Big Brother News Watch
University Vaccine Mandates Violate Medical Ethics + More
University Vaccine Mandates Violate Medical Ethics
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Some 450 U.S. colleges and universities — including our institutions — have announced policies mandating that all students be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before the fall semester, with some requiring vaccination now for the summer term. Schools have for decades required vaccination against infectious diseases, but these mandates are unprecedented—and unethical. Never before have colleges insisted that students or employees receive an experimental vaccine as a condition of attendance or employment.
Even soldiers, whose rights are constrained when they join the service, aren’t being compelled to take a Covid vaccine. In a case involving a vaccine against anthrax, a federal district judge held in 2004 that “the United States cannot demand that members of the armed forces also serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs” absent informed consent or a presidential waiver of service members’ legal protections. The following year the judge held that an emergency-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration was insufficient to meet the legal test.
U.S. College COVID Vaccine Mandates Don’t Consider Immunity or Pregnancy, and May Run Foul of the Law
For Joshua Hauser, a junior at the University of California Berkeley, the requirement to get a COVID-19 vaccine before fall semester is like getting a plum campus housing assignment. “People are really excited about getting the vaccine on campus,” he says. “It will help us feel safe at school.” And he’s hopeful it will mean a return to normal. “On Zoom, that’s all we talk about — we just wish we were together in person.”
Beginning in late March, some U.S. colleges and universities began issuing requirements for students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 if they want to return to campus this autumn. Some policies include faculty and staff. What began as a handful of colleges soon turned into dozens by mid April, and to date, some 350 institutions have issued such policies — even though all three COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. remain under emergency use authorization (EUA) status, and not approved.
IKEA Fined €1.1M by French Court for Spying on Staff
The home furnishings group Ikea has been ordered to pay €1.1m (£861,000) in fines and damages by a French court after being found guilty of spying on staff.
Two former Ikea France executives were also convicted and fined over an elaborate scheme to gather information on hundreds of employees, job applicants and even customers over several years, using private detectives and police sources.
The group’s former chief Jean-Louis Baillot was handed a suspended two-year prison term and ordered to pay €50,000.
Foo Fighters to Allow Vaccinated Fans Only at Madison Square Garden Concert
The Foo Fighters will be performing at Madison Square Garden on June 20, but the concert will be for vaccinated fans only.
The event is the first concert at the venue in over 15 months, due to“The Garden is ready to rock,” James Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of MSG Entertainment, said in a statement. “We’ve been waiting for this moment for 15 months and are excited to finally welcome a packed house of roaring, fully-vaccinated Foo Fighters fans to Madison Square Garden.”
Tickets for the vaccinated-only event will be $50 to $119.
YouTube Censors Teachers For Choice Protest
New York Teachers for Choice reported:
YouTube has struck down the full video of the TEACHERS FOR CHOICE (TfC) protest on June 12, 2021 in front of United Federation of Teachers (UFT) headquarters. It got pulled down in less than 48 hours!
The protest featured 11-year-old Jenna Miller who was kicked out of school on June 8th for refusing to wear a mask in school as well as many New York Teachers speaking out against forced COVID vaccination, forced in-school COVID testing, vaccine passports and the masking of 4-year-old children.
Tech Giants Have to Hand Over Your Data When Federal Investigators Ask. Here’s Why.
When the Trump administration’s Justice Department sought to ferret out leakers, it turned to the tech giants where so much of our digital life is stashed.
Apple and Microsoft disclosed last week that the agency secretly subpoenaed account data from members of Congress and aides to crackdown on leaks during the Trump administration. That followed recent disclosures to media organizations including The Washington Post and the New York Times that the Trump Justice Department had secretly sought reporters’ phone and email records in an effort to identify the sources of leaks.
That information — which email addresses and phone numbers we use and when we use them — can be crucial to piecing together a leak in a probe.
COVID Vaccine ‘Passports’ in the U.S.: Here’s What We’re Getting and Why
Los Angeles Times via Yahoo!News reported:
The European Union is about to launch a digital pass system that will let residents prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, recovered from the disease or recently tested negative for the virus, allowing them to travel freely among all 27 member nations.
For months, Israelis used a similar digital pass system, showing their vaccination status to enter restaurants, gyms and other venues. Australia has rolled out a digital proof of vaccination certificate, and Japan plans to issue one as soon as this summer.
But don’t expect the United States to go that way.
What Are the Roadblocks to a ‘Vaccine Passport’?
With all American adults now eligible for COVID-19 vaccines and businesses and international borders reopening, a fierce debate has kicked off across the United States over whether a digital health certificate (often and somewhat misleadingly called a “vaccine passport”) should be required to prove immunization status.
