The ACLU announced today they will be challenging the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act on the basis that the CFAA makes conducting online audit testing to uncover racial discrimination illegal. Audit testing is a common practice for uncovering discrimination offline.

In a blog post the ACLU compares today’s machine learning marketing algorithms with historic practice of redlining that led to The Fair Housing Act of 1968. The concluding paragraph says it best: “The next generation of civil rights testing will need to happen online. Without this kind of research, we’ll have no way of knowing whether websites are selling or advertising goods and services in a way that exacerbates existing racial disparities. “

I look forward to not only the results of this challenge, but also to the conversations it provokes.

“We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.” ― Alan Moore, Watchmen