Daily Archives: June 24, 2020

Why Bostock will never have the final word on human sexuality – Christian Post

Posted: June 24, 2020 at 6:18 am

By David Closson, Voices Contributor | Tuesday, June 23, 2020 Protesters gather in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., as it hears arguments on gender identity and workplace discrimination on October 08, 2019. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Our rapidly changing moral landscape presents a daunting challenge for Christians committed to biblical sexual ethics. The LGBT movement continues to challenge centuries of norms concerning the family, marriage, and human sexuality. And a recent Supreme Court decision means legal definitions and understanding regarding human sexuality are changing, too.

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Secular progressives often criticize conservative Christians for their alleged obsession with sexual ethics. But secular and progressive elites are increasingly forcing the issue, insisting everyone embrace their worldview and the full spectrum of LGBT policy positions or face social ostracizing, public shaming, loss of jobs, or other increasingly dire consequences. Those in positions of cultural and political influence are willing to use the coercive power of government to accomplish their political objectives. This was evident this week in the U.S. Senate as Democrats argued for the immediate passage of the Equality Act, legislation that represents one of the greatest threats to religious liberty ever introduced in Congress. It would gut our nations flagship religious liberty law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was passed nearly unanimously by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision inBostock v. Clayton County. The majority ruled that employment discrimination on the basis of sex prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be understood to include actions based on sexual orientation and gender identity. By reinterpreting the statue in this way, the Court essentially rewrote civil rights law.

Many conservatives were surprised by the decision and considered Justice Neil Gorsuchs majority opinion to be a betrayal of the originalist and textualist approach he had previously insisted guided his judicial philosophy. As both Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh pointed out in their respective dissents, the majority opinion authored by Gorsuch imposed a meaning that would have been foreign to those who authored the Civil Rights Act and ignored the plain meaning of the statute.

The consequences of theBostockdecision will play out for many years. In the immediate future, there are significant questions about how the ruling will affect religious liberty. Can religious institutions such as colleges and seminaries continue to have have sex-separated dormitories and housing? Are sex separated private spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing facilities now discriminatory? Will women athletes be forced to compete against biological males in both scholastic and professional sports? Will employers be forced to cover treatments and surgeries that are not medically necessary and that are in opposition to their religious beliefs on human embodiment?

Originalism and textualism are methods of interpreting the law. But as theologically conservative Christians, we hold to a form of originalism and textualism when reading and interpreting Scripture the historical grammatical method. In other words, we believe Gods Word is authoritative, infallible, and inerrant. Because the Bible is breathed out by God, followers of Christ are called to obey and align their lives with it (2 Tim. 3:16). In order to obey and align our lives with the Bible, we must read and interpret it.

The historical grammatical method of interpretation means we take seriously the grammar and syntax of the words and phrases that appear in the Bible because we want to know what the text says and what it means. We also want to place the text in its historical context. The Bible was written in a culture that is very different than our own. To understand many of the stories, we need some understanding of the ancient world in which it took place. Although this process of reading the Bible takes effort, there is no other faithful way to read Scripture.

As theologically conservative Christians, we know our views on marriage and sexuality are increasingly unfashionable and go against the cultural zeitgeist. But we hold to these views anyway, because we believe the Bibles teachings about marriage and human sexuality are clear.

Transgender activists posit a distinction between the biological reality of sex and the subjective, internal feeling of gender identity. The biblical worldview, however, affirms the goodness of the material creation and the human body. In fact, the doctrines of creation, incarnation, and bodily resurrection provide strong theological affirmation of our physical bodies. Genesis 1:31 says that everything God created, including the human body, is very good. In other words, our bodies (including our maleness or femaleness) are essential, integral components of who we are.

In a world disordered by the fall, the goodness of the body may be difficult for many to affirm, and the church should show grace to those who struggle with accepting their bodies. But Christians must also speak the truth in love and stand on our convictions, which biology and anatomy support.

Christians cannot and should not compromise their Bible-informed beliefs about human sexuality. Why? Because we believe in the authority of Gods Word. And because we believe the Bibles teachings are what is best for society and individual flourishing.

The real reason theologically conservative Christians disapprove of the LGBT movement has nothing to do with wanting to deny people rights or oppressing a group of people. Our convictions come from our compassion for them and our concern about the consequences of certain chosen behaviors. Both the Old and New Testaments prohibit homosexual conduct, and since God created us male and female (Gen. 1:27), we have no right to recreate ourselves any more than the clay has the right to tell the potter what to do (Is. 45:9).

As evidenced by the muted outcry to the Supreme Courts decision on Monday even among many conservative groups conservative Christians are increasingly on the periphery when it comes to our convictions on human sexuality. Christians, especially pastors, will continue to face mounting pressure to compromise or at least downplay the Bibles teaching on marriage and sexuality. However, we cannot compromise our beliefs because we are committed to Scripture. While the Courts decision is deeply discouraging, we do not give up. We know that we are advocating and fighting for timeless truths revealed to us in Scripture.

So, let us continue to articulate a biblically robust, theologically informed perspective on how Christians think about the major issues facing our nation in order to promote the true flourishing of individuals and of society.

David Closson is the Director of Christian Ethics and Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council.

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Where would menswear be without Black British designers? – i-D

Posted: at 6:18 am

Statues are falling, conversations are changing. Were in the middle of a much anticipated cultural revolution and its becoming clear that our perception of the world is beyond faulty. Amid those changes, even the ostensibly progressive creative industries are finally recognising their roles in building a flawed system. The Grammys have finally renamed their Urban Contemporary category in an attempt to stop the racial profiling of artists, and even Anna Wintour herself has apologised for the lack of support she has given to Black voices over her 32-year tenure at Vogue.

In place of London Fashion Week Mens, which was supposed to take place this past weekend, the British Fashion Council organised a three-day digital residency programme which saw designers being given a timeslot to showcase their creative output. Some hosted panel discussions, others streamed films, VR presentations and even live gigs. Keeping the conversation relevant to whats happening in the real world, many responded to the Black Lives Matter movement, with the BFCs own programming for #LFWReset focused on amplifying BAME voices.

Joe Casely-Hayford AW95

These are all important gestures of support to creatives that have so often been overlooked, but the obvious question is -- what about those that have already fallen victim to a corrupt system? Just like in general educational curricula, the presence of Black folk in fashion literature is sparse and ambiguous, to say the least. At the Royal College of Art, when we had a brief introduction to the history of fashion, Black designers contributions to history were never really mentioned, remembers Saul Nash, the Hackney-born designer and dancer, and current Fashion East recipient.

