THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, March 6, 2020 |A
Facebook Inc. removed
Trump campaign ads that re-
ferred to a census, saying they
violated a company policy
aimed at preventing disinforma-
tion and other interference with
the nationwide 2020 census,
which goes online next week.
The ads, which began run-
ning on the social network this
week, asked people to take the
“Official 2020 Congressional
District Census” and then di-
rected users to a website for
fundraising to support Mr.
Trump’s re-election. “The infor-
mation we gather from this sur-
vey will help us craft our strate-
gies for YOUR CONGRESSIONAL
DISTRICT,” the ads said.
Facebook said Thursday
that it was the first time the
company removed a Trump
campaign ad for violating its
census interference policy.
“There are policies to prevent
confusion around the U.S. Cen-
sus, and this is an example of
those being enforced,” a Face-
book spokesman said.
The ads were paid for by
Trump Make America Great
Again Committee, a joint fund-
raising committee of Donald J.
Trump for President Inc. and
the Republican National Com-
mittee. Representatives for
Mr. Trump’s re-election effort
didn’t respond to requests to
comment.
Facebook and other social-
media platforms are under
scrutiny for the way they han-
dle political ads to prevent
disinformation during this
year’s election season, and
many of those same concerns
have also come up with the
2020 census.
The census, which is re-
quired to take an accurate count
of the population and apportion
congressional seats, takes place
once a decade. The 2020 census
will be the first one where most
Americans are asked to respond
online, raising new challenges
about security and preventing
bad information from discour-
aging participation.
The Trump campaign ads
were posted on Facebook
pages for President Trump
and Vice President Mike Pence
and began running earlier this
week. The Republican National
Committee began circulating a
similar ad via mail last year.
Tech and politics newsletter
Popular Information initially
reported on the Trump cam-
paign Facebook ads related to
a census.
Some of the campaign ads
remained active, while others
were inactive, as of Thursday
afternoon, according to Face-
book’s ad library.
The ads drew heat from
Democrats on Capitol Hill on
Thursday who said the cam-
paign solicitations might con-
fuse people, whose participa-
tion in the census is crucial to
obtaining an accurate nation-
wide count.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D., Calif.) said, before the ads
were removed, “This is, on the
part of Facebook, a robust un-
acceptable interference in the
census.”
She added at her weekly
news conference, “I know the
profit motive is their business
model, but it should not come
at the cost of counting who is
in our country so that we can
provide the services.”
Asked about the ads at a
Senate hearing, Commerce Sec-
retary Wilbur Ross told law-
makers that he has “asked the
career staff at census to look
into this and see what appro-
priate action, if any, we should
be taking to deal with it.”
New Hampshire Democratic
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said the
Republican National Committee
mailing seemed to be deliber-
ately trying to cause confusion.
“They don’t know the differ-
ence between this document
and what comes out officially
from the census,” she said.
“That could be,” Mr. Ross
said in response.
Facebook said the Trump
campaign ads were in violation
of the policy because they are
misleading about how to partic-
ipate in the official U.S. Census.
Census officials have raised
concerns that social-media plat-
forms may be used to spread
misinformation about the count.
—Natalie Andrews
contributed to this article.
BYEMILYGLAZER
ANDJANETADAMY
Removes
‘Census’
Trump Ad
and continuing to secure their
messages with encryption,” a
company spokesman said via
email.
Mr. Barr also rebukedApple
Inc. less than two months ago
for its encryption and other
digital-security measures when
he escalated pressure on the
company to open a pair of
iPhones belonging to an avia-
tion student from Saudi Arabia
who killed three people at a
Florida Navy base late last year.
Mr. Barr has shown a will-
ingness to confront tech com-panies in a way that has con-
cerned even some like-minded
Federal Bureau of Investigation
officials who fear it could hurt
the relationships they have
built with Silicon Valley.
Yet Mr. Barr, speaking at the
media event Thursday where
officials declined to answer
questions, appeared to soften
his tone. He again lamented
suspects’ ability to communi-
cate through “virtually un-
breakable encryption,” saying
“predators’ supposed privacy
interests should not outweighU.S. NEWS
gross distortion to imply other-
wise.”
Mr. Schumer was addressing
an outcry over comments he
made Wednesday about Jus-
tices Neil Gorsuch and Brett
Kavanaugh at a rally outside
the court, while the justices
heard oral arguments over a
Louisiana abortion law.
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch.
I want to tell you, Kavanaugh.
You have released the whirl-
wind and you will pay the
price.” Mr. Schumer said at the
rally. “You won’t know what hit
you if you go forward with
these awful decisions.”
Republicans and others criti-
cized Mr. Schumer over the
comments. Earlier Thursday,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R., Ky.) admonishedMr. Schumer over the com-
ments on the Senate floor.
“There is nothing to call this
except a threat. And there is
absolutely no question to whom
it was directed,” Mr. McConnell
said. “He literally directed the
statement to the justices, by
name.”