Currently, Americans are issued a white paper card as evidence of their COVID-19 shots, but these can easily be forged, and online scammers are already selling false and stolen vaccine cards.
While the federal government has said it will not introduce digital vaccine passports by federal mandate, a growing number of businesses — from cruise lines to sports venues — say they will require proof of vaccinations for entry or services. Hundreds of digital health pass initiatives are scrambling to launch apps that provide a verified electronic record of immunizations and negative coronavirus test results to streamline the process.
How the Tech Giants Work for the Security State + More
How the Tech Giants Work for the Security State
The United States proudly believes in its uniqueness as the one nation in this corrupt world that remains dedicated to the freedom of its citizens. That belief is part of the nation’s founding myth. Americans see their nation as representing an ideal, a model for all other nations to emulate. They continue to believe that their government is committed to their own unassailable freedom, even after the increasingly visible stranglehold over all of its institutions by the military-industrial complex, a process already well underway when President Dwight Eisenhower denounced it 60 years ago.
The takeover has been confirmed by numerous events, including a series of costly and futile wars in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Despite the obvious lessons of recent history, Washington’s political class consistently demonstrates its inability to oppose policies that lead to more failed wars or to rein in an ever-expanding military budget. It would be more accurate to call the USA the UCA, the United Complex of America. Militarism in body and spirit defines its unity.
Gov. Newsom: A Vaccination Verification System Is Coming ‘Very Shortly’
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported:
Trying to stay away from the phrase “vaccine passport,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday that California is on the cusp of releasing an electronic system that will allow businesses to confirm that their customers have received their shots.
During a news conference held at Vista Community Clinic, after completing the second of three vaccine lottery drawings, the governor said that such a system is very much in the works when asked about verification language included in the state’s latest masking guidance released Wednesday.
Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook Targeted by New Pack of Antitrust Bills
U.S. lawmakers unveiled a wide-ranging antitrust agenda Friday, aiming to rein in the competitive power of giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google with five bipartisan bills that would represent the most meaningful refashioning of antitrust laws in decades. The result of more than a year investigating competition in the digital marketplace, the bills target what lawmakers call the “unregulated power wielded” by Big Tech.
The bills are aimed at the four tech titans, which collectively influence almost every aspect of online life, as well as the broader industry. If eventually passed into law, the bills would make it easier for the government to break up dominant companies, prevent them from snuffing out competition through preemptive acquisitions and crimp them from wielding different businesses with conflicts of interest.
#EyesOnAmazon: Campaign Fights Amazon’s Push for World ‘Dominated by Total Corporate Surveillance’
To mark the one year anniversary of Amazon‘s extended temporary moratorium on sales of its controversial Rekognition facial identification software to law enforcement agencies, more than 20 advocacy groups and more than 10,000 supporters last week launched Protest Amazon, a digital demonstration that’s part of the #EyesOnAmazon week of action.
Led by the digital rights group Fight for the Future, Protest Amazon is joined by Color of Change, Demand Progress, Free Press, MPower Change, Public Citizen, Presente.org, RootsAction and other organizations demanding Amazon permanently divest from what campaign organizers call “racist surveillance tech” and “police state” surveillance. The campaign is also calling on the company to end its complicity in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportations.
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Brought by Texas Healthcare Workers Forced to Get COVID Vaccine or Lose Jobs
A federal judge in Texas on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit by healthcare workers who accused their employer of “unlawfully forcing its employees” to receive the COVID vaccine.
Jennifer Bridges and 116 other plaintiffs said Houston Methodist Hospital is forcing employees to get COVID vaccines that are “experimental and dangerous.” Firing employees for refusing the vaccine is “wrongful termination,” the plaintiffs said.
The hospital last week suspended nearly 200 employees who refused the vaccine.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled Texas law only protects employees from being fired if they are asked to commit an illegal act that carries criminal penalties. According to the judge’s ruling, “receiving a COVID-19 vaccination is not an illegal act, and it carries no criminal penalties.”
YouTube Suspends Sen. Johnson for COVID-19 ‘Misinformation’
Sen. Ron Johnson was suspended Friday from uploading videos to YouTube for one week, after the company said he violated its COVID-19 “medical misinformation policies.”
The Wisconsin Republican’s removal stems from statements he made during a June 3 Milwaukee Press Club event, which were posted to YouTube. He criticized the Trump and Biden administrations for “not only ignoring but working against robust research (on) the use of cheap, generic drugs to be repurposed for early treatment of COVID,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
WhatsApp Boss Decries Attacks on Encryption as Orwellian
Government attacks on WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption are akin to demands that an Orwellian telescreen be installed in every living room, the app’s head has said as it launches a major advertising campaign in defence of privacy.
Will Cathcart told the Guardian in an interview that the abstract nature of digital communications can obscure huge violations of personal freedom.
“Imagine there was a proposal from the government to put a video camera in every living room in a country hooked up to the internet, so the government can turn it on when they’re investigating a crime,” he said.
Amazon Faces Privacy Backlash Over New Sidewalk Technology
Amazon launched new technology called Sidewalk that connects supported devices together with your neighbors using a small part of your internet connection. But it has led to questions concerning consumer privacy. Meg Oliver reports.
Amazon Fails to Quash Investigation Into Its Indian Selling Practices
The Indian competition commission is to relaunch an investigation into Amazon’s selling practices, which will examine the company’s £1bn-a-year joint venture with UK chancellor Rishi Sunak’s billionaire father-in-law.
The investigation, originally announced in January 2020, will proceed after an Indian court on Friday dismissed pleas by Amazon and its rival – the Walmart-owned Flipkart – to quash its investigation into the business practices of the huge U.S. retailers.
One of the largest sellers on Amazon.in is a company called Cloudtail, a £1bn revenue business that is 76% controlled by Sunak’s wealthy in-laws, the Murthy family. The remaining quarter of Cloudtail is owned by Amazon.
Vaccine Passports: Why Europe Loves Them and the U.S. Loathes Them
Christian Science Monitor reported:
Back in 1992, Yiannis Klouvas converted an old cinema into the Blue Lagoon restaurant, which garnered a strong reputation for live music. There is no music now. The business, like so many others on the Greek island of Rhodes, is struggling due to the pandemic’s restrictions on travel.
“If we see a tourist on the street these days,” he says, “we take a photo to remember them.”
Mr. Klouvas is now banking on the EU Digital COVID Certificate, also known as the “green passport,” to save the summer. Starting July 1, all EU member states will accept the certificates as proof of COVID-19 vaccination, a recent negative test, or recovery from the disease. The plan got a resounding yes at the European Parliament on June 9. All EU member states, Liechtenstein, and Norway will implement the passport.
Historians Will Look Back on Lockdowns as ‘Most Catastrophic Health Policy Mistake of All Human History’ + More
Professor: Historians Will Look Back on Lockdowns as ‘Most Catastrophic Health Policy Mistake of All Human History’
Lighthouse Economics reported:
Speaking on The London Telegraph podcast ‘Planet Normal’, Bhattacharya noted that government scientific advisors “remain attached” to the policy of lockdown in spite of the total “failure of this strategy”.
“I do think that future historians will look back on this and say this was the single biggest public health mistake, possibly of all history, in terms of the scope of the harm that it’s caused,” said Bhattacharya.
California Regulators Withdraw Controversial Work Mask Rules
California’s workplace regulators reversed themselves for the second time in a week Wednesday, withdrawing a controversial pending mask regulation while they consider a rule that more closely aligns with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s promise that the state will fully reopen from the pandemic on Tuesday.
The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board’s revised rule, adopted last week after it was initially rejected, would have allowed workers to forego masks only if every employee in a room is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. That contrasts with the state’s broader plan to do away with virtually all masking and social distancing requirements for vaccinated people in concert with the latest recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
2 Baltimore Health Systems to Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines for Workers
Beckers Hospital review reported:
The University of Maryland Medical System and Johns Hopkins Medicine, both based in Baltimore, will require employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19, making them the latest health systems to do so.
“We follow the science, and the scientific evidence tells us that from a safety and efficacy standpoint, COVID-19 vaccines represent a dramatic accomplishment and a clear pathway out of this pandemic,” Mohan Suntha, MD, president and CEO of the medical system, said in a June 9 news release. “As healthcare professionals, we accept that we hold ourselves to a higher standard, and we embrace our mission to devote ourselves to the welfare of those in our care. COVID-19 vaccines are by far the best way to stop the spread of the virus, and given our ethical obligation to our patients, we must take every appropriate measure to keep our hospitals and other locations as safe as possible.”
Top U.S. Antitrust Lawmaker Targets Big Tech With New Bills — Sources
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are working on drafts of five antitrust bills, four of them aimed directly at reigning in Big Tech, and may introduce them within days, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Reuters has read discussion drafts of five measures. Sources familiar with the process say they may be changed before they are introduced. They may be introduced this week but that may be delayed, two sources said.
Among the five bills being considered, two address the problems of platforms, like Amazon.com (AMZN.O), creating a space for businesses to sell products and then competing against those products.
How Full FDA Approval Could Pave the Way for COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
The companies behind two of the COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States have applied to the Food and Drug Administration for full approval, which would allow them to market directly to consumers—and potentially boost confidence in the doses.
FDA approval could also lead more employers and schools to issue vaccine mandates.
