This article was originally published on Pro PublicaPulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

non-partisan League of Women Voters faces nationwide backlash after decades of polling candidates, registering voters, holding debates and lobbying their interests with little fuss.

ProPublica reported in August how a shifting political climate has caught up with the league, with conservatives increasingly portraying it as an overtly liberal organization. Since this story was published, we have seen candidates decline invitations to debate and try to undermine the league’s job of registering new voters. In September in Illinois, then-Lake County Councilman Dick Barr, a Republican, publicly apologized for the Facebook post in which he referred to the league as “guerrilla witches”.

This week, the group was once again at the center of political controversy. This time it was in Florida where the governor is. Ron DeSantis sought to change a wide range of discourse, including by making it It’s easier for government officials to sue for defamation and limitation Discussing Systemic Racism in Workplace Learning. The league said it was denied permission by the Florida Department of Management Services to hold an open-air rally on the steps of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee. new DeSantis admin rule a requirement for bands to first obtain sponsorship from a sympathetic government agency.

The rule went into effect on March 1 and states that the requested use of space must be “consistent with the Agency’s official purposes.” Its stated purpose is to ensure that demonstrations are “conducted in a manner that protects the health and safety of the public and ensures that public servants and officials can carry out their duties.”

A department spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the matter, stating in an email to ProPublica: “DMS regularly reviews all of its regulations to comply with Florida law. This rule has been updated as part of DMS’s annual regulatory plan to clarify procedures and requirements for public use of the Capitol.”

Taking advantage of a loophole that allows for press conferences, the league on Wednesday organized podium in the neighboring square, where he spoke publicly about what he sees as state suppression of civil rights, including freedom of speech. At one point, members of the league gagged themselves with a red ribbon, symbolizing what they say is gagging people who disagree with the government. (DeSantis’ office did not respond to a ProPublica request for comment.)

ProPublica spoke with the league’s president in Florida, attorney Cecile Schoon, about the increasingly difficult conditions the 103-year-old group in Florida faces in trying to promote civic discourse, freedom of academic thought and free access to the ballot box. Skoon called rule restricting rallies “a radical change” and said she was aware that some First Amendment groups were considering litigation. The league is already involved in an ongoing lawsuit against the DeSantis administration over the 2021 voting law. Federal Judge Overturned Several Provisions He Managed designed to discriminate against blacks lower Democratic turnout. The state has applied.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

You and your members were in Tallahassee for two days to meet with legislators and attend committee hearings and see the government in action. What was the purpose of the rally you planned to hold and what happened?

We have a lot of new members, and we want to introduce them to all the different tools we have to hold banners, get excited, and get informed by my announcements as president and our allies. This is what we like to do.

And then we asked for any other place and were told that we had to find an agency that sponsored the paperwork and basically authenticated everything we were trying to do and our application had to be in line with that agency’s policy. And it didn’t make any sense, because sometimes you want to complain about the government itself, you want to say, “Hey, you can do better here, please think about this and that.”

Do you think this is part of a wider backlash against the league?

It’s hard to know what’s on their minds. But when you say you need to get permission from a government agency, and we’ve been known to criticize and sue the governor and government agencies, you must think they were looking at us and other like-minded civic groups. You must believe it. Because why do they require you to get someone to agree with you first?

What does this mean for your organization?

Oh, it’s very harmful. The League doesn’t expect everyone to agree with us. We are very capable and open and welcome debate and different points of view. It’s not a problem. Let the citizens decide what they want to do and what to believe and who they want to vote for, but when you also take books from library shelves, when you also threaten teachers if they want to have academic freedom – K-12 and now universities are very similar to some other government regimes that wanted to prevent citizens from even getting information about what was going on.

How is the league changing? It is my understanding that you recently hosted a successful public forum in Sarasota on school choice, where views from across the political spectrum were represented.

We have received a lot of positive feedback from all sides. We’re going to have more community discussions. Again, we are not going to be silent. We can’t shut our mouths. We’re going to create opportunities. We continue to double our work with many organizations that want more free speech and support these fundamental American values. This morning, nine of my members attended a conference and prayer breakfast hosted by pastors for Florida children. … There were representatives of the Islamic faith, Christians, representatives of different faiths, there were representatives of the Jews and many public organizations. And we all plan to work together to make sure everyone feels safe and can be heard. People are outraged, they are upset and they just want fundamental American values ​​back. So it’s not just organizations with voting rights.

Do you see a connection between the demonstration rule and the more well-known efforts of the DeSantis administration, such as the so-called Don’t Say Gay Act (which restricts class discussion on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity)?

This includes a very similar message, basically to what many organizations say: “You are not allowed to say X or Y in their classes, you have no right to keep these books in your library for anyone.” So there is a lot of horror and a lot of fear.

The US Copyright Office weighed in on who owns AI-generated works in the era of ChatGPT.

This week the federal agency published(Opens in a new tab) new guidance on AI and copyright law that says it’s open to transferring ownership of AI-generated work on a case-by-case basis.

“The Bureau will consider whether the AI ​​contributions are the result of ‘mechanical reproduction’ or instead of ‘the author’s own original thought concept, to which [the author] gave a visible form,” said Shira Perlmutter, director of the Copyright Office.

Essentially, a copyrighted work will depend on how a person uses AI to create content. As we saw with ChatGPT and Bing Chat, you can ask him to write a poem in the style of William Shakespeare or a song about chicken wings a la Jimmy Buffett. But because generative AI creates “complex written, visual, or musical works in response,” “traditional elements of authorship” are defined and enforced by technology, and so the FDA won’t accept it as copyrighted material. The user has no creative control over how the AI ​​interpreted and expressed the work, so this does not count.

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On the other hand, the user “can select or arrange AI-generated material creatively enough” to become an original work based on the user’s creativity, and such work can be copyrighted. Ultimately, “what matters is the degree to which the individual had creative control over the expression of the piece,” Perlmutter said.

If this all sounds hazy and confusing, it’s because it is. This is completely new territory for copyright law, which the Copyright Office has been forced to turn to due to the sudden popularity of generative AI. There have been other complex copyright infringement cases in the recent past, such as who took a selfie taken by a monkey. The agency ultimately ruled against granting copyright, stating that a copyrighted work must be human-made. But in this case the distinction between man and animal was clear.

AI chatbots have become so sophisticated that the line between human and machine work is becoming increasingly blurred. In theory, the Copyright Office’s policy that it will not “register works created by a machine or by a simple mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from the human author” is pretty clear. , despite the incoherent proposal. But in practice, using AI to “brainstorm” ideas or “collaborate” on a work of art is questionable.

Perlmutter concluded the statement by saying “The Office continues to monitor new factual and legal developments regarding AI and copyright.” She only meant the Copyright Office, but that perfectly captures the collective attitude towards AI: we know it’s going to be big, but we don’t know how yet, so we’re working day in and day out.

SAN FRANCISCO– San Francisco oversight bodies have backed the idea of ​​paying reparations to blacks, but the question of whether members agree to a lump sum payment of $5 million to each eligible person, or any of the more than 100 other recommendations made by the advisory committee, wins. will be known by the end of this year.

The idea of ​​reparations for blacks is not new, but the federal government’s promise to provide 40 acres and a mule to newly freed slaves never came to fruition. It wasn’t until George Floyd, a black man, was killed in police custody in 2020 that the reparations movement began to spread across the country in earnest.

The state of California and the cities of Boston and San Francisco are among the jurisdictions trying to atone not only for chattel slavery, but also for decades of racist policies and laws that systematically denied black Americans access to property, education, and the opportunity to create wealth for generations.

WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT FOR A REFUND IN SAN FRANCISCO?

Black migration to San Francisco skyrocketed in the 1940s due to shipyard work, but restrictive racial agreements and redlining limited where people could live. When black residents were able to build a thriving neighborhood in Fillmore, advocates say, government redevelopment plans in the 1960s displaced residents, dispossessed them, and destroyed black-owned businesses.

Today, less than 6% of San Francisco residents are black, but they make up nearly 40% of the city’s homeless population.

Supporters include the NAACP of San Francisco, although it has stated that the board should reject the $5 million payments and instead focus on reparations through education, jobs, housing, health care, and a black cultural center in San Francisco. The San Francisco chapter president is the Rev. Amos S. Brown, who serves on both the statewide and San Francisco indemnification commissions.

WHAT ARE THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST REFUND?

Critics say that California and San Francisco never approved of chattel slavery, and today there is no one who owns slaves or has been enslaved. Critics say it’s unfair that municipal taxpayers, some of whom are immigrants, bear the cost of structural racism and government discriminatory policies.

The conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University estimates that every non-black family in San Francisco would cost at least $600,000 in taxes to pay the most expensive of the recommendations: a $5 million per person, guaranteed income from at least $97,000 a year for 250 years, liquidating personal debt, and converting public housing to condominiums to sell for $1.

A 2022 Pew Research Center poll found that 68% of U.S. respondents oppose damages, compared to 30% in favor. Nearly 80% of blacks polled supported reparations. More than 90% of Republicans or Republican supporters opposed the reparations, while Democrats and Democratic supporters were divided.

HOW WILL SAN FRANCISCO PAY FOR THIS?

Dont clear. The advisory committee that made the recommendations says it’s not up to them to figure out how to fund the redemption and renovation of San Francisco.

It will depend on local politicians, two of whom on Tuesday expressed interest in bringing the issue to the voters. San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey said he would back a vote to enshrine reparations in San Francisco’s charter as part of the budget. Shamann Walton, Head of Compensation, supports the idea.

WHAT ARE OTHER REFUND RECOMMENDATIONS?

Educational recommendations include the creation of an Afrocentric K-12 school in San Francisco; hiring and retaining black teachers; introduction of a core curriculum on black history and culture; and offering cash to at-risk students for achieving educational milestones.

Health recommendations include free mental health, prenatal care, and rehab treatment for impoverished black San Francisco residents, victims of violent crime, and ex-convicts.

The advisory committee also recommends prioritizing black San Franciscans in terms of employment and training opportunities, and looking for ways to grow black businesses.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

There is no deadline for oversight bodies to agree on how to proceed. The board then plans to discuss the reparation proposals in September, after the San Francisco Advisory Committee on African American Redress releases its final report in June.

WHAT ABOUT REFUND FROM THE STATE?

In 2020, California became the first state to form an indemnity task force. But after nearly two years on the job, he has yet to make key decisions about who will be eligible for payment and how much. The task force has a July 1 deadline to submit a final report on its recommendations for redress, which will then be incorporated into law for lawmakers to consider.

The Task Force met several times to discuss the timing and calculation of repayments for five types of harm done to blacks, including state forfeiture of property, housing discrimination, homelessness, and mass incarceration. The task force is also discussing residency requirements in the state.

Previously, a state committee voted to limit financial reparations to people descended from enslaved or freed blacks in the US in the 19th century.