FCC Defends Helping Trump, Claims Authority Over Social Media Law (arstechnica.com) 116
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission's top lawyer today explained the FCC's theory of why it can grant President Donald Trump's request for a new interpretation of a law that provides legal protection to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Critics of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's plan from both the left and right say the FCC has no authority to reinterpret Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives legal immunity to online platforms that block or modify content posted by users. FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson said those critics are wrong in a blog post published on the FCC website today.
Johnson noted that the Communications Decency Act was passed by Congress as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was an update to the Communications Act of 1934 that established the FCC and provided it with regulatory authority. Johnson also pointed to Section 201(b) of the Communications Act, which gave the FCC power to "prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary in the public interest to carry out the provisions of this Act."
Johnson then explained why he believes this means the FCC can reinterpret Section 230: "The Supreme Court has twice considered whether the FCC's general rulemaking authority under Section 201(b), adopted in 1938, extends to the 1996 amendments to the Act. Both times, the Court held that it does. Writing for the Court in Iowa Utilities Board, and employing his trademark textualist method, Justice Scalia wrote that this provision 'means what it says: The FCC has rulemaking authority to carry out the 'provisions of [the 1934] Act.'' The Court explained that 'the clear fact that the 1996 Act was adopted, not as a freestanding enactment, but as an amendment to, and hence part of, [the 1934] Act' shows that Congress intended the Commission to have rulemaking authority over all its provisions. Likewise, in the later City of Arlington case, the Court confirmed that the Commission's rulemaking authority '[o]f course... extends to the subsequently added portions of the Act.' From these authorities, a simple conclusion follows: Because Section 230 is among the 'subsequently added portions of the Act,' it is subject to the FCC's Section 201(b) rulemaking authority." Matt Wood, VP of policy and general counsel at media-advocacy group Free Press, told Ars today: "The FCC lawyers' latest sleight-of-hand is a clever distraction, but still not good enough to save the Commission's pending foray into speech codes and Internet regulation. The agency claims that it's not going to make rules, it's merely going to interpret the supposed ambiguities in the language of Section 230 and let courts apply that interpretation. But there's no ambiguity to resolve, nor any reason for courts to follow the FCC's interpretation. And there's no hiding the fact that the FCC's pretense of interpretation without the effect of substantive rules is a ruse and nothing better."
Johnson noted that the Communications Decency Act was passed by Congress as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was an update to the Communications Act of 1934 that established the FCC and provided it with regulatory authority. Johnson also pointed to Section 201(b) of the Communications Act, which gave the FCC power to "prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary in the public interest to carry out the provisions of this Act."
Johnson then explained why he believes this means the FCC can reinterpret Section 230: "The Supreme Court has twice considered whether the FCC's general rulemaking authority under Section 201(b), adopted in 1938, extends to the 1996 amendments to the Act. Both times, the Court held that it does. Writing for the Court in Iowa Utilities Board, and employing his trademark textualist method, Justice Scalia wrote that this provision 'means what it says: The FCC has rulemaking authority to carry out the 'provisions of [the 1934] Act.'' The Court explained that 'the clear fact that the 1996 Act was adopted, not as a freestanding enactment, but as an amendment to, and hence part of, [the 1934] Act' shows that Congress intended the Commission to have rulemaking authority over all its provisions. Likewise, in the later City of Arlington case, the Court confirmed that the Commission's rulemaking authority '[o]f course... extends to the subsequently added portions of the Act.' From these authorities, a simple conclusion follows: Because Section 230 is among the 'subsequently added portions of the Act,' it is subject to the FCC's Section 201(b) rulemaking authority." Matt Wood, VP of policy and general counsel at media-advocacy group Free Press, told Ars today: "The FCC lawyers' latest sleight-of-hand is a clever distraction, but still not good enough to save the Commission's pending foray into speech codes and Internet regulation. The agency claims that it's not going to make rules, it's merely going to interpret the supposed ambiguities in the language of Section 230 and let courts apply that interpretation. But there's no ambiguity to resolve, nor any reason for courts to follow the FCC's interpretation. And there's no hiding the fact that the FCC's pretense of interpretation without the effect of substantive rules is a ruse and nothing better."
