Just published at 2 J. Free Speech L. 157 (2022), as part of the “Non-Governmental Restrictions on Free Speech” symposium; here’s the Abstract:
First Amendment protection of “editorial discretion,” “editorial control,” and “editorial judgment” has a relatively short Supreme Court history. First used in the 1970s, these terms refer to the power that broadcasters, cable systems, and newspapers retain to make decisions about their content within regulatory regimes. Editorial decision-making is an action that editors perform on others’ speech—which sometimes expresses and conveys an editor’s own message, other times not. When, as in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, editorial decisions express and convey editors’ ideas, they receive First Amendment protection. But, as in FCC v. Midwest Video Corp, when they do not—or the regulatory regime at issue allows editors to express their own views, First Amendment protection is limited or non-existent. If all editorial decision-making were to receive full constitutional protection, long-established common carrier law as well as mandatory carriage of political advertisement and PEG programming would be rendered unconstitutional.
Internet platform content moderation decisions are mostly non-expressive editorial decisions. Platforms’ content moderation decisions in toto do not convey a message because, lacking a fixed expression, they are never communicated in toto to anyone—as the platforms do not publicize their decisions. Unlike First Amendment-protected editorial decisions, such as inclusion in an op-ed page, a cable system channel line-up, or a parade, an audience cannot read a list of content-moderation decisions and thereby comprehend an expressed message.
Second, platforms’ editorial decisions express little individually. For instance, shadow banning, by which a platform renders a user’s posts invisible to all but that user, cannot convey a message because no one knows, except the platform, that it is happening. Invisible editorial decisions are not intrinsically expressive of a corporate policy because, as the Court recognized in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, such conduct only communicates by reference to other speech.
Last, just as telephone companies do not express their customers’ conversations, transmitting a message, in the context of a communications network, does not express a social media platform’s own editorial decisions or speech, a position that platforms themselves have maintained vociferously in countless section 230 cases. Because content moderation decisions are largely unexpressive, social media laws such as Texas’s H.B. 20 are consistent with the First Amendment.
China Hit By Tsunami Of COVID Infections In Reopening Scramble But It’s All Just Omicron, As No New Variants Emerge
There are good and bad news in China’s scramble to emerge from its catastrophic 3-year long zero-covid hangover, into a country reborn, metaphorically speaking, and with herd immunity.
First, the bad news: Bloomberg reports that according to Airfinity Ltd., a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics, China could see as many as 25,000 deaths a day from Covid-19 later in January, casting a shadow over the start of the first Lunar New Year festivities without pandemic restrictions.
Mortalities from the contagious respiratory illness will probably peak around Jan. 23, the second day of the annual holiday in the country of 1.4 billion, Airfinity estimated, adding that daily infections will peak 10 days before at around 3.7 million cases. These numbers are roughly in line with our own calculations.
“Using the trends in regional data our team of epidemiologists has forecast the first peak to be in regions where cases are currently rising and a second peak driven by later surges in other Chinese provinces,” Airfinity said in a statement late on Thursday.
Daily infections are currently at around 1.8 million, with mortalities at 9,000, the researcher said. That’s up from the 5,000-plus daily estimate by Airfinity earlier this month, and contrasts sharply with just around a dozen Covid deaths the Chinese government has reported in total since the dismantling of Covid restrictions in early December. By the end of April 2023, China may see 1.7 million deaths from this wave of infections, Airfinity said.
Airfinity’s estimates are based on data from China’s regional provinces, which had reported numbers far higher than official national figures, combined with trends seen in Hong Kong, Japan and other countries when they lifted strict restrictions, the researcher said. The extent of the latest outbreak has been difficult to gauge after officials abandoned publishing an accurate case count and narrowed their definition of a virus death.
Amid expectations that China would maintain its strict anti-covid policy well into 2023, Beijing suddenly ended its Covid Zero framework in mid/late December, abandoning the strict testing and lockdown measures embraced by the world’s second-largest economy since the start of the pandemic almost three years ago. The resulting outbreaks have been difficult to gauge without an accurate count, forcing observers to rely on outside estimates and anecdotal evidence.
And while the chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wu Zunyou, said in a briefing Thursday that Covid outbreaks have peaked in Beijing, Tianjin and Chengdu, he added that the situation in Shanghai, Chongqing, Anhui, Hubei and Hunan remains serious. More ominously, Italy’s Milan reported that up to 50% of passengers on a recent flight from China have covid. Wu added that the disease will probably spread during Lunar New Year, with many expected to travel around the holiday, he added. With the lifting of travel and other restrictions for the first time since the start of the pandemic, a huge rebound in travel is anticipated during the holiday week in January.
