Senator Richard Blumenthal, Representative Jan Schakowksy, Human Rights Watch China Director Sophie Richardson, and MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito will receive the 2019 EPIC Champion of Freedom Award. The EPIC award is given annually to individuals who have helped safeguard the right of privacy, promote open government, and protect democratic values with courage and integrity. Past recipients include Representative Justin Amash, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Senator Kamala Harris, Garry Kasparov, Senator Patrick Leahy, Edward Snowden, and Judge Patricia Wald. The EPIC Awards dinner will take place on June 5 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The event is open to the public and tickets are still available.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, sponsored by Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The Act would give regulators more time to find scammers, increases civil penalties, promotes call authentication and blocking techniques, and brings together federal agencies and state attorneys general to coordinate prosecution of robocallers. EPIC has long advocated for robust telephone privacy protections and regularly files amicus briefs and comments in support of stronger consumer protections against robocalls.
A new report from the consumer group Public Citizen finds extensive conflicts of interest at the Federal Trade Commission. According to Public Citizen, most top officials at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) become lawyers and lobbyists for major technology companies after they leave the agency or bring Silicon Valley conflicts with them when they arrive. These conflicts help explain the FTC's chronic reluctance to enforce consumer protection and antitrust laws, said Public Citizen. EPIC previously urged the FTC to block anticompetitive mergers, such as Google's acquisition of DoubleClick and Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp, as well as to enforce the pending consent order against Facebook that EPIC helped establish in 2011. EPIC even sued the FTC when the consumer agency failed to enforce the consent order against Google, following the Buzz consent order. As of today, 423 days have passed since the FTC announced in March 2018 that it would reopen the investigation of Facebook. But still there is no fine, no report, and no update.