One name that may not have made it onto RCAs fashion history reading list, but has played a definitive role in establishing London as a major fashion capital is Joe Casely-Hayford. Born in Kent in 1956 into a line of influential Ghanaian creative polymaths, Joe was one of the first Black British fashion designers to attain mainstream success. After graduating from Saint Martin's School of Art in 1979, he started his career in the early 80s by upcycling surplus military tents into garments, before teaming up with his wife Maria to launch a namesake brand which originally specialised in shirting. His work in both menswear and womenswear earned him multiple nominations at the British Fashion Awards, as well as a broad fanbase that included everyone from Princess Diana to Lou Reed. A lot of people had the issue that they couldnt pigeon-hole him, everyone was always quite quick to make assumptions because of the colour of his skin. But his breadth of talent, which extended in so many different ways, made it impossible to define him as just one thing, explains Charlie Casely-Hayford, Joes son who took over their joint business upon his fathers passing in 2019.

Joe Casely Hayford SS99

Joe was the first-ever designer to design a capsule collection for Topshop back in 1995, and was involved in a whole range of creative ventures including the design of The Barbicans seminal exhibition on the art of African textiles that same year. A decade later, he became the creative director of the heritage Savile Row tailoring brand Gieves & Hawkes, and in 2009, joined arms with his stylist-designer-model son to launch Casely-Hayford. This new brand brought together Joes decades of experience and trailblazing with Charlies new perspective, creating a cross-generational approach to a refined wardrobe. Our collections were an extension of conversations weve been having for years, and thats how we would always design, says Charlie, whose parents never really encouraged him to work in fashion. A large part of that was down to the struggles that he had in the industry, he didnt want his kids to go through the same thing. Still, both my sister [Alice Casely-Hayford, Net-A-Porter & Porter Magazine Content Director] and I ended up in fashion.

When Louis Vuitton first announced Virgil Abloh as its menswear artistic director, he became the first African-American man to head an LVMH-backed brand. Last year, Rihanna was named the Black woman to launch her own brand with the support of the French conglomerate. But before Virgil and Riri, there was Ozwald Boateng. Appointed as the artistic director of Givenchys men's division in 2003, the London-native self-taught designer of Ghanaian descent became the first-ever Black person to head the design team of a French Maison. His appointment didnt come out of nowhere, though -- for two decades beforehand, Ozwald has steadily built a tailoring empire with his signature vivid colours and decorative fabrics, often paying homage to his heritage by elevating classic tailoring with elements of traditional dress.

Oswald Boateng AW96

He created bespoke costumes for some legendary films and TV show -- including some of those outrageous suits Carries BFF Stanford Blatch wore on Sex and The City. Ozwald was a fixture of 00s zeitgeist, but just as he was preparing to take over America, the atmosphere shifted. His vibrant hues and boxy cuts went out of style, swapped out for the outr sex-appeal of exposed chests and slim-fit shirts. The industry quickly forgot about all the barriers he broke. Business declined, global stores were closed, and magazines and newspapers decided to exchange the figure of a confident party boy for an arrogant, out-of-touch man. The Guardian gave his self-produced documentary, A Mans Story, one star, while GQ put him top of their 2014 Worst Dressed list. Thats nine places above Nigel Farage. Long before the overflowing of kindness, the industrys message was clear [read in Heidi Klums voice] one day youre in and the next day youre out.

While he may have been absent from recent fashion week schedules, Ozwalds influence is everywhere. He remains the only Black-owned business on Savile Row, and last year, he hosted a show in New Yorks Apollo Theatre in honour of the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance.

Indeed, a key issue in the industry remains the lack of a visible presence of Back folk in both business and creative positions in the industry, showing the next generation they too can one day take the helm. This has, however, slowly changed in recent years, as designers like Martine Rose, Nicholas Daley, Wales Bonner and Samuel Ross have picked up the torch and run full-speed ahead into creating successful businesses.

Martine Rose AW20

A South Londoner with her HQ in Tottenham, Martine launched her much-loved eponymous label in 2009 and has regularly collaborated with brands like Napapijri and Nike. Over the past decade, she has been a defining figure in developing what some might define as streetwear but is in fact just a resolutely contemporary take on ready-to-wear. Proving her influence beyond her own brand, Martine became a menswear consultant for Balenciaga when Demna Gvasalia took over the creative direction, a stint she recently finished after three years.

While the consultant role is one that has increasingly been offered to Black figures in fashion whether as collaborative artists or members of diversity panels rarely have they been offered the most lucrative roles.

Diors Resort 2020 show in Morocco came under plenty of criticism when they revealed its theme to be common ground, presenting luxury interpretations of elements of traditional garments from across the African continent. To justify the move, Maria Grazia Chiuri surrounded herself with collaborators who had authority on the subject, including anthropologists, African artists and textile specialists, as well as London-born Grace Wales Bonner. She began her career in 2014 with her CSM graduate collection titled Afrique. An intellectual approach to exploring Black identity in the context of contemporary menswear was quickly defined as her brands core and her immaculate execution made her an industry favourite. Since then, she has won just about every fashion prize out there, curated her own exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, and had Meghan Markle wear a custom Grace Wales Bonner design. PS. Shes 29.

A-COLD-WALL* AW20

Her fellow fashion award darling is Samuel Ross who has had quite an unorthodox experience of getting to the turnover of 12m his brand A-COLD-WALL* hit last year. Originally from Northamptonshire, he studied graphic design and illustration at De Montfort University in Leicester before being taken under Virgil Ablohs wing, assisting him on Off-White as well as on Kanye Wests Yeezy line. In 2015, he finally launched a brand of his own. Fortunately, my home fostered an incredibly creative environment, with memories such as building cameras with my father, discussing architecture, Apple products and visiting computer fairs, Samuel shares.

His conceptual approach to garments as design objects was routinely labelled as streetwear from the beginning. While this term first entered the mainstream fashion vernacular in the 90s, its overuse can almost exclusively be traced to Louis Vuittons AW17 menswear show which debuted Kim Jones infamous Supreme collaboration. In some ways, streetwear has become fashions version of urban -- a catch-all term for all non-white style identities. It's a coded term, a lazy term. Its quite tiresome, and illogical too. To be direct, it often reflects a lack of sensitivity and understanding displayed by the author, Samuel says.

Nicholas Daley SS20. Photography Piczo

Another designer using their platform to spotlight other Black creatives is Nicholas Daley, who established the multi-sensory potential of garments at his CSM graduate show in 2013. Bringing together the influences his Jamaican father and Scottish mother instilled in him growing up, Nicholas asked legendary musician and artist Don Letts to walk in his graduate show. He was really interesting, because of the way he blended punk-rock with reggae music, he says. His shows blend together fashion with live music by performers from Nicholas own creative community. I see fashion as a vehicle for saying so much more. Its the three Cs -- community, craftsmanship and culture -- that are the backbone of what my brand is about.

