We are at a critical juncture in the world of copyright claims. The “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act”—the CASE Act—is apparently being considered for inclusion in next week’s spending bill. That is “must pass” legislation—in other words, legislation that is vital to the function of the government and so anything attached to it, related to spending or not, has a good chance of becoming law. The CASE Act could mean Internet users face $30,000 penalties for sharing a meme or making a video. It has no place in must pass legislation.

Many of the smartphone apps people use every day are collecting data on their users and, in order to make money, many of these apps sell that information. One of the customers for this data is the U.S. government, which regularly purchases commercially available geolocation data. This includes the Department of Defense, CBP, ICE, the IRS, and the Secret Service. But it violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution for the government to purchase commercially available location data it would otherwise have to get a warrant to acquire.

The recent removal of youtube-dl’s source code by Github caused an outcry. After receiving EFF’s letter explaining that it does not infringe or encourage the infringement of any copyrighted works, GitHub has reversed course. GitHub had taken down the repository last month after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) abused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s notice-and-takedown procedure to pressure GitHub to remove it.