.2 [.pdf]). Before searching a device, border agents must put the device into “airplane mode” or otherwise disable Internet connectivity. CBP should confirm whether officers disconnected Ajjawi’s cell phone from the Internet.

If not and the officers perused his social media apps with Internet connectivity, this was a flagrant violation of CBP policy. This would provide officers with the limitless ability to search Ajjawi’s social media information, including his own posts, group memberships, and “friend” lists, as well as his friends’ posts, profiles, and group memberships, and other information—including social media posts that are blocked from public view by privacy settings. As we know from a 2018 Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report [.pdf], evidence suggests that CBP officers have a history of failing to disable a device’s data connectivity.

Even if CBP officers placed Ajjawi’s device in airplane mode, it is possible that they were able to open his social media apps and view cached content within the apps—content that is temporarily copied from a company’s servers and reflects the last time an app’s feed was updated. This could have disclosed a limited—but nevertheless revealing—amount of information about who his “friends” are and what they recently posted—again, including non-public posts. If CBP officers viewed cached content on Ajjawi’s device, this is a striking example of how even a limited amount of information can lead to CBP making judgments about someone’s social media activity and ultimately their admissibility. In our travel guide, we urge travelers to take steps to minimize cached content in apps and browsers before crossing the U.S. border.

Warrantless, Suspicionless Border Searches of Electronic Devices Violate Privacy and Free Speech Rights

Apart from whether CBP officers violated their agency’s policy, the search of Ajjawi’s electronic devices is yet one more example of why we continue to argue that warrantless, suspicionless border searches of electronic devices are unconstitutional given the significant intrusion into privacy and free speech.

The problem of border agents having unfettered access to travelers’ devices is growing. Last year, CBP conducted over 33,000 border searches of electronic devices, up from just over 5,000 searches six years prior. EFF has a pending lawsuit, Alasaad v. Nielsen, that challenges the constitutionality of warrantless, suspicionless border searches of electronic devices.

We argue that warrantless, suspicionless border searches of electronic devices violate the Fourth Amendment, given the vast amounts of highly personal information these searches can yield. We also argue that these searches violate First Amendment rights, including the right to have your relationships and associations remain private—whether they are reflected in your contact lists, call logs, text messages and emails, or social media.

As Ajjawi alleges, not only did officers probe into his relationships and associations, but also based his admissibility determination on the posts of his social media contacts, which is particularly attenuated and contrary to freedom of speech.

The Federal Government Is Engaging in a Broad Campaign of Social Media Surveillance

The search of Ajjawi’s social media information via his devices should be also considered within the context of the federal government engaging in a broader campaign of social media surveillance.

Since 2016, EFF has criticized the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies for unveiling plans to collect social media information from various visitors and immigrants to the U.S., including travelers from visa waiver countries, Chinese students, and supposedly “suspicious” visa applicants. Most recently, the State Department implemented a rule requiring virtually all visa applicants to disclose their social media identifiers.

EFF also expressed free speech and privacy concerns about CBP’s latest plan to engage in social media surveillance for situational awareness. Even when the government monitors public posts, this can have a chilling effect on people, causing them to self-censor their expressive activities. And privacy is violated when the government connects via fake profiles—that is, those that are not identified as belonging to the government—with individuals who have non-public accounts.

The government claims that social media surveillance is necessary to identify threats, but evidence shows that such vetting is not effective, in part because both human and automated review often fail to understand slang, jokes, or context.

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We call on CBP to explain the justification behind cancelling Ajjawi’s visa and disclose whether they violated their own policy prohibiting the accessing of cloud content. Transparency is crucial because, ultimately, Ajjawi’s border searches of his electronic devices and subsequent visa revocation create a ripple effect that impacts far more than just him. News of such invasive searches quickly spreads and affects other potential travelers, which could lead to mass self-censorship or cause potential visitors to forego travel to the United States altogether—which in turn harms their American classmates, colleagues, and family members.

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This article was sourced from EFF.org

Saira Hussain is a Staff Attorney on EFF’s civil liberties team, focusing on racial justice and surveillance. Previously, Saira was a Staff Attorney in the Criminal Justice Reform Program at Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus (ALC), where she focused on disentangling federal immigration enforcement from local law enforcement through policy advocacy, litigation, and coalition-building. She started at ALC as a Berkeley Law Public Interest Fellow in the Immigrant Rights’ Program, representing immigrants in deportation proceedings. In addition, Saira organizes with Survived and Punished CA to end the criminalization of survivors of gender-based and sexual violence. She received her J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law and her B.A. from UC Berkeley. Saira speaks Spanish and Urdu, and is an avid baker and yoga enthusiast.