Proof of recent progress in terms of the representation of Black voices on the fashion week schedule comes in the new wave of emerging menswear designers exploring their multi-cultural backgrounds and complex definitions of British-ness. Priya Ahluwalia consistently merges her dual Indian and Nigerian heritage in both the techniques employed in the production of the garments and their presentation. With a sustainable outlook which includes reworking existing garments and textiles that would otherwise end up in landfill, Priya continues to build the puzzle of her past by creating the fashion of the future. Ahluwalias most recent project is a Jalebi, a photography book which captures Britains first Punjabi community in Southall through the lens of Laurence Ellis. The best thing about London is the accessibility there are so many talented people, as well as suppliers and manufacturers which helps with the process of collaboration, says Priya.

Bianca Saunders SS20. Photography Ronan McKenzie

Also based in South London, Bianca Saunders work focuses on introducing subtly feminine elements to templates of Black masculinity, a theme she originally found by looking at yardie dancehall culture during her MA at RCA. It was about the way some Jamaican men choose to groom from shaping their eyebrows to the upkeep of hair, she explains. Appearance was key to presenting themselves. For Black History Month in November 2019, Bianca curated a show in the stalls of Brixton Village, with some of the photographs by Ronan McKenzie starring her own family wearing Bianca Saunders SS20. Her latest presentation was one of the standout moments of London Fashion Week Mens AW20, as she staged a presentation in which models danced in her fluid, modern tailoring at 9:30am.

The person behind the choreography was Saul Nash, a close friend of Biancas, who himself also creates garments that blend performance and fashion and focuses on the way clothes move. He recognises the big shift in the mentality of the designers which has helped create this network: Were now entering a generation where its not about elbowing each other to get to the top, but its about understanding that were all different and trying to understand how we can work together to get through it.

According to a 2018 report by University of the Arts London, 47% of the students across their five universities (London College of Fashion, Central Saint Martins, Camberwell College of Arts, London College of Communications and Chelsea College of Arts) come from BAME backgrounds. Among them is Cameron Williams, a graduate of this years CSM MA class whose final collection stood out for its explicit yet subversive interpretation of his familys West African heritage. He titled both the outing and his new-found brand Nuba, after a somewhat derogatory name, given to generalise the Nilotic tribes of the Nuba Mountains of Sudan by Arab traders and settlers throughout history.

Cameron Williams AW20. Photography Sharmaarke Ali Adan. Direction Jebi Labembika

For his graduate collection Cameron drew influence from his ancestry by combining the indigenous influences of sculptural wrapping and frugal functionality, with the urban streetwear influences of my surroundings. Its what he defines as an ideal of survival fashion. His plans for the years to come? Funding is also an important factor for me, which I see becoming more accessible as Black-owned businesses within art and fashion are providing financial grants to others, endorsing the progress of upcoming Black professionals. The aim for the near future is to develop into a cultural entity that promotes a world without tokenism, fetishism or colourism, and changes our approach to the understanding of indigenous cultures.

Clearly, there are so many changes that still need to be made, but the sole responsibility [shouldnt] be on Black-owned brands to make these changes, Charlie Casely-Hayford says. Instead, we need to look at structures and how to create a culture of belonging, which means integrating a deeper understanding through the corporate structure -- this includes looking at executive boards and people behind the scenes. The idea of just having a Black model just isnt enough anymore as that wont make a difference on a deeper level.

One thing I have realised recently is how closely my following watches me and absorbs everything I do and say, Bianca adds. As designers, we have this platform to reach a very engaged audience of young fans coming through, we have the power to influence for the better. Hopefully, some of that power will in the future be amplified by those that are already on the top of the pyramid. Whats indisputable in our industry today is the imbalance between the contribution Black fashion designers have made to building contemporary fashion and the attention their work has been given. Instead of just sitting on advisory boards and offering their experiences as consultants, there need to be more Black voices guiding the industry from its highest seats. If it werent for those that came before, the fashion landscape we so deeply cherish would be a pale imitation of what it is today.

Joe Casely-Hayford SS01

Credits

All imagery courtesy of the credited designers

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A woke new world: Who deemed the outdated attitudes on display in 2019s Aladdin movie unacceptable in 2020? – RT

Posted: at 6:18 am

Sky Movies placed a warning on the Disney remake letting viewers know that they might be offended by a childrens film. If I had three wishes for corporate wokeness they would be stop, stop and please, please, please stop.

Life comes at you fast, as the kids say, but it apparently hurtles towards you at the speed of sound, if youre Sky Movies. The entertainment provider has taken to putting warnings on films that display outdated attitudes and cultural depictions which may cause offence today and this apparently includes the Aladdin adaptation that came out last year.

Im just about old enough to remember the dim and distant days of May 2019, when the Guy Ritchie offering received its cinematic release. A very dark time for the movie industry, replete with hideous racism. I mean how could anyone watching this remake of the 1992 animation, with its virtually entirely ethnic-minority casting, not conclude it was an obvious racist dog whistle?

Will Smith can only have taken the role of the genie because he wanted to mock the Middle East. Ritchie himself was clearly trying to sneak his deep-seated contempt for Arabs into the cultural zeitgeist by implying they all ride magic carpets, believe in jinn, and frequently and spontaneously burst into song. Frankly, how Disney ever signed off on the project is staggering, now we view it through the enlightened eyes of 2020. How anyone can look back on what we thought was acceptable 13 months ago with anything but a mixture of horror and disgust is beyond me.

Personally, Im shocked that it got away with a PG (Parental Guidance) rating at the time. How on earth could the British Board of Film Classification possibly have thought it acceptable for children to watch a blue Will Smith dance around in a spangly turban? Those poor kids must either have been scarred for life or will have to undergo extensive re-education. I mean, the only appropriate solution for any child whose parents took them to the cinema to see Aladdin is that they should be immediately taken into care to stop them from growing up to be white supremacists.

And Aladdin isnt the only movie that Sky is warning us has outdated attitudes. Aliens obviously does (though those views are presumably outdated because its set in the future, so humanity hasnt had a chance to develop them yet), and The Jungle Book remake from 2016 carries the warning, too, as do Flash Gordon and Trading Places. Tropic Thunder and White Chicks also both bear the advisory, perhaps for more obvious reasons, but both of those movies are still less than 20 years old and stirred up no controversy at the time, being widely praised as great comedies.

