i2Coalition March 2024 Legislative Brief 

Your brief update on important Internet policy issues

OUTLOOK

The U.S. Congress finally completed the two-phase, contentious federal government funding process for FY 2024 on March 22, just prior to the start of a two-week spring recess period and almost halfway through the current fiscal year. President Biden signed the FY 2024 spending legislation into law, and federal government agencies avoided major shutdowns. After the recess ends in early April, Congress will reset legislative priorities as the Presidential and Congressional campaign season accelerates. Due to the early departures of several retiring Members, by later this spring, the slim House Republican majority is on track to narrow to a one-vote margin. Legislative debate will resume on unsettled matters, including the provision of foreign aid to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel and improving security at the southern border. While the completion of FY 2024 appropriations took center stage in March, the appropriations process has already started in Congress for FY 2025, which begins on October 1. After the spring recess, the Senate also will be required to conduct an impeachment trial proceeding in response to the earlier partisan House vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the southern border. The House Oversight Committee Republicans are trying to advance a Biden impeachment inquiry into alleged corruption involving his family’s foreign business dealings while he was Vice President. Meanwhile, former President Trump is campaigning as the presumptive Republican nominee for President in 2024 while managing his court appearances in multiple legal proceedings pending against him. 

TECH POLICY PRIORITIES

Section 230/Intermediary Liability/Content Moderation. So far, multiple attempts in the Senate by several Senate Judiciary Committee members to pass quickly by unanimous consent a package of Section 230 reform and CSAM bills, including the STOP CSAM bill and the EARN IT Act, have been unsuccessful. In late February, a large group of technology trade associations and civil society groups sent a letter to bipartisan Senate and House leadership expressing strong support for the enactment of The Invest in Child Safety Act of 2024, introduced by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), which would give law enforcement more resources against online child predators. In the House, social media content moderation policy debates among members of the Republican majority have continued to focus on exploring alleged censorship of conservative voices by large platforms. 

Federal Privacy. Senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Blackburn (R-TN) are continuing their efforts to advance a Senate floor vote on a revised version of their legislation, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which now has more than 60 sponsors. Senators Markey (D-MA) and Cassidy (R-LA), the sponsors of a new version of the bill known as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 2.0, seek similar Senate floor action as soon as possible. Bipartisan companion KOSA and COPPA 2.0 bills to be introduced in the House are under continuing discussion; however, to date, the House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican leadership reportedly continues to support a comprehensive federal privacy and data security bill in which children’s measures such as KOSA and COPPA 2.0 could be included and would not be considered on a stand-alone basis. After the spring recess, the Senate will consider how to respond to the House’s rapid, overwhelming bipartisan passage of two newly introduced data security measures, one which would mandate either a forced sale of Chinese TikTok ownership interests or a ban on TIkTok in the U.S., and the other to prohibit data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive personal data to foreign adversaries. 

Copyright/IP. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Emerging Technologies (ET) Partnership scheduled a public symposium on IP and AI on March 27, 2024, to facilitate the USPTO’s efforts to implement its obligations under the President’s Executive Order 14110, the“Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.” More news organizations (The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet) have suedOpenAI in federal court in the Southern District of New York, claiming that the company unlawfully utilized copyright-protected articles to develop and operate ChatGPT. 

Antitrust/Competition. On March 21, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of monopolistic smartphone practices. Sixteen state attorneys general joined the federal department in the lawsuit. The two new recently Senate-confirmed Republican FTC Commissioners, Andrew Ferguson, and Melissa Holyoak, began their terms on March 25, giving the FTC a full 5-member bipartisan panel. 

Broadband. To date, Congress has not provided the additional $7 billion estimated to be needed to sustain the Affordable Connectivity Program which provides monthly subsidies to eligible households for internet subscription costs. A bipartisan, bicameral Universal Service Working Group in the Congress is reportedly developing a universal service reform framework for which text may be released in the coming weeks. It has now been more than one year since Congress allowed the FCC’s spectrum auction authority to lapse. 

Find Out More…

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