But...But (Score:5, Insightful)
But...you know...this is what his handlers want.
Never before did someone get so much criticism. (Score:2, Informative)
99 Reasons to Dump Trump [nydailynews.com]
A Catalog of Trump's Worst Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes [mcsweeneys.net]
A Closer Look [youtube.com], Late Night with Seth Meyers TV show. The jokes are usually not funny. The videos of Trump show what he has said and done.
President Trump has made more than 20,000 false or misleading claims [washingtonpost.com]. (This is often answered by someone claiming that one of the issues is a mistak
Why is Ajit Pai not in jail already? (Score:2)
The truth is that the Internet is a form of communications, so by definition it falls under the FCC to be able to regulate it, but either way Pai lied in court.
Then it was found out that he purposely lied to congress. Which with how he lied is supposed to be 6 to 20 years behind bars.
Again, how is this proven
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I don't agree with either....but it happens all the time with these unelected bureaucracies and the power given them unchecked.
Without S230 the Internet becomes Cable TV (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep saying this but if the Establishment understood what the Internet was they never would've let us have it. They know now, and they're taking it back.
Re:Without S230 the Internet becomes Cable TV (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't Big Tech (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't necessarily think unions are the answer - the police and teacher unions both have a lot of power, and that power has led to lots of problems in those areas. Other unions are infamous for their corruption and their violence.
We also do have safety nets, and those aren't necessarily the answer, either. The breakup of the black family is commonly attributed to our welfare state (and our police state and drug war), for example. As to abhorring social safety
Naw, take away the economic pressures (Score:2)
You get stuff like that 'cause guys can't get laid, and guys can't get laid because they've got no jobs, and women don't want anything to do with a guy that ain't got no job and ain't got no prospects for a job. Can't raise a family on part time minimum wage.
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Bullshit.
We have few real unions, and most are tiny. In the seventies, over 24% of the workforce was unionized. Now it's barely over 10%, and mostly government employees. Raygun started the war on unions.
Back then, too, people had 40 hour weeks... and "salaried" mean however many hours you worked, if you got your work done in 30, it was no big deal. Now, you have to have a charge number for every hour, or they'll dock you.
You don't know what unions are. My late wife told me that her father, a retired railro
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Now, a handful of these companies can pick and choose who is elected. Good riddance.
You obviously weren't alive in the 1950s when ABC, CBS, and NBC absolutely ruled the country, dictating every goddamn thing the Greatest Generation and the Silent generation thought and believed. Television was trusted in that era. A handful of Internet companies sure as fuck aren't choosing who is elected. What color is the sky in your world?
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Re: Without S230 the Internet becomes Cable TV (Score:2)
They're certainly doing their damndest. Even bringing in Chinese censors to engineer the tools to allow them to do so.
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If you were alive then, you must have felt the draft as what was actually happening in the Fourth Estate blasted over your head at supersonic speed. Broadcast news back then was a supplement to real journalism, which is what happened in newspapers featuring a wide variety of opinions, along with a heavy dose of hard news. Television news was NOT a major source of public knowledge, nor did it shape public opinion until satellite footage of the Vietnam War made it impossible for the government of the day to
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This country lasted more than a couple centuries, and with just a couple of decades of Big Tech it's being torn apart.
That comment literally applies to any generation and any new technology that the USA has ever adopted.
Now, a handful of these companies can pick and choose who is elected. Good riddance.
LOL, what do you mean "now"? These companies have existed since the 1840s. He'll I'd argue more people got their news from a single source back then than people do now from "these companies".
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This country has not lasted a couple of centuries except for perhaps the superficial advertisement of "freedom and justice for all". It's constantly moved away from decentralized, localized broad power to centralized, distant refined power. The civil war saw such drastic change in legal functionality and authority it was effectively a coup. Then in the early 1900s additional authority was taken and federal legislators really changed the shape of legal establishment and their relationship with society, creat
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The Civil War was a coup?
Hi, there, you want the return of slavery, obviously.
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Nice straw man. I certainly do not want the return of chattel slavery (though slavery never ended and was merely converted to wage slavery). More than one thing can happen at the same time. Merely because one good thing happens does not mean another change can't happen at the same time (they are not mutually exclusive).
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Most of the groundwork for this was laid by 24 hour news cycles and the massive push of conservative talk radio long before most people had a Facebook account.
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No, they're not really (Score:1)
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Hell, yes.
Do you actually believe that laptop story? It's got too many holes in it for me to use it as a colander.
And the Murdoch-owned Post is politically to the right of Atilla the Hun.
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Re:Without S230 the Internet becomes Cable TV (Score:5, Informative)
The intent of Section 230 was to allow variety of user-generated content to be posted online by shielding site operators from liability. It was never meant to protect publishers who editorialize user-generated content.
An interesting take on it. Let's see what former Representative Christopher Cox, one of the two authors of section 230 has to say [realclearpolitics.com] about what he meant to do by writing the law and seeing it enacted:
We named our bill the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act, to describe its two main components: protecting speech and privacy on the Internet from government regulation, and incentivizing blocking and filtering technologies that individuals could use to become their own censors in their own households. Pornographers illegally targeting minors would not be let off the hook: They would be liable for compliance with all laws, both civil and criminal, in connection with any content they created.
To avoid interfering with the essential functioning of the Internet, the law would not shift that responsibility to Internet platforms, for whom the burden of screening billions of digital messages, documents, images, and sounds would be unreasonable -- not to mention a potential invasion of privacy. Instead, Internet platforms would be allowed to act as âoeGood Samaritansâ by reviewing at least some of the content if they chose to do so in the course of enforcing rules against âoeobscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionableâ content. ...
Ron and I were determined that good faith content moderation should not be punished, and so the Good Samaritan provision in the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act was born.
Well, that kind of refutes your claim. But perhaps Senator Ron Wyden, the other co-author of the law can help you out [cnn.com]:
Republican Congressman Chris Cox and I wrote Section 230 in 1996 to give up-and-coming tech companies a sword and a shield, and to foster free speech and innovation online.
Essentially, 230 says that users, not the website that hosts their content, are the ones responsible for what they post, whether on Facebook or in the comments section of a news article. That's what I call the shield. But it also gave companies a sword so that they can take down offensive content, lies and slime -- the stuff that may be protected by the First Amendment but that most people do not want to experience online. And so they are free to take down white supremacist content or flag tweets that glorify violence (as Twitter did with President Trump's recent tweet) without fear of being sued for bias or even of having their site shut down.
Well, shit! He's saying you're wrong too. Guess you're out of luck. But at least now you're educated on the subject.
Re: Without S230 the Internet becomes Cable TV (Score:2)
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The intent of Section 230 was to allow variety of user-generated content to be posted online by shielding site operators from liability.
Correct. That is one half of it.
It was never meant to protect publishers who editorialize user-generated content.
Incorrect. That is in fact the other half of it.
Either you are lying about the second half or you are ignorant about it, but they are both there, and they are both very intentional.
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Large social media companies are stepping up efforts to automatically sensor, filter and block content. If we continue down that road, social media will become "cable TV" with or without Section 230. The intent of Section 230 was to allow variety of user-generated content to be posted online by shielding site operators from liability. It was never meant to protect publishers who editorialize user-generated content.
The internet existed pre-Section 230 and it got along fine. If you had something to say on the web, you built your own website and linked to other small sites that had related content. If you wanted to have a discussion like this one, you went on usenet or joined a listserv. It was a little harder to find things, but it was a lot harder to police because the top 5 sites didn't account for 90% of people's internet traffic.
Don't get me wrong, I think losing safe harbor is bad. I think at the very least, I
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They're already doing exactly what your claiming would happen. So, does this mean that they actually are a publisher? Isn't that what he FCC is trying to rule? Remember when corona virus hit? Any video that even mentioned it was shadow banned except for large creators and mainstream media. This is because Youtube routinely allows some creators to ignore their rules. When you pick and choose discriminantly, then you're a publisher. They're being prejudice as to who may or may not follow the rules. Doesn't se
That's okay (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm predicting the FCC will have a change of heart, and probably leadership, come January 20, 2021 ...
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Personally, I don't get how the pollsters are justified in adjusting their turnout models like they have. Many of them are over polling Democrats by 3-6% over last cycle's mix which just doesn't seem justified when you look at the actual votes cast by who in 2016. I don't do this kind of thing for a living so I'm sure they have their reasons, but this could actually mean they are artificially inflating Biden's numbers by a couple of percent. IF that's true, Trump will do much better than last time, because he'd actually be in a substantial lead.
Except that the polling methodology has changed since four years ago, specifically to better take into account Trump's unexpectedly strong turnout among non-college-educated voters. If you ran a poll today using the sampling methodology that they used four years ago, you would likely see estimates of O(500) electoral college votes for Biden, and O(38) for Trump.
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You've touched on (and kind of combined) two of three stated reasons for poll inaccuracy in 2016 - the three being a split in the vote by college/non-college educated people, allocation of undecided voters and turnout among Trump supporters (cf https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com] )
The exit polls foundered primarily it seems due to inaccurate weighting based on the education level of people that voted.
But that this analysis has happened, and that we know pollsters are continually seeking to update and improve
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In this new age of cancel culture and if you speak "wrong think" you can have your life and livelihood ruined...I think people supporting Trump likely are not only silent, but fudging the polls.
I saw something the other day that conservatives are not only MUCH Less apt to even take part of a poll (many just hang up), but they are often giving false answers to pollsters.
With cancel culture and the like, I don't think a lot of people are telling the polls th
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Order of magnitude.
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Re:That's okay (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I've got to warn you that Trump is actually ahead of his 2016 poll number in the battle ground states that matter.
You do realize that Donald Trump is not a particularly reliable source for information about Donald Trump, right?
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However, I've got to warn you that Trump is actually ahead of his 2016 poll number in the battle ground states that matter.
You do realize that Donald Trump is not a particularly reliable source for information about Donald Trump, right?
He's not really a reliable source for information about anything. (Just sayin'.)
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I've got to warn you that Trump is actually ahead of his 2016 poll number in the battle ground states that matter.
Well two things. Firstly you're wrong about the relevance. Pretty much every major polling company adjusted its methods to compensate for the "Trump effect" of 2016. So even if Trump were to poll identically to 2016 that would very likely result in a catastrophic loss for him.
Secondly. You're wrong about the numbers too. Trump is polling worse than 2016, even if you double correct by applying an error correction equal in magnitude to the gap in 2016 between polls and actuals Trump stands a large chance of l
Re: That's okay (Score:2)
Everybody's always getting ready to fight the previous war.
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Not sure what to make of your comment. Is that in reference to how polls have adjusted for what happened in 2016? Do you not believe in adjusting models based on new data points or continuous improvement?
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Based on religion I guess and not statistics. Miracles do happen.
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Do you have links to the actual footage of this?
I tried to find some this morning, on the grounds that his description of events should be easy to validate by viewing his actual actions, but strangely nobody wants to actually show us that.
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Prove it.
Legal immunity for blocking/modifying? (Score:2)
"which gives legal immunity to online platforms that block or modify content posted by users."
Huh, where does it say that? Isn't that the basis of the contention here, that it isn't clearly written as that?
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The law does roughly say that providers will not be held liable for blocking. That sounds a lot like immunity. Oxford language definition of immunity is "protection or exemption from something, especially an obligation or penalty."
Read 47 US Code, 230, section c part 2a
47 U.S. Code 230
(c)
(2) Civil liability No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the
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Yea, that "otherwise objectionable" phrase is a HUGE catch all. I think we need to place some limits on that one.
The question though is one of procedure and authority. The FCC may or may not have authority to make regulations based on this law and provide the practical interpretation of the law, we don't know until the courts tell us. Assuming the FCC doesn't (and within the current precedent it seems likely to me that's what the courts will say), the only way this gets changed is through an act of Cong
Bootlicker! (Score:1)
The FCC has no legal authority to 'interpret' any part of the Telecommunications Act. If something needs to be changed that's the job of Congress.
Trump once again oversteps his authority, and now so does Ajit Pai.
Re:He's the boss, so they listen to him. (Score:5, Insightful)
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The FCC doesn't think it's a division of the executive branch:
Someone should let Pai know that.... He thinks he's supposed to do whatever the Glorious Dotard says.
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I did not realize we had transitioned to a dictatorship.
We haven't. The authority congress has abrogated to these government agencies can be recalled by Congress, even over the President's veto.
By the way, your complaint was exactly why many on the right opposed creating these agencies. We believed that Congress acted stupidly when it willingly shirked it's responsibilities gave up it's authority like this to nameless, faceless, unelected bureaucrats headed by political appointees. Sure the FCC should exist and it should draft regulations, but it should NOT
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Next they came for the arsonists - we ignored it
Then they came for the burglars - we did nothing
Now they are *definitely* going to come get us jaywalkers and there's nobody left to act.
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With the difference that "violent" far and "racist" alt right deserved to be came for as both violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Um, this is about silencing moderates. They want these sites to turn into the new Fox News by making it impossible for them to allow unmoderated user content.
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If networks like Fox News were liable for the bias and bullshit they spread, people like Tucker Carlson might be serving multiple life sentences instead of still being on air and being the most popular mouthpiece of all TV networks according to statistics.
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They would have to switch from a broad participation model to a viewership model, similar to TV. That means getting more and more polarized in pursuit of outrage clicks, which is how you get Fox News.
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That appears to be a difficult task with the effective monopolies that established sites have right now.
Maybe I'm giving Trump too much credit, still. Because from the looks of it, and given the knowledge how well strongly polarizing opinions still generate a lot of viewers/clicks these days just like Fox News dies. It wouldn't help to make more diverse opinions be ab
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Their monopolies will collapse if they are forced to either become 4chan or Fox News, or at best they will just become a propaganda machine for the GOP.
Even CNN helps the GOP just by providing someone to use a the boogyman.
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Now they are silencing us and there's nobody left to act
Actually most people are still left to act. The violent far right, and the alt right do not have any say in how the country or its people are run, and no, they didn't come for the conservatives. That's just your own fantasy.
Please don't misuse historic quotes to further your own agenda.
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Ah, but you have to play by society's rules, which state that if you publish material that breaches the law, you're accountable.
If you want to rely on an exception to those rules, you have to accept the constraints that come with that exception. Which is where the FCC get involved..
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If you read S230, it qualifies the entire moderation section with the phrase "good faith."
No, it doesn't.
There are two moderation sections, and the other one is actually the one that is usually relied upon.
47 USC 230(c)(1) says
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
That's actually the main thing. It means that no matter what editorial decisions, such as moderating for language or content, are taken by the provider of the service, they're not a publisher, and therefore not liable for whatever they fail to moderate.
You're thinking of 47 USC 230(c)(2)(A), which says
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of--
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected
But good faith is an inherently subjective standard, and this is clear
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LOL.. I'm going to have to watch "Blazing Saddles" again with "Birth of a Nation" in mind.. It will put a whole new spin on the irreverent Brooks humor indeed..
What an apt illustration sir.. Very clever..
Re: You just made my case (Score:2)
I suppose it depends on 1) whether you believe them when they say it's just satire (just because someone says they were joking doesn't necessarily make it so), 2) whether it was nevertheless objectionable (satire does not automatically get a pass under the CDA), 3) whether it matters (it does not; as discussed above, providers can block material at will, regardless of good faith or not, and still not face liability.)
Re: S230 is not as broad as many think (Score:2)
No, I don't think they're acting in bad faith, at least in the instances that come to mind. (There could be exceptions; I'm not omniscient)
But it also is largely irrelevant whether they are or not; they're protected either way.
We are losing freedom again, like after 9/11 (Score:3)
I get the feeling everyone is sick of the news media and social media we have today, regardless of politics. All it takes is some jerks to go a little too far and we will lose a huge amount of privacy and freedom, just like we did after the 9/11 attacks. There has to be a better way.