Obviously, this all started with the Gone with the Wind debacle, which also fell foul of the outdated attitudes warning on Sky, having been pulled altogether by HBO last week for the same reason. But while that movie which, incidentally, provided the role that earned the first Oscar for a black actress, in the shape of Hattie McDaniel was made in 1939, whereas Aladdin was made last year. Woke madness is currently rocketing through time at a rate previously achieved only by Marty McFly.

Bizarrely, neither 12 Years a Slave nor Django Unchained have been slapped with this warning, despite literally being about slavery and both containing dialogue that virtually uses the n-word as a form of punctuation.

This nonsense needs to stop. It makes the entire woke brigade look ridiculous. How can you expect anyone to believe your movement isnt operating some kind of year zero approach to the world when its terrifying corporations into slapping outdated attitudes trigger warnings on childrens films from the previous calendar year? Aladdin is a light-hearted Disney musical, not Birth of a Nation or Triumph of the Will, and even if it were, watching movies doesnt make someone a racist. Erasing the past is bad enough erasing yesterday is completely insane.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Google is on a mission to stop you from reusing passwords – The Verge

Posted: at 6:15 am

Passwords are one of the worst things on the internet, Mark Risher, Googles senior director for account security, identity, and abuse told The Verge. Though theyre essential for security and to help people log in to many apps and websites, theyre one of the primary, if not the primary, ways that people actually end up getting compromised.

Its a strange thing for a Google security executive to say because the last time you logged into Gmail, you probably typed in a password. But the company has been trying to nudge users away from the model for years, or at least minimize the damage. And in the coming weeks, one of Googles quietest tools in that fight the Password Checkup feature will be getting a higher profile, as it joins the Security Checkup dashboard built into every Google account.

Risher is right to be concerned. Though you can use a tool like a password manager to help keep track of your logins, a lot of people just end up reusing passwords for many accounts. Fifty-two percent of people reuse the same password for multiple accounts, according to the results of a poll published in February 2019 by Google and polling firm Harris. Thirteen percent of people reuse that password for all of their accounts, that poll found. And Microsoft said in 2019 that 44 million Microsoft accounts used logins that had been leaked online.

While reusing passwords can be one way to remember a complex word, phrase, or combination of letters, numbers, and symbols that you think no one will ever be able to guess, the practice can put your personal information in danger. If that reused password gets leaked as part of a data breach, hackers could then have the key to many of your other online accounts no matter how complex the phrase is.

We know from other research weve done in the past that people whove had their data exposed by a data breach are 10 times more likely to be hijacked than a person thats not exposed by one of these breaches, said Kurt Thomas, a member of Googles anti-abuse and security research team.

Google has been trying to help users build better password habits for some time, slowly but surely. For years, the company has offered a built-in password manager in Google Accounts on Chrome and Android that can save your passwords and autofill them on websites and apps, for example.

But over the past year or so, Google has also been working to help people proactively make better passwords with Password Checkup. The tool checks logins against a database of 4 billion leaked credentials, seeing if the password youre typing in matches one thats already leaked. It launched first as a Chrome extension in February 2019, and Google baked it into Google Accounts in October and into Chrome in December.

Its not a new idea, but Google is uniquely well-positioned to offer something like Password Checkup. The company has access to billions of passwords and the scale to roll out Password Checkup to billions of users in a way that integrates with account security tools on which many people already rely.

Figuring out how to let Password Checkup flag compromised credentials in a privacy-respecting way was a tough technical problem that required a combined effort from both Google and Stanford. The challenge was finding a way to automatically check a users credentials against a database of breached logins without revealing that information to Google or giving the user access to the whole database, all while scaling that solution to Googles huge user base, researchers from both organizations told me.

To do so, Google stores a hashed and encrypted version of every known username and password exposed by a data breach. Whenever you log into an account, Google will send a hashed and encrypted version of your login info against that database. That way, Google cant see your password, and you cant see Googles list of known-compromised logins. If Google detects a match, Google will show an alert recommending that you change your password for that site.

Google gets compromised logins from multiple different sources and trusted partners, Thomas said, including underground forums where password dumps are openly shared. We have an ethical policy that we will never pay criminals for stolen data, he continued. But just by virtue of how these markets work, very often, [stolen data] will bubble up and become available. Using personas Google has in those marketplaces, the company can acquire the data, he said.

Password Checkup took about two to three years from inception to having it appear in many Google products, according to Thomas. Down the line, Google wants to have Security Checkup email you when it detects that a stored login has been compromised in a data breach, which the company plans to launch in the coming months. And later this year, Google aims to let people use Password Checkup in Chrome even if they arent logged into a Google account.

Google isnt the only company to offer some kind of password-checking functionality. Paid password manager 1Password recommends changing weak or duplicated passwords and also offers Watchtower, which checks your logins against Troy Hunts Have I Been Pwned database of more than 9 billion compromised accounts and flags any matches. And Apple announced yesterday that its next version of Safari will have a password-monitoring tool that appears to work similarly to Password Checkup.

But Google has an advantage in helping people with their passwords thanks to its massive scale. And tools like Password Checkup and the built-in password manager ladder up to a broader goal to make online security easier for users.

What I like security to be and what I think [Password Checkup] is a good example of is, how do you make it easier for regular people to do the right thing? Googles VP of security engineering Royal Hansen told The Verge. Its not about alerting you with more and more problems, he said. Its about making it easier for you to do, frankly, the most basic step.

Update June 23rd, 4:06PM ET: Added context about where Password Checkup is already available.

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Apple, Google and chorus of tech business leaders slam Trump’s new visa restrictions – ABC News

Posted: at 6:15 am

A chorus of business leaders have slammed the Trump administration's announcement that it is cracking down on a handful of work visas including those widely used by high-skilled tech workers.

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Monday banning a handful of new visas through the end of the year including the H-1B visa (largely used by workers in the tech sector) and the L-1 visa (often used for transferring managers or executives from the foreign arm of a company to the U.S.), among other visa types.

Some 388,403 H-1B petitions were approved in fiscal year 2019, with 138,927 of those petitions being first-timers for initial employment at their companies, according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report released in March.

More than 66% of those approved H-1B petitions were for workers in "computer-related occupations," according to the report.

Applicants for the H-1B visa must be highly educated. According to the same report looking at last year's data, 36% of the H-1B petitioners that were approved held a bachelor's degree, 54% held a master's degree and 8% held a doctorate degree.

In the proclamation, the Trump administration presented the move as a way of freeing up thousands of jobs for American workers amid the coronavirus-induced unemployment crisis.

Critics have argued that highly skilled tech workers especially in STEM fields, however, can actually help create jobs in the U.S. economy.

