The Senate Judiciary Committee is working to make sure it remains a big player in the tech debate as the Senate Commerce Committee moves quickly to tackle thorny issues in this arena.
Here’s what Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said when we asked if he wants Judiciary to have a voice in tech policy along with Commerce: “That’s why we’re having those hearings. It’s quite obvious.” Fair enough.
During a Grassley-led hearing yesterday on “Children’s Safety in the Digital Era,” lawmakers were eager to detail how they’re moving forward with issues in Judiciary’s jurisdiction.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he’d be bringing back with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) the Stop CSAM Act, which would make it easier for victims of online child exploitation to have the material removed and would expand internet companies’ liability.
Durbin also said he’ll introduce a bill with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Hawley to sunset protections against civil lawsuits for websites over their users’ posts. That shield, under a controversial provision known as Section 230, has prompted fierce pushback by the tech industry when Congress tries to change the policy.
Last year, the Senate did pass two tech-focused bills that originated in the Judiciary Committee — both of them efforts to tackle the proliferation of nonconsensual nudes — and the panel moved several bills to the floor. Still, measures that attempt to change Section 230, like Durbin’s Stop CSAM Act, have largely fallen flat.
Tech issues on the Judiciary agenda will be following tech bills that the Commerce Committee already advanced. The Commerce Committee pushed through the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which also tries to deal with the posting of explicit deepfakes and or nonconsensual nudes. The bipartisan bill from Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is in a strong position to be enacted. It was passed by the Senate last week.
Cruz’s panel also advanced his bill to keep kids off social media. Meanwhile, the Kids Online Safety Act, a bipartisan bill to regulate social media design for young users, also went through Commerce last year, as did a kids and teens privacy bill that came close to passing.
Hawley said he’d prefer the Senate start with his and Durbin’s exploitation bill and detailed a potential strategy to use unanimous consent to keep trying to move the bill through if it again makes it to the floor.
“I will do everything in my power to get it put on the floor,” he said. “If that means I have to UC it every week for the calendar year, I will absolutely do it.”
— Ben Brody and Lillian Juarez
