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Priorities Podcast
Lawsuits, soundwaves and broadband — A look at state IT's latest headlines
00:24:27
The fire department of San Bernardino County, Cal…
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- [00:03]
A
Hello and welcome to State Scoop's Priorities podcast. I'm Colin Woods, State Scoop's editor in chief. This week I have two very, very special guests. We have Keely Quinlan and Sophia Fox Sowo. If their names sound familiar, that's because they are reporters for statescoop. And I will be interviewing them about some of their recent news coverage. And Keely will be interviewing me about a story that I wrote. Sophia's story is about San Bernardino, California, which is testing a new firefighting technology that uses low frequency sound waves rather than water or chemicals to suppress flames. And Keely, I will be asking about the Paiute tribe of Bishop, California, which last week became the first group in the state of California to connect to the states that Middle Mile Broadband Network. It linked its education and community centers. I will also be asking Keely about another piece of news regarding Middle Mile Networks. That's in Maryland. Governor West Moore and the state's Board of Public Works has announced a new resource sharing agreement to expand the state's Middle Mile fiber network, an extension valued at $3.5 million, but that will only cost the state a fraction of that amount. And Keely asked me about a story that I recently wrote. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health last month settled a class action lawsuit by a handful of Android users who claimed that the state had worked with Google to automatically install a COVID 19 contact tracing app on their phones and the phones of more than 1 million other users, tracking their locations and transmitting their personal information. Here's my conversation with Sophia. First, You recently reported on some really interesting new firefighting technologies being tested out in a in San Bernardino county, which is near Los Angeles. Walk us through it. What are they doing?
- [02:05]
B
So San Bernardino county is the largest county in the continuous United States. It has densely populated cities. It butts up against the San Bernardino National Forest. So emergency responders have to deal with a wide variety variety of wildfires, some that are started with electrical fires, some that are started out in the wilderness. So they're actually testing two different types of both sensors and suppression technology. The first is sound waves. They're using sound waves to remove the oxygen molecules around the fire without actually removing all of the oxygen, which can create its own safety risk. And it's a lot better than using water sprinklers and more effective because it doesn't create damage to electronics or property or sensitive documents or materials that might be in a house. Similar with chemical suppressions or any other type of like carbon dioxide suppressants that can create some health risk and environmental Hazards. So that's been really effective. If you can imagine a speaker system and if you're standing in front of it and there's usually. If it's very, very loud, you'll get almost like a wave of air coming towards you that knock you back. That's the same type of technology and moves that they're using. The county fire department is also testing lightning sensors. So they have these ground sensors set up in rural areas across the county where the sensors detect lightning strikes, specifically to determine the heat signatures, which can really determine whether or not the lightning strikes have the potential to spark a wildfire. So the sensors will detect every single lightning strike, but will only notify if that lightning strike, the heat signature has the potential to start a fire. And we'll send emergency responders to the area.
- [03:53]
A
Right. And a lot of this, if I remember right, started when Gavin Newsom took office. He said that he was going to make innovating on fire technology a big part of his administration. Do you have a. And it makes sense, given California's history of wildfires and the fact that they seem to be getting worse. You and I both live in California, as it happens. Do you have a sense. And you've interviewed and reported on this a bunch. You've interviewed a bunch of different fire people. Fire people. Fire officials around the state.
- [04:30]
B
They are people, too.
- [04:30]
A
Do you have a sense of how important these technologies are? Is this. Is this just them testing out different stuff, seeing if maybe it takes. Or is this like a really central part of their operations going forward?
- [04:46]
B
I think throughout the history of California, and especially with. With government, whenever innovation happens, it's always very slow adoption. And with wildfires, every second counts. So emergency responders don't always have the time to just be purely reactionary and use technology after a fire happens. So I think the entire. From, you know, north to south, especially because wildfire season impacts almost every region of the state, they're really investing heavily in preventative technologies. With sensors like the San Bernardino lightning sensors, they're using wide variety of databases as well to share information. So I think they're trying to really invest in preventative technologies so that when wildfires happen, they're a lot more prepared because they've taken the steps to. To look out for what can cause a fire, to kind of remove any fuel barriers, to create more defensive structures and really invest in that. Because, I mean, the saying is, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
- [05:56]
A
All right, I'm here with Keely Quinlan. Keely, it's been Dozens of minutes since we last talked. Thank you for talking to me again.
