SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
office of management and budget
Markey, Schumer Demand Civil Rights Protections for Federal Use of AI
"Without new protections," they warned, "today's supercharged, AI-powered algorithms risk reinforcing and magnifying the discrimination that marginalized communities already experience."
Sep 16, 2024
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Ed Markey on Monday sent a letter urging the Biden administration to pursue additional action to protect civil rights and liberties related to federal agencies' use of artificial intelligence.
While recognizing the "strong steps" that the administration has already taken—such as President Joe Biden's October 2023 executive order—Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Markey (D-Mass.) stressed to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young that "more must be done" to mitigate, prevent, and eliminate algorithmic bias and discrimination.
Specifically, the pair is pushing OMB to "require all federal agencies that use AI for consequential decisions to establish a civil rights office, if they do not already have one; ensure all civil rights offices are staffed with experts in algorithmic discrimination; and encourage federal agencies to establish additional safeguards to prevent algorithmic discrimination."
As the Biden White House explained in its 2022 Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, "Algorithmic discrimination occurs when automated systems contribute to unjustified different treatment or impacts disfavoring people based on their race, color, ethnicity, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, gender identity, intersex status, and sexual orientation), religion, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by law."
"Biased algorithms have increasingly been used to make or influence decisions, imposing real harm on Black, Brown, immigrant, and other marginalized communities."
The ACLU earlier this year sued Biden's National Security Agency in hopes of uncovering how it is using AI, and emphasized concerns that the NSA's use of such tools could harm civil rights and liberties.
The senators wrote Monday that "by ensuring that agencies have the resources, personnel, and policies to detect and mitigate bias, we can ensure that the AI age does not come at the expense of already marginalized and vulnerable communities."
"Without new protections," they warned, "today's supercharged, AI-powered algorithms risk reinforcing and magnifying the discrimination that marginalized communities already experience due to poorly trained and tested algorithms."
The senators highlighted how "biased algorithms have increasingly been used to make or influence decisions, imposing real harm on Black, Brown, immigrant, and other marginalized communities," citing examples from mortgage applications, hiring and employment, government benefits, and healthcare.
Earlier this year, OMB issued guidance regarding government use of AI tools, which Damon T. Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called "a significant step to implement meaningful safeguards."
Noting that the guidance directs agencies to "cease use of any AI that the agency finds cannot adequately mitigate unlawful discrimination," the senators argued that "OMB should also work with agencies to set strict guidelines to prevent algorithmic discrimination within relevant agency jurisdiction."
The OMB, they said, should push agencies to require recipients of federal funds and contracts "to complete pre-development, pre-deployment, and ongoing impact assessments to identify, mitigate, prevent, and eliminate biased AI," as well as "to allow individuals to opt out of AI-powered algorithms used in consequential decisions and instead request human decision-makers."
The senators also urged the office to pressure U.S. agencies to "fund the development of common, accessible resources for auditing algorithms—including open-source tools—for bias, discrimination, and other harms," and to "develop guidance on best practices for mitigating the development and deployment of biased AI-powered algorithms."
"Finally, because a regulation is only as strong as its enforcement, OMB should support federal agencies that take robust enforcement against any company found to violate these rules," the senators wrote, calling on Young to convene inspectors general to coordinate on best practices.
Reporting on the letter, Axiosnoted Monday that "Schumer's bipartisan AI roadmap fell short for civil rights organizations that wanted stronger language on algorithmic bias and discrimination."
Meanwhile, Markey has been a key force behind both the Algorithmic Justice and Online Platform Transparency Act and the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act.
Keep ReadingShow Less
How Biden Can De-Reaganify Contracting Standards
We should’ve gotten rid of these Reagan-era restrictions long ago, but doing so now is more important than ever, with massive new federal funds in the pipeline for infrastructure and climate projects.
Dec 10, 2023
Ronald Reagan left highly visible marks on our capital city. The president who believed trees cause pollution now has his name carved into an edifice housing Environmental Protection Aagency offices. The infamous buster of the air traffic controllers union has an eponymous airport.
