Statement: Schatz hearing on KOSMA amid tech-billionaire fueled constitutional crisis a pathetic fart amid the Democratic party’s spineless flailing
The following statement can be attributed to Lia Holland (they/she), Campaigns & Communications Director at Fight for the Future:
The world’s richest tech billionaire and the Trump Administration are lawlessly dismantling the US Government and crucial institutions of democracy and human rights. Meanwhile, Senator Schatz is intent on hypocritically creating more, as he says, “self-inflicted chaos of epic proportions that will have dangerous consequences all around the world.” In short, he’s holding a hearing this week on KOSMA, a bill that would kick young people off the Internet and supercharge warrantless digital surveillance of literally everyone.
Schatz’s KOSMA hearing comes at a time when youth-led organizing and access to information is at its most essential, particularly for queer youth, immigrant youth, and youth of color whose communities are being targeted amid Trump’s unprecedented power grab. Yet instead of organizing his party to stand up for youth, Senator Schatz has decided to push forward a hearing on his vanity bill that would be terrible for human rights online.
It’s clear that Senator Schatz has failed to grapple with the severity of this moment for his constituents. If KOSMA passes, every single person in the US would all be subjected to the mass surveillance of online age verification: tracking who they are, where they go, and what they access across the Internet. Under KOSMA, the data of what every single person in the US does online could be subpoenaed or fed directly into the Trump Admin’s dissent-punishing, deportation, and censorship machine.
Senator Schatz doesn’t have much runway left to correct his dire neglect of human rights and basic strategic thinking. He’s a poor leader if he thinks he can fight for institutions like USAID while also corralling his colleagues in a hearing to remove more rights and reduce online safety. Now is not a time for poorly-written, unconstitutional bills that would make the Internet worse and endanger those who use it to organize. It’s time for decisive action to protect vulnerable communities and stand up to the Trump Administration and the tech billionaires who would be dictators.
What has Senator Schatz’s opposition done? They’ve built a mass surveillance machine that is primed to enable fascist human rights abuses, oppression, and violence on a scale that would not be possible in previous generations.
What has Senator Schatz done? Spent years ignoring the warnings of human rights organizations that bills like his KOSMA are dangerous, and now, staring down the barrel of how his willful ignorance will be weaponized, he’s still pushing to give Big Tech and Trump more surveillance and censorship power.
Senator Schatz has a narrow chance to stop the farce of KOSMA and stand up for the safety of privacy, as well as for access to crucial information and knowledge for all people. The moves he and his party make in these days of constitutional crises will define his legacy, and perhaps the lives of generations of people in the US to come.