The U.S. military says it has ended its search for airborne objects that were shot down near Deadhorse, Alaska, and over Lake Huron on Feb. 10 and 12.
In a statement released late Friday, U.S. Northern Command said the decision came after the U.S. and Canada “conducted systematic searches of each area using a variety of capabilities, including airborne imagery and sensors, surface sensors and inspections, and subsurface scans, and did not locate debris.”
Northern Command said air and maritime safety perimeters were being lifted at both sites.
The announcement capped three dramatic weeks that saw U.S. fighter jets shoot down four airborne objects — a large Chinese balloon on Feb. 4 and three much smaller objects about a week later over Canada, Alaska and Lake Huron. They are the first known peacetime shootdowns of unauthorized objects in U.S. airspace.
U.S. officials said Friday that efforts to recover the remnants of the large balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina had ended, and analysis of the debris so far reinforces conclusions that it was a Chinese spy balloon.
Officials said the U.S. believes that Navy, Coast Guard and FBI personnel collected all of the balloon debris off the ocean floor, which included key equipment from the payload that could reveal what information it was able to monitor and collect. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said a significant amount of debris was recovered and it included “electronics and optics” from the payload. He declined to say what, if anything, the U.S. has learned from the wreckage so far.
U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that the recovery operations ended Thursday and the final pieces are on their way to the FBI lab in Virginia for analysis. It said air and maritime restrictions off South Carolina have been lifted.
The Biden administration is considering civil penalties for freight railroad Norfolk Southern, along with possibly a legally binding order to ensure the company pays for cleanup costs associated with the toxic derailment in Ohio on Feb. 3, senior officials told reporters on Friday.
In a call designed to highlight the work of several agencies on the ground in East Palestine, Ohio, administration officials detailed the work being conducted by FEMA, the EPA, Health and Human Services, Transportation Department and independent investigatory agency the National Transportation Safety Board. The railroad has already pledged to pay for the costs of the cleanup, but officials said Friday that if it does not, the government would do it and charge Norfolk Southern three times the cost.
Several officials noted that previous disasters, such as the 2013 derailment in Quebec of a runaway train carrying crude oil that caught fire and killed 47 people, had spurred regulatory and legislative action and they were certain this would have a similar result.
The officials also defended the furor of criticism of what some see as a delayed response by the administration, in particular DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg who did not speak publicly about the derailment until over a week after it happened, by saying an evacuation order was in place early on because of the danger of an explosion and local authorities were telling people to stay out of the area. Beyond that, they said that visits by high-ranking officials can create a distraction to crews working on the ground.
Officials on the call touched on the debate over whether electronically controlled pneumatic brakes could have averted the disaster. In 2015, after a National Academy of Sciences study could not find conclusively that they were better than other braking options, a rule that would have mandated their use on certain trains carrying very dangerous substances was withdrawn under the Trump administration, as required by statute.
“We got an avalanche of lawsuits opposing it immediately after we finalized it, which was in 2015,” one administration official said. “In 2016, Congress created a new bar for the cost-benefit analysis of the rule and directed us to essentially revisit it, with additional costs to consider.”
“So we found the safety benefit benefit was sufficient,” the official went on. “Then Congress weighed in. So that created an artificially higher bar for that rule and demonstrated a lack of support for that portion of the rule.”
On Thursday, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy took to Twitter to insist that “even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn't have had ECP brakes” because it would have “applied ONLY to HIGH HAZARD FLAMMABLE TRAINS.”
“The train that derailed in East Palestine was a MIXED FREIGHT TRAIN containing only 3 placarded Class 3 flammable liquids cars,” she explained.
Several administration officials on the call said that ECP brakes have safety benefits and challenged Congress to act, since legislative action is quicker than regulatory action.
Officials also spoke about a pending rule that would require freight trains to have at least two crew members on board and to keep a sufficient maintenance and inspection workforce, saying it is "important it is not to curtail mechanical and brake safety inspections” as well as “making sure that the right people within the railroads are conducting those investigations.”
They also noted that the Biden administration has reinstituted audits of the railroads after they were suspended by the Trump administration.
As Google awaits a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could dramatically upend portions of its business model, a group of prominent online content creators and a nonprofit for authors have rushed to its defense.
In January, a number of prominent internet influencers and the nonprofit Authors Alliance filed an amicus brief defending the tech giant in Gonzalez v. Google. The case, which is slated for oral arguments on Tuesday, could weaken — or even upend — the company’s treasured liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And those same protections, the creators wrote, are vital to them too.