Even more disturbing? Vestiges of the Reagan era that are nearly invisible but continue to undermine progress towards a more equitable and sustainable economy.
Case in point: an obscure Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policy dubbed the “Uniform Guidance” that sets out rules for state and local governments when they use federal funds to pay private contractors. Republican officials in the Reagan administration seized on this policy as a weapon for blocking sub-federal actions they didn’t like.
Despite zero empirical evidence that an “efficiency above all” approach would improve contracting outcomes, the Reaganites succeeded in making it difficult for states and cities to attach labor and equity standards to contracts, for fear they would lose federal funding.
What, in particular, had the Reaganites so rankled? This was the 1980s, the era of a growing global movement to divest from Apartheid South Africa. Some U.S. cities and states wanted to join universities, churches, and other investors in refusing to do business with corporations that were profiting off the racist regime.
A report by Jobs to Move America and the Center for Media and Democracy delves into this history in depth, documenting the Reagan administration’s crusade to elevate contracting “efficiency” and “fair and open competition” above other interests, from fighting Apartheid to creating family-supporting jobs for those who need them most.
Reagan-Era Rules Reinforced Historic Racial and Economic Inequities
That Reagan officials lumped these issues together should come as no surprise. The Apartheid system itself was both racist and anti-union, designed to protect the privileges of a white elite class. And while the Republicans couched their arguments in free market rhetoric, the impact of their changes to OMB regulations reinforced our own country’s deeply embedded racial and economic inequities.
Despite zero empirical evidence that an “efficiency above all” approach would improve contracting outcomes, the Reaganites succeeded in making it difficult for states and cities to attach labor and equity standards to contracts, for fear they would lose federal funding.
The revisions also explicitly banned local hire programs, despite significant research dispelling the myth that such programs are anti-competitive and demonstrating positive benefits for disadvantaged workers and local economies. The Reagan-imposed ban meant, for example, that a largely Black city with high unemployment rooted in historic racism would have little power to prevent a contractor from bringing in an all-white, non-local engineering crew for an infrastructure project in their municipality.
We should’ve gotten rid of these Reagan-era restrictions long ago, but doing so now is more important than ever, with massive new federal funds in the pipeline for infrastructure and climate projects. Public funds are precious, and we all have an interest in ensuring that the benefits of these investments are equitably shared.
Biden Administration Proposals for Undoing These 1980s Holdovers
Fortunately, Biden’s OMB is moving in this direction with recently issued proposals for updating the Uniform Guidance. In a detailed public comment letter, nearly 150 unions and other members of the Local Opportunities Coalition commend the administration for positive improvements in 11 areas. Top on their list: the welcome removal of the ban on local hire policies.
The coalition also highlights changes to allow the use of scoring mechanisms to give companies a leg up in bidding competitions if they commit to creating specific numbers and types of jobs, with minimum levels of compensation and benefits. They also note positive steps to explicitly allow hiring preferences for disadvantaged communities, the use of project labor agreements between employers and workers and other pre-hire collective bargaining agreements, bans on the use of contract funds for union-busting, and protections against employers misclassifying workers as “independent contractors” to skirt labor laws.
How the Administration Could Go Further to Ensure Public Investments Benefit Workers and Communities
The Local Opportunities Coalition also recommends a few key ways the Biden administration could strengthen their proposals. For instance, they could explicitly allow states and cities to require that contractors (and their subcontractors) pay living wages and clarify that local hire policies can apply to both infrastructure and service contracts.
In a separate comment letter, several pro-worker and Wall Street accountability groups also applauded the Biden administration’s progress while suggesting that OMB officials also make explicit that state and local officials have the flexibility to consider additional equity factors to ensure public funds actually help workers instead of lining the pockets of wealthy executives and shareholders.
Specifically, they urge support for procurement policies that give preference to companies that refrain from wasteful spending on stock buybacks, excessive CEO pay, and private equity-driven leveraged buyouts and drastic cost-cutting.
“Discouraging these practices will help ensure that corporate recipients of public funds provide high-quality services with broadly shared benefits,” notes the letter, signed by Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, the Institute for Policy Studies, Communications Workers of America, Jobs to Move America, Take on Wall Street, and United for Respect.
