The Death of Privacy and the Bill of Rights Supposedly to Protect Children? S.3538 EARN-IT ACT — Judas Goat Part 2

 

 

Part 2 in the Judas Goat Series

Note: This article may contain disturbing content specifically at the “hurtcore” link. It is important that all readers have appropriate support should they decide to click link.

 

 

 

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. — 2 Corinthians 4:6.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. — 2 Timothy 2:15

Senator Lindsey Graham introduced S.3538 titled: Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2022 or the EARN-IT Act of 2022 with the subtitle/opening lines:

To establish a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention, and for other purposes… 

PURPOSE: The purpose of the Commission is to develop recommended best practices providers of interactive computer services may choose to implement to prevent, reduce, and respond to the online sexual exploitation of children, including the enticement, grooming, sex trafficking, and sexual abuse of children and the proliferation of online child sexual abuse material.

 

This is the second attempt to pass a revised EARN-IT Act. The first was overwhelmingly defeated in 2020. The S.3538 EARN-IT Act seeks to create a massive new surveillance system, run by private contractors, eliminating some of the most important privacy and security features in technology (encryption) used globally and ubiquitously. It’s a structure for private contractors to scan every message sent online and report presumed violations to law enforcement. Didn’t we try outsourcing similar to this with voting machines?   

 

If passed, the Commission established by S.3538 will be composed of 19 specified personnel; 3 Federal Agency Heads: the designated Chairman is the U.S. Attorney General; also specified are The Secretary of Homeland Security; and Secretary of Federal Trade Commission. The remainder of the members are four appointees each, distributed among the majority and minority heads of the U.S. Senate and Congress.

In S.3538 “Myths and Facts” sheet,” it says using automated tools which submit images and videos to law enforcement databases is not at odds with preserving online privacy. A provision of the bill purporting to protect services using encryption (Section 5, Page 16) doesn’t. EARN-IT would allow state prosecutors or private attorneys to bring an online service provider into court over accusations their users committed crimes, then use the providers choice to provide encryption as evidence against them. 

EARN-IT authorizes every U.S. state or territory to create comprehensive new Internet regulations, by eliminating vital legal protections for websites and apps. The states will be allowed to pass whatever type of law they want to hold private companies liable, as long as they can somehow relate their new rules to online child abuse. The EARN IT-Act could ensure everything hosted online is scanned.   

Activities promoting, possessing, creating, viewing, or distributing CSAM are already written into a comprehensive law 18 U.S. Code § 2251 as an extremely serious crime, with a broad framework of existing laws seeking to eradicate CSAM. Online service providers with actual knowledge of an apparent or imminent violation of current CSAM laws are required to make a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a government entity, which forwards reports to law enforcement agencies.

Internet companies are already required to report suspected CSAM, and they have reported it on such a massive scale it contained many mistakes. An example, new scanning techniques used by Facebook produced multi-millions of reports to law enforcement, most apparently inaccurate.  

 

The U.S. and other countries’ governments already use tech companies to facilitate access to private information. When companies don’t want to disclose information about customers; they already have no choice because agencies like the NSA can force them to comply with their demands, which often include building backdoors to be exploited by the NSA (and other surveilling agencies) in their software. Technology companies like Google, Facebook, or Yahoo can be forced to work with the government (on top of advertisers). Why do we need S.3558 EARN-IT ACT if this is already being done; and child health professionals say it would do more harm than any potential protection?

 

Currently, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects websites from legal liability for the comments of their users; not CSAM. When Congress enacted Section 230, it recognized holding websites legally responsible for user-generated content would inhibit online use. Section 230 enables websites to offer platforms for a variety of points of view, some which may be deemed controversial speech without worrying about getting sued. The ACLU supports this as Constitutional. Section 230 does not protect online service providers from CSAM prosecutions; or from any federal criminal law at all.

 

 If passed, S3538 EARN-IT ACT will have states passing laws to punish companies providing end-to-end encryption, or other encrypted services; including messaging services and web hosts. EARN-IT wants to spread the use of tools to scan with law enforcement databases; according to the “Myths and Facts” document distributed by its advocates. It names the already government-approved software they could require; one of which is PhotoDNA, a Microsoft program with an API reporting directly to law enforcement databases. Inversely, Amazon, home of Amazon Web Services, was criticized for currently not scanning much content. This infers EARN-IT’s aim is to ensure anything hosted online gets scanned.

Section 6 of S.3538 designates a change of language from “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse materials” (CSAM) and states they are to have the same legal definition. It lists a large number of other existing U.S. laws and agency regulations in which this change of verbiage is to take place if the EARN-IT Act of 2022 is passed. 

Professionals working with victims of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) prefer this term over “child pornography” which they think fails to describe the true nature of the material and lessens the gravity of the abuse involved. Children are being victimized at increasingly younger ages within the production of increasingly sadistic child abuse materials, known as “hurtcore,” a growing industry on the dark web. Most U.S. citizens vigorously support well-targeted actions to stop this.

 

 

Independent child protection experts have not asked for systems to read everyone’s private messages. To the contrary, they recognize children—particularly those who might be abused or exploited—need encrypted and private messaging as much, if not more than, the rest of us. No one can have either privacy or security online without strong encryption. 

There is concern this language change to CSAM might be misused as camouflage for harmful, coercive political practices. Would the term CSAM open a door for targeting those with Biblical world views which include: recognizing two sexes determined by birth biology; harm coming from promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion, abrogating the authority of parents regarding their children’s safety and best interests; or conservative perspectives regarding dismantling U.S. Constitutional First and Fourth Amendment rights? 

The current administration policies persistently move towards a Marxist/socialist, and globalist agenda which opposes Biblical and/or conservative values and worldviews. This seems a question needing clarification since the US Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security have publicly referred to responsible parenting from a Biblical worldview at least a near equivalent to domestic terrorism.

 

The EARN IT Act targets every individual internet user as being potential criminals. Since direct government surveillance is overtly unconstitutional and might incite public outrage, the EARN-IT Act would use tech companies as its tools as is already being done by NSA and others. These government surveillance systems are similar to the surveillance foundation for the Chinese Social Credit Scoring progressively enslaving their population. What good can S.3538 EARN-IT ACT really do for children or the public; what harm can it do; and mischief might it do? 

 

 

Barbara Bush, M.P.S. was an alcoholic/drug addict until age 34, and after a 5 year cleansing period she earned a master’s degree from Loyola University Graduate Institute for Ministry. Her career has spanned federal, state and local governments, community organizations and ministry working in behavioral health, criminal justice and human services. For the past ten years she has focused on promoting Biblical Truth. She is the principal at Graceful Dynamics Consulting.

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