Left unmentioned in the brief was that the parties behind it had direct financial ties to Google. The group that funded the brief, a nonprofit advocate for startups called Engine, is funded in part by Google. And at least one of the content creators who signed on to the amicus brief has said that employees from YouTube, a Google subsidiary, invited them to sign onto the brief. In addition, the firm representing the creators and Authors Alliance — Keker, Van Nest & Peters — represents Google in other litigation.
Google spokespeople did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Authors Alliance referred comment to one of its lawyers, Ben Berkowitz, who maintained that neither the group nor the creators were paid to sign onto the brief. Berkowitz also said that neither Alphabet, nor Google, nor its subsidiaries authored the brief or contributed funding.
“Our firm’s representation of Google in unrelated litigation is public knowledge, and not a conflict,” he stated. “We represented Authors Alliance and a diverse group of individual content creators to express their views to the Supreme Court about the important role Section 230 plays in protecting and promoting diverse and independent content.”
But for Big Tech critics, the intertwining of interests behind the amicus brief is another illustration of how those companies have used their resources to tilt the scales of power. Beyond the millions Google spends on lobbying each quarter and the trade associations that make its case to policymakers on the Hill, the company has pointed its operatives to another target: the Supreme Court.
“These YouTube creators are just a new angle on an old Google tactic: flooding the zone with supporters — who are often funded by Google — to boost its corporate agenda in Washington,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. “Whether it’s policy groups, academics, foundations, or YouTube creators, they’re all part of the same Google influence machinery.”
The Tech Transparency Project highlighted the creator initiative in a report, first shared with POLITICO, on Google’s influence operation ahead of the Supreme Court case. TTP has disclosed funding from several groups including the Omidyar Network, which was created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Under Section 230, tech platforms like YouTube are immune from being sued for content posted by their users. Gonzalez v. Google questions whether Section 230 immunity should extend to user-created content that platforms recommend or promote — including via algorithms, which channel the majority of content viewed on YouTube and across the internet. The creators’ brief argues that platforms will be less likely to recommend broad swathes of content if doing so increases the risk of a lawsuit, and that the livelihoods of online creators will suffer as a result.
“Major platforms might be less likely to host and promote independent creators’ content,” the brief contends. “New and emerging creators may be unlikely to reach new audiences. And speech generally could be chilled online, hindering Congress’ policy goals of fostering a free and open Internet.”
Among those creators who signed on to the brief were the family video blogger Jeremy Johnston; Mikhail Varshavski, a handsome internet doctor known as Doctor Mike who boasts a YouTube channel with 10.5 million subscribers; and Milad Mirg, an online creator whose posts have “offered behind-the-scenes looks at his fast-food job at Subway.”
The brief also included Jordan Maron, a video game streamer who goes by CaptainSparklez and who operates a YouTube channel with 11.4 million subscribers. In a video posted to his channel before the brief was filed, Maron revealed that he had been brought into “a group call with YouTube employees, other creators, creator-adjacent business people to inform us of what this is and ask if we wanted to be part of something called an amicus brief.” Google Store has previously sponsored Maron, and Google has sponsored videos posted by other creators who signed onto the brief.
The revelation of who paid for the brief came via a footnote, which states that “Engine’s Digital Entrepreneur Project made a monetary contribution intended to fund the preparation and submission of this brief.” No other person or entity made such a contribution, the footnote explains.
Kate Tummarello, Engine’s executive director, denied that Google had any direct or indirect involvement in funding the brief. She also pushed back on the notion that the call described by Maron was convened by Google subsidiary YouTube to solicit creator signatures.
“My understanding is that YouTube does informational updates on policy topics that impact creators,” Tummarello said. “As part of those conversations, Section 230 was discussed at a high level.” Tummarello said she was also on that call, and that it was she who talked to the YouTube creators to gauge their interest in the amicus brief through Engine’s Digital Entrepreneur Project. She said none of the signers received any compensation, and that Engine “isn't reliant on or beholden to any funder.”
“Engine has been an advocate on Section 230 for years because we advocate on behalf of startups who rely on [its] framework to host and moderate user-generated content (which we explained in a separate brief we signed),” Tummarello said.
Groups that receive Google funding are not barred from supporting the company before the judiciary. In fact, a number of groups supported by Google have also filed briefs in the case. However, the rules hold that an amicus brief must disclose the people or entity — beyond those on the brief, their members, or their counsel — who contributed money for putting together the brief or its submission.
Besides the creators, nearly seven dozen amicus briefs have been filed on Gonzalez v. Google. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have weighed in, as has the Department of Justice and a slew of internet experts and tech lobbying groups.
The Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments on Tuesday. The case centers around Google and YouTube’s alleged role in the deadly 2015 rampage through Paris by ISIS terrorists. The family of Nohemi Gonzalez, an American student killed in the attack, sued Google over ISIS recruitment videos that allegedly spread across YouTube and were not immediately removed from the site.