Sophia Cope is a Senior Staff Attorney on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties team, working on a variety of free speech and privacy issues. She has been a civil liberties attorney for 15 years and has experience in both litigation and policy advocacy. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Guardian, Slate, and Huffington Post.

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By Philip Giraldi

There have been several interesting developments in the United States government’s war on free speech and privacy.

First of all, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP), which is responsible for actual entry of travelers into the country, has now declared that it can legally access phones and computers at ports of entry to determine if there is any subversive content which might impact on national security.

“Subversive content” is, of course, subjective, but those seeking entry can be turned back based on how a border control agent perceives what he is perusing on electronic media.

Unfortunately, the intrusive nature of the procedure is completely legal, particularly as it applies to foreign visitors, and is not likely to be overturned in court in spite of the Fourth Amendment’s constitutional guarantee that individuals should “…be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Someone at a port of entry is not legally inside the United States until he or she has been officially admitted. And if that someone is a foreigner, he or she has no right by virtue of citizenship even to enter the country until entry has been permitted by an authorized US Customs and Border Protection official. And that official can demand to see anything that might contribute to the decision whether or not to let the person enter.

And there’s more to it than just that. Following the Israeli model for blocking entry of anyone who can even be broadly construed as supporting a boycott, the United States now also believes it should deny admittance to anyone who is critical of US government policy, which is a reversal of previous policy that considered political opinions to be off-limits for visa denial.

DHS, acting in response to pressure from the White House, now believes it can adequately determine hostile intent from the totality of what appears on one’s phone or laptop, even if the material in question was clearly not put on the device by the owner. In other words, if a traveler has an email sent to him or her by someone else that complains about behavior by the United States government, he or she is responsible for that content.

One interesting aspect of the new policy is that it undercuts the traditional authority of US Embassies and Consulates overseas to issue visas to foreigners. The State Department visa process is rigorous and can include employment and real property verification, criminal record checks, social media reviews and Google-type searches. If there is any doubt about the visa applicant, entry into the US is denied.

With the new DHS measures in place, this thoroughly vetted system is now sometimes being overruled by a subjective judgment made by someone who is not necessarily familiar with the traveler’s country or even regarding the threat level that being a citizen of that country actually represents.

Given the new rules regarding entering the United States, it comes as no surprise that the story of an incoming Harvard freshman who was denied entry into the United States after his laptop and cellphone were searched at Boston’s Logan Airport has been making headlines. Ismail Ajjawi, a 17-year-old Palestinian resident of Lebanon, was due to begin classes as a freshman, but he had his student visa issued in by the US Embassy in Beirut rejected before being flown back to Lebanon several hours later.

Ajjawi was questioned by one immigration officer who asked him repeatedly about his religion before requiring him to turn over his laptop and cell phone. Some hours later, the questioning continued about Ajjawi’s friends and associates, particularly those on social media. At no point was Ajjawi accused of having himself written anything that was critical of the United States and the interrogation rather centered on the views expressed by his friends.

The decision to ban Ajjawi produced such an uproar worldwide that it was reversed a week later, apparently as a result of extreme pressure exerted by Harvard University. Nevertheless, the decisions to deny entry are often arbitrary or even based on bad information, but the traveler normally has no practical recourse to reverse the process. And the number of such searches is going up dramatically, numbering more than 30,000 in 2017, some of which have been directed against US residents.

Even though permanent resident green card holders and citizens have a legal right to enter the United States, there are reports that they too are having their electronic media searched. That activity is the subject of an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security that is currently working its way through the courts. The ACLU is representing 10 American citizens and a legal permanent resident who had their media searched without a warrant as required by the Fourth Amendment.

It is believed that many of the arbitrary “enforcements” by the CBP are carried out by the little-known Tactical Response Team (TRT) that targets certain travelers that fit a profile. DHS officials confirmed in September 2017 that 1,400 visa holders had been denied entry due to TRT follow-up inspections. And there are also reports of harassment of American citizens by possible TRT officials.

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A friend of mine was returning from Portugal to a New York Area airport when he was literally pulled from the queue as he was departing the plane. A Customs agent at the jetway was repeatedly calling out his birth date and then also added his name. He was removed from the line and taken to an interrogation room where he was asked to identify himself and then queried regarding his pilot’s license. He was then allowed to proceed with no other questions, suggesting that it was all harassment of a citizen base on profiling pure and simple.

My friend is a native-born American who has a Master’s degree and an MBA, is an Army veteran and has no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. He worked for an American bank in the Middle East more than thirty years ago, which, together with the pilot’s license, might be the issue these days with a completely paranoid federal government constantly on the lookout for more prey “to keep us safe.”

Unfortunately, keeping us safe has also meant that freedom of speech and association as well as respect for individual privacy have all been sacrificed. As America’s Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once reportedly observed, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

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By Philip Giraldi | Strategic-Culture.org | Creative Commons

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