Chief Justice John Roberts,
who in 2018 spoke out against
President Trump’s verbal at-
tacks on federal judges, also
had criticized Mr. Schumer’s re-
marks.
“Justices know that criticism
comes with the territory, but
threatening statements of this
sort from the highest levels of
government are not only inap-
propriate, they are dangerous.
All Members of the Court will
continue to do their job, with-out fear or favor, from whatever
quarter,” the statement said.
American Bar Association
President Judy Perry Martinez
echoed the chief justice’s con-
cerns, saying the legal organi-
zation was deeply troubled by
Mr. Schumer’s remarks.
“Whatever one thinks about
the merits of an issue before a
court, there is no place for
threats—whether real or alle-
gorical,” she said.
Some Democrats said they
were pleased Mr. Schumer had
addressed the issue and con-
trasted his approach with that
of Mr. Trump.
“That’s not the Chuck
Schumer that I know,” said Sen.
Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), refer-
ring to his initial comments.
“I’m glad he has apologizedfrom this standpoint: Don’t let
the president bring you down
to his level, and that type of
toxicity. We’re better than
that.”
Supreme Court justices have
been in the political crosshairs
recently. During a visit to India
last month, the president said
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and
Ruth Bader Ginsburg should re-
cuse themselves from cases in-
volving him.
In November 2018, Chief
Justice Roberts rebutted com-
ments from President Trump
disparaging federal courts in
California, including his charac-
terization of a jurist who ruled
against the administration as
an “Obama judge.”
—Jess Bravin
contributed to this article.WASHINGTON—Senate Mi-
nority Leader Chuck Schumer
said he regretted his remarks
about two Trump-appointed
Supreme Court justices “paying
the price” for their potential
rulings on abortion, adding
they weren’t intended as a
physical threat.
“I’m from Brooklyn. We
speak in strong language,” the
New York Democrat said on the
Senate floor Thursday. “I
shouldn’t have used the words
I did, but in no way was I mak-
ing a threat,” he said.
“Of course I didn’t intend to
suggest anything other than
political and public-opinion
consequences for the Supreme
Court,” he said, “and it is aBYLINDSAYWISESchumer Walks Back Comments on Justices
CHICAGO—The primary
campaign for Chicago’s top
prosecutor has been a fight
over bail reform, gun control
and when to press charges
against shoplifters, but the
race might come down to one
issue: Jussie Smollett.
A trio of Democrats vying
for the job have hammered in-
cumbent Cook County state’s
attorney Kim Foxx for months
on her record. But a focus on
her handling of what authori-
ties say was Mr. Smollett’s bo-
gus claim of a hate crime have
contributed to a drop in her
polling numbers and threat-
ened to upend her re-election.
In January of last year, Mr.
Smollett, an actor from the Fox
television show “Empire,”
claimed two men attacked him
while using pro-Trump, racist
and antigay slurs. The story
soon unraveled as investigators
determined Mr. Smollett knew
the alleged attackers. He was
charged with 16 counts of dis-
orderly conduct—counts that
were ultimately dropped by
Ms. Foxx’s office.
Since then, a special prose-
cutor was assigned to reinves-
tigate both Mr. Smollett and
Ms. Foxx’s handling of the case.
Last month, the special
prosecutor reindicted Mr.
Smollett on six counts of disor-
derly conduct. He pleaded not
guilty to the charges.
The investigation into Ms.
Foxx is ongoing. She has been
criticized for talking with a
member of the Smollett family
and connecting them with po-
lice investigators soon after he
made his claims, actions which
led her to recuse herself from
the case. She was criticized
again when her office dropped
the charges against him, lead-
ing to allegations she hadn’t
actually recused herself.
Ms. Foxx has said she “fell
short” on handling of the case
by not communicating her de-
cisions to the public, but de-
fended her record more
broadly.
“I feel like the voters of
Cook County have the opportu-
nity to look at the entirety of
my record; and those who have
concerns about this case, we’ve
tried to answer them the best
that we can,” Ms. Foxx said inan interview. “This is one case
out of thousands that we have
handled.”
The Cook County state’s at-
torney is one of the most high-
profile prosecutor’s offices in
the nation with more than 700
lawyers on staff responsible for
misdemeanor and felony
crimes in Chicago and the sur-
rounding areas.
Ms. Foxx took office in 2016
with a slate of priorities in-
cluding changing the bail sys-tem, decriminalizing marijuana
use and prosecuting fewer gun-
crime and shoplifting cases in
a city known to be one of the
most-violent in the country.
During her tenure, Ms. Foxx
has prosecuted fewer gun
crimes, has cut her use of cash
bail and has effectively raised
the threshold to $1,000 from
$300 for the amount a person
must shoplift before they are
prosecuted as felons.
Opponents say Ms. Foxx’sdecisions have led to more
dangerous streets as fewer gun
arrests go to trial, as alleged
criminals are put back on the
streets before their trials and
as shoplifters are emboldened.
