Last fall, Alphabet/Google announced that the company would be notably scaling back its Google Fiber ambitions. The company axed its CEO, laid off a small number of employees, and froze a number of anticipated fiber builds (in Portland and a few other locations). Numerous reports indicated that there were growing concerns among many executives about the high costs and slow pace of deploying fiber, so the company was considering an overall pivot to next-generation gigabit wireless while it continued building out most already-announced markets.

While it's hard to call this pivot a failure until we see a real wireless product, ISPs like AT&T were of course quick to suggest Google Fiber was little more than folly (ignoring that AT&T's anti-competitive behavior played a starring role in Google Fiber's struggles in many cities). This has contributed to an overall air of "we told you so" smugness emanating from numerous quadrants of the telecom status quo.

That take, however, is short-sighted. One, the launch of Google Fiber put an unrelenting spotlight on the lack of broadband competition in countless markets, driving many large ISPs (like AT&T) to deploy gigabit broadband service that had previously been unheard of. Google Fiber also managed to shine a bright spotlight on the way many large ISPs use our broken legislative and regulatory systems to keep things broken, whether that's by using utility pole beaurocracy to slow competitors' installs, or writing awful state protectionist law hamstringing what your local town and city can do about it.

Over at Backchannel, long-standing duopoly critic and Harvard Law Professor Susan Crawford notes that there are a lot of useful lessons from Google Fiber, most notably that the system Google Fiber is operating in is effectively rotten to the core:

"The fundamental lesson of Google Fiber is that, in the end, its business model was just like that of another cable actor. It was playing within the existing sandbox, using the right technology but the wrong business model.

That sandbox has been left to the vagaries of the marketplace, in which existing monopolies have built moats around their businesses in the form of rights to programming, rights of way, bundled products, relationships with credulous legislators, and a million other barriers to entry that make competing — even for Google — just too expensive for shareholders looking for immediate, media company-like returns, quarter after quarter."

The solution, Crawford insists, is a shift toward local, municipal, open access networks via which ISPs come in and compete:

"The only business model for fiber that will work to produce the competition, low prices, and world-class data transport we need — certainly in urban areas — is to get local governments involved in overseeing basic, street grid-like “dark” (passive, unlit with electronics) fiber available at a set, wholesale price to a zillion retail providers of access and services. There’s plenty of patient capital sloshing around the US that would be attracted to the steady, reliable returns this kind of investment will return. That investment could be made in the form of private lending or government bonds; the important element is that the resulting basic network be a wholesale facility that any retail actor can use at a reasonable, fair cost.

The result: Instead of different wires competing side by side with one another, there would be one great basic facility available neutrally to every form of business. Your ISP could use that fiber in competition with 10 others; your traffic lights could use it to govern congestion; your energy grid could use it to measure and regulate consumption and use of renewables. (Here comes the much-touted Internet of Things, which, without fiber everywhere, is being built on sand.) At the same time, the government would stay out of providing and inventing retail services itself."

Data, including data from the FCC (promptly ignored by the agency) does support the argument that such open access networks result in better broadband, better customer service, and lower prices thanks to real competition. In fact, Google Fiber initially insisted it would support the open access model -- before promptly backing away from it. And some areas, like Huntsville, Alabama, are following through on building an open network, then inviting multiple ISPs (including Google Fiber) to come in and compete.

More competition means organic punishment for high prices, bad service, and net neutrality violations -- which in turn means fewer attempts to fix this issue using often ham-fisted attempts at regulating a moving train.

The problem: incumbent ISPs effectively run massive chunks of our government, to the point where they quite-literally write telecom law (usually via ALEC or some other third-party, legislation ghostwriting apparatus). That includes the twenty-some odd state laws preventing towns and cities from making telecom infrastructure decisions for themselves, lest they might upset somebody at AT&T, Verizon, Charter or Comcast.

Like so many sectors, you can't really fix what ails the broadband industry until you fix the underlying legislative rot that lets companies use campaign contributions and disinformation to dictate garbage technology policy in the first place. So sure, open access networks should absolutely be pursued where possible, but voting out politicians whose entire function appears to be to protect broken mono/duopoly markets (looking at you, Marsha Blackburn) would need to be the very first step in what's an achievable but Sisyphean climb toward better broadband.

A couple of years ago, the Freedom of the Press Foundation sued the DOJ over its refusal to release its secret rules governing spying on the nation's journalists. This was prompted by revelations the FBI had used National Security Letters to obtain information on AP and Fox News journalists. The DOJ then issued new rules on the do's and don'ts of surveilling journalists, but once again (a) redacted them into uselessness and (b) granted the FBI an NSL exception, undercutting the entire point of the recrafted rules.

The OIG report -- in which the Inspector General disputed the DOJ's extensive redactions -- still has yet to be released in a less-redacted form. Sadly, it now appears it will never be any less redacted than the unintelligible mess the DOJ handed over a few years ago. A federal judge has sided with the government, finding its investigative techniques and methods are too sensitive to be handed over to the public, much less journalists it may or may not have surveilled using NSLs. (h/t Trevor Timm, Mike Scarcella)

Underlying everything is the government's barely-contested assertion that these rules contain information of national security interest. It's a handy assertion because it means the DOJ doesn't even have to explain why the redactions it made are relevant to its national security claims. From the opinion [PDF]:

Recognizing the Court’s “limited institutional expertise on intelligence matters,” the Court accords substantial weight to Hardy’s representation that “any greater specificity in the descriptions and justifications . . . could reasonably be expected to jeopardize the national security of the United States.” Hardy Decl. ¶ 46. In the area of national security, “it is conceivable that the mere explanation of why information must be withheld can convey valuable information to a foreign intelligence agency.”

This same argument appears later in the decision when dispensing of the plaintiff's challenge to yet another FOIA exception deployed by the FBI:

[T]he Court finds Defendant has met its burden and properly withheld documents under Exemption 7(E) for all five categories of documents. Defendant described with particularity that the withheld documents all contained non-public information about the FBI’s investigative techniques and procedures. These pages not only identified NSLs as an investigative technique, but also described information such as the circumstances under which the techniques should be used, how to analyze the information gathered through these techniques, and the current focus of the FBI’s investigations. As in Hamdan, the Court concludes that the declarations, which state that further detail would “reveal[] the very information it seeks to protect,” are sufficient to satisfy Defendant’s burden.

The court's also uninterested in double-checking the DOJ's secrecy assertions. As always, the court has the option to review contested documents behind closed doors (and away from plaintiffs) to see if the government's claims of national security/investigative concerns are valid. The court here declined to exercise this privilege.

The Court finds that in camera review is unnecessary here as Defendant already provided sufficiently detailed factual information in support of its exemptions in the Hardy Declarations and Vaughn Index.

The FBI is still free to use NSLs to obtain information -- including call records -- about journalists. The DOJ may have reined in other options, but NSLs have always been the FBI's go-to form when it's stymied by the FISA court, magistrate judges, or internal guidelines. Nothing about that will change. As for what's actually changed at the DOJ as a result of this public outing of journalist surveillance, the public apparently can't be trusted with that information.

In the fall of 2015, privacy activist Phil Mocek and the Center for Open Policing sued the city of Tacoma for its response to a request for Stingray documents. The documents Mocek obtained were heavily-redacted, despite there being several mostly-unredacted versions of the FBI's Stingray non-disclosure agreement already in public circulation.

(This would be the standard NDA the FBI appends to every Stingray purchase by local law enforcement agencies -- one that says all public records requests should be forwarded to the feds and encourages locals to toss cases rather than expose Stingray use. It's also the same contract the FBI was shocked to hear agencies were complying with after signing on the dotted line to take ownership of their new cell tower spoofers.)

The lawsuit was filed under the state's open records law, with Mocek challenging the Tacoma PD's use of the "investigative records" exemption to withhold significant amounts of a mostly bog-standard nondisclosure agreement. As was noted back then, the continued withholding of this information could become costly (for taxpayers): the state's public records law allows for fines of $500/day for violations.

The court has spoken and the Tacoma PD's excessive secrecy is indeed going to cost residents a chunk of change.

The city of Tacoma will pay a $50,000 fine as well as legal fees for violating the Public Records Act by withholding most of a nondisclosure agreement it signed to obtain cellphone surveillance equipment commonly known as a Stingray.

[...]

In an order signed Friday, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Frank Cuthbertson said the city’s redactions violated state law.

He ordered Tacoma to pay $100 a day for every day the city “wrongfully withheld the unredacted NDA from June 21, 2014, until November 3, 2015, when the city provided this record to plaintiffs,” a penalty period of 500 days. The penalty is the maximum allowable under state law.

The judge determined the exemption cited was improper and withholding large amounts of contractual language served no conceivable law enforcement purpose. The city blamed the FBI for its lavish deployment of black toner. Presumably, the FBI will push back, stating it expects no one to uphold the terms of an agreement it forces them to sign before they can acquire the devices.

This unjustified secrecy is going to hurt the city (and its taxpaying residents) a few more times. The Tacoma New Times points out there are several pending lawsuits dealing with the same Stingray documents, including one filed by the ACLU. The city says it won't seek reimbursement from the federal government for fines and fees, but maybe it should, especially if it's going to blame the FBI for the Tacoma PD's secrecy. This actually sounds like a "good faith" attempt to respect the terms of its agreement with the FBI. The FBI got the secrecy it wanted -- at least temporarily. The least it can do is offer to cover the damages of the NDA it says everyone must sign, but apparently doesn't expect anyone to follow.

Last month, we noted that a ton of tech companies -- including us at the Copia Institute -- had signed on to amicus brief opposing the Trump Executive Order on immigration. As you know, the administration came out with a new executive order a few weeks later, trying to get around the multiple courts that had blocked the original order. The new order is just a cosmetic rewriting of the original one with a few small changes that the administration hopes will survive judicial scrutiny. A number of challenges have already been filed to the new order, and in one of them, brought by the state of Hawaii, a bunch of tech companies (again, including the Copia Institute) have now filed an amicus brief opposing the order. In particular, this brief focuses on the harms to the tech industry, including actual examples of harms created by this exec order:

• A U.S. resident employed at a cutting-edge software company fears that he cannot leave the U.S. because he is a national of a Muslim majority country targeted by President Trump’s travel ban. If he attempts to travel outside the country, he could be detained and refused re-entry. After the travel ban went into effect, he canceled plans to bring his mother to the U.S. to visit him, out of concern that she might be detained or turned away. He has not been home for five years. The U.S. company he works for, which employs over 100 people and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in capital, was founded by an immigrant.
• A high-tech, U.S.-based software company devoted significant resources to an event it scheduled in February 2017 where it planned to host owners of small businesses and tech start-ups based overseas. Before these entrepreneurs became business and start-up owners, they were Syrian refugees. After President Trump’s travel ban went into effect on January 27, 2017, the event was abruptly postponed, because the guests were unable to travel to the U.S. on account of their status as Syrian refugees. The U.S.- based software company plans to reschedule the event at a location outside the U.S., so the Syrian refugees and entrepreneurs can safely attend.
• A U.S.-based mobile app and website development company with millions of users worldwide employs U.S. residents who are nationals of the Muslim-majority countries targeted by President Trump’s travel ban. In late January and February 2017, some of these employees had planned to fly outside the U.S. for business or personal reasons. Since the travel ban was announced, these employees canceled their flights for fear they would be detained or not permitted to re-enter the U.S.
• A U.S.-based technology company courted promising job candidates overseas and was prepared to offer them employment when the prospects suddenly withdrew from consideration because they were worried about immigration issues in light of President Trump’s travel ban.
• After the implementation of President Trump’s travel ban, foreign born founders of a U.S.-based technology company began exploring the possibility of moving their company outside of the U.S.—and taking the company’s jobs with them.

The filing goes through the history of the initial ban, and then notes that the new version is still just as bad:

President Trump’s new travel ban is no different. It will inflict the same substantial and irreparable harm upon U.S. companies and their employees. And in implementing the promise of a “Muslim ban,” the new travel ban suffers from many of the same defects as the first travel ban. It violates the prohibition against nationality-based discrimination that Congress established through the Immigration and Nationality Act. It exceeds the authority granted to the Executive. It is arbitrary and overbroad in scope. And it impermissibly discriminates on the basis of religion and deprives individuals of Due Process rights, thus violating the U.S. Constitution. In sum, President Trump’s new travel ban has not overcome the constitutional and legal deficiencies that led courts to enjoin his first travel ban. Accordingly, the new travel ban should meet the same fate as the first travel ban— it should be enjoined nationwide.