Meanwhile, with scenes of overwhelmed hospitals playing out across the country, officials on Thursday said some regions are now grappling with a surge in severe Covid patients. The occupancy rate of intensive care unit beds for the whole country hasn’t crossed the red line of 80%, but some parts of the nation are bracing for a peak in severe cases, said Jiao Yahui, an official overseeing hospitals at the National Health Commission.
The jump in cases has fueled concern across the globe about the emergence of new Covid variants that could be more contagious, lethal, or both. That has prompted numerous countries to adopt mandatory testing and entry restrictions for travelers from China, which also announced this week that it would reopen its borders on Jan. 8. Liang Wannian, China’s senior official overseeing epidemic response, said the country is strengthening the monitoring of Covid variant and will report to the World Health Organization if it discovers any.
Now the good news: while China’s rushed reopening will likely lead to another wave of global covid infections, it will likely be the mostly innocuous Omicron variant; the risk is that a new, more dangerous/virulent variant emerges. However, so far no novel Covid-19 variants have emerged in China, according to a global consortium that’s tracking coronavirus mutations, easing concerns that the country’s record wave of infections would give rise to new strains that could circulate around the world.
National, provincial and private health-care authorities in the country have provided nearly 1,000 genetic sequences from infected patients to GISAID in the past five days, said CEO Peter Bogner. So far, all the samples continue to be omicron, though subvariants that have hit other parts of the world – including XBB.1 and BQ.1.1 – have emerged, he said.
“The variants continue to circulate without any significant changes that raise any specter of concern,” Bogner said. “You do not have any kind of data that suggest anything but business as usual.”
China is also ramping up efforts to track mutations, with the recent upload of sequencing data comparing with just 25 samples submitted in the previous month, he said. The data are important for helping with future needs as statistics on cases and deaths provide backward-looking information, he said.
“There is huge self-interest,” he said. “That’s the one you can act on. It’s actionable information. You can adjust your diagnostic kits, your vaccines. There’s not actionable information in how many people died. It’s the rear-view mirror. Genomic information provides actionable insights.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has vowed more aggressive retaliation to military action by Pyongyang, calling to “punish” the DPRK soon after Seoul unveiled a new $440 million military spending package.
Briefing reporters following a meeting between the president and South Korea’s National Security Office this week, Yoon’s press secretary Kim Eun-hye said officials were instructed to react forcefully to any future “provocations,” citing a major breach of South Korea’s airspace by North Korean drones earlier this week.
“President Yoon told them to punish and retaliate in no uncertain terms in response to any provocation by North Korea, saying that is the most powerful way to deter provocations,” she said, adding that Yoon “also emphasized that we must not be fearful or hesitant just because North Korea has nuclear weapons.”
The Wednesday national security meeting took place days after Pyongyang flew five reconnaissance drones over the border separating the two Koreas, prompting the South to scramble military aircraft in response. Though the drones remained in Seoul’s airspace for up to seven hours, some flying over the country’s capital city, the South Korean military was unable to shoot down any of the UAVs.
Yoon reportedly“berated” Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup over the failure to bring down the aircraft, saying the incident showed that the military was “greatly lacking” in preparedness, and also vowed to bolster South Korea’s air defenses and surveillance capabilities to prevent similar incursions in the future.
Toward that end, the Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that it would spend some $441 million over the next five years on a variety of different projects, including the development of ‘non-kinetic’ weapons platforms, such as an “airborne laser” designed to bring down drones, as well as a new signal jammer.
South Korea conducted an anti-drone drill to simulate identifying, tracking, and shooting down small drones. This drill also included air-assets like the ROK AH-64, MD-500s & fighter jets. This comes after South Korea failed to neutralize tiny drones that crossed from NK into SK. pic.twitter.com/pxe9xEEEpa
Tensions have soared between the North and South in recent months, with the DPRK conducting more weapons tests in 2022 than any year prior. South Korea, meanwhile, has significantly stepped up live-fire military drills with the United States and Japan, despite vocal condemnation from Pyongyang, which considers the exercises as preparations for an attack. Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have additionally pledged to further boost trilateral military ties between themselves, largely citing alleged threats from North Korea and China.
Andrew Tate Detained In Romania In Human Trafficking Case As Greta Gets Last Word
Controversial social media personality Andrew Tate and his brother have been detained by Romanian police on suspicion of rape and human trafficking following a raid of his home and other properties in Bucharest.
The 36-year-old British-American former professional kickboxer and his brother Tristan were detained for 23 hours according to Romanian prosecutors. They have been under investigation since April along with two Romanian nationals, with prosecutors alleging that the brothers are engaged in an organized crime ring that sexually exploited ‘cam girls.’
Video released by Romanian police shows a raid on a property carried out along side the arrest of social media influencer Andrew Tate.
The 36-year-old British-American and his brother Tristan have been detained for 24 hours.
“The four suspects … appear to have created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialized websites for a cost,” said prosecutors. “They would have gained important sums of money,” the statement continued.
Prosecutors say they have identified six women who have allegedly been sexually exploited by the suspects.
Back in October, Buzzfeed News reported on Tate’s so-called “Hustlers University 2.0,” a series of virtual courses which, according to Tate, aimed to help users “escape the Matrix.” The $50-per month course of lessons via a Discord channel included financial, career and dating advice (including a now-removed “Pimpin Hoe Degree”). Buzzfeed News reported that some individual courses were priced at $500 each.
Romanian prosecutors said they found six women who’d been sexually exploited by the suspects, according to Reuters. As reported by the Guardian, Tate was previously banned from Twitter for saying women “bear some responsibility” for being raped. -The Hill
Following the arrest, Tate’s Twitter account tweeted: “The Matrix sent their agents.”
Tate’s arrest came just one day after igniting a Twitter feud with 19-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Tate took the first shot, tweeting a photo captioned: “Hello @GretaThunberg, I have 33 cars. This is just the start. Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions,” to which Thunberg replied: “Yes, please do enlighten me. Email me at smalld—energy@getalife.com.”
After Tate’s arrest, a very unconfirmed report began to swirl that Romanian authorities were able to identify Tate’s location based on a pizza box seen in a video response he posted to Thunberg.
I see that Caraballo has posted an entire thread justifying why she made the pizza claim up. The bigger deal is news outlets keep citing someone who constantly spreads misinformation on social media as if they are a reliable source & even an expert on that very subject. https://t.co/zdPB3YhhLo
Texas state senators struggled for more than six hours last week to get straight answers from Wall Street giants BlackRock and State Street, two of the world’s largest asset managers, regarding what they are doing to compel companies whose shares they own to get in line with the ESG movement.
Having joined global Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) clubs like Climate Action 100+ and the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAM), and signed pledges to leverage their voting power as the largest shareholders in 90 percent of the S&P 500 companies to “reach net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner across all assets under management,” the asset managers testified that, in reality, they are doing no such thing.
When asked by Senate Chairman Bryan Hughes to clarify BlackRock’s pledge to Climate Action 100+ “to secure commitments from companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the Paris Agreement,” BlackRock’s Head of External Affairs Dalia Blass responded that BlackRock merely talks to companies whose shares they own to learn about their “material risks and opportunities.”
“We participate in Climate Action 100 to engage in dialogue with other participants, market participants, governments so that we understand issues that are relevant to our clients,” said Blass, who recently joined BlackRock from the Biden Administration where she worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The motto of Climate Action 100+ is “Global investors driving business transition.”
“The website doesn’t say anything about engaging in dialogue in Climate Action 100,” Hughes responded. “BlackRock’s website says, ‘We have joined Climate Action 100 to help ensure the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.’ True or false?”
To which, Blass responded, “Sir … what I can say … two things …”
Having repeated the question, Hughes asked, “Can BlackRock send us a witness who can tell us whether that’s a true or false statement on its website today?”
“Sir, if you pulled that off our website, then that is on our website,” Blass responded.
State Street and BlackRock are two of the “Big Three” largest asset managers. Together with Vanguard, they manage approximately $20 trillion in assets on behalf of corporations, governments, and endowments, as well as the savings of tens of millions of people who are investing through vehicles like 401K plans. Vanguard recently withdrew from its membership in NZAM and was excused from testifying in Texas.
Asset managers who support ESG policies typically make two contradictory claims. In order to make a case that they are not violating their fiduciary duty to people whose savings they manage, they argue that ESG is not an ideology but rather an essential risk-management tool that they use to generate higher returns for their clients.
In a 2021 Euromoney interview, State Street Global Advisors’ Chief Investment Officer Lori Heinel explained that “companies who pay attention to their ESG footprint and profile, and proactively manage that, actually are better managed companies and that accrues to a longer term shareholder result.”
Simultaneously, asset managers claim that, despite what they may have said or pledged, they actually don’t do anything to push the ESG agenda on companies, and are in fact active supporters of the fossil fuel industry.
Blass told the senators that it has $107 billion invested in public energy companies in Texas. “We’ve invested in Texas energy, just the past two years, $31 billion,” she said. “We believe in these investments; we do not boycott oil and gas.”
State Sen. Bob Hall asked: “Where’s the empirical data that supports that net zero is good for the bottom line, that it actually would improve income, improve revenue? And the rest of the things that are stuck in that woke analysis, where is the empirical data that says this will actually be a benefit to the investment?”
Blass responded that, based on BlackRock’s research, “we believe that an orderly transition to a low carbon economy is much more beneficial for our clients’ portfolios. A disorderly transition can cost the global economy about a 25 percent reduction in GDP.”
Heinel told the Texas senators, “I have no evidence that this is good for returns in any time frame. In fact, we’ve seen the evidence to be quite contrary. Last year if you didn’t own energy companies you did miserably compared to broad benchmarks. The year before, that was quite the opposite … but that was just a happenstance, that’s not because it’s a good investment.”
Regarding compliance with ESG criteria, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated at the New York Times 2017 DealBook summit that “behaviors are going to have to change, and this is one thing that we’re asking companies. You have to force behaviors, and here at BlackRock we are forcing behaviors.”
Hughes cited a statement from Fink to CEOs in 2020: “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects. … we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.” He asked Blass how BlackRock thought finance should be reshaped.
Blass responded that the goal of finance as BlackRock sees it has always been “to find opportunities for our clients and to manage risks in their portfolios so that we can produce the best risk-adjusted returns.” BlackRock’s mission, she said, hasn’t changed.
Hughes told Blass: “What we’re learning is, BlackRock says whatever it needs to say to whoever it’s talking to at the time,” he said. “That’s what we’re experiencing today.”
Heinel testified that, like BlackRock, State Street joined various ESG clubs like Climate Action 100+, Ceres, and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) merely to learn “how to think about climate change,” Heinel said. “We’re trying to understand how these various risks are becoming as important as traditional financial risks,” citing as an example new taxes that may be imposed in Europe on “companies that they believe are bad actors from a climate standpoint.”
When asked to clarify why companies should follow ESG criteria, asset managers cite the effect of government policies, like taxes and penalties for companies that don’t comply with ESG criteria, as well as state subsidies for renewable energy, all of which are part of what Blass called the “net zero transition, the transition to a low carbon economy.” According to clubs like Climate Action 100+ and GFANZ, the role of asset managers who join these clubs is to compel companies whose shares they own into compliance.
Heinel testified that, as an index fund manager, Vanguard must buy and hold the shares of companies included in a given index such as the S&P 500. Therefore, if they want to influence companies’ behavior, they must work with executives of those companies rather than avoid their shares.
“We engage with companies in our portfolios; we do not divest,” Heinel said. State Street currently owns more than $140 billion in shares of energy companies.
On the other hand, she said, “we do not discriminate against companies in any sector, including energy companies … That means we do not tell those energy companies to shift their strategy, or to drill more wells.”
Texas senators brought up the case of the Pirky power plant, a coal-fired plant located near the hearing site, which though operationally viable is being shut down by its parent company, American Electric Power (AEP), shares of which are owned by BlackRock.
“Climate Action 100 says AEP is one of [BlackRock’s] focus companies, and as you know, Climate Action 100 assesses utility companies based on whether they’ve assigned a retirement date to each and every coal unit with a full phase out by 2040,” Hughes said. He quoted from a paper co-authored by BlackRock and GFANZ, titled “How to Facilitate the Early Retirement of High Emitting Assets,” which stated that asset managers must “manage down the greenhouse gas emissions from their portfolios rather than divest and transfer them to someone with less climate ambition.”
“That means that GFANZ, working with BlackRock, has said it’s better to make the companies keep the coal plants and manage them down, that means shut them down, rather than sell them to someone else who will keep operating them and keep the power and the jobs coming,” Hughes stated.
Blass responded that “managing down” doesn’t mean closing plants and that BlackRock is an investor in carbon-capture technology to reduce emissions.
State Sen. Brian Birdwell noted that one third of Texas electricity generation comes from coal-fired plants and said “we’re scared to death about what you’re going to do to our citizens in the state of Texas.”
“You told us earlier that your objective was to maximize investments,” Hall said. “Now you’re telling us that your objective is zero carbon emissions. Which is it?”
“Our objective as a fiduciary asset manager is to provide the best risk adjusted returns for our clients,” Blass said. “We do that by looking at how the companies are managing their risks and as the global regulators, including here in the United States, are moving more and more towards a regulatory system around net zero and carbon production, we look at how they’re managing that to make sure that long-term they’re able to produce results for our clients.”
Texas State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst said she worried about the “the disadvantage for our country as we bend to ESG but some of our competitors do not.” China has dramatically increased its investment in coal-fired power plants, she said, but “right here in the county in which we sit, we’re going to decommission a coal plant because of ESG scoring; because AEP is being forced to do that to be eligible to compete to get funds.”
“China, Russia, and India are putting their countries first,” Kolkhorst told Blass and Heinel. “While we’re all bending to some scoring where you all sit around a table.”
Hall said that when the pollution and emissions from the construction and disposal of wind turbines and solar panels is factored in, the environmental benefits of renewable energy are unclear.
“All the concrete and steel and construction, that gets left out of the carbon analysis and they just pretend that it only exists once it’s in place and the blades are turning,” Hall said. “The analysis that ignores the manufacturing and the disposal process of solar panels—huge impact to the environment, that gets left out. So we’re going to run around say, ‘Oh, this is low carbon impact.’