During her tenure shootings
have fallen 33% according to
the Chicago Police Department,
but in the past month gun
crimes have increased sharply,
giving her opponents fodder. In
2020, there have been 253
shootings compared with 195
in the same period last year.
But the race might come
down to a single issue.
“There’s only one thing that
will define her legacy and
that’s Jussie Smollett,” former
city alderman Bob Fioretti, one
the candidates challenging Ms.
Foxx in the March primary,
said in an interview.
“When you blow a big case
the public loses confidence in
everything you do,” Donna
More, a primary candidate who
is a former assistant Cook Co.
state’s attorney, said in an in-
terview.
The incumbent’s main chal-
lenger is Bill Conway, a Navy
veteran and former CookCounty assistant state’s attor-
ney whose self-funded cam-
paign has caused the cost of
this year’s primary to sky-
rocket.
Mr. Conway currently has
nearly $6 million on hand
largely thanks to his father,
William Conway, a co-founder
of the Carlyle Group hedge
fund. The elder Mr. Conway
has thus far given $7.5 million
to his son’s campaign, accord-
ing to Illinois Sunshine, which
tracks money in state politics.
Mr. Conway and his cam-
paign didn’t respond to re-
quests for an interview or
comment.
Ms. Foxx’s re-election com-
mittee has $2.5 million on
hand, but she has also been
supported by a political-action
committee funded by a $2 mil-
lion infusion from billionaire
George Soros’s Democracy PAC.
Ms. Foxx holds a slight lead
over Mr. Conway in the most-
recent polling on the race, con-
ducted last month by ALG re-
search, a Democratic public-
opinion firm.
The Democratic primary is
March 17.BYBENKESLINGOne Case Dogs Prosecutor Race
In Illinois, Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx faces a primary that has been focused on the case involving Jussie Smollett, below.FROM TOP: ZBIGNIEW BZDAK/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS, NUCCIO DINUZZO/GETTY IMAGESBut Mr. Barr and some of
the U.S.’s closest international
intelligence-sharing partners—
a group known as the Five
Eyes—remain concerned that
encryption technology, particu-
larly Facebook’s plans to add
end-to-end messaging encryp-
tion, could leave them in the
dark. Some members of that
group last year voiced their
concerns about the spreading
private-sector use of such tech-
nology.
“Encryption remains the ele-
phant in the room,” James Bro-
kenshire, a minister with the
U.K.’s Home Office, said Thurs-
day in Washington. “Last year,
Facebook identified around 12
million incidents of child sexual
exploitation abuse on Messen-
ger—something that I abso-
lutely commend them for do-
ing—yet plans to encrypt this
service would leave you blind to
the same crimes.”
Facebook, meanwhile, reiter-
ated its concern that any gov-
ernment efforts to roll back en-
cryption would undermine the
security of its products. “We
believe companies and govern-
ments can work together to
keep children safe online while
still protecting people’s privacyour children’s privacy and secu-
rity; there’s too much at stake.”
But, he added that he was
heartened that companies had
signed onto the principles.
Four years ago, the Justice
Department launched a legal
fight against Apple, looking to
compel the iPhone maker into
granting it access to the mobile
phone used by one of the San
Bernardino, Calif., terror sus-
pects. Government officials ul-
timately backed down after a
private firm found a way to ac-
cess the phone.
Apple wasn’t named in
Thursday’s announcement, but
a company spokesman said it
endorses the principles.
In addition to Mr. Barr’s
statements, Sens. Lindsey Gra-
ham (R., S.C.) and Richard Blu-
menthal (D., Conn.) have pro-
posed legislation that could
pressure tech companies into
providing law-enforcement ac-
cess to these systems.
Apple, like Facebook, has
said any system that would
grant such access would under-
mine the security of their prod-
ucts and create opportunities
for criminals and authoritarian
governments to improperly ac-
cess user data.Representatives from law
enforcement and the technol-
ogy industry pledged to step up
their fight against child sexual
abuse on the internet, but they
remained at odds over govern-
ment concerns about misuses
of the encryption technology
deployed by some companies.
Attorney General William
Barr on Thursday said six major
technology companies had
agreed to a set of voluntary
principles that would guide
their approach to fighting online
sexual exploitation of children.
The technology companies
have agreed to a series of high-
level principles that will govern
the way they police online con-
tent—ideas such as focusing
their efforts on areas that have
been difficult to monitor, such
as live streaming, and taking
into account solutions pro-
posed by victims. Facebook
Inc.,Alphabet Inc.’s Google,
MicrosoftCorp.,SnapInc. and
TwitterInc., as well as the on-
line gaming hubRobloxCorp.,
have been developing these
principles since July, the Jus-
tice Department said.BYROBERTMCMILLAN
ANDSADIEGURMANTech Giants Vow Help Against Child Exploitation
Attorney General Barr with officials from Australia, left, and Canada.MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK