On February 10, the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee advanced the EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act, setting it up for possible adoption as a free-standing bill or, more likely, as a last-minute sneak amendment to one of Congress’s periodic so-called “must pass” legislative packages.

An earlier version of EARN IT fortunately failed to pass in 2020 after civil liberties groups brought heavy public pressure to bear against it.  It’s time go break out the torches and pitchforks again.

EARN IT is a one-two punch against freedom and privacy that would effectively destroy the Internet we’ve come to know and love (and, yes, hate) over the last 30 years.

This pernicious and unconstitutional bill would both mandate Internet censorship by platforms on behalf of government  and de facto illegalize “end to end” encryption, while pretending to do neither.

First, EARN IT would mandate Internet censorship by removing “Section 230” liability protections for platforms, with respect to content generated by those platforms’ users, not the platforms themselves, if the content involved is “Child Sex Abuse Material.” This would effectively require platforms to scan all user-generated content in advance to protect themselves.

Second, while EARN IT does not specifically outlaw “end to end” encryption, the bill’s lead sponsor, US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) has made it clear that inability to scan content because it’s encrypted is not a “get-out-of-jail-free card” with respect to liability. In other words, don’t allow content you can’t scan, because you’re potentially liable for it whether you can scan it or not.

What could possibly go wrong?

What’s the over-under on how long it would take for Congress to decide that other content types — for example, “extremist” content, defined as any political content they dislike — should be scanned for and banned as well?

EARN IT’s supporters present it as a useful and necessary tool to combat child sexual abuse.  It’s no such thing.

Child sex predators don’t need large Internet platforms or “end to end encrypted” apps. They already have their own Dark Web hangouts and off-the-shelf encryption software. EARN IT would have little if any effect on them. They’re not its target. You are.

The politicians behind EARN IT hate your privacy and your freedom to speak as you please.  They’re  using child sex victims as cheap props to justify, and expand, their power to run your life.

What should we do with EARN IT?  BURN IT.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Every ten years, based on the results of the decennial US census,  state legislatures redraw their US House districts. Some states gain seats, some lose seats, still others go through internal population shifts that require reorganization.

On February 7, the US Supreme Court “froze” a lower court ruling invalidating Alabama’s new district map, allowing its use while it hears  a suit over the map’s details.

The plaintiffs’ argument, as reported by CNN, is that the new map “dilutes” the power of black voters because it includes only one, rather than two, districts where black voters comprise a majority and therefore “have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.”

Alabama’s majority-white, majority-Republican legislators seem to assume that black voters will only support black — and probably Democratic — candidates. They’re trying to shove as many black voters as possible into one overwhelmingly black /Democratic district and scatter the rest across majority white/Republican districts.

The plaintiffs seem to assume not only that black voters WILL act according to that same formula, but that they SHOULD do so, and that the lines should be redrawn to create two black/Democratic districts.

Both sets of assumptions are openly and shamefully racist. They’re based on the idea that the only thing that matters — the only thing that can POSSIBLY matter — when it comes to voting, party affiliation, and political representation is skin color.

If voters want to vote based on race, they will do so whether I like it or not. But gerrymandering congressional districts specifically to give weight and power to that practice and produce outcomes based on it, is classic Jim Crow “separate but equal” segregationism.

If we’re going to continue tolerating political government (someday we’ll undo that poor decision, I hope) and aspire to a “representative democracy,” districting for that representation should take no more account of skin tone than it does of sex/gender, profession, hobbies, or tastes in music.

One way to desegregate congressional districting might be to eliminate districts altogether and just elect all US Representatives “at large” state-wide.

Another might be to use an algorithm that starts at one corner of a state and works toward the opposite corner, drawing  rational, contiguous districts of equal population as it goes, and taking no account of racial or other demographic elements.

There might be other solutions, but gerrymandering to create “whites only” / “blacks only” voting booths in ANY proportion isn’t one of them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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The United Nations designates February 6 of each year as an “International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.” This year,  in remarks accompanying his Angelus prayer before a crowd at St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis denounced the practice of involuntary female circumcision, saying that it “demeans the dignity of women and gravely undermines their physical integrity.”

For some reason, though, the UN doesn’t designate an “International Day of Zero Tolerance for Male Genital Mutilation,” nor to my knowledge has the Holy Father ever publicly applied his church’s catechism to the practice of involuntary male circumcision.

According to that catechism, “except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”

Why is it considered unacceptable to genitally mutilate infant girls, but acceptable — or at least not important enough to vocally oppose — to genitally mutilate infant boys?

There are certainly religious explanations. The Pope’s religion is an offshoot of Judaism, which practices male but not female circumcision, while female circumcision is confined to some sects of Islam and to some animist sects.

But the bigger reason seems to be simple popularity.

More than a third of male infants worldwide are circumcised. In western cultures, pseudo-scientific “medical” claims, ranging from a variant of “balancing the humors” to the notion that it reduced the desire to masturbate (a practice also pseudo-scientifically tied to various ailments), popularized the practice in the late 19th century.

Moving into the 20th century, male infant circumcision became nearly universal in the US. As each pseudo-scientific claim supporting it fell, another rose to replace it, but we invariably eventually find that infant male circumcision is almost never therapeutic, let alone universally so.

Some parents still allow their sons to be circumcised for aesthetic reasons (so junior’s penis looks like senior’s, for example), or because  fake health claims continue to circulate, but the big reason seems to be “well, that’s just what people do.”

Fortunately, the popularity of male circumcision seems to be decreasing. That’s a good thing. But it’s disturbing that we continue to entertain it as acceptable at all.

If circumcision was invented from scratch — as religious ritual or “medical” procedure — today, we’d throw its inventors in prison or cart them off to mental hospitals. Hacking off healthy parts of infants’ bodies is a violent and barbaric practice, and we should treat it as one.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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