“We urge the Secretary of State’s Office to halt implementation now!”
Several Republican legislators in Oregon are now blasting Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade for steps taken by the agency recently that enables to state of Oregon to constantly surveil, track,
and attempt to suppress or manipulate the free speech of Oregon’s citizens. They have bicamerally penned
a letter, it reads as follows:
We call on you and your office to immediately halt implementation of the "Misinformation,
Disinformation, and Mal-information (MDM) Analysis Platform Services" Contract (IT Services
Contract per Bid Solicitation S-16500-00007470). We have learned that the purpose of this
system is to continually monitor and actively manipulate the free speech of Oregonians. We
believe that this system as described in the Request for Proposal (RFP) violates Oregonians' First
Amendment rights.
Logically (logically.ai), a UK-based company, was awarded the MDM contract last month. As
detailed in the RFP (link here), the system will "…identify and mitigate harmful information online
as it relates to elections (mis-, dis-, and mal- information, or “MDM”).” The Logically system
will monitor Oregonians’ social media posts for MDM on a nonstop basis and use artificial
intelligence to “identify perceived threats” and “recommend countermeasures”, including
promoting an AI-generated counter-narrative to Oregonians’ speech. The system will also report
anything it determines is a possible threat or constitutes speech that “violates community
guidelines and/or policies” of different sites to those social media platforms. It will report "urgent
information" to the FBI and State Police.
The problem is that the state will determine which content is labeled MDM. Also concerning is
how such determinations will be made and by whom. These terms and processes are not defined
either in the contract or in any Oregon statute. Instead of focusing on the primary role of ensuring
confidence and transparency in Oregon’s elections, the Secretary of State’s Office has chosen to
monitor and encourage the censoring of citizens who voice legitimate concerns, some of which
may question government practices or policies, on public platforms such as social media.
We reject the idea that any elected official or agency has the authority to constantly surveil, track,
and attempt to suppress or manipulate the free speech of Oregon’s citizens. We urge the Secretary
of State’s Office to halt implementation now and we call on the Legislature to address this pressing
Constitutional issue during the 2024 session. Oregonians deserve a transparent government that
prioritizes service to its people. Our government should never use secretive processes and AI
programs to tip the scales by suppressing some citizens and augmenting only those who voice
consensus with the state. Using artificial intelligence in this manner does nothing to improve
confidence or security in our elections; instead, it will deepen the ongoing divide we are all
working to heal.
We look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Court Boice
State Representative, District 1
- Shelly Boshart Davis
State Representative, District 15
- Ed Diehl
State Representative, District 17
- Tracy Cramer
State Representative, District 22
- Lucetta Elmer
State Representative, District 24
- Christine Goodwin
State Representative, District 4
- Jeff Helfrich
State Representative, District 52
- James Hieb
State Representative, District 51
- Bobby Levy
State Representative, District 58
- Rick Lewis
State Representative, District 18
- Kevin Mannix
State Representative, District 21
- Emily McIntire
State Representative, District 22
- Lily Morgan
State Representative, District 3
- Virgle Osborne
State Representative, District 2
- Mark Owens
State Representative, District 60
- E. Werner Reschke
State Representative, District 55
- Anna Scharf
State Representative, District 23
- Brian Stout
State Representative, District 31
- Kim Wallan
State Representative, District 6
- Boomer Wright
State Representative, District 9
- Kim Thatcher
State Senator, District 11
- Dennis Linthicum
State Senator, District 28
- Suzanne Weber
State Senator, District 16
- Cedric Hayden
State Senator, District 6
- David Brock Smith
State Senator, District 1
- Fred Girod
State Senator, District 9
- Lynn Findley
State Senator, District 30
--Ben FisherPost Date: 2023-11-08 16:20:46 | Last Update: 2023-11-08 18:10:37 |