Australia Antitrust Boss Rejects Claim Big Tech Law is a Favour for News Corp
The architect of Australia’s new law making Alphabet Inc’s Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook Inc (FB.O) pay news outlets for content on Thursday rejected a suggestion the move was the result of lobbying by News Corp (NWSA.O), calling the claim “extremely strange.”
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chair Rod Sims, who oversaw drafting of the law, acknowledged the negotiating system was proposed by the Rupert Murdoch-controlled publisher but said all major media operators in the country supported it.
Asked at an FT conference in Britain if Australia had acted at the behest of News Corp, Sims said Google had “sent emails to all parliamentarians saying ‘don’t let big business control the internet’, and they were of course referring to News Corp.”
Facebook Is Hub of Sex Recruitment in U.S., Report Says + More
Facebook Is Hub of Sex Recruitment in U.S., Report Says
The majority of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases in the U.S. last year took place on Facebook, according to the Human Trafficking Institute’s 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report.
“The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites,” Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros said on CBSN Wednesday. “Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases.”
Active cases include those in which defendants were charged in 2020, as well as those in which defendants were charged in previous years and charges were still pending in trial last year or the case was on appeal.
Facebook Faces Antitrust Investigations in Europe
European regulators late last week announced two separate antitrust investigations into Facebook regarding its use of advertising data.
The probes, one from the European Commission and the other from the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), come amid sustained scrutiny over the breadth and impact of the social media giant’s data collection practices.
European Commission regulators will focus on Facebook’s “advertising data gathered in particular from advertisers in order to compete with them in markets where Facebook is active such as classified ads.”
Further assessment will be given to “whether Facebook ties its online classified ads service ‘Facebook Marketplace’ to its social network, in breach of EU competition rules,” the commissions said.
‘Condition of Employment’: Hospitals in DC, Across the Nation Follow Houston Methodist in Requiring Vaccination for Workers
Most hospitals in Washington, D.C., will require employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, joining a growing number of health care systems and other businesses nationwide in opting for the controversial mandate.
The hospitals will each set a date after which vaccination will be a condition of employment, the District of Columbia Hospital Association said in a statement Tuesday. The hospitals will comply with all federal and district laws regarding exemptions for medical or religious reasons, the statement said.
Canada Privacy Regulator Says Federal Police Broke Laws Using Facial Recognition Software
The Canadian federal police force broke the law when they used facial recognition software, the country’s top privacy regulator found in a report released on Thursday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in February 2020 that for four months they had been using Clearview AI, a U.S.-based facial recognition software company that cross-references photos with a database compiled from photos posted to social media. It is not clear when the RCMP stopped using the software.
Clearview AI has been barred from operating in Canada since July 2020.
Victoria Filmmaker’s Documentary Examines Sinister Side of Facial Recognition Technology
Discriminator, director Brett Gaylor’s new independent film about facial recognition software, is as close to a horror movie Hollywood has ever produced — but there’s nary a ghost, serial killer, or unexplained phenomenon anywhere in sight.
The Victoria filmmaker’s short film about how technology companies are worming their way into our lives has a doomsday quality to it, and should leave viewers an overwhelming sense of dread. Will it? Probably not, which is a scarier proposition than much of what appears in Discrimination.
Have an Amazon Device? The Tech Giant May Help Itself to Your Wi-Fi
Do you own an Amazon smart device? If so, odds are good that the company is already sharing your internet connection with your neighbors unless you’ve specifically told it not to.
On Tuesday, the company launched a program that forces users of many Echo smart speakers and Ring security cameras to automatically share a small portion of their home wireless bandwidth with neighbors. The only way to stop it is to turn it off yourself.
Amazon says the program, called Amazon Sidewalk, is a way to make sure lights, smart locks and other gadgets outside the home and out of reach of a Wi-Fi connection stay working.
But some experts warn that the technology is so new that privacy and security risks remain unclear. And almost no one seems happy that Amazon forced consumers into Amazon Sidewalk — or that many people may not know they can opt out of it.
India and Tech Companies Clash Over Censorship, Privacy and ‘Digital Colonialism’
One night last month, police crowded into the lobby of Twitter’s offices in India’s capital New Delhi. They were from an elite squad that normally investigates terrorism and organized crime, and said they were trying to deliver a notice alerting Twitter to misinformation allegedly tweeted by opposition politicians.
But they arrived at 8 p.m. And Twitter’s offices were closed anyway, under a coronavirus lockdown. It’s unclear if they ever managed to deliver their notice. They released video of their raid afterward to Indian TV channels and footage shows them negotiating with security guards in the lobby.
The May 24 police raid — which Twitter later called an “intimidation tactic” — was one of the latest salvos in a confrontation between the Indian government and social media companies over what online content gets investigated or blocked, and who gets to decide.
