This Week In Techdirt History: December 7th – 13th

from the how-many-roads dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2020, the ACLU told congress not to add a terrible copyright bill to the must-pass government funding bill, Senator Tillis was trying to slide a dangerous felony streaming bill in as well (the details of which showed it was a weird gift to Hollywood at the expense of taxpayers), and Trump was doubling down again on his threat to veto the NDAA if it didn’t include a repeal of Section 230 (among other things). Meanwhile, as a parting shot on her way out of congress, Tulsi Gabbard introduced yet another attack on Section 230, while Biden’s top tech advisor trotted out his own dangerous ideas for “reforming” 230.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2015, it was Hillary Clinton doubling down on attacks on tech, in this case demanding a “solution” for encryption and a clampdown on free speech, while Mitch McConnell was asking Obama to spell out a law that would ban encryption so the Senate could deliver it, Rep. McCaul was proposing a “commission” to “force” Silicon Valley to undermine encryption, and James Comey was teaming up with Dianne Feinstein to mislead the public about encryption and promise new legislation. Meanwhile, in the wake of the shutdown of the NSA’s Section 215 program, Senators were calling for mandatory data retention for telcos, the Associated Press was making disingenuous claims about the program, and it turned out the NSA would still be accessing the old phone metadata it collected.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2010, the Wikileaks fallout continued. The more people tried to kill it, the more it spread. Twitter decided not to block it as a trending topic but stayed silent on whether it would shut down its account, while Senator Lieberman was saying the NY Times should be investigated for publishing Wikileaks documents (and we pointed out how strange it would have been if the paper had ignored them), and the State Department repeated its bizarre demand for Wikileaks to “return” leaked cables. Visa and Mastercard cut the site off after its latest leak was about them, the Defense Department appeared to be blocking any website with Wikileaks in the title, and amidst all this the State Department was going ahead with… hosting World Press Freedom Day.

Filed Under: history, look back