The OMB is expected to finalized changes to the Uniform Guidance in early 2024.
Back in the 1980s, Reagan’s efforts to crush the anti-Apartheid divestment movement ultimately failed. With demands for sanctions mounting, Congress passed a law in 1986 that gave cover to this effective means of solidarity with the South African trade unionists and others who successfully brought down the racist regime.
By scrapping the remnants of Reagan’s ideologically driven contracting standards, the Biden administration can build on this proud history of using the public purse for the greater good.
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Taking Budget Advice From Trump Official Who Wants to Cut $2 Trillion From Medicaid
"The Republican playbook is always to drive more people deeper into poverty, while giving kickbacks and tax breaks to their super-rich friends."
Feb 20, 2023
The right-wing official who served as budget director for the Trump administration is reportedly playing a significant advisory role for House Republicans as they seek to leverage a fast-approaching debt ceiling crisis to enact spending cuts that would disproportionately impact low-income households.
According toThe Washington Post, former Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought "has emerged as one of the central voices shaping the looming showdown over federal spending and the national debt."
"As Republicans struggle to craft a strategy for confronting the Biden administration over the debt ceiling, which limits how much the government can borrow to pay for spending Congress has already approved, Vought has supplied them with a seemingly inexhaustible stream of advice: suggestions for negotiating with the White House, briefings about dealing with the media, a 104-page memo that proposes specific spending levels for every federal agency," the Post reported Sunday.
More specifically, Vought has suggested that the GOP sideline efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare and instead focus on a "push to obliterate almost all other major forms of federal spending, especially programs that benefit lower-income Americans, and dare Biden to stand in the way."
Vought's agenda, the Post noted, proposes $9 trillion in federal spending cuts over the next 10 years, targeting thousands of domestic programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
If adopted, Vought's proposal would inflict $2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, potentially compromising coverage for millions across the United States—and compounding the impact of lapsing pandemic protections.
Vought's proposed cuts to SNAP—a food aid program long attacked by Republicans—would amount to $400 billion. A recent survey found that 64% of respondents said affording food is one of the biggest challenges they're facing amid elevated inflation.
Tens of millions across the U.S. are currently facing what advocates have dubbed a "hunger cliff" as pandemic-related emergency boosts to SNAP funding expire.
SNAP accounts for a tiny fraction of the federal government's overall spending.
"At a moment when food distribution centers are seeing increases in demand as American families struggle to feed their children, Republican lawmakers are putting families in their political crossfire by threatening to dramatically decrease spending on essential programs like SNAP. The timing of this could not be worse," said Ailen Arreaza, executive director of ParentsTogether. “Further cuts to essential policies helping families to keep food on the table would be unconscionable—and those politicians responsible will pay a political price."
"The only thing more odious than pushing for $3 trillion of unpaid-for tax cuts is pushing for $3 trillion of tax cuts and $3 trillion in cuts to healthcare and nutrition for low- and middle-income families."
Vought, who is also urging Republicans to cut Labor Department funding in half and slash the Affordable Care Act, presents such austerity as needed to rein in an out-of-control federal bureaucracy. But as the Post notes, Vought "oversaw enormous increases in the national debt as Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget," making clear to critics that his priority is gutting programs that low-income people rely on to meet basic needs.
"The Republican playbook is always to drive more people deeper into poverty, while giving kickbacks and tax breaks to their super-rich friends," said progressive organizer and former congressional candidate Melanie D'Arrigo.
Last week, more than 70 House Republicans introduced legislation that would make 2017 Trump tax cuts for individuals permanent, a major giveaway to the rich that would cost the federal government around $2.2 trillion in revenue through 2032.
The Biden White House and congressional Democrats have indicated that they would oppose federal spending cuts as part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling and prevent a catastrophic default, which could come as soon as this summer if lawmakers don't act.
"The only thing more odious than pushing for $3 trillion of unpaid-for tax cuts is pushing for $3 trillion of tax cuts and $3 trillion in cuts to healthcare and nutrition for low- and middle-income families," tweeted Brendan Duke, a senior adviser to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular