US and UK joint data access agreement goes into effect on October 3rd

The US and UK have signed a Data Access Agreement that will allow law enforcement agencies in each country to request user internet data from the other, the Department of Justice (DoJ) and UK Home Office said in a joint press release. The agreement was…

Biden’s latest climate change actions expand offshore wind farms

President Biden is still unveiling measures to combat climate change, and his newest efforts are aimed at preventing environmental crises. The President has outlined a string of executive actions that, notably, include the first "Wind Energy Areas…

US Postal Service to boost purchases of electric vehicles

WASHINGTON (AP) — The US Postal Service plans to substantially increase the number of electric-powered vehicles it’s buying to replace its fleet of aging delivery trucks, officials said Wednesday.

The Postal Service anticipates boosting electric vehicles from 20 percent to 50 percent in its initial purchase of 50,000 vehicles — with the first of them rolling onto delivery routes next year. It also proposes buying an additional 34,500 commercially available vehicles over two years, officials said.

The proposal, to be posted in the Federal Register on Thursday, came after 16 states, environmental groups and a labor union sued to halt purchases of next-generation delivery vehicles under the initial plan that was skewed heavily toward gas-powered trucks.

The new environmental proposal effectively pauses the purchases at 84,500 total vehicles — 40 percent electric — even as the Postal Service seek to buy up to 165,000 next-generation vehicles over the next decade to replace aging delivery trucks that went into service between 1987 and 1994.

Future purchases would focus on smaller amounts of vehicles in shorter intervals than the original 10-year environmental analysis, officials said. 

The goal is to be more responsive to the Postal Service’s evolving operational strategy, technology improvements and changing market conditions, the Postal Service said in a statement. A public hearing on the new proposal will be held next month.

The next-generation delivery vehicles are taller to make it easier for postal carriers to grab packages and parcels that make up a greater share of volume. They also have improved ergonomics and climate control. 

Records reveal the scale of Homeland Security’s phone location data purchases

Investigators raised alarm bells when they learned Homeland Security bureaus were buying phone location data to effectively bypass the Fourth Amendment requirement for a search warrant, and now it’s clearer just how extensive those purchases were. TechCrunchnotes the American Civil Liberties Union has obtained records linking Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other DHS divisions to purchases of roughly 336,000 phone location points from the data broker Venntel. The info represents just a “small subset” of raw data from the southwestern US, and includes a burst of 113,654 points collected over just three days in 2018.

The dataset, delivered through a Freedom of Information Act request, also outlines the agencies’ attempts to justify the bulk data purchases. Officials maintained that users voluntarily offered the data, and that it included no personally identifying information. As TechCrunch explains, though, that’s not necessarily accurate. Phone owners aren’t necessarily aware they opted in to location sharing, and likely didn’t realize the government was buying that data. Moreover, the data was still tied to specific devices — it wouldn’t have been difficult for agents to link positions to individuals.

Some Homeland Security workers expressed internal concerns about the location data. One senior director warned that the Office of Science and Technology bought Venntel info without getting a necessaryPrivacy Threshold Assessment. At one point, the department even halted all projects using Venntel data after learning that key legal and privacy questions had gone unanswered.

More details could be forthcoming, as Homeland Security is still expected to provide more documents in response to the FOIA request. We’ve asked Homeland Security and Venntel for comment. However, the ACLU report might fuel legislative efforts to ban these kinds of data purchases, including the Senate’s bipartisan Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act as well as the more recently introduced Health and Location Data Protection Act.

Democratic lawmakers want federal regulators to track crypto mining energy use and emissions

Congressional Democrats are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy to address the recent proliferation of cryptocurrency mining within the US. In a letter sent Friday (via The Guardian), Senator Elizabeth Warren and five other lawmakers said the two agencies should work together to require crypto mining firms to disclose their energy use and emissions.

The request comes after the group recently completed an investigation that began at the start of the year. According to the letter, data collected from seven of the largest mining companies in the US, including Stronghold, Bitfury and Riot, indicates they can collectively use more than 1 gigawatt of electricity. Put another way, that’s almost enough to power all the residential buildings in Houston.

Warren and the other lawmakers say they’re concerned about what all that power use will mean for the environment and consumers. Regarding the former, they state that emissions data from three of the surveyed companies indicate they emit approximately 1.6 million tons of CO2 annually or the equivalent of the tailpipe emissions of almost 360,000 cars. “Bitcoin miners are using huge quantities of electricity that could be used for other priority end uses that contribute to our electrification and climate goals, such as replacing home furnaces with heat pumps,” the letter states.

On the latter point, the lawmakers cite a 2021 study from the University of California, Berkeley that estimated crypto mining in upstate New York raised annual electricity bills by approximately $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers. What’s more, they say their investigation doesn’t even scratch the surface of the full impact of crypto mining on power use and emissions in the US. “None of the companies provided full and complete information in response to our questions,” they note.

“The results of our investigation, which gathered data from just seven companies, are disturbing, with this limited data alone revealing that crypto miners are large energy users that account for a significant – and rapidly growing – amount of carbon emissions,” the letter states. By requiring crypto mining firms to disclose their energy use and emissions, the group says the EPA and Department of Energy could provide lawmakers with better data to inform future policy decisions. The agencies have until August 15th to respond to the request.

FCC needs additional $3 billion to help US carriers replace Huawei and ZTE equipment

Removing Chinese equipment from American wireless networks will cost more than anticipated. On Friday, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told Congress the agency needs an additional $3 billion to reimburse carriers that “…

FCC chair proposes raising broadband standard to 100Mbps

The FCC’s 25Mbps broadband standard seemed fast in 2015, but that was seven years ago — and the agency’s current leadership believes it’s time to raise that baseline. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed raising the minimum definition of broadband to 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads. The previous 25/3 benchmark is both outdated and hides just how many low-income and rural internet users are being “left behind and left offline,” Rosenworcel said.

The chair said multiple pieces of evidence supported the hike, including requirements for new network construction stemming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The FCC had already proposed upgrades to rural speeds through a special program, but this would affect the definition of broadband regardless of where users live in the country.

Rosenworcel also wanted the minimum speed to evolve over time. She proposed setting a much higher standard of 1Gbps down and 500Mbps up for some point in the future. The leader further suggested more criteria for determining the “reasonable and timely” rollout of broadband, including adoption rates, affordability, availability and equitable access.

It’s unclear if the standards change will move forward. Ars Technicanotes any proposed upgrade would require a vote, and the current commission is deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republics. As the Senate has done little to advance commissioner nominee Gigi Sohn, there’s no guarantee Rosenworcel (a Democrat) will get her way. Telecoms might not be thrilled, either. Comcast only last year raised the speed of its $10 Essentials tier to 50Mbps downstream — it and other carriers might have to invest in better networks to reach the 100Mbps minimum in some areas, let alone a possible 1Gbps threshold.

Former Twitter employee said they tried to warn ‘people were going to die’ on Jan. 6th

Twitter’s role in the January 6th insurrection is once again in the spotlight. During a hearing on Tuesday, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack played testimony from a former Twitter employee who said they tried to warn others at the company that there would be violence on January 6th.

The committee pointed to a December 19th tweet from former President Donald Trump in which he promised a “wild” protest in Washington D.C. on January 6th. The tweet, they said, “served as a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms” to his supporters.

By January 5th, the former Twitter employee said that it was clear the protest would turn violent, but that “no intervention was coming.” The committee didn’t identify the former employee, whose voice was obscured in the recorded testimony. Representative Jamie Raskin said the former employee “was on the team responsible for platform and content moderation policies” and worked at the company throughout 2020 and 2021.

“I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if we made no intervention into what I saw, people were going to die,” the employee said. “And on January 5th, I realized no intervention was coming.”

The employee also stated that Twitter had considered changing its rules earlier in 2020 following Trump’s comments telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate, but that the company ultimately declined to do so.

When asked if another Twitter user would have been able to take the same actions as Trump without being suspended, the employee replied “no.” They stated that Twitter enjoyed the notoriety that came with being Trump’s preferred social media platform. “I believe Twitter relished in the knowledge that they were also the favorite and most used service of the former president, and enjoyed having that sort of power within the social media ecosystem.”

In a statement, Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, VP of Public Policy at Twitter, said the company is “clear-eyed” about its role in the events leading up to January 6th. 

“We are clear-eyed about our role in the broader information ecosystem in regards to the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, and while we continue to examine how we can improve moving forward, the fact remains that we took unprecedented steps and invested significant resources to prepare for and respond to the threats that emerged during the 2020 US election,” Herrera-Flanigan said. “On January 6th, we leveraged the systems we had built leading up to the election to respond to the unprecedented attack in real-time and are committed to iterating on this work in order to address violent extremism in the US and globally.”

New York law requires gun permit applicants to submit social media accounts for review

As of September 1st, New York residents who want to carry concealed handguns will need to submit their social media accounts as part of their permit application. They’ll need to provide details of active and inactive accounts from the previous three years, along with at least four references.

The accounts will be used to review the applicant’s “character and conduct,” according to the Associated Press. Those seeking a permit need to show that they have “the essential character, temperament and judgment necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself and others.” Local sheriffs’ staff, judges and country clerks will be tasked with looking at social media accounts for warning signs.

The measure was included in legislation that Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law last week. The legislation was passed to enact some gun restrictions following a Supreme Court ruling determining that most people have the right to carry a handgun for their own protection.

Hochul acknowledged that shooters often share details or hints of plans to harm others online. The person accused of killing 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas in May reportedly harassed and threatened to hurt girls and young women on social media apps. Suspects of other mass shootings have posted manifestos online before attacks took place.

Critics have taken issue with the social media provision of the legislation. It’s unclear how the state will address concerns over privacy and free speech, and how it will assess the intent of applicants’ social media posts.

Peter Kehoe, the executive director of the New York Sheriffs’ Association, argued that the law infringes rights under the Second Amendment and suggested local officials may not actually review an applicant’s social media accounts. “I don’t think we would do that,” Kehoe told the AP. “I think it would be a constitutional invasion of privacy.” Others have expressed concern about the law in relation to surveillance of people of color.