This amicus brief is at the district court level, so it's still quite early in the process -- and there are other legal challenges in other courts. This will still take a while to sort itself out, but we're proud to stand alongside others in the industry in speaking up for why these immigration executive orders are illegal and unconstitutional, not to mention bad for innovation and the economy.

Update: Oh, and just an hour or so after I posted this, the judge has granted a temporary restraining order, blocking the executive order from going into effect...

As we noted last week, one of the main copyright battlegrounds in the UK concerns the use of Kodi boxes -- low-cost devices running the open source Kodi multimedia player, usually augmented with plug-ins that provide access to unauthorized content. One of the popular uses of such Kodi boxes is to watch live streams of sporting events. TorrentFreak reports on an important new court order obtained by the UK's Football Association Premier League (FAPL) to prevent people from viewing live streams of soccer games free of charge. The problem for the FAPL is that the addresses of the servers streaming matches are often only known once the games begin. To meet that challenge, the court has granted a new kind of injunction: one that allows live blocking. Here's how it will work:

servers can only be selected [for blocking] by FAPL if it "reasonably believes" they have the "sole or predominant purpose of enabling or facilitating access to infringing streams of Premier League match footage." Secondly, the FAPL must not know or have reason to believe "that the server is being used for any other substantial purpose."

In other words, the servers must be dedicated to live streaming rather than doing it incidentally alongside other, possibly more legitimate, activities.

This caution is needed because this injunction will be carried out live, as soon as matches begin to hit the Internet. FAPL and its anti-piracy contractor will monitor the Internet, grab IP addresses, and ask the ISPs to block them in real-time. No court will be involved in that process, it will be carried out at the discretion of the FAPL and the ISPs.

Giving the FAPL the power to ask for any IP address to be blocked as it sees fit, and without a court order, is bad enough, but the TorrentFreak post points out some other extremely troubling features of this latest decision. It explains how the FAPL hired an "anti-piracy" company to monitor unauthorized streams. It seems that leading UK ISPs helped by providing data about download patterns:

"A very substantial volume of traffic from BT, Sky and Virgin, who are the three largest UK ISPs, has been recorded from these [infringing servers] during Premier League match times," the injunction reads.

"The extent of these spikes in traffic, the closeness of their correlation with each scheduled match, and the absolute volume in terms of raw bandwidth consumed, are only consistent with large numbers of consumers obtaining Premier League content from these servers."

This information is also "only consistent" with those three ISPs actively helping the investigation of streaming servers. As TorrentFreak points out:

Overall, this injunction provides a clear indication of what can happen when ISPs stop being "mere conduits" of information and start becoming distributors of entertainment content. In the case of Sky and BT, who pay billions for content, it would be perhaps naive to think that they would've behaved in any other way.

Indeed, this case has all the hallmarks of companies agreeing to take action together and then going through the formalities of an injunction application to get the necessary rubber stamp and avoid criticism.

If confirmed, that's a terrible development. It would mean that the ISPs with investments in material that customers view over their connections no longer see themselves as neutral "mere conduits," but now are on the side of the copyright industry.

The legal blog IPKat points out another important aspect of this latest case. It seems to be the first time that the awful GS Media ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union -- that a link posted "for profit" can be considered direct infringement -- has been applied in the UK. The judge in this live streaming case wrote:

Generally speaking, the operators of the Target Servers are not merely linking to freely available sources of Premier League footage. Even if in some cases they do, the evidence indicates that they do so for profit, frequently in the form of advertising revenue, and thus are presumed to have the requisite knowledge for the communication to be to a new public.

Expect to see more of these live blocking orders in the UK as the copyright industry there continues to wage its war on the popular Kodi boxes. The question is, will courts in other EU countries start to use them too?

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With one of Prenda Law's key players, John Steele, pleading guilty and likely spending many, many years in prison, you might think that it would mean an end to egregious copyright trolling. However, Matthew Sag, who's spent years tracking the number of copyright trolling lawsuits, lets us know that trolling is still going strong, and it's only slightly modified since the days of Prenda:

...in the post-Prenda era, lawsuits filed against John Doe defendant made up more than 52% of all copyright cases in in the United States in 2014 and 58% in 2015. The number of suits dropped slightly after Malibu Media lost a case on summary judgment in January 2016, but the rate of filing is increasing again. Even so, between 2014 and 2016 copyright trolling accounted for 49.8% of the federal copyright docket.

