Technically yes but judges get annoyed if there’s absolutely no case, so they rarely do – and if they threaten when there’s no case, larger companies will look at it and say the threat’s not real.

The law’s defintion of harm is extremely broad. Charlie Jane Anders has a good discussion of this in The Internet Is About to Get a Lot Worse:

“This clause is so vaguely defined that attorneys general can absolutely claim that queer content violates it — and they don’t even need to win these lawsuits in order to prevail. They might not even need to file a lawsuit, in fact. The mere threat of an expensive, grueling legal battle will be enough to make almost every Internet platform begin to scrub anything related to queer people.”

In practice, when the AG threatens to sue and the law makes it clear that they’ll win (which KOSA currently does), companies will typically stop what they’re doing (or settle if the AG actually launches a suit)

Yep. There’s money to be made here!

Great point. Mike Masnick has said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Meta also comes out in support, for similar reasons.

Totally agreed that it opens things up to censorship in general and doesn’t actually make kids safer. Charlie Jane Anders’ The Internet Is About to Get A Lot Worse sets it in the context of book banning. The LGBTQ part is in the headlines because one big focus of the advocacy against it is highlighting that Democrats who claim to be pro-LGBTQ should not be backing this bill. This has been effective enough that Senators Cantwell and Markey both mentioned it in the committee markup, although it’s certainly far from the only problem with the bill.

Sec. 11 (b): Enforcement By State Attorneys General covers this. It’s hard to find – the bill text starts out with all the text removed from the previous amendment, and if you click on the “enforcement” link in the new table of context it takes you to the old struck-out text. It’s almost like they want to make it as hard as possible for people to figure out what’s going on!

They get to position themselves as looking out for the children.

Yes, exactly. For Senators who support LGBTQ+ rights and reproductice rights (or at least say that they do), focusing on the threat anti-trans AGs can be very effective; In Washington state, we put enough pressure on Cantwell last fall about the LGBTQ+ issues that she mentioned it in the hearing (as did Markey). 5calls and EFF’s scripts and emails are written to appeal to legislators from both parties (so just talk about the harms to kids and threats from state AGs in general terms), which makes sense for a one-size-fits-all form, but customizing it to your Senators’ priorities can make a lot of sense.

This thread is talking about a US-based law, so I shared EFF’s perspectives on national IDs in the US. For a more international view, check out Why ID https://www.accessnow.org/campaign/whyid/ – which they’ve signed along with dozens of other civil society organizations.

It’s true that there are potential upsides of national ID systems as well as downsides. But as that Why ID letter says, “the scalability of digital identity programmes also makes their harms scalable. It is far from being proven that most digital identity programmes have brought additional benefits to users, without placing them at risk.” You’re right that private implementations have similar issues – data brokers and tech companies are as careless with data as government agencies are, and just as eager to abuse people’s privacy. But there are also some big differences: a national ID is mandatory, and the government has much more of an ability to put you in jail or deny you your rights.

Within the privacy community, EFF’s viewed as pragmatists – far from absolutists or extremists. So I agree with @chakan2@[email protected], it only gets regarded as extreme because big tech and the surveillance-industrial complex have normalized not expecting privacy.

That’s one of the concerns. Here’s more, from https://www.eff.org/issues/national-ids

Mandatory national ID cards violate essential civil liberties. They increase the power of authorities to reduce your freedoms to those granted by the card. If a national ID is required for employment, you could be fired and your employer fined if you fail to present your papers. People without ID cards can be denied the right to purchase property, open a bank account or receive government benefits. National identity systems present difficult choices about who can request to see an ID card and for what purpose. Mandatory IDs significantly expand police powers. Police with the authority to demand ID is invariably granted the power to detain people who cannot produce one. Many countries lack legal safeguards to prevent abuse of this power.

Historically, national ID systems have been used to discriminate against people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion and political views. The use of national IDs to enforce immigration laws invites discrimination that targets minorities. There is little evidence to support the argument that national IDs reduce crime. Instead, these systems create incentives for identity theft and widespread use of false identities by criminals. National ID cards allow different types of identifying information stored in different databases to be linked and analyzed, creating extreme risks to data security. Administration of ID programs are often outsourced to unaccountable companies. Private sector security threat models assume that at any one time, one per cent of company employees are willing to sell or trade confidential information for personal gain.

WTF indeed. But, thanks for emailing them – they track how much email they get in each direction, and if there’s enough they may rethink their position.

[email protected] is tracking all the bad internet bills … right now KOSA’s where the most action is.

Agreed. At the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, both Cantwell and Markey said they had heard from a lot of consituents about the bill’s problems, especially for LGBTQ+ people, and that there’s work to do before going forward … so at least the pushback is getting noticed.

Thanks for making the effort! On bills like this, enough pressure can make a difference – we stopped KOSA from passing last year, and have a good chance this year as well.

Great point about editing the letter – and calling is even better!

In terms of whether or not we’ll be able to change it … last year the broad pushback succeeded in stopping KOSA, and there’s certainly a decent chance to do the same this year. Who knows, but as you say, it’s always worth trying!

It’s just a list of Senators, I don’t think there’s an equivalent bill yet in the House.

That’s disappointing … but, enough pressure can get them to change their position (or, almost as good, ask Schumer not to bring the bill to the floor so that they don’t have to take a politically costly vote). In the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, both Cantwell and Markey voted yes but said they had gotten a lot of calls and email from constituents who were concerned about the impact on LGBTQ+ teens so there was work to do before bringing the bill to the floor … so the pressure is definitely getting noticed!

here’s the list of cosponsors … if they’re there, then they’re certainly supporting it. It’s worth contacting them in any case; they’ll often send you a form reply saying their position on the bill.

President Biden on KOSA: “Pass It, Pass It, Pass It”