Officially, the Biden Administration wants to end Title 42 “public health” expulsions of migrants at the southern border, and the flawed recent Supreme Court decision indirectly requiring them to continue was a defeat for the White House. But, as Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell explains in an excellent recent article, Biden may actually be playing a double game here. Even as he says he wants to terminate the policy, he has offered only a tepid legal defense of those efforts, while simultaneously actually expanding the use of Title 42 to cover more people:
“Title 42” is shorthand for what is effectively an abuse of a public health authority to circumvent U.S. asylum laws. Beginning in March 2020, the Trump administration used an obscure public health statute to automatically expel migrants without allowing them to first apply for asylum, as is their right under U.S. law and international treaty….
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden pledged to restore the integrity of the asylum system. He promised that anyone qualifying for an asylum claim would “be admitted to the country through an orderly process.” As president, though, Biden dragged his feet in terminating Title 42. He finally agreed to end the program this past spring. But termination has since been delayed by complicated court rulings, which Biden officials seem to have fought only half-heartedly…..
Instead, Biden officials seem to have seized the opportunity to make yet more immigrant groups subject to automatic expulsions.
In October, the Biden administration announced it would begin using Title 42 to expel Venezuelans, who had previously been exempted due to difficulties in deporting them back to their (unstable) home country. And on Wednesday, Reuters reported that the administration plans to soon use Title 42 to expel Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants caught at the southwestern border, too. As had been the case with Venezuelans, these groups have generally not been subjected to the automatic expulsion policy, also largely because of diplomatic complications.
Additional evidence of the administration’s foot-dragging is that, while they have appealed a federal Texas district court ruling that blocks termination of the policy, they have not requested that the court of appeals stay the district court decision (which means the latter remains in force as litigation continues). This district court ruling is currently the main legal obstacle to ending the policy. The recent Supreme Court decision ties the administration’s hands only in so far as it indirectly allows that district court ruling to remain in place.
Furthermore, the Administration has not initiated a notice and comment process for the rule terminating the expulsions. The district court decision blocking the end of the policy is based on the theory that such a process is required by the Administrative Procedure Act. Whether the APA actually requires the use of that procedure here is debatable. If you believe—as I and many other critics do—that the Title 42 expulsion policy is itself illegal, then it is not protected by the APA. But the Biden Administration (like Trump before it) has taken the position that the policy is legal, which makes it harder (though admittedly not impossible) to defend against the APA claims filed by various GOP state governments. Going through notice and comment would at least have strengthened the Administration’s position.
If the Administration is indeed playing a double game, the most likely explanation is that they want to use Title 42 to help alleviate perceptions that there is a crisis at the border. But, as Rampell points out, Title 42 has done little to alleviate the problem, which is actually the result of the lack of legal alternatives for most migrants:
Whatever its intentions, [Title 42] didn’t reduce stress at the border; instead, it increased attempted border crossings, as many people expelled without consequence or due process turned right around and tried again to enter the United States….
So what should the administration and Congress be doing instead?
Most important: Create more legal, safe, orderly pathways for people to come to the United States, both to seek protection from persecution and to pursue economic opportunities.
Americans often complain that immigrants should come here “the right way,” but for many migrants, showing up at the border unannounced and turning themselves in is the only legal pathway available. If given options to come here that don’t require paying gangs and crossing deserts, people would gladly take them — which would in turn alleviate stress at the border.
Among the more obvious steps: Send more resources to border communities, including to the many faith-based organizations assisting migrants. Beef up the asylum system so that cases can be adjudicated more efficiently and expeditiously.
Also, enable asylum seekers to apply for work permits much earlier — currently they must wait six months before they can even submit an application — so they can achieve the financial independence necessary to leave shelters.
The expansion of Title 42 to cover Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans is particularly reprehensible, given that these migrants are fleeing brutally oppressive communist and socialist governments. There was a time when conservatives would have condemned Biden for barring refugees from communism. Today, most of them actually support this step and demand its indefinite continuation.
It would be a mistake to conclude that Biden’s immigration policies are just a continuation of Trump’s. On many issues, he has made major improvements. But when it comes to Title 42 expulsions, he has perpetuated and in some ways even expanded a cruel and illegal policy he had promised to end.
Free Expression Statement adopted by the MIT faculty 12/21/22
The influential 1949 Lewis Report observed that MIT’s mission was “to encourage initiative, to promote the spirit of free and objective inquiry, to recognize and provide opportunities for unusual interests and aptitudes,” and to develop “individuals who will contribute creatively to our society.” With a tradition of celebrating provocative thinking, controversial views, and nonconformity, MIT unequivocally endorses the principles of freedom of expression and academic freedom.