Our analysis of the federal court filing records indicates that in 2016, the average number of defendants in each of the John Doe cases was 4.7 on a conservative estimate . In other words, although there were 1,362 John Doe copyright cases filed last year, 6,483 individual defendants were targeted. Without doubt, some of those people were illegally downloading movies, but a great many were not.

As Sag notes, copyright trolls don't seem to care much about being legally correct. They just need to be convincing enough to get people to pay up to avoid the lawsuit:

The new breed of plaintiffs who filled Prenda’s shoes are different to Prenda, but not different enough. The plaintiffs’ claims of infringement still rely on poorly substantiated form pleading and are targeted indiscriminately at non-infringers as well as infringers. Plaintiffs have realized that there is no need to invest in a case that could actually be proven in court, or in forensic systems that reliably identify infringement without a large ratio of false positives. Their lawsuits are filed primarily to generate a list of targets for collection; and are unlikely-in our view-to withstand the scrutiny of contested litigation.

The human cost of copyright trolling is significant. It is true that sometimes the plaintiffs get lucky and target an actual infringer who is motivated to settle. But even when the infringement has not occurred or where the infringer has been misidentified, some combination of the threat of statutory damages of up to $150,000 for a single download, tough talk, and technological doublespeak are usually enough to intimidate even innocent defendants into settling.

Copyright -- with the help of insane $150,000 statutory damages -- is still being used as a shakedown weapon, scaring people into paying up, not because of actual infringement, but because copyright trolls have learned how to use the law and the court system as a business model very similar to the one used by organized crime in certain neighbors: pay up or someone's going to get hurt. The unfortunate "new" part of this is that the "weapon" here isn't a baseball bat, but federal copyright law and the judicial system.

Sag now has a longer paper, along with Jake Haskell, looking at "the dark arts of copyright trolling" and how to defend against them. The paper has much more details than Sag's blog post linked above, along with pretty charts like the following one:

Of course, it also notes that this is a niche industry, with 62% of the trolling cases coming from just five companies. Malibu Media, unsurprisingly leads the way (by a lot), as it has done for several years. While Malibu Media has run into some problems in the courts, I'm still at least somewhat surprised that it hasn't received Prenda-level treatment by more judges. Perhaps that will change soon.

Either way, it's fairly clear that copyright remains seriously flawed if it's open to being abused so frequently, even if by a very small number of players.

The DOJ is still fighting a lawsuit over the iPhone exploit the FBI purchased to access the (worthless) contents of a phone used by a participant in the San Bernardino shooting. FBI director James Comey and the DOJ made comments at the time stating a couple of things:

1. The phone crack was expensive.

Specifically, Comey said that buying the exploit from this group cost the FBI "more than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months, for sure." Comey makes $185,100 per year at his job, implying that buying the exploit cost at least $1.3 million or so.

2. The phone crack only applied to a small subset of iPhones.

A DOJ spokesperson says... the crack only applied to iPhone 5C devices.

These statements are being wielded against the DOJ by the new agencies bringing this FOIA lawsuit. The DOJ isn't happy seeing the FBI director's words (along with its own) being used to undermine its arguments: namely, that almost nothing about the iPhone exploit can be revealed without ripping holes in the national security fabric or nullifying the FBI's intelligence-gathering techniques.

In its latest filing [PDF] in the lawsuit, the DOJ seemingly contradicts itself while arguing against revealing the contractor's name or even the amount paid for the iPhone crack. (h/t Brad Heath)

Plaintiffs remaining objection is unavailing. They claim that the iPhone tool itself is of no current value. See Opp’n at 15-16 (“Acceptance of the FBI’s argument would also require this Court to ignore that the FBI has been exceedingly public about the fact that the tool applies only to a specific model of phone (the iPhone 5c) running a specific, and already outdated, operating system (iOS9). Were adversaries on the hunt for actually effective countermeasures, they need only to heed [Director] Comey’s public statement and simply use a different kind of phone, or a different operating system.”) (citation omitted). But this argument is unvarnished speculation about the efficacy of this intelligence tool – and this Circuit has made exceedingly clear that such speculation cannot defeat an agency’s summary judgment claim.

Someone's assertions are wrong. Either the DOJ was lying when it said it would only work on certain iPhones, or it's lying now to protect its secrecy by implying the purchased exploit is usable on other iPhones.

