EARN IT Act Abuses Privacy in the Guise of Protecting Kids

Governments have never liked it when their subjects keep secrets from them and they really don’t like encryption technology, which makes it easier for people to conceal their messages from prying eyes. But the public hasn’t been buying the eavesdropping that politicians are selling. So, the powers-that-be moved on to claiming that they’re concerned about protecting the children and just incidentally restricting the use of techniques for protecting privacy. The EARN IT Act is the latest effort to invade our communications, and its advocates occasionally let the mask slip.

The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act of 2022 is ostensibly about protecting kids from child porn. “The bill amends Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to remove blanket immunity from Federal civil, State criminal, and State civil child sexual abuse material laws entirely,” asserted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in a press release when he introduced the bill last week.

But Reason‘s Elizabeth Nolan Brown has covered the EARN IT Act and its predecessors through the various incarnations of the legislation, and points out that the bill is based on some false claims:

The main thrust of the EARN IT Act is to add another exception to Section 230 (the law that shields digital entities from some liability for user and customer communications) related to child pornography. What supporters of the law like to obscure is that digital entities are not shielded from federal prosecution if they break child porn laws. The EARN IT Act isn’t needed to criminally punish them for this.

So, if the law already holds accountable people who post child pornography, what’s going on here? Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a co-sponsor of the bill, showed his hand when asked by The Washington Post about the bill making encrypted services evidence of wrongdoing. “He said lawmakers wouldn’t offer a blanket exemption to using encryption as evidence, arguing companies might use it as a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card,'” reporter Cat Zakrzewski noted.

As a result, the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that “if enacted, EARN IT will put massive legal pressure on internet companies both large and small to stop using encryption and instead scan all user messages, photos, and files.” – READ MORE