Free expression is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition of a diverse and inclusive community. We cannot have a truly free community of expression if some perspectives can be heard and others cannot. Learning from a diversity of viewpoints, and from the deliberation, debate, and dissent that accompany them, are essential ingredients of academic excellence.
Free expression promotes creativity by affirming the ability to exchange ideas without constraints. It not only facilitates individual autonomy and self-fulfillment, it provides for participation in collective decision-making and is essential to the search for truth and justice. Free expression is enhanced by the doctrine of academic freedom, which protects both intramural and extramural expression without institutional censorship or discipline. Academic freedom promotes scholarly rigor and the testing of ideas by protecting research, publication, and teaching from interference.
MIT does not protect direct threats, harassment, plagiarism, or other speech that falls outside the boundaries of the First Amendment. Moreover, the time, place, and manner of protected expression, including organized protests, may be restrained so as not to disrupt the essential activities of the Institute.
At the intersection of the ideal of free expression and MIT community values lies the expectation of a collegial and respectful learning and working environment. We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious. At the same time, MIT deeply values civility, mutual respect, and uninhibited, wide-open debate. In fostering such debate, we have a responsibility to express ourselves in ways that consider the prospect of offense and injury and the risk of discouraging others from expressing their own views. This responsibility complements, and does not conflict with, the right to free expression. Even robust disagreements shall not be liable to official censure or disciplinary action. This applies broadly. For example, when MIT leaders speak on matters of public interest, whether in their own voice or in the name of MIT, this should always be understood as being open to debate by the broader MIT community.
A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views. Debate and deliberation of controversial ideas are hallmarks of the Institute’s educational and research missions and are essential to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, equity, and justice.
MIT has played a leading role in the continuing transformation of communication technology, and recent digital and networked modes of speech make our campus more accessible to all. At the same time, those technologies make our campus more disembodied and more vulnerable to the pull of ideological extremes. Although new modes of speech change the character of expression, such technologies need not and should not lessen our commitment to the values underlying free speech, even as we adapt creatively to meet the needs of our physical and virtual landscapes.
Ian Freeman believes he is, as a minister for the Shire Free Church in Keene, New Hampshire, a force for creating a more peaceful and just world. He thinks using and selling bitcoin is a key part of his ministry. As he said on a recent episode of his nationally syndicated radio show Free Talk Live, “I felt my calling to do this mission, to spread peace, and ultimately what bitcoin is doing is undermining the warmonger state. The more dollars are out of circulation, the more disempowered that state is.”
Freeman—not the last name he was born with—moved to New Hampshire from Florida in 2006 as an early participant in the Free State Project (FSP) because he wanted to help create a political unit that respected its citizens’ freedom (he is no longer associated with the organization). The FSP has made many strides in New Hampshire, and Freeman’s early evangelizing efforts helped make Keene, NH, a major center of retail bitcoin commerce.
But Freeman still lives in a nation that considers the freedom to use whatever currency one wants in whatever peaceful way one desires as something that justifies a five-year multi-agency investigation that comes to a head with a squad of armed agents assaulting your home in pre-dawn darkness, throwing grenades, destroying your security cameras, shattering windows and frames with an extending arm from a BearCat G3 armored vehicle, and then locking you up in a cage.
This was all mostly because Freeman didn’t follow federal procedures for permission to do what he did, or give the government what it considers its fair cut of any income he made. The feds took (among other things) about $180,000 in cash, some precious metals, and various computers from Freeman in their March 16, 2021, assault on his home.
Five of Freeman’s associates were also arrested and charged that day in separate raids, but after various plea deals and one total charge dropping, Freeman was the only one to go to trial earlier this month for his alleged crimes. Freeman spent 69 days locked up after his arrest, with the government trying to argue he was a flight risk, eventually getting out on a $200,000 bond. The government imposed on him, as he says in an email this week, “a tracking anklet that would detect if I left my property….Spyware on my computer and phone. Restrictions on not being able to use crypto at all. A list of people I couldn’t contact….The restrictions have destroyed my ability to help local businesses adopt cryptocurrency, which was a major part of my church mission.”
The original indictment on Freeman and his friends insisted they’d “exchanged in excess of $10,000,000 for virtual currency.”
Last week, a federal jury in New Hampshire found Freeman guilty on all the charges that ultimately went to trial. As Freeman’s lawyer Mark Sisti explained in a phone interview this week, 17 out of 25 charges were dropped before the trial, many related to bank fraud and wire fraud; Sisti figures the feds realized it would be hard to convict on those because, among other reasons, there “was no loss to banks” in Freeman’s actions.
Still, as the Department of Justice (DOJ) crowed in a press release, Freeman was convicted “on all counts of money laundering, conspiracy to launder money, operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, and tax evasion (four counts).”