The DOJ clarified last spring the exploit affected any iPhone 5c and wasn't limited to those running iOS9. But even if that clarification is applied to its arguments in this lawsuit, this paragraph stills points to someone at the DOJ being dishonest. The counterargument that people wishing to prevent the FBI from accessing their phone's contents could just switch to a newer iPhone still applies. And that's the part the DOJ is calling "unvarnished speculation."

Of course, the plaintiffs are in the unfortunate position of having little more than unvarnished speculation to work with. Some documents pertaining to the purchased iPhone crack have been released, but have been almost completely redacted, save for some standard contractual language of no informational value. The DOJ is leveraging information it doesn't want to release to argue against being forced to release it. That's certainly convenient for the DOJ, as are any of its intelligence gathering arguments, which grant it the power to dispel questions about over-redaction without having to explain its side of the issue.

Thus, while the identity of the vendor may not itself be an intelligence source or method, see Opp’n at 18, releasing that information leads “logically or plausibly” to information about the intelligence source or method, see Judicial Watch, 715 F.3d at 941, and is thus exempt from disclosure under Exemption 3. That is particularly true in light of the “considerable deference” owed to the FBI in this context. Leopold, 106 F. Supp. 3d at 58; see also Ctr. for Nat’l Sec. Studies v. Dep’t of Justice, 331 F.3d 918, 927 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (“[W]e have consistently deferred to executive affidavits predicting harm to the national security, and have found it unwise to undertake searching judicial review.”). Accordingly, the FBI has appropriately applied Exemption 3 to these two pieces of information.

A version of this argument just helped the DOJ keep its journalist-surveilling secrets hidden from journalists (it possibly surveilled) in another FOIA lawsuit. Chances are, the court will side with the FBI and its national security assertions. Unfortunately, the DOJ's contradictory statements aren't on trial here -- just its broad assertions about national security and intelligence-collecting methods, both of which appear to be so easily compromised it can't even let the country know how much it paid to crack a single iPhone.

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New York state legislators apparently think the state's so cosmopolitan it may as well be Europe. As Adam Steinbaugh points out on Twitter, though, local comparisons aren't nearly as flattering.

[If you can't read/see the tweet]

New York legislature working diligently on overtaking California and Arizona on demonstrating least understanding of the First Amendment

There's nothing like being negatively compared to Arizona (remember the short-lived "First Amendment-protected activity is against the law" bill?) to take the gloss off the latest legislative ridiculousness. A new bill in the state legislature would make New York an outlier in constitutional protections (or no, it wouldn't, because it wouldn't survive a constitutional challenge, but for the sake of argument…). For no conceivable reason, the bill seeks to implement a New York-located "right to be forgotten." How that's supposed to work out when it's not the law in the other 49 states remains unexplained.

§ 50-f. Right to be forgotten act.

1. Upon the request from an individual, all search engines, indexers, publishers and any other persons or entities that make available, on or through the internet or other widely used computer-based network, program or service, information about the requester, shall remove information, articles, identifying information and other content about such individual, and links or indexes to any of the same, that is "inaccurate", "irrelevant", "inadequate" or "excessive" within thirty days of such request, and without replacing such removed information, article or content with any disclaimer, takedown notice, hyperlink, or other replacement notice, information or content, or cooperating with any other person or entity who does any of the foregoing. For purposes of this section, "inaccurate", "irrelevant", "inadequate", or "excessive" shall mean content, which after a significant lapse in time from its first publication, is no longer material to current public debate or discourse, especially when considered in light of the financial, reputational and/or demonstrable other harm that the information, article or other content is causing to the requester's professional, financial, reputational or other interest, with the exception of content related to convicted felonies, legal matters relating to violence, or a matter that is of significant current public interest, and as to which the requester's role with regard to the matter is central and substantial.

This is a horribly-written, horribly-broad, no good, terrible-all-around proposal. I have no idea what sort of information could be described as "inadequate" or "excessive," and the chances are information that's truly "irrelevant" will sink to the bottom of search engine rankings soon enough.

The bill does not define any of these terms (well... not in any meaningful way), nor does it address how information that fits its inadequate definitions will be removed from the web when a great deal of hosting services lie far outside the law's jurisdiction.

