Led by Colorado Law student attorneys John Jang, Victoria Venzor, and Peter Troupe, the TLPC today filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of a coalition of accessibility, security, and repair individuals and organizations, supporting the lawsuit of security researcher Dr. Matthew Green and others, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, over a controversial copyright law. The brief urged the court to conclude that Section 1201 of Title 17 of the U.S. Code, added by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, violates the First Amendment by chilling fair uses aimed at making copyrighted works accessible to people with disabilities, researching security vulnerabilities in computer software, and repairing software-enabled vehicles and devices. Section 1201 prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) on copyrighted works, requiring accessibility, security, and repair organizations to pursue exemptions in a burdensome triennial rulemaking conducted by the U.S. Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. The brief details the substantive and procedural harms of Section 1201 and the rulemaking to the First Amendment rights of people with disabilities, disability services organizations and libraries, security researchers, and ordinary consumers and repair professionals.
TLPC Submits Comments on Carceral Communications Accessibility for Accessibility Coalition
(by Cameron Benavides, TLPC Student Attorney)
In consultation with HEARD and on behalf of our client Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. (TDI) and a coalition of numorous deaf and hard of hearing advocacy and research organizations, the TLPC filed comments and reply comments in the Federal Communications Commission’s pending proceeding on addressing the accessibility of communications systems in carceral facilities.
Continue reading “TLPC Submits Comments on Carceral Communications Accessibility for Accessibility Coalition”TLPC Releases Policy Brief on Access to Colorado Law and the Government Edicts Doctrine
(by Stacey Weber, TLPC Student Attorney)
The TLPC is pleased to release a policy brief detailing the state of free and open public access to the law in Colorado under the government edicts doctrine. At the request of Carl Malamud, President of Public.Resource.Org., the TLPC took a deep dive into the legal and practical realities of access to the law in Colorado. The brief details our findings, noting that Colorado demonstrates leadership with its open government framework but still has important work to do to preserve access to justice and foster innovation.
Continue reading “TLPC Releases Policy Brief on Access to Colorado Law and the Government Edicts Doctrine”TLPC Advocates Before the FCC for Equal Access to Communications and Video Programming
(by Dakotah Hamilton, TLPC Student Attorney)
On June 7th, the TLPC and the Communications and Technology Law Clinic (CTLC) at Georgetown Law filed a comment on behalf of 22 accessibility advocacy and research organizations, including TLPC and CTLC client Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. (TDI), in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s public notice to revisit many of its rules under the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA). The comment, drafted by Professor Blake E. Reid, TLPC Director, and Professor Laura Moy, CTLC Director, with assistance from TLPC student attorneys Dakotah Hamilton, Rachel Hersch, and Scott Goodstein and CTLC staff attorney Michael Rosenbloom and student attorney Ellen Gardiner, comprehensively reviewed the past decade of FCC proceedings implementing the CVAA as well as some dating back to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, spanning more than two dozen dockets.
The comment identifies numorous specific priorities the FCC should consider for the accessibility of video programming, communications, and hearing device accessibility, including bolstering the availability of interpretation and captioning for video conferencing platforms and expanding captioning requirements for video distributed online. The comment also calls for dedicated inquiries into accessibility barriers facing people who are deaf or hard of hearing and have multiple disabilities, older people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and people who are deaf or hard of hearing and living on rural or tribal lands or in U.S. territories. The comment also urges the Commission to emphasize supervised multistakeholderism, centering the civil rights of people with disabilities, vigorous enforcement, and reporting to Congress.
TLPC Advocates for Expansion of Video Accessibility Exemption to Section 1201 of the DMCA
(by Scott Goodstein, Colorado Law 3L)
On April 5, 2021, the TLPC—on behalf of the Association of Transcribers and Speech-to-Text Providers (ATSP), along with ATSP’s past president Jason Kapcala and Jonathan Band of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), presented at the Eighth Triennial Section 1201 Rulemaking Hearing in support of the Proposed Class 3 exemption to the anti-circumvention provisions of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Section 1201 prohibits users from circumventing technological protective measures (TPMs) that control access to copyrighted works, but allows them to apply for and receive temporary exemptions for a variety of noninfringing uses. The petition for the Proposed Class 3 exemption was filed on behalf of ATSP and in partnership with the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) and the LCA.
Continue reading “TLPC Advocates for Expansion of Video Accessibility Exemption to Section 1201 of the DMCA”TLPC Files Comments in the Eighth Section 1201 Triennial Review
Today, the TLPC filed a series of comments in the Copyright Office’s Eighth Triennial Review of exemptions from the anticircumvention measures of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Section 1201 prohibits the circumvention of technological protective measures (TPMs) that control access to copyrighted works, but allows stakeholders to apply for and receive broader temporary exemptions for a variety of noninfringing uses. The TLPC filed comments on four exemptions, one focused on security research and the other three on various accessibility purposes.
Continue reading “TLPC Files Comments in the Eighth Section 1201 Triennial Review”TLPC Files Comments on Behalf of Disability Rights Advocates to Enforce Carceral Communications Accessibility
TLPC student attorneys Caitlin League, Michael Obregon, and Brandon Ward worked over the last month with a coalition of incarcerated deaf/disabled people and their advocates, consumer groups, including our client, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. (TDI), and accessibility researchers to file comments in response to a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) soliciting input on rates charged to incarcerated people for the use of telecommunication devices. Carceral facilities, including prisons and jails, have long denied incarcerated people with communications disabilities access to functionally equivalent communications services and equipment and charged exorbitant rates to maintain crucial connections between incarcerated people and their families, loved ones, and legal representatives.
Because the transition of the phone system from analog to Internet Protocol networks has largely broken compatibility with teletypewriters (TTYs), many carceral facilities essentially provide no accessible services or equipment. Among other remedies, the comments urge the FCC to require that inmate calling services (ICS) facilitate the provision of accessible services, including video relay service and Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) and equipment, including videophones and captioned telephones, to carceral facilities.
- The FCC’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available here:
FCC Seeks to Reduce Rates and Charges for Inmate Calling Services - The coalition’s comments are available for download here:
TLPC Partners with CU Criminal Immigration Clinic to Prepare Report on Protecting Colorado DMV Photos, ICE, and Facial Recognition Tech
(by Conor May, Colorado Law 2L)
This year the TLPC and Colorado Criminal Immigration clinic looked at ways for the State of Colorado to prevent DMV records from being exploited by federal Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). The clinics prepared a report to the Governor’s Office and Colorado DMV that highlights potential vulnerabilities and proposes policies to address those vulnerabilities.
The clinics’ report was sent to the Governor’s Office in March. On May 20th, Governor Polis issued a guidance document to all Colorado executive branch departments and agencies. This guidance on data privacy goes a long way toward addressing the vulernabilities raised in the clinics’ report, by placing restrictions on when state agencies can respond to requests for Personal Identifying Information (PII), which includes licenses and other DMV information.
Continue reading “TLPC Partners with CU Criminal Immigration Clinic to Prepare Report on Protecting Colorado DMV Photos, ICE, and Facial Recognition Tech”TLPC Files Complaint Against Wireless Carriers Over Unauthorized Disclosure and Sale of Customer Location Information
Today, New America’s Open Technology Institute, the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, and Free Press, with the assistance of the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic at Colorado Law, including Colorado Law 2L student attorneys Nathan Bartell and Zachary DeFelice, filed a complaint at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the sale and disclosure of customer location information by all four major U.S. wireless carriers: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
Continue reading “TLPC Files Complaint Against Wireless Carriers Over Unauthorized Disclosure and Sale of Customer Location Information”