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You mean like the freedom to post an article on an open platform? Hard to tell if you are for or against the new FCC interpretations... The FCC wants to make sure that if social media companies have a rule, then they can't pick and choose who follows that rule. Doing so makes them a publisher and they should lose their S230 protections.
How is that less freedom? You'll get to post content as long as it follows the rules of the particular social media company. You won't have to fear that you'll be silenced ju
Meh. (Score:2)
Perhaps, if one considers regulations "law" and not an unconstitutional grant of legislative authority to an unelected, unresponsive bureaucracy (same as all other regulatory "law" - Congress simply has no Constitutional authority to pass their power to others). And if you do think it's legal, then they have every right to interpret as they will.
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So you think only Congress can make regulations about what specific levels of radio frequency interference are allowed at various frequencies? or exactly how much lead in drinking fountains is harmful? or any number of other technical issues that Congress has no idea on how to solve? And that they can't pass laws requiring the results instead of the nitty-gritty d
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The free market (Score:2)
How's that working out for the Republicans? Oh they don't like it all of a sudden? You're telling me the party that touted a limited government and states rights now wants to dictate how private platforms publish content? How interesting.
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There are even people on the "right" that want's the government to take over the big social media companies. And here I thought that nationalizing private companies was communism..
The reason why I put quotes around right, is because real conservatives on the right would never suggest such a thing. Populist assholes with fascistic tendencies on the other hand...
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You're a really determined shill, I'll give you that.
Shakedown, Plain and Simple (Score:2)
The current administration knows that one of the communities where they have secured fervent support has been that of extreme right wing and fascist organizations (see e.g. the "Proud Boys" and "Wolverine Watchmen"). Unfortunately, these groups are so extreme in nature that they regularly fall foul of the mini
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Indeed, a shakedown..
But you've got to admit, there are plenty of folks out there doing shakedowns of all kinds this political season. It's pretty much how the game is played these days. We are not out arguing over actual policy anymore, far from it. We are not even discussing ideology.. It's all about how bad the other tribe/team is, how immoral their leaders might be and how they don't really care about the things that are important...
The whole thing resembles a greased pig contest in a mud hole....E
230 does need clarification (Score:2)
According to EFF, the 9th circuit ruled that "CDA 230 does not apply to content that an interactive service provider "developed or created entirely by itself.'" [eff.org] The current guidance in the US code [cornell.edu] does not allow for such an interpretation. So the regulatory agency should update the US code to reflect the court ruling. Basically, the code gives "interactive service providers" immunity even for the creative work which they do. But 230 was never meant for that. It was only meant to protect them when the
Wasn't this used against broadband? (Score:2)
Am I crazy here or did Ajit Pal make an excuse that the FCC couldn't make mandatory laws and regulations when they were asked to mandate broadband speeds and Net Neutrality? Or is it now that they want to modify CDA 230 suddenly it's okay?
June 2010:
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC has no powers to regulate any Internet provider's network, or the management of its practices: "[the FCC] 'has failed to tie its assertion' of regulatory authority to an actual law enacted by Congress", and in June 201
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Re:That's a crappy headline (Score:4, Insightful)
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trump threatened to do it and here we are. sounds about right to me.
And he threatened to build a wall, which he has, to the best of his ability, done.
The problem with illegal immigration in this country has significantly improved in the last 4 years, we have but a fraction of the numbers we saw before. I'm not claiming that the wall project is fully responsible for this, but obviously there has been improvement.
So, why do I bring this up you ask? Because, sometimes, Trump actually does stuff that improves the lives for all Americans in general. So it's not really fair t
Re:That's a crappy headline (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it not about Trump when he insisted that the FCC do this because he believes he is personally being treated unfairly by social media companies?
You say that the "issues involved both pre-date him and will persist after him," but I don't recall anyone complaining about section 230 before Trump and his army of trolls got their feelings hurt by moderation. Even among those who disagree wiith S230 argued that it should be changed or repealed, not "reinterpreted" by the FCC. Even if, as the FCC lawyer argues, the FCC is in a position to interpret this law, courts will not agree that they can just reinterpret it to mean the opposite of what it actually says, as they are attempting. The FBI cannot start "reinterpreting" kite flying as murder and arrest people for flying kites.