- [06:05]
C
You're so welcome.
- [06:07]
A
I wanted to talk about a couple of your recent broadband stories. One of them was in California about its Middle Mile Network. It was evidently important enough for the governor to show up. What, what happened in California?
- [06:23]
C
Yeah. So at the, you know, tail end of last week, the Bishop Paiute Tribe out of Bishop, California became the first entity of state, local or tribal government in California to join the state's Middle Mile Network. Now this network, which has been in the works for about three years, was created by a law signed in, into effect by Governor Gavin Newsom, I believe in 2023 or 2022. And basically it charged the California Department of Technology and a handful of other organizations that would be created from the legislation to build out a Middle Mile Network, which is a high capacity fiber network that will connect regions and enable Last Mile Internet services. So think about like your AT&T is your, you know, giant ISP is down to your small ISPs. This is the network that they plug into to provide services to homes and businesses. Now what's notable about the tribal government of the Bishop Paiutes joining first is that they signed a $0 contract with the California Department of Technology for these services. So essentially they are not paying anything for access to this, this Internet. Instead, what's going to happen is, is the tribal isp, so the tribe, the ISP that provides service to the tribes and is run by the tribe will get to set the price for those services and get to collect the revenue from those services. So not only does it generate business for that community, but it provides access to Internet which it previously did not have.
- [08:04]
A
Right. Do we know if that's a normal arrangement for the to be able to connect freely like that? Will every community have that?
- [08:13]
C
So I believe it's on a tiered system. What was very clear in the state's news release kind of about this project was that because this is a tribal government that as I said earlier, has had limited access to Internet up until this point because of its remote location right in the, in the High Sierras, it requires kind of a different approach than say like a local government or a state government might, or a state government entity, rather might, because of the economic constraints placed on the tribal governments. So while I'm not sure what will be coming forth with newer agreements, whether other tribes across the state will be connected in the same way, it is very clear that this was done with the economic benefit of the tribal government in mind.
- [09:01]
A
Right. All right. Heading east, there was another story in Maryland also about its middle mile network a little bit different. What, what was the story there? And why did we, why did we deem this worthy of coverage?
- [09:16]
C
Yeah, so Maryland announced also last week that it had signed a new resource sharing agreement via its middle mile network with a broadband cooperative. Now, Maryland is set up a little bit differently. Of course. The middle mile network out in California is still in the middle of construction. These last miles, or most recent miles were the first ones to be completed that connected the Bishop Paiute tribe. However, the middle mile network out in Maryland is a little bit more well established and it is expanded through these types of agreements. So what the resource sharing agreement allows Maryland to do is to tap into existing fiber networks, expand the access that the state can provide. So this is, this allows the state to gain access to new fiber to towers. And this agreement, which was enabled by an investment on the state's part of $250,000, gives the state access to resources worth $3.5 million. So the emphasis here is that public and private collaboration, right, between the state and this broadband cooperative, reusing existing assets instead of building new ones, which delivers cost savings to the state. And so far, Maryland is saying that this model, right, this resource sharing model for its fiber network has delivered the state $50 million annually in savings. So what's important about that is, is while these are different models of last mile networks, they both kind of deliver the same thing, right? We're delivering economic benefit to the state, to the tribal communities, but also then side by side, there's this like incremental expansion and optimization of both that, you know, allows the state government to help close the digital divide.
- [11:04]
A
Right? Yeah, that's great. I know two doesn't make a trend, but given everything that's happening with the federal bid funding and everything beyond what you just mentioned, are there any, is there any sort of trend or, or, or conclusion that we can reach based on this recent news? Just what, what states are doing with their middle mile networks? Or is this just a continuation of them building up their infrastructure as they have been for, for years and years?
- [11:33]
C
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great question. No, I think these two distinct projects and benchmarks, right, are indicative of a larger trend. And it actually was quite clearly laid out in a report that was published, I believe, at the end of last month by Pew Charitable Trust, which kind of expanded on the fact that state governments are leading on broadband expansion. And this is mainly owed to the fact that there's this vacuum. Right. And federal guidance right now with, with bead, states are kind of holding their breath to see what's going to happen to those remaining $21 billion that states were promised as part of the bead program.
