Big Brother News Watch
China ‘Spy Balloon’ Wakes up World to New Era of War at Edge of Space + More
China ‘Spy Balloon’ Scare Wakes up the World to New Era of Surveillance
Last Friday, Enildo Altamar and his neighbors looked up into the clear morning sky above Arroyo de Piedra, near Colombia’s Caribbean coast, and saw a white orb floating above them, a smaller version of the moon.
At the time, much of the world was focused on the Chinese balloon crossing U.S. airspace, which was ultimately shot down in dramatic style by a US F-22 Raptor jet off the South Carolina coast. A week later, attention was switched to another floating object, apparently the size of a car, which the U.S. shot down off the Alaskan coast.
What the people of Arroyo de Piedra saw was the other balloon in the high atmosphere that week, which also flew over Costa Rica and Venezuela.
The stakes involved in the Latin American balloon incident may not have been as high as in the U.S. case, as it did not bring the aircraft of one nuclear weapons power in direct conflict with the aircraft of another, and there was not the same public clamor to resort to military action. But the legal issues are the same, as are the questions it raises about the future of global surveillance, and rivalry at the very edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Tech Giants Want What the NFL Has
When Rihanna walks, or is raised, or is lowered onto the Super Bowl stage on Sunday, she will not merely be kicking off the game’s halftime show. She will be culminating Rihanna’s Road to Halftime, presented by Apple Music. The world’s most valuable company is in the first year of a reported five-year, $250 million deal to sponsor one of the most watched live-music performances anywhere, which happens to fit between two halves of a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
For $50 million a year, a tech behemoth does not just want a good show. It also wants a music video with fans of all 32 NFL teams singing Rihanna’s hit “Stay.” It wants a 10-part streaming-radio series about the greatest Super Bowl halftime shows ever. And it wants to curate an “official collection of 32 playlists featuring the top songs that each NFL team listens to in the locker room, the weight room, and on game day.”
Big Tech, somewhat suddenly, wants in on the NFL in a way that it hasn’t before. But the connections between the league and tech companies have become much deeper in the past two years, even as tech has hemorrhaged jobs lately. The world’s largest companies and America’s most popular sports league have hit a symbiotic stride.
Each is now a unique provider of what the other wants: immense scale and cultural relevance for the tech companies, big money and endless access to technological advances for the league. If anything feels weird, it’s that the match didn’t happen sooner.
U.S. Investigating Elon Musk’s Neuralink Over Hazardous Pathogens
The U.S. Department of Transportation said on Thursday it is investigating Elon Musk‘s brain-implant company Neuralink over the potentially illegal movement of hazardous pathogens.
A Department of Transportation spokesperson told Reuters about the probe after the Physicians Committee of Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an animal-welfare advocacy group, wrote to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg earlier on Thursday to alert it of records it obtained on the matter.
PCRM said it obtained emails and other documents that suggest unsafe packaging and movement of implants removed from the brains of monkeys. These implants may have carried infectious diseases in violation of federal law, PCRM said.
“We are conducting an investigation to ensure that Neuralink is in full compliance with federal regulations and keeping their workers and the public safe from potentially dangerous pathogens,” the spokesperson said.
Australia to Rip Out 900 Chinese-Made Security Cameras From Government Buildings
The Australian Defense Department will rip out more than 900 Chinese-made security devices from government buildings over fears they could enable spying by China.
Australian officials announced the move after a six-month audit revealed the flabbergasting number of cameras, access control systems, and intercoms made by the Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua in government buildings earlier this week. Before the audit, the country’s Home Affairs Department couldn’t determine how many surveillance devices were in government buildings, according to opposition cybersecurity spokesman Sen. James Paterson.
The U.S. banned equipment from Hikvision and Dahua in government buildings last November, citing the “unacceptable risk to national security.” The United Kingdom also took similar action against Hikvision that same month over “current and future security risks.” Like Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. worry that Chinese companies could be forced to hand over sensitive data when asked to do so by the Chinese government, which is required by law.