As per the government’s general obsession with keeping track of every financial move we make, the government was upset Freeman did not, according to its regulations, sufficiently track and keep records on his customers. As the DOJ’s press release spun the situation, “By failing to register his business with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as required by law, disabling ‘know your customer’ features on his bitcoin kiosks, and ensuring that bitcoin customers did not tell him what they did with their bitcoin, among other things, Freeman created a business that catered to fraudsters.”
While he insists he deliberately harmed no one selling bitcoin via LocalBitcoins and a series of local bitcoin kiosks, the feds brought what they considered various victims of Freeman’s actions to the stand during the trial. Some scammers had their victims send dollars to Freeman, who turned them into bitcoin which was then sent to the scammers, who were then harder to trace back to the scam/crime.
Freeman asserts in an email that after he became aware some scammers were using his service, he imposed his own version of “know your customer” (KYC) practices. “Typical requirements would be for the person to show ID, and take a selfie with them holding a handwritten note that said something like, ‘I so-and-so am purchasing bitcoin from FTL_Ian on localbitcoins.com. I understand this transaction is non-refundable’ with their signature and phone number,” he says. With those and other practices, sometimes including phone calls to buyers, he notes, he felt he was doing “far more than the banks’ requirements to send wire transfers or deposit cash, but [the banks from which the scam victims sent the money to Freeman] never caught criminal charges for ‘assisting’ scammers.”
“The irony is,” Freeman says, “my KYC records were used against me at trial. The feds had no idea who these people were prior to raiding my house and then got their info from my own computer. I had no idea they were victims of scams.”
As noted by both associates of Freeman’s blogging the trial’s twists and turns, and by a Keene Sentinel reporter, the state seemed unable to get any of those victims (of scams including faked romantic interest to claims the scammer would help the victim with issues with Social Security payments) to say or prove on the stand that Freeman was consciously scamming them, or even aware for sure they were being scammed. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Aframe, a prosecutor in the case, in court tried to make the jury see this as Freeman being “willfully blind.” But a government filing in the case spelled out that “the Government does not allege that Freeman conspired with these fraudsters to launder proceeds.”
“Clearly, Ian was not a scammer,” Sisti insists. “It’s that simple. He is not a scammer. Their argument is that scammers used his platform and him to perpetuate their moneymaking scam.”
A money laundering charge Freeman was convicted on was hooked to an undercover agent who Freeman refused to do business with directly after the agent let Freeman know he was a drug dealer. That agent then used one of Freeman’s kiosks to turn cash into bitcoin. Freeman insists he did not encourage or know the person would do this, saying on the stand in the trial, “What should I have done? Tackled him? We don’t have anybody there” guarding the kiosk to make sure no wrongdoer uses it.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has for years been insisting that even peer-to-peer bitcoin sellers are under its purview, and bitcoin kiosk machines have long been targeted by the DOJ. As Freeman says in his email, “My arrest was one of many similar arrests going on across the country over several years. I have a higher profile than some of these folks, but the pattern is the same. They target a peaceful bitcoin seller who has not harmed anyone and then hit him with so many charges he taps out for a plea deal.” Freeman thinks it is part of “a really ugly picture of constant, desperate attack by the federal government against the crypto industry.”
But in a motion to dismiss the charges that Freeman joined earlier in the case, it is asserted that FinCEN overstepped its legal power in trying to make Freeman’s style of bitcoin sales illegal.
“The law that applies in this case did not authorize federal agency regulation of those engaged in the transmission or exchange of virtual currency. Virtual currency, which is now a multi-trillion-dollar part of the economy, did not even exist at the time the statute was passed,” the motion asserted, further arguing that Supreme Court doctrine insists that “regulatory agencies cannot presume from a word or two in a statute to have the authority to regulate vast and important sectors of the American economy. FinCEN was not entitled to presume that one word in a 2001 statute predicted the invention of virtual currency in 2008 and delegated to a federal agency full authority to regulate what has become a trillion-dollar sector of the American economy.”
Sisti, Freeman’s lawyer, insists the conviction will be appealed, though he was not prepared to discuss on what grounds specifically. He did, however, mention that motion denying FinCEN’s legitimate power, which might end up a possible line of legal attack.
Freeman’s sentencing is scheduled for April, and prosecutor Aframe told The Keene Sentinel that Freeman could end up with more than eight years behind bars. Freeman is currently out of custody, though he’s surrendered his passport and is under electronic monitoring on both his person and computer, until sentencing and likely appeal.
Freeman holds out hope his conviction will be overturned. But still, he knows “The dinosaur isn’t going into the tar pits without doing some thrashing around. Someone was bound to get hurt in the process of introducing a potential dollar-killer to the marketplace.”
On Final Day Of Power, House Dems Release 6 Years Of Trump Tax Records; GOP Warns Of Retaliation
We had the preview(which was clearly a nothingburger as no mainstream media entity wrote anything of significant note about it), and we had the summary (which fizzled badly in an already quiet news cycle as no smoking gun was found), and now the Democrat-run House Ways & Means Committee has released the full details of six years of former President Trump’s tax records(and still, establishment reportage has nothing to offer but pure speculation).
