Janine Jackson: While an ethics fellow at Harvard, young programmer and activist Aaron Swartz downloaded articles en masse from the academic database JSTOR, triggering the aggressive pursuit of MIT’s IT department, and eventually what’s been described as a grand jury runaway train gone off the rails. Threatened with decades in prison and a seven-figure fine because, in the words of US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, “stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar,” Swartz took his own life in 2013. After his death, it was revealed that he, in fact, had authorized access to JSTOR from MIT.
The persecution of Aaron Swartz was a sign of the animus with which some system-representing actors will go after relatively powerless individuals they choose to make examples of. It’s also been taken up as a call to advance the demand to liberate data, for regular citizens to be able to get the information they need to confront power, and to have a say in decisions affecting them.
Joining us now to talk about that work is Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance and co-coordinator of the group Oakland Privacy. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Tracy Rosenberg.
Renters in Oakland’s apartment buildings now have more control over their choice of internet service provider, a choice that San Francisco renters have had since 2016 and one that the Federal Communications Commission is currently addressing.
The Internet Choice Ordinance was unanimously approved by the Oakland City Council in October and went into effect for tenants in January. It broadens ISP options for renters in buildings with four or more residences by prohibiting landlords from restricting tenants to a single provider.
The Berkeley Police Accountability Board, or PAB, discussed a successful perpetrator negotiation on Telegraph Avenue and delayed action for a proposal to expand public safety surveillance camera use in Berkeley at its regular meeting Wednesday.
During the first public comment session, Berkeley resident Kitt Saginor raised concerns about the Berkeley Police Department’s COVID-19 response in light of Berkeley’s loosening mask policies. Saginor urged officers to continue masking within the department and community after photos on social media allegedly showed maskless officers in Target during the omicron surge.
Oakland Privacy representative Tracy Rosenberg advocated against the Automated License Plate Readers policy, which uses cameras to capture vehicle license plates. Expansion of the policy would allow the use of scanning technology beyond parking enforcement, the initial purpose portrayed by City Council.
“This is essentially a breaking of a contract that was made between the City Council and the residents in Berkeley in terms of why this equipment was brought and how it was going to be used,” Rosenberg said during the meeting.
Rosenberg discouraged the board from adding uses to law enforcement equipment due to difficulties in data extraction.
Ashkan Soltani, the head of California’s new online privacy regulator, needed help launching the first agency of its kind in the United States. So he called the state’s Horse Racing Board.
Soltani asked Scott Chaney, executive director of the racing board, which oversees roughly 10 racetracks, about the ins and outs of running a small agency in California’s sprawling state government. They discussed how to handle remote work and hiring in the pandemic. Chaney also offered advice for navigating the public sector.
Soltani is “literally inventing a state department,” Chaney said. “He’s almost inventing it from the ground up.”
Looking ahead to the upcoming annual conference of the Alliance for Community Media West, Mickey speaks with two long-time activists in the community-media movement- Sue Buske and Tracy Rosenberg; they discuss the future of public-access cable channels, associated public/local media, and the role community media centers can play centering marginalized voices in local news deserts, especially in hyper-artisan times. The ACM West’s 2022 conference is taking place in San Jose, CA from March 30 through April 1. In the second half of the show, we learn about the iconic, pathbreaking civil-rights activist, lawyer, clergy, and feminist, Pauli Murray (1910-1985), from Simki Kuznick, author of a newly-published Murray biography. That which Murray fought for foreshadowed and impacted many of the civil rights campaigns that continue to this day. Notes: Tracy Rosenberg is Executive Director of Media Alliance, a San-Francisco-based advocacy organization involved in a wide array of campaigns, including net neutrality, personal privacy, and many other issues. Sue Buske is Vice-Chair of ACM West, and heads a consulting firm (the Buske Group) assisting local governments and nonprofit organizations on cable-TV matters. The California Assembly bills discussed on the show are AB2635 and AB2748. Simki Kuznick is the author of “Pauli Murray’s Revolutionary Life” (from Rootstock Publishing). While living in California, she helped found the group Interracial Pride. Now based in the Washington, DC area, she is a writer and editor, holds an MFA in Creative Writing.
Washington D.C. (September 15, 2022) – Today Representatives Cori Bush (MO-01), Rashida Tlaib (MI-13) and Jamaal Bowman Ed.D (NY-16) introduced the Resolution Recognizing the Human Rights to Utilities, which would recognize access to water, sanitation, electricity, heating, cooling, public transit, and broadband communications as basic human rights and public services that must be accessible, safe, acceptable, sufficient, affordable, justly sourced and sustainable, climate resilient, and reliable for every person.