A study from the nonprofit immigration research and advocacy organization the New American Economy argued that every H-1B visa holder creates 1.83 jobs for native-born American workers.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas J. Donohue called the proclamation a "severe and sweeping attempt to restrict legal immigration" that will actually reduce job creation.

"Putting up a 'not welcome' sign for engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses and other workers wont help our country, it will hold us back. Restrictive changes to our nations immigration system will push investment and economic activity abroad, slow growth, and reduce job creation," Donohue said in a statement.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has long defended the need for an immigrant workforce at Apple, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the proclamation.

"Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity, and hope in the enduring promise of the American Dream," Cook tweeted. "There is no new prosperity without both. Deeply disappointed by this proclamation."

Apple had 1,136 H-1B visa approvals during 2019's fiscal year, according to data from the USCIS.

In this handout provided by Apple, CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during the 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at an empty Steve Jobs Theater June 22, 2020, in Cupertino, Calif.

Google and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai echoed Cook's sentiments.

"Immigration has contributed immensely to Americas economic success, making it a global leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today," Pichai wrote in a tweet. "Disappointed by todays proclamation - well continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity for all."

Google had 2,678 H-1B visa approvals in 2019, according to the USCIS data.

In this May 7, 2019, file photo, Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address at the 2019 Google I/O conference at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif.

Microsoft's President Brad Smith also responded on Twitter, saying that immigrants "are contributing to this country at a time when we need them most."

"Now is not the time to cut our nation off from the worlds talent or create uncertainty and anxiety. Immigrants play a vital role at our company and support our countrys critical infrastructure," he wrote. "They are contributing to this country at a time when we need them most."

Microsoft had 1,701 H-1B visa approvals in 2019, according to the U.S. CIS data.

Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, added that these immigrant workers generate "innovation" and "growth."

"As we plan for recovery from the COVID-19 crisis let's focus on common sense & fair immigration policies. H-1B workers should be treated with respect & dignity," Benioff wrote. "They generate real innovation & growth . . . benefiting us all and fueling our economy. We embrace all our Ohana."

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also reacted to the news on Twitter, writing, "Very much disagree with this action. In my experience, these skillsets are net job creators. Visa reform makes sense, but this is too broad."

Finally, Twitter also slammed the announcement in a statement, arguing the move is damaging to the "economic strength" of the U.S.

"This proclamation undermines Americas greatest economic asset: its diversity. People from all over the world come here to join our labor force, pay taxes, and contribute to our global competitiveness on the world stage," Twitter's VP of public policy and philanthropy, Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, said in a statement. "Unilaterally and unnecessarily stifling Americas attractiveness to global, high-skilled talent is short-sighted and deeply damaging to the economic strength of the United States."

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Google stokes GOP allegations of tech bias – Politico

Posted: at 6:15 am

With help from Cristiano Lima and John Hendel

Programming announcement: This 10 a.m. version of Morning Tech will end daily publication this fall and move to a week-ahead style newsletter that publishes on Monday mornings. The daily 6 a.m. version will continue for POLITICO Pro subscribers. For information on how you can continue to receive daily policy content, as well as information for current POLITICO Pro subscribers, please visit our website.

GOP vs. Google: Googles dominance of online advertising is already under Justice Department scrutiny. Now, Republicans are pointing to Googles move to cut off ad revenue to a right-wing blog as proof of alleged anti-conservative bias and reason to roll back Section 230.

Facebook and the election: Facebook is launching a sweeping get-out-the-vote effort as critics accuse the company of not doing enough to address potentially dangerous or misleading content on the platform.

MT scoop: More than 100 leading civil rights and civil liberties groups are demanding House leaders cut off federal funding for law enforcement surveillance technologies that are antithetical to the First and Fourth Amendment.

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ITS WEDNESDAY; WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! Im your host, Alexandra Levine. A friendly reminder that fellow tech reporter Cristiano Lima is interviewing Microsoft President Brad Smith on Thursday at 2 p.m. Sign up for that discussion here; watch live here. What are you most interested to hear about? Send us your questions at the info below.

Got a news tip? Write me at [emailprotected], or follow along @Ali_Lev and @alexandra.levine. An event for our calendar? Send details to [emailprotected]. Anything else? Full team info below. And don't forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.

GOP VS. GOOGLE Googles decision to block right-wing website ZeroHedge from using the Google Ad platform (and its threat to do the same for The Federalist) has added fuel to GOP calls to roll back Section 230 protections for tech giants for alleged anti-conservative bias and at a time when theyre already feeling emboldened by President Donald Trumps recent social media executive order. Google said Tuesday that the comments sections on those sites contained derogatory, racially fueled content, and our policies do not allow ads to run against dangerous or derogatory content, which includes comments on sites.

Republicans react: The House Judiciary Committees top Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, raised alarm on Twitter about tech companies taking action against conservative sites during an election year. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who alleged on Twitter that activist journalists at NBC (which had earlier reported the story) pressured Google into censoring The Federalists website, adding: When will Big News and Big Tech #StopTheBias?! And FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has thrown his weight behind the presidents executive order targeting Section 230, said Tuesday evening that Google makes one of the strongest arguments yet for Section 230 reform.

Whats next: Googles dominance over online ads is already raising eyebrows at the Justice Department, as Leah has reported. But Googles decision to penalize websites based on their comments sections could spark another big debate: That kind of content is protected by the First Amendment, while Googles right to take down that content is protected by the so-called good samaritan clause of Section 230, which states the company can make good faith attempts to crack down on objectionable material without opening itself up to liability. Watch for these concerns to potentially come up today during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation webinar with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on the agencys role in reforming Section 230.

AHEAD OF ELECTION, FACEBOOK PLEDGES MAJOR VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE Facebook aims to help 4 million people register to vote in the months leading up to November's presidential election, a major get-out-the-vote drive that comes as critics assert the social network has not done enough to stamp out misleading posts that undermine the democratic process, Steven reports.

Pre-empting the critics: In a USA Today op-ed Tuesday evening, Zuckerberg acknowledged that these new actions wont satisfy everyone. "Everyone wants to see politicians held accountable for what they say and I know many people want us to moderate and remove more of their content," he wrote in the editorial. "But accountability only works if we can see what those seeking our votes are saying, even if we viscerally dislike what they say."

Critics have accused Zuckerberg of abdicating responsibility on content moderation, particularly in its recent decision not to take down inflammatory and potentially dangerous posts from Trump. (Backlash against that decision prompted Zuckerberg to announce the social media giant would re-examine its policies against violent threats and voter suppression.)

FIRST IN MT: GROUPS URGE CONGRESS TO DROP SURVEILLANCE TECH FUNDS More than 100 civil rights and civil liberties groups today are calling on House leaders to cease federal funding for the surveillance technologies that are being used to militarize our communities and criminalize dissent. In a letter going out today to top lawmakers in the House and its Judiciary Committee, the groups say law enforcement use of cutting-edge tools to monitor protests against the killing of George Floyd has chilled activists' free expression rights.

What theyre pushing for: The groups which include the ACLU, Color of Change, Free Press and the Center for Democracy & Technology also call for dramatic changes to our surveillance infrastructure, which has also contributed to increased militarization and policing abuses. They urged legislators to stop agencies from using their intelligence assets for general policing, including surveillance of protests.

The background: The push comes as Democratic lawmakers have increasingly sounded the alarm on law enforcement surveillance, including the use of emerging technologies like facial recognition software and drones, at the recent wave of racial justice protests.

Where talks stand on the Hill: The bicameral Democratic police reform package included some narrow checks on such tools, including banning warrantless federal law enforcement use of facial recognition software on body-cam footage. But the incoming Senate GOP policing package includes no mentions of facial recognition software, biometric identification or surveillance more broadly, according to bill text obtained by POLITICOs Marianne LeVine signaling daylight on the issue between the two sides.

INDUSTRYS MIXED MESSAGING ON THE FIGHT AGAINST RACIAL INJUSTICE The Internet Association is out this morning with a statement stressing the industrys commitment to diversity and inclusion and sharing guidelines for lawmakers working to address racial injustice. The catch-22: Several of the trade groups member companies have been accused in recent weeks of projecting messages of racial solidarity and progressive values to the outside world that some employees say do not mirror the firms internal culture or business decisions.

Former workers from one member company that had declared solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, Pinterest, went public this week with stories about racism and gaslighting they said they endured under leadership there. Members Amazon and Microsoft were called out for expressing solidarity while also providing surveillance tools to law enforcement. (Theyve since bent to public pressure to take temporary timeouts from facial recognition.) Airbnb, also a member, on Monday announced Project Lighthouse, a joint effort with racial justice group Color of Change to identify bias (around first names or profile photos, for example) and measure discrimination when booking or hosting on the platform.

IA believes that Black Lives Matter, the trade association said today in what it described as a value statement. It stressed the sectors commitment to creating a more diverse and inclusive online community and workforce and outlined steps the industry is taking to get there. Those include IAs second annual survey examining existing diversity and inclusion efforts at member companies and a soon-to-launch job referral site, meant to be a centralized hub for diverse job applicants to apply to open positions at those firms. IA also called on Congress to reform accountability measures and transparency in policing; demilitarize law enforcement; and invest in alternatives to incarceration.

LIGADO FIGHT REDUX Tuesdays reconfirmation hearing for GOP FCC Commissioner Mike ORielly turned into another tussle over the agencys April order approving satellite company Ligado Networks 5G plans, which critics like the Pentagon say will disrupt GPS. Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) played ORielly off of two other nominees, for positions at the departments of Transportation and Commerce, who expressed alarm about Ligado.

Quote du jour: Im not sure my fellow colleague at the table is right to say NTIA has been uniformly opposed to the situation. My conversations with multiple people suggest that NTIA has had a different viewpoint over the time period, and it wasnt until the dismissal of an administrator that the position was as it is now. Translation: ORielly is saying the Trump administration was less hostile to Ligado prior to the resignation of former Administrator David Redl in May 2019.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, meanwhile, defended the Ligado decision in a letter to several Senate Commerce members.

MEANWHILE: WICKER PLANS BROADBAND LEGISLATION? During that hearing, the Commerce chairman revealed hes now focused on how to speed up the disbursement of rural broadband subsidies from the FCCs October Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction of $16 billion. Although he previously had expressed interest in speeding up when that auction begins, Wicker says hes turned his attention to how to fast-track getting the broadband subsidy money out the door to telecom providers after the first phase of that auction happens.

I may have a proposal, Wicker told ORielly. Once phase 1 auction occurs, I think we can help you with some extra funds and some incentive from the administration, on a bipartisan basis, to move this ahead.

A message from Facebook:

How Facebook is preparing for the US 2020 election

Tripled safety and security teams to 35,000 people Implemented 5-step political ad verification Providing greater political ad transparency Launching new Voting Information Center

Learn about these efforts and more.

Cheryl Bruner, previously a longtime in-house lobbyist for IBM, is joining Red Hats Washington office as public policy director. Shes expected to focus on information technology and telecommunications issues as well as lobbying Congress.

Will tech CEOs testify?: The CEOs of Amazon, Facebook and Google have said they would testify before the Houses antitrust panel if all CEOs of those companies, and Apple, collectively agree to, POLITICO reports but Apple remains a holdout.

EU antitrust spotlight: Apple now has a target on its back, POLITICO reports, On Tuesday, the iPhone maker found itself on the wrong side of the law when the European Commission opened two antitrust investigations one into whether the company treated rivals like the music-streaming service Spotify unfairly in its popular app store; the other into how other competitors were treated in its mobile payments service.

Meanwhile: Apple faced harsh criticism on Tuesday from regulators and the companies behind some of the most popular apps in its App Store, including Tinder and Fortnite, a sign of the growing discontent with Apples grip on the mobile economy, WaPo reports.

Opinion: How Iran Became the New Battle Line Between Conservatives and Twitter, via POLITICO Magazine.

If I had $5 billion: Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, is quietly building a mysterious 2,100-acre luxury retreat ranch in Colorado for American public school teachers, Vox Recode reports.

Zynn, de-platformed: TikTok rival Zynn, which in recent weeks had been the top free iPhone app on Apples U.S. App Store, has been removed from both the iOS and Android app stores, Business Insider reports.

ICYMI: T-Mobile is laying off hundreds of Sprint employees, TechCrunch reports.

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([emailprotected], @bkingdc), Heidi Vogt ([emailprotected], @HeidiVogt), Nancy Scola ([emailprotected], @nancyscola), Steven Overly ([emailprotected], @stevenoverly), John Hendel ([emailprotected], @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima ([emailprotected], @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine ([emailprotected], @Ali_Lev), and Leah Nylen ([emailprotected], @leah_nylen).

TTYL.

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Former Google executive, Sridhar Ramaswamy, takes aim at his old company with startup Neeva – ETtech.com

Posted: at 6:15 am

(Sridhar Ramaswamy/Greylock Ventures)By Daisuke Wakabayashi

By the end of his 15 years at Google, Sridhar Ramaswamy, then the executive in charge of the companys $115 billion advertising arm, had grown disillusioned with the business he had helped build.

