DNC warns of ‘the coming onslaught’ of 2020 disinformation

— Election threat: The DNC pledged resources and made recommendations for battling a "coming onslaught" of disinformation in 2020.

— MT scoop: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers are pressing President Donald Trump to push back on China's plans to lead the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization.

— NTIA shake-up: NTIA leader Diane Rinaldo is leaving, the second major shake-up this year at the federal tech and telecom agency dealing with supply chain security, spectrum policy, 5G, privacy and broadband.

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DISINFORMATION A ‘WHOLE OF SOCIETY PROBLEM,' DNC SAYS — The Democratic National Committee is urging tech companies, the government, the public, the media and presidential campaigns to attack online disinformation from all sides in 2020, though it says efforts so far have been mediocre at best. In guidelines released Monday evening, the committee pledges resources to detecting and countering manipulation of social media and makes recommendations on how others can do the same.

— "We expect the scale of malicious activity and disinformation operations only to increase as we move closer to the 2020 election," the committee said.

— The highlights: The DNC, grading Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube on their efforts to fight disinformation, gave the tech giants generally low scores (though Google and YouTube received notably higher marks than Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). The committee recommended that campaigns create a position devoted to monitoring social media for disinformation, and for the public, offered recommended reading — including George Orwell's "1984" — to get up to speed on propaganda and disinformation.

— Watching: Experts have warned that disinformation is likely to proliferate as the Democratic field shrinks. We'll be tracking this week around the final Democratic presidential debate of the year, which POLITICO will co-host with PBS NewsHour on Thursday.

FIRST IN MT: SCHUMER, COTTON WARN OF CHINA'S IP THREAT — A bipartisan quartet of lawmakers sent a letter to Trump on Monday calling on the administration to challenge China's plans to lead the World Intellectual Property Organization at the United Nations. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) warned that allowing China to helm the group would threaten the U.S. economy and global IP rights. The letter added that Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which the administration added to a trade blacklist over national security concerns, last year was the top corporate filer of international patent applications to the WIPO.

— "Given China's persistent violations of intellectual property protections, including through trade secret theft, corporate espionage, and forced transfer of technology, the United States and its allies must stand firmly against such a move," the lawmakers wrote. "We cannot let a regime, which continues to blatantly undermine the rules-based system by failing to ensure open markets or respect for intellectual property rights, ascend as the leader of global intellectual property policy."

TTYL, NTIA — Rinaldo, the acting head of the federal telecom agency NTIA, informed staff on Monday that she is leaving, our colleagues at Pro Cybersecurity report. This comes barely seven months after she stepped up to replace her Senate-confirmed predecessor, David Redl, following his own surprise resignation.

— NTIA's tiny staff plays an important role in convening people from the industry to address federal tech and telecom issues and improve U.S. and global cybersecurity. The agency's advice will, for example, inform the Commerce secretary's exercise of newly granted powers to restrict U.S. companies from buying certain risky telecommunications equipment.

— "The accomplishments we've made over the past two years are truly remarkable," Rinaldo wrote to NTIA staff in a departure email, citing work on supply chain security, spectrum policy, 5G, privacy, broadband and public safety. Her successor will be Treasury Department official Ed Hearst, who has telecom and cybersecurity experience, a former senior congressional official told POLITICO. (NTIA and Commerce declined to comment on who will succeed Rinaldo.)

FACIAL RECOGNITION FOLLOW-UP — Digital and civil rights groups are bombarding lawmakers with petitions calling on Congress to stop stalling on legislation that would limit federal use of facial recognition technology. (House lawmakers say impeachment proceedings have diverted attention from bipartisan facial recognition talks, as Cristiano reported for Pros.) "Pretty disappointing that Congress is punting on this and using impeachment as an excuse, given the rapid spread [of] clear and present danger" posed by surveillance software, Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, told MT.

— The grass-roots organizations delivered petitions demanding action to House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the panel's top Republican, after the panel bumped this month's planned facial recognition hearing to next year. They also delivered petitions to Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), who — as MT scooped in November — recently unveiled a bipartisan proposal requiring federal law enforcement to get a warrant before using facial recognition tech for targeted surveillance.

230 WATCH — A group of state and local government officials is raising an alarm to Congress about short-term rental companies' alleged use of Section 230 to get off the hook for problems on their platforms. In a letter urging Congress to enact the bipartisan PLAN Act, H.R. 4232 (116) — which would adjust Section 230 to crack down on unlawful short-term vacation rental postings on sites like Airbnb — state and local lawmakers described the 23-year-old legal shield as a "barrier" to protecting their constituencies.

— "The platforms insist they have no obligation to ensure their rental listings comply with local ordinances because Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act gives them absolute immunity from any state or local ordinance meant to meaningfully regulate short-term rentals," they wrote. Support for the PLAN Act is slowly growing, now up to a dozen co-sponsors.

— For your radar: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing this morning on a "whole-of-government approach" to tackling the opioid crisis, featuring testimony by officials from the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration. As murmurs about a possible Section 230 carveout addressing the opioid epidemic remain, we'll be tracking the panel for any tech talk.