As The Wall Street Journal reports, the 46 documents (numbering 100s of pages) showed that Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, reported negative income in four of the six years from 2015 through 2020. The Trumps paid some form of federal taxes every year, but they reported income-tax liability of $750 or less in three of the six years.
The couple’s adjusted gross income totaled negative $53.2 million during that period. From 2015 through 2020, the Trumps’ total federal tax liability was $4.4 million, the committee report showed.
The documents also showed Trump’s businesses lost tens of millions of dollars while he was campaigning for president and in office.
Personally, Trump paid very little in federal income taxes in several of the years between 2015 and 2020, including nothing one year.
While tax experts aren’t expecting huge revelations from the raw returns for 2015 to 2020, the more detailed documents could provide additional information on key areas of interest regarding the former president’s businesses and professional associations.
“Those of us who are interested in his relationship with Russia will be looking for any kind of confirmation of what Don [Trump] Jr. said in 2008 that Trump interests had received much of their money from Russian sources,” former CIA officer and journalist Frank Snepp told the Hill.
Tl;dr: “There must be something here… if we just keep looking… and Russia collusion…”
Sadly, given the entire lack of leaks of anything substantive, we strongly suspect there no ‘there’ there.
“With the publicly released transcript of Democrats’ secret executive session, Americans now have confirmation that there was never a legislative purpose behind the public release of these confidential records and that the IRS was conducting audits prior to Democrats’ request,” Ways and Means Republican leader Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said in a statement on Friday.
“Despite these facts, Democrats have charged forward with an unprecedented decision to unleash a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president, overturning decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since Watergate.”
Finally, we note Bloomberg reporting that Democrats may end up regretting the move, as according to an anonymous aide, Republicans who will take charge of the House Ways and Means Committee in January will face pressure to retaliate by publishing the tax records of Democrats and their allies.
“Going forward, all future Chairs of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will have nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business and labor leaders or even the Supreme Court justices themselves,” Brady said.
Former Trump responded to the release of his tax returns:
“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people.”
The big question, of course, is whether the GOP turn the now-‘weaponized’ IRS on President Biden… or his son?
Bahamas Seized $3.5 Billion FTX Assets Over Risk Of ‘Imminent Dissipation’
Shortly after FTX Digital Markets filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Bahamian authorities seized $3.5 billion of digital assets from the failed cryptocurrency exchange, according to a statement late Thursday.
The assets were seized by the Bahamian Securities Commission, which cited a risk of “imminent dissipation” of the assets over concerns flagged by Bankman-Fried, which included potential cyberattacks against the exchange, Bloomberg reports.
According to bankruptcy filings, around $372 million worth of tokens were stolen from the exchange, out of roughly $700 million of token outflows from FTX within a 24 hour period, according to blockchain research firm Nansen.
The disclosure could mean that some FTX customers recover more losses than anticipated.
The Bahamian Securities Commission said the digital assets are under its “exclusive control” on a temporary basis until the country’s Supreme Court allows the regulator to return them to the customers and creditors who own them or to the joint liquidators. That could provide relief to some FTX customers after its current chief executive John J. Ray III, who is overseeing the restructuring, warned that the international customers could lose more funds than US peers.
Bahamian authorities are scrutinizing the web of relationships between bankrupt FTX.com, which is registered locally as FTX Digital Markets Ltd., and its trading firm, Alameda Research. -Bloomberg
According to Bloomberg, the US Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into the stolen assets, while the Bahamian Supreme Court suggested the Commission should lawfully assist in sharing information regarding FTX with US debtors and their representatives.
Earlier today we noted that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out roughly $684,000 from a crypto exchange in Seychelles while being under house arrest, CoinTelegraph reports.
SBF has cashed out $684,000 in crypto to an exchange in Seychelles while being under house arrest, according to the on-chain investigation by DeFi educator BowTiedIguana.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) analyst BowTiedIguana took to Twitter on Dec. 29 to report on a series of obfuscated wallet transactions allegedly linked to SBF, suggesting that the former FTX CEO could have violated release conditions to not spend more than $1,000 without permission from the court.
According to BowTiedIguana’s analysis, SBF’s public address (0xD5758) on Dec. 28 sent all remaining Ether to a newly created address (0x7386d). BowTiedIguana noted that SBF took over the address that was originally owned by Sushiswap creator from Chef Nomi in August 2020.
When SBF agreed to take over control of the Sushiswap exchange from anonymous founder Chef Nomi in August 2020, he asked for ownership to be transferred to his Ethereum addresshttps://t.co/nE9z9tLd2npic.twitter.com/vask9WqSHd