The relentless pressure to maintain Googles growth, he said, had come at a heavy cost to the companys users. Useful search results were pushed down the page to squeeze in more advertisements, and privacy was sacrificed for online tracking tools to keep tabs on what ads people were seeing.

The final straw came in November 2017 when news reports found videos of scantily clad children on YouTube featuring ads from Deutsche Bank, Amazon, eBay and Adidas. The advertisements were served automatically by the technology systems overseen by Ramaswamys team.

Nearly two years after he left Google, he is testing his newfound conviction by mounting a challenge against his former employer. His new company, Neeva, is a search engine that looks for information on the web as well as personal files like emails and other documents. It will not show any advertisements and it will not collect or profit from user data, he said. It plans to make money on subscriptions from users paying for the service.

As evidenced by the antitrust investigations into Googles businesses, challenging the company is no easy task. Google accounts for roughly 90% of all searches globally and competitors have tried unsuccessfully for years to make inroads.

Neeva faces the additional hurdle of getting people to pay for something that many have come to expect as free. While there is a growing awareness that free services from Google and Facebook come at the expense of personal data, many consumers even those who express a concern about their privacy are often unwilling to pay for an alternative.

Neeva recalls a notion raised, ironically, by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a 1998 research paper when they were doctoral students at Stanford University. They wrote, at the time, that advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results.

Search advertising has become much more sophisticated since the 1990s, but much of the same conflicts of interest remains, according to Ramaswamy. Companies are often torn between serving the interests of advertisers or the interests of users.

He pointed to how Google has devoted more space to ads at the top of search results with the results users are seeking pushed down the page an issue more pronounced on smaller smartphone screens.

Its a slow drift away from what is the best answer for the user and how do we surface it, he said. As a consumer product, the more pressure there is to show ads, the less useful in the long term the product becomes.

Google said it did extensive user testing and found that people see relevant ads and offers extremely useful.

There are many different vertical and general-purpose search options for people, and we regularly see new approaches. Ads make Google Search free for everyone, and we only show them on a very small fraction of overall queries, said Chi Hea Cho, a Google spokeswoman.

One search competitor said ads did not have to come with privacy concerns, either. Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive of DuckDuckGo, a privacy-minded alternative to Google, said subscriptions turned privacy into a luxury. DuckDuckGo presents ads but it says it does not track user behavior.

If you want the most impact to help the most people with privacy, you have to be free because Google will be free forever, he said.

Neeva has not set a price for its subscription. It will be free for initial users until the end of the year. After that, Ramaswamy said he aimed to charge a monthly subscription of less than $10 and he hopes to bring the price down over time as more users sign up.

In conversations, Ramaswamy, 53, is measured and cerebral, very much like the academic teaching computer science that he was before he joined Google in 2003. But its still jarring to hear about the pitfalls of ads from someone who was once hailed the most important figure in online advertising.

He said that he was not anti-ad and that ad-supported businesses made sense in some instances. But once a company turns to advertising for its primary source of revenue, he said, it starts making small compromises like adding more ads to the top of search results that ultimately lead to an outcome that youre not particularly happy about.

When asked why he, as one of Googles most senior executives, did not intervene, he said there was an implicit understanding that his teams job was to keep money flowing.

The core idea that you have to help revenue grow and that was important to the companys success were not things you questioned. Im not defending this. I was very much a part of this, he said.

As software engineer, Ramaswamy never imagined a career in advertising. In 1989, he came to the United States from his native India and earned a doctorate in computer science from Brown University. Before he joined Google, he did stints in academia; at Bell Labs, a research facility owned at the time by Lucent; and at another startup.

He started with the unglamorous search advertising team where his job was to make sure the systems remained up. Even in those days, an outage could cost Google $1,000 a second. His rise at Google mirrored a shift in how people bought ads. It was no longer the realm of art directors but something more akin to traders making automated bids on where ads would go and how much to pay.

In 2013, he became Googles senior vice president for advertising and commerce, overseeing all of the companys ad systems. His responsibilities included overseeing advertising at YouTube to take a video service replete with problematic content and turn it into something that could challenge television networks for advertising revenue.

In 2017, when The Times of London published examples of videos that exploit young children and appeal to pedophiles carrying ads, Ramaswamy reached a breaking point.

This is an impossible conflict and we kind of muddled our way through it, he said. All of us have boundaries for what we will tolerate in our jobs. There comes a point where you say the environment I am working in has a situation that is not acceptable to me.

He felt it was a no-win situation. If YouTubes automated systems held a high bar for what was suitable for advertising, the company risked angering some vocal creators upset at being ineligible for ad revenue. With a less restrictive approach, the chances of a troubling video running with ads was higher. This would anger advertisers and effectively create a financial incentive to keep making problematic content.

After he left Google, Ramaswamy appeared ready to follow the well-worn path of accomplished Silicon Valley executive to venture capitalist, joining Greylock Partners. But after a few months, he quietly started working on Neeva, recruiting former Google colleagues including his co-founder, Vivek Raghunathan, a former vice president at the company who worked with Ramaswamy on search ads and YouTube ads during his 11 years there.

Neeva, which is based in Googles hometown, Mountain View, California, has raised $37.5 million with equal investments from Greylock, Sequoia Capital an early investor in Google and Ramaswamy himself. It has 25 employees.

Neeva is not an all-new search engine from the ground up. The search rankings are powered by Microsoft Bing, the weather information comes from weather.com, stock data from Intrinio, and the maps are from Apple. When users link their Google, Microsoft Office or Dropbox account, Neeva sifts through personal files as well as the public internet for the right answers.

And because it knows the people in your contacts, the retailers you ordered from, and news publications you received newsletters from, Neevas search results will become more personalized over time.

We felt very strongly that there needed to be alternatives, alternative viewpoints, and alternative business models, Ramaswamy said.

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Google Doodle celebrates the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth – The Verge

Posted: at 6:15 am

In celebration of the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth, Google has produced a video Doodle set to the first verse of the poem Lift Every Voice and Sing, often called The Black National Anthem. Its a 90 second piece of rousing animation that honors the end of slavery in the US. The video features art from artist Loveis Wise, music produced by Elijah Jamal, and the poem is read by LeVar Burton.

Although slavery officially ended with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, it wasnt until June 19th, 1865 that the federal order reached Galveston, Texas on the western edge of the Confederacy. Juneteenth is shorthand for June Nineteenth.

This is an American story about freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and I hope that in these brown faces many Americans can see themselves, said Googles Angelica McKinley, the Doodles lead art director in an accompanying video describing its creation.