(graphic from @byunnatcauses)
“We fully support this resolution and urge Congress to pass it,” said Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Media Alliance. “All residents of the United States of America should be able to rely on their political leader’s commitment to making sure they have the necessities of life; including water, heat, electricity and connectivity so they can live a safe, engaged and free existence. Keeping utility services affordable, public and accessible to all must be a priority and we cannot allow private companies to sacrifice human rights in the interest of profit.”
Even now, in an age when most of us use the Internet, one in five Californians lack reliable and affordable service. Most are lower-income people of color and rural residents.
“We are living in an unjust and inequitable moment of technology, where some have and some don’t” Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, who authored AB 2239
The author of AB 2239 said it would make California the first state in the nation to codify the Federal Communication Commission’s newly adopted definition of digital discrimination into state law.
“We know that equitable access to fast, reliable and affordable Internet is a non-negotiable part of everyday life,” she said.
The FCC’s new rules adopt a “disparate impact” standard for identifying digital discrimination, meaning broadband providers could be in violation, even if they are not intentionally withholding adequate Internet from a protected group.
“The disparate impact standard has long been applied in education, in housing and health care, and more. And what this bill is doing is essentially saying it also needs to be applied to broadband access,” Bonta said. “Regardless of the inputs that you have around broadband intent and the different programs that we set up if there is a disparate impact — and we know that there is — then that’s considered discrimination.”
Catch up fast:
“It’s not acceptable to have a California where such an essential infrastructure is not equally accessible to all Californians,” said Miguel Santana, president and CEO of the California Community Foundation.
“The most common criticism I’ve heard is that [AB 2239] is not necessary because there is no intention to discriminate. And that the industry has implemented a number of programs to help create access to low-income, marginalized communities,” Santana said.
“The outcomes speak for themselves,” he added, referencing the fact that researchers and activists say low-income Californians pay more for worse service than those in wealthy neighborhoods because there’s often no competition in poor neighborhoods to compel Internet providers to compete on service and price.
Remote technology performance management company Hubble IQ partnered with Oakland Undivided to run nearly half a million speed tests across Oakland. ‘Over 75% of the Internet connections we tested never reach the speed threshold to be considered served,’ Oakland Undivided director Patrick Messac said. (Courtesy of Hubble IQ)
The context:
The advocacy group Oakland Undivided recently partnered with remote technology performance management company, Hubble IQ, to run nearly half a million speed tests across Oakland.‘The facts of the digital divide in California are stark. Race and income are the best predictors of whether you have access to the Internet in your neighborhood, how reliable it is and what you pay for it.’Patrick Messac, director, Oakland Undivided
“Over 75% of the Internet connections we tested never reach the speed threshold to be considered served,” said Oakland Undivided director Patrick Messac. “The facts of the digital divide in California are stark. Race and income are the best predictors of whether you have access to the Internet in your neighborhood, how reliable it is and what you pay for it.”
The big picture:
“In many cases, I would say that discrimination is often not per se the intent. Maximizing profit and delivering value to shareholders is the intent,” Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance wrote. The advocacy group is a party to the 8th Circuit proceeding where the FCC’s rules, which AB 2239 aims to align with at the state level, are being challenged.
“Because of history, market conditions and existing societal divides, the intent of maximizing shareholder value leads inexorably to actions that exacerbate digital inequity,” Rosenberg added.
The opposing view:
Contacted for comment, a spokeswoman for Charter Communications’ company, Spectrum, responded that it is still reviewing the legislation but that “Spectrum Internet plans, download speeds and regular prices are not only exactly the same in every ZIP code we serve in California but also across our entire 41-state service area.”
AT&T, another major player in the state, referred KQED to Cal Chamber, which lobbies on behalf of the broadband industry. In a letter to the Assembly Communications & Conveyance Committee, which is hearing AB 2239 on Tuesday, Cal Chamber argued, “We do not want to repeat the FCC’s mistakes in California, which would risk provoking costly litigation and delaying the deployment,” of ongoing universal connectivity programs.
The bottom line:
This early in the legislative session, it’s hard to anticipate whether the bill will survive or how its language might be changed in the coming months to mollify industry-backed critics or forestall lawsuits.
But Bonta said that if her bill becomes law, California will send a clear signal to the rest of the country to consider Internet connectivity as a social justice issue.