- [12:17]
A
But non deployment funds.
- [12:19]
C
Yes, exactly. Those non deployment funds that everybody's kind of scratching their head about. And we were supposed to. Well, states, state broadband offices were supposed to receive updated guidance on that at the beginning of March. And the ntia, which is the Commerce Department's administering agency for these types of programs, announced that they're actually holding off. They were, they gathered a bunch of feedback through public listening sessions and a number of other online feedback gathering methods and they're retooling kind of what they're thinking about how to use, how to allow states to use these funds. So in, I guess, absence of, of that and that investment, states like Maryland and California have kind of stepped up in to fill this gap. And you know, of course, again, there's no single model that works. California, they are building a massive state owned network from scratch, whereas Maryland is kind of, kind of doing the same, but they're expanding more smartly via the sharing and reusing existing assets types of agreements. But I think it's really important to note that when we hear about Last Mile. Right. Last mile is not possible without middle mile. So states are really taking up this charge through policy and legislation and that report from Pew really kind of captured that. So these two are just, you know, manifestations of that. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see as we move into the coming months with when that guidance is expected to be released, how states are going to continue to take up that torch.
- [13:46]
A
All right. And much more to come on broadband, I'm sure. But yeah, thanks Keely, for sharing your reporting.
- [13:53]
C
Absolutely. Thank you. So, Colin, you recently wrote a story about a settlement that was reached regarding Massachusetts's contact tracing program during the COVID 19 pandemic. And there were some issues that kind of came up as a result of the way the state conducted that process. So can you tell me about the settlement itself and what it says the state did improperly?
- [14:21]
A
Yeah, and I should preface all this by saying that anything that I say here is, you know, my reading of the court filings. And since it was a settlement, I don't know what, there's no real determination, I guess, about what was actually done. There's claims that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has made and there are claims that the New Civil Liberties alliance, which is representing the plaintiffs, and then the things that the plaintiffs have said. But what the plaintiffs claimed, which is a. It was a handful of Massachusetts residents who noticed, among many other people reportedly that an app on their Android phones had just mysteriously appeared, but it didn't have an icon like apps on your phone usually do. They noticed kind of tucked into their settings somewhere that the app had been installed. And in some cases, again, reportedly, I have no way of really verifying this independently, but reportedly in some cases they would notice the app, delete it, and then the app would be automatically reinstalled without them having doing anything. And this group, the New Civil Liberties alliance, noticed this or they were alerted to this fact. They're a nonprofit law firm and they tend to focus on what they perceive to be administrative overreach. The state doing more than they believe than it should. And this I, I think I could, I'd speak on their behalf by saying that they believe this definitely crossed the line in terms of what was, what is acceptable for a state government agency in this case to do in the United States. And so they filed this lawsuit in 2022 and the claim that they made was that they worked with Google to secretly install the app on more than 1 million phones. And yeah, and as I previously detailed, the app is called massnotify. They claim that the, the app was transmitting all sorts of personal data over, across the, the application logs that was accessible by Google by application developers, by, by all sorts of other parties. And again, I, I'm, I'm not able to verify that. And the state at one point, I don't know whether this changed at some point, but at one point the state did dispute that. They said that that was not true anyway. They, they disputed the main claim that it, that it was something that, that it was automatically installed and that it was violating. The law firm was claiming fourth and fifth amendment violations and the state disputed that as well, but eventually, eventually settled. So the outcome was that the state agreed to delete or destroy, in the words that the legal documents used, destroy all the data that they collected through the contact tracing app. And for the next five years they are not allowed to install similar applications on Android devices. I, I'm, I assume it's some sort of legal standard legal thing where you, you create a five year, a five year prohibition on, on doing something rather than just doing it indefinitely. Because, you know, presumably this, this, if, if, if the law firm's claim was true, then presumably they should never do that again. But I guess never is a long time in the legal world.
- [17:58]
C
Yeah, absolutely. Now the new Civil Liberties alliance, this firm that brought the suit last week, called the settlement a victory for not only the state's residents, but for the nation. Can you tell me, like, at a high level, I guess, what makes this settlement important beyond just Massachusetts?
- [18:20]
A
Right. So I think their idea was that, of course, for Massachusetts, this was seen as a victory because a lot of people were upset about this. You could see on the reviews, you can see people were posting about it online when they noticed this was happening. And anyone who remembers the pandemic, all of the chaos, the confusion, and then, of course, from a lot of people, the concern about what the government was doing, mistrust of the government. As we learned more about the coronavirus, the narrative continually changed because we were just learning things so quickly. And for a lot of people, that was confusing and that created distrust of the government generally. And so when something like this happens, I think people, for a lot of people, reinforce what they suspected, that, you know, Big Brother is watching them or that, you know, the government is forcing them to do things that they don't want to do on their personal property, in this case, their smartphones. And so the New Civil Liberties alliance said this was a victory for Massachusetts and for the nation. And so Peggy Little was the Alliance's senior litigation counsel, and she called it a powerful cautionary precedent that government should not adopt new intrusive technology to spy on its citizens using their own smartphones without regard for the law.
- [19:44]
C
And I know, like many other states during the height of the pandemic, turned to this kind of contact tracing technology. Like, I remember a handful of times, like myself getting the alerts on my cell phone that I had been possibly exposed due to nearby proximity to an active case. And I remember thinking, like, how did. How did that get there? Or how did it know? You know, so was Massachusetts like an outlier here? Or does this kind of reflect a broader pattern of how states approached contact tracing technology?
- [20:15]
A
Like, just. Right. So from what I remember, a lot of states forged deals with Google and with Apple to somehow integrate with their. With the notification systems that are. That are not necessarily separate apps, but a feature that is sort of built into the. To the phone. According to this lawsuit in Massachusetts, Massachusetts Department of Public Health distinguished itself by doing things a little bit differently. According. Again, I can't verify this, but according to the complaint that they filed and the various legal documents they claim, and the plaintiffs claim that the app was being installed and reinstalled automatically, and they referenced the other. And they. They counted two dozen other states that have similar apps, but they were purely optional. And, and they claimed that Massachusetts was the only state to automatically install the, the app on phones when people were within the state's boundaries. In some cases people lived there. In some cases, people only traveled there to work and noticed that the app had been installed. And so, um, that was, that was the main concern.
- [21:37]
C
Yeah, that, I mean, and thinking about the ways that states now are governing data privacy right. For private companies through consumer data laws, a lot of these laws are not, are not interfacing or not regulating how governments are collecting data or using it, which I think may, this may, you know, provide a interesting jumping off point for some of those conversations to start happening. But now thinking again about kind of the future, like, how do you, how are you thinking about this case and what it means for future public health emergencies or emergencies, period? Will governments, you think, be maybe more cautious? And I know this might require a little bit of speculation, but do you think that this could be a useful way of thinking about slowing down when thinking about public health technology?
- [22:26]
A
Right. Well, it's, it's, you know, it's obviously a precedent. It's the only case of its case or settlement of its kind that I know of which I can't imagine. We, you know, between, between all of us looking at this, these, all this govtech news every day that we would have missed another one. I, I, I think that in general, states are really careful about this sort of thing. And, and it's, it's, it's actually kind of impressive that states were, you know, the, all kinds of mistakes were made during the COVID 19 pandemic, but I think it's impressive how, how careful they managed to be even, you know, to, to be building the plane while, while flying it, so to speak. And I don't know that this would necessarily be a big shift in how people think about data privacy. It's definitely, I think the, that senior litigation counsel is right, that it is a cautionary tale. It's definitely something people will be able to point to and say, we don't want to be in that position where we're in this protracted lawsuit that has a bunch of people mad at us. And I haven't been able to get in touch with the agency, but I would be really curious to know their take on it. The former public health commissioner is no longer there, but maybe the new one has a take on what they've learned from it. Hopefully that's something that we can add to our reporting in the coming months.
- [23:57]
C
Yeah, totally. Well, thanks for chatting with me.
- [24:00]
A
Of course. Thank you, Keely. Thank you to Keely Quindlen and Sophia Fox Sowell for sharing some of their reporting with us. And thank you for their work every day reporting for State Scoop. That's it for this episode. This podcast is a production of Scoop News Group in Washington, dc. Production work is done by Adam Butler and Carlin Fisher. I'm Colin Wood. Thanks for listening.