On top of that, there's the question of what's "material to public debate/discourse." Who gets to decide what's still material? The person bringing the complaint? If so, the law is entirely subjective and provides no affirmative defense for those facing charges/fines under the law. It's as if the legislators crafting this law looked at the DMCA and decided it just wasn't abusable enough. Citizens clearly deserve a second, more streamlined route for the removal of criticism, unflattering photos, or whatever doesn't further the marketing of a person's brand.

Then there's the prior restraint. (This bill is truly breathtaking in its sheer level of unconstitutional shittiness.) The law forbids those served with a "right to be forgotten" order from discussing the government's content removal demands.

...without replacing such removed information, article or content with any disclaimer, takedown notice, hyperlink, or other replacement notice, information or content, or cooperating with any other person or entity who does any of the foregoing.

It's not just prior restraint on those served with an order. It's prior restraint that effectively silences everyone in the law's jurisdiction. Site A's order and subsequent content removal can't be discussed anywhere on that site. And Site A can't point to other sites discussing Site A's content removal, even if these other sites lie outside the law's jurisdiction.

This bill should -- if there's any amount of brain activity in the NY legislature -- die a swift and unceremonious death. But nothing this bad stays dead forever. It will return in some other shape or form months or years later because some people truly believe information doesn't want to be free -- it wants to be forgotten.

So we've noted a few times now how every month or so there's a media report proclaiming that you can't save any money via cord cutting. The logic in these reports almost always goes something like this: "Once I got done signing up for every damn streaming video service under the sun, I found that I wasn't really saving much money over traditional cable."

Authors leaning on this lazy take almost always tend to forget a few things. One, the same people dictating cable TV rates dictate streaming video rates. Two, adding a dozen streaming services to exactly match your bloated, 300 channel cable subscription misses the entire point of cord cutting. The benefit of streaming is you can pick and choose the content you prefer. And yes, if you prefer a massive bundle of religious programming, horrible reality television, and infomercials, then yes -- you may want to stick to paying an arm and a leg for cable.

Just like clockwork, USAToday rushed to meet this month's invisible quota for "cord cutting doesn't save me money" stories. In their version, the author desperately tries to include the cost of broadband service just to try and make an inaccurate point:

"Sure, if we only pared ourselves down to free TV with an antenna and Netflix, then we’d be in great shape, at $10 a month.

I would argue that we'd also have to add in the high-speed Internet charge to watch the stuff, and that would add another $40-$50.

(Serious cord-cutters disagree with me on this—they say we'd all be paying for the Internet anyway, and the charge shouldn't be counted.)

Yeah, they're telling you that because they're right. Your broadband connection would be a cost whether you cut the cord or not. Now, ISPs use usage caps to exempt their own content while driving up the cost of using streaming services, but that would be the fault of cable companies (and a lack of competition in the broadband sector) -- not the fault of cord cutting or streaming services. In fact: how a lack of broadband competition allows this abuse of the last mile is actually a more worthy story for this type of -- regurgitation and repetition.

Undaunted, the USAToday author continues:

"In a debate Thursday on Facebook Live, Luke Bouma, the owner of Cordcutternews.com, argued that the average person who ditched their cable was saving $100 monthly on their bill. I don't disagree. But looking into the future, my point is, if you add many new streaming services, your bill could get just as high as cable.

On the entertainment front, is Netflix really enough? With Hulu, you get access to the latest network TV shows from NBC, ABC and Fox, for $12 monthly, without commercials. And many of us love the idea of HBO Now on-demand, with access to the entire library of HBO shows, from the Sopranos to Games of Thrones.

Add another $15 monthly for HBO.

So now we’re just at $90 a month. Which is about on par with what we currently pay for cable."

So yes, when you buy all the toys in the store window things do tend to get expensive. But when you actually bother to talk to real people you'll find that time and time again they'll tell you that cord cutting saved them considerable money from the $130 or so (more depending on fees and packages) most people pay for traditional cable. If their bill gets too high, cord cutters can always trim back a service or buy a service elsewhere (AT&T sells HBO streaming as part of DirecTV Now for $5). There's also piracy, which for some reason writers at major outlets like to refuse to admit is an option because it's naughty.

This kind of competition and choice flexibility puts the onus on you to find -- and get -- the better deal. That this kind of flexibility on price and options has long been lacking from traditional cable is the entire damn point. If you're missing that, you're not really understanding the cord cutting phenomenon at all.