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Jul 31, 2018

 

 

Jennifer Becker: Confronting Tech-Enabled Domestic Violence (Ep. 148)

Legal Momentum's Jennifer Becker joined Joe Miller for Part 2 of our series on how perpetrators use technology to engage in domestic violence.

Bio

Jennifer Becker is Deputy Legal Director and National Judicial Education Program (NJEP) Senior Attorney. At Legal Momentum, Jennifer is engaged in a range of litigation, education, and policy on issues of gender-based discrimination and violence, including efforts to strengthen state gender-based violence statutes and reauthorization of the federal Violence Against Women Act. Jennifer has presented nationally and internationally on issues related to gender equality and gender-based violence. Jennifer is engaged in NJEP’s judicial training and technical assistance efforts and has developed and presented information about sexual assault and the intersection of sexual assault and domestic violence at national and state judicial conferences and multidisciplinary conferences.

Jennifer is a former sex crimes and child abuse prosecutor, having served for seven years in the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office in Bronx, NY. During that time she handled hundreds of such cases throughout all stages of the criminal justice process. Prior to joining Legal Momentum, Jennifer was the Title IX Coordinator for the New York City public school system, a district of more than 1 million students and 135,000 employees. In that role she was responsible for overseeing gender equity compliance, including responding to and investigating sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in schools. Jennifer has developed and conducted trainings for attorneys and non-legal staff on substantive issues related to gender equity laws, discrimination, criminal law, and litigation techniques and strategies. 

Jennifer is an active member of the New York City Bar Association Sex and Law Committee and co-chair of the New York County Lawyers Association Women in Law Committee. She is a graduate of CUNY Law School and Quinnipiac University. 

Resources

Legal Momentum

Thermostats, Locks and Lights: Digital Tools of Domestic Abuse (N.Y. Times, June 23, 2018)

News Roundup

Facebook posts biggest single-day loss in stock market history

Facebook’s market value dropped $119 billion Thursday after the company released a poor quarterly report.  The single-day drop was the biggest in stock market history and represented 19% of Facebook’s market cap , taking it down to $510 billion. In its quarterly report, Facebook reported usership that fell short of expectations by 20 million active daily users, and its  revenue fell short of analyst estimates by some $130 million for the second quarter. And at $1.72 Facebook’s earnings per share was also two cents lower than Thompson Reuters had estimated.

Facebook and Amazon set lobbying records in 2Q18

Facebook and Amazon set new lobbying records for themselves in the second quarter, spending over $7 million combined on its lobbying efforts. This is according to lobbying disclosure records. Facebook spent $3.6 million to deal with the Cambridge Analytica and Russian hacking debacles. Amazon spent some $3.47 million.  Google spent its fair amount on lobbying as well, coming in at $5.9 million for the second quarter alone. Ali Breland reports in Politico.

Is Trump doing enough to stave off Russian attacks on the midterms?

President Donald Trump met with members of the National Security Council on Friday to discuss cyber threats to the rapidly approaching midterm election. The White House released a statement that said in part, “The president has made it clear that his Administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors.” The statement made no specific mention of Russia.  

But the president tweeted that he is concerned that Russia might help Democrats—even though Russian President Vladimir Putin stated during the infamous Helsinki Summit that he wanted Trump to be re-elected in 2020. In addition, the Daily Beast reported that Russian hackers recently attempted to access Senator Claire McCaskill’s emails as she launched her 2018 re-election bid. Senator McCaskill acknowledged the attempt, saying it was “not successful”.

House Democrats said that the White House’s effort to prevent election interference is insubstantial. They want a more robust action plan from the White House. And Politico reported that most states are unprepared for cyberattacks. Even though Congress appropriated $380 million back in March to help states replace their voting machines, Politico reports that only 14 states and DC plan to do so before he 2020 presidential election.

Over in the UK, British lawmakers are proposing that tech companies be held liable for publishing fake news on their sites.

Facebook signs binding agreement with Washington State not to help advertisers target customers on the basis of race

Facebook signed a binding agreement with Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson last week in which the company promised not to allow advertisers to target users on the basis of race. This would include ads for housing, employment, credit, insurance and “public accommodations”. However, advertisers may not need to target race directly. They could target and exclude on the basis of race using non-racial proxies for race. Facebook could potentially still have the ability to cross-reference facial recognition data and users’ likes and dislikes to build psychometric profiles that show trends that correlate with race, which advertisers could then use without creating a paper trail.

 

DOJ Investigates Sinclair

Finally, the Justice Department is now investigating whether Sinclair, Tribune and others engaged in anticompetitive behavior that affected advertising sales rates. The Wall Street Journal reports that the DOJ is looking into whether Sinclair and Tribune coordinated in such a way as to generate higher rates for tv ad spots. The DOJ had stumbled upon potential evidence of coordination practices as it was reviewing Sinclair’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune, which is now in the hands of administrative law judge after the FCC voted unanimously not to approve the acquisition.