The Doodle is just one of the ways Google is celebrating Juneteenth this year. Earlier this month it added the day as a holiday in the United States in Google Calendar, and the company also says its added new Google Assistant responses to questions like Hey Google, whats Juneteenth? Google Arts & Culture has a new exhibit on the historical legacy of Juneteenth made in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History, and YouTube Music has a playlist titled Juneteenth: Freedom Songs featuring artists like Beyonce and Bob Marley. Google Earth has also been updated to include satellite imagery of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, DC.

Although Juneteenth is a significant moment in US history, it is not currently designated as an official federal holiday, although most states now recognize it. Its an especially significant date this year, following weeks of protests against racism and police brutality in the country.

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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says there’s ‘no question’ Huawei routed data to Beijing – CNBC

Posted: at 6:15 am

Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Alphabet

Photo by Bloomberg

Huawei is a national security risk and has engaged in unacceptable acts like routing network information to the Chinese government, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has claimed.

"There's no question that Huawei has engaged in some practices that are not acceptable in national security," Schmidt said in a documentary to be aired on BBC radio.

"There's no question that information from Huawei routers has ultimately ended up in hands that would appear to be the state," he added. "However that happened, we're sure it happened."

The telecommunications giant has often been accused of posing a risk to national security, with U.S. officials worried it could enable Chinese espionage. Washington has put significant pressure on allies to bar Huawei from accessing their next-generation 5G mobile networks. The U.K. is now reviewing a decision to allow the firm a restricted role in its 5G rollout.

Experts say that Huawei would haveno choicebut to hand over network data to Beijing if it is requested due to Chinese espionage and national security laws. But Huawei has repeatedly denied accusations that it passes data to Beijing and insists it's independent from government.

The firm hit back at Schmidt for his comments Thursday, disputing the suggestion that it hands customer data to the Chinese authorities.

"The allegations made by Eric Schmidt, who now works for the US government, are simply not true and as with similar assertions in the past, are not backed by evidence," Huawei Vice President Victor Zhang told CNBC.

Schmidt, who led Google from 2001 to 2011, is now chair of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board.

In his interview with the BBC, he said he had previously held "prejudices" about China, such as the belief that tech firms in the country are "very good at copying things." He added that these prejudices now "need to be thrown out."

"The Chinese are just as good, and maybe better, in key areas of research and innovation as the West," Schmidt told the U.K. state-backed broadcaster. He urged Western countries to keep pace with the world's second-largest economy by investing more in research funding, ensuring increased public-private sector collaboration and remaining open to international talent.

It's not the first time Schmidt has commented on China. In 2018, the billionaire warned of a "bifurcation" of the internet into two separate models one led by the U.S., and the other by China. He also admitted to having advocated for Google's work in China when it originally pulled out of the country. Google nixed plans to launch a censored search engine in China in 2018 following outrage from employees.

For more on Schmidt's views about Huawei, read the BBC's report here.

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Liberal Supreme Court justices never wear the ‘swing vote’ mantle | TheHill – The Hill

Posted: at 6:11 am

For years Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor, a Reagan appointee, was the courts swing vote i.e., a justice who frequently crosses party and ideological lines to vote with the other side. When she retired, Justice Anthony Kennedy, another Reagan appointee, embraced the swing-vote mantle.

Now that Kennedy is retired, Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, has become the swing vote, with Justice Neil GorsuchNeil GorsuchMcConnell easily wins Kentucky Senate primary Liberal Supreme Court justices never wear the 'swing vote' mantle On the anniversary of Title IX, are women's sports in jeopardy? MORE, a Trump appointee, possibly waiting in the wings.

Do you detect a pattern here? The courts four liberals never become the swing vote. That dubious distinction always goes to a Republican appointee.

There are, of course, times when the courts liberals and conservatives agree, and occasionally a justice will cross the aisle to support the other side.

But when the issue before the court has a clear ideological or partisan divide, the four liberals march in lockstep. Its one of the courts conservatives who provides the fifth vote to give liberals a victory.

Sometimes its more than a swing vote. President George H.W. Bush nominated Justice David Souter. Souter didnt even fain at being a swing vote; he identified with the liberal wing.

Or how about Justice Lewis Powell. President Nixon nominated Powell, who was considered a moderate Democrat they still existed back then and he became a swing vote.

Oh, did I mention that Powell joined the courts majority in upholding Roe v. Wade, which struck down most state laws restricting abortion?

Why so many Republican-appointed justices feel obliged to provide liberals with their fifth vote is a mystery. As is their legal reasoning when they do so.

Take the five-four decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). All four of the courts liberals agreed that the U.S. Constitutions Commerce Clause allowed the federal government to mandate that people have health coverage.

Chief Justice Roberts couldnt go that far, so he argued that the penalty for not having coverage was in effect a tax, and the federal government is clearly allowed to tax.

Not one of the other eight justices thought that was a viable legal theory, but the four liberals didnt care how Roberts got them over the five-vote hump. They just wanted a yes vote, and they got it, ensuring the health insurance mandate, and ObamaCare in general, would be the law of the land.

Last week, Roberts sided with the courts four liberals in what effectively upholds President Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Although the chief justice conceded that the Trump administration had the ability to end the program, which was only an executive order and never a law, Roberts asserted the administration did not appropriately follow the Administrative Procedure Act in ending DACA.

The four conservative justices pointed out in their dissent that the Obama administration also failed to follow the APA in imposing the order, so that DACA was never lawfully implemented in the first place.

Also last week Roberts, assisted by Gorsuch, sided with the courts liberals that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian and transgender employees from being discriminated against by employers based on sex.

Writing for the majority, Gorsuch wrote, Today we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear.

But is it clear?

The problem is that its unlikely that anyone who voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964 thought the law included gay, lesbian and transgender people. That view is confirmed by the fact that Congress has tried and failed to pass legislation over the years that would affirm that the law applies to them. No need to pass a law if the text is clear.

Gorsuch is supposed to be an originalist, someone who embraces the original meaning of the Constitutions or a laws text as it is written. And that is the issue here. If the Civil Rights Acts definition of sex is to be expanded to gay, lesbian and transgender individuals, Congress, not the Supreme Court, needs to make that law.

Liberals have long adopted a living Constitution view that allows them to impose their progressive views on to the text. Conservatives have generally opposed such efforts until now.

Liberals cheered the decision, as did many people who believe that no one should be fired based on their sex or sexual orientation. But when justices start applying meanings to words that no one at the time embraced, it opens the door for all types of ideologically based mischief.

The irony in all this is that when Senate Democrats grill a Republican Supreme Court nominee, they scathingly predict the nominee will be closed minded and vote along ideological lines. The truth is that only liberal justices do that, which is why no liberal justice ever becomes the swing vote.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @MerrillMatthews.

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