Colorado AG Says Fight to Rein in Tech Giants Only Just Beginning
Federal and state regulators have faced high-profile losses in recent years in their efforts to bring the tech giants to heel. But Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, one of the Democratic state leaders leading the campaign, says he’s not throwing in the towel.
Instead, Weiser, a key enforcer who is suing Google over antitrust allegations and investigating harms that platforms like TikTok may cause to children, is optimistic and says enforcers are just gearing up.
Google v Microsoft: Who Will Win the AI Chatbot Race?
The James Webb space telescope cost $10 billion (£8.3bn) to build, but it left Google nursing losses of more than $160 billion after the search engine’s new chatbot answered a question about it incorrectly.
Google and Microsoft both announced plans for AI-enhanced search this week, taking the artificial intelligence space race into a new phase. However, the launch of the former’s new chatbot, Bard, misfired badly when the error appeared in a demo.
Shares in Alphabet, Google’s parent, lost $163 billion in value over Wednesday and Thursday. The company remains a $1 trillion-plus behemoth, in large part because of its dominance in search. But for how long?
Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it was using the technology behind ChatGPT, developed by the San Francisco-based company OpenAI, to enhance its Bing search engine and Edge web browser.
China Blasts U.S. Balloon Accusations as ‘Information Warfare’ — Still Insists It Was for Weather
The Chinese government has rejected fresh U.S. accusations over the recently downed alleged spy balloon off America’s east coast, blasting Washington’s “information warfare” while continuing to insist it wasn’t a surveillance vehicle, but instead a weather balloon for collecting research that blew off course.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning further on Thursday described that China did not intend to violate any country’s sovereignty or airspace. She dismissed the U.S. claims as “irresponsible” and asserted it “may be part of the U.S. side’s information warfare against China.”
The ministry also took a swipe at President Biden‘s Tuesday night State of the Union comments directed at China, wherein the U.S. leader said Chinese President Xi Jinping faces “enormous problems” due to the balloon incident.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued an update of its findings related to the capabilities of the shot-down Chinese balloon, describing that it was equipped with antennas and other gear “likely” used to sweep up communications.
How to Delete Yourself From the Internet
With so much personal data floating publicly on the internet, consumers have a legitimate interest in controlling the information flow. Some are taking matters into their own hands, opting out of certain data-collection websites or using paid removal services to do the scrubbing on their behalf.
At issue is data collected by scores of online companies called data brokers, which aggregate consumers’ personal information, often selling it to other organizations. This data can include a person’s name, mailing address, birthday, relatives’ names, social media, property value, occupation and other nuggets that can be leveraged for various scams.
For those who are so inclined, there are ways to limit the amount of personal information available on the internet. Many people-search websites such as Spokeo, MyLife.com and Radaris, for example, have procedures to allow consumers to request removal from their database.
For some people, the time and energy they’d need to spend to remove personal information from the various sites are simply too extensive, so they prefer to pay for a service that can do it for them and provide regular updates on the progress. There are a handful of these services, including Abine Inc.’s DeleteMe, Kanary and OneRep.
Humans Need to Be ‘Unquestionably’ in Charge of Powerful AI to Keep Things From Getting Out of Control + More
Humans Need to Be ‘Unquestionably’ in Charge of Powerful AI to Keep Things From Getting Out of Control, Microsoft CEO Says
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is looking forward to more powerful AI models but cautioned that human oversight will be key. In an interview with CBS Mornings, Nadella said that these powerful AI models need to be used in a way “where humans are unambiguously, unquestionably” in charge to keep them from going out of control.
Tony Dokoupil, who interviewed Nadella, asked about the possibility of AI “somehow going wrong in a way that is ‘lights out for humanity,'” echoing the phrase that ChatGPT founder and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman used to describe a worst-case scenario.
Nadella said if “runaway AI” happens, “it’s a real problem,” but the way to handle it is to “make sure it never runs away.” Before thinking about safety and alignment, Nadella said people need to think about what AI is being used for.
Elon Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018, previously called the technology the “biggest existential threat” to humanity.
U.S. House Votes to End Foreign Air Traveler COVID Vaccine Requirement
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to end a requirement that most foreign air travelers be vaccinated against COVID-19, one of the few remaining pandemic travel restrictions still in place.
The vote was 227 to 201 with seven Democrats joining Republicans. No Republicans voted against the bill.
The U.S. Travel Association said “the need for this requirement has long since passed, and we appreciate the bipartisan action by the U.S. House to end this outdated policy … The U.S. is the only country that has maintained this policy.”
Currently, adult visitors to the United States who are not citizens or permanent residents must show proof of vaccination before boarding their flight, with some limited exceptions.
Hospitals Sell Your Medical Data to Advertisers. A New Lawsuit Wants to Hold One Accountable.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the 886-bed hospital where I was born in Los Angeles, has a privacy problem. If you head to the Cedars website today you’ll be greeted by six ad trackers and 17 third-party cookies — according to the Markup’s Backlight tool — and, apparently, that’s an improvement.
A class action lawsuit filed in California accuses the mega-hospital of sharing patient data with Google, Microsoft and Meta, owner of Facebook. It’s a reminder that yes, your medical data is for sale.
According to the lawsuit, spotted by the Register, Cedars shared a wide variety of data with Meta, including the types of medical treatment patients were looking for, details about the doctors they looked up and even the fact that a patient was making an appointment.
Cedars changed this practice in 2022, but the damage is done, according to plaintiff John Doe (who is suing anonymously, because, you know, privacy). Cedars-Sinai did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New GOP-Led Panel to Hold First Public Hearing Thursday on Alleged ‘Weaponization’ of Federal Government
The GOP-led House committee on the alleged “weaponization” of the federal government kicks off Thursday with its first public hearing with a witness list that suggests Republicans on the committee will push a popular narrative among conservatives that has been disputed by federal officials.
The hearing will be split into two sessions, featuring a swath of current and former lawmakers, former FBI officials and legal experts. They plan to discuss allegations of how the government has been weaponized against Republicans, as well as the general belief among some conservatives that federal officials and mainstream media have been working to silence the right.
“We’re focused on the whole weaponization of government, and the idea that the government is not working for the American people,” subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan told CNN. “The government is supposed to protect the First Amendment, not have, as Mr. (Jonathan) Turley said, ‘censorship by surrogate,’” he said, referencing one of the witnesses slated for Thursday’s hearing who is a George Washington University Law Center professor.
A World in Which Your Boss Spies on Your Brainwaves? That Future Is Near
The reptilian annual World Economic Forum at Davos, where the masters of the universe meet to congratulate themselves on their benevolent dictatorship, is home to many sinister ideas. Sharing the latest sinister ideas with business leaders is, in essence, why the event exists. This year, one of the creepiest discussions of all was delivered under the guise of progress and productivity.
Nita Farahany, a Duke University professor and futurist, gave a presentation at Davos about neurotechnology that is creating “brain transparency,” something I previously associated more with a bullet to the head. The new technologies, which Farahany says are being deployed in workplaces around the world, may prove to be nearly as destructive.
They include a variety of wearable sensors that read the brain’s electrical impulses and can show how fatigued you are, whether you’re focused on the task at hand or if your attention is wandering. According to Farahany, thousands of companies have hooked workers ranging from train drivers to miners up to these devices already, in the name of workplace safety. But what we are really discussing is workplace surveillance.
At Davos, Farahany said that neurotechnology in the workplace “has a dystopian possibility.” But that is not stating the case strongly enough. Absent stringent regulation, it has a dystopian certainty. Waiting to see how this all turns out is a very dangerous idea. The biggest mistake you can make with dystopias is assuming that they never become real.
Thousands of Kids Are Missing From School. Where Did They Go?
Kailani Taylor-Cribb hasn’t taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from Cambridge, Massachusetts’ public school roll in 2021 and has been, from an administrative standpoint, unaccounted for since then.
She is among hundreds of thousands of students around the country who disappeared from public schools during the pandemic and didn’t resume their studies elsewhere.
An analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee found an estimated 240,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. These students didn’t move out of state, and they didn’t sign up for private school or home-school, according to publicly available data.
In short, they’re missing. The missing kids identified by AP and Stanford represent far more than a number. The analysis highlights thousands of students who may have dropped out of school or missed out on the basics of reading and school routines in kindergarten and first grade.
Nancy Mace Reveals Health Problems After COVID Jab While Criticizing Twitter Censorship
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said she experienced health complications from a COVID vaccine during a Wednesday hearing about alleged Twitter censorship.
The social media giant stifled the voices of medical experts who raised doubts about the prevailing narrative of the pandemic, Mace argued as she shared details about her own health.
In particular, 45-year-old Mace said she suffered side effects from a COVID vaccine jab, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has encouraged people to get to protect themselves from severe illness. Mace said she developed asthma, tremors in her left hand and occasional heart problems that doctors cannot explain.
“I find it extremely alarming Twitter’s unfettered censorship spread into medical fields and affected millions of Americans by suppressing expert opinions from doctors and censoring those who disagree with the CDC,” Mace said.
China’s Balloon Was Capable of Spying on Communications, U.S. Says
The alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over the U.S. was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a broader People’s Liberation Army intelligence-gathering effort that spanned more than 40 countries, a State Department official said Thursday.
High-resolution imagery provided by U-2 spy planes that flew past the balloon revealed an array of surveillance equipment that was inconsistent with Beijing’s claim that it was a weather device blown off course, the official said in a statement provided on condition of anonymity.
The statement, released before State and Defense Department officials appeared before Congress in open hearings and closed briefings on Thursday, marks the fullest accounting yet for the Biden administration’s insistence over the course of a week-long drama that the balloon was meant to spy on the U.S.
Police in England and Wales Botch More Than 1,500 DNA Samples
More than 1,500 DNA samples were either compromised or lost by police forces in England and Wales last year after what were often basic errors in evidence taking, a watchdog has found.
In nearly two-thirds of cases between January 2021 and March 2022 — or 953 samples — DNA taken from people of interest could not be analyzed because officers failed to seal swab bags correctly, a process that is crucial to protect the genetic material. The figure marks a 23% increase in the 773 cases reported in 2021.
Writing in his annual report, Prof Fraser Sampson, the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, said it was “very frustrating for all involved that the forensic science cycle continues to fall down at what must be the simplest stage.”
The blunders arose as the number of DNA profiles added to the police national database soared by 57% from 217,609 in 2020 to 341,141 over the following 15 months. The rise is thought to be driven by the easing of lockdown restrictions and more concerted efforts to capture biometric information.
Musk’s Twitter Gets ‘Yellow Card’ for Missing Data in EU Disinformation Report
The first batch of reports by tech giants, ad tech entities and others on how they’re tackling online disinformation in the European Union since the bloc unveiled a strengthened version of its Code of Practice last year have been published today.
Google, Meta, TikTok, Twitch and Twitter are among 30 platforms that submitted reports to the EU on time, meeting a deadline at the end of last month, the EU’s executive confirmed today. However, the Commission has singled out Twitter for delivering the least substantial submission, per its first look at the reports.
“All signatories have submitted their reports on time, using an agreed harmonized reporting template aiming to address all commitments and measures they signed onto. This is however not fully the case for Twitter, whose report is short of data, with no information on commitments to empower the fact-checking community,” the Commission wrote in a press announcement.
EU officials said today that they will be following up with Twitter to try to better understand its approach to disinformation. The EU’s revamped Disinformation Code currently has 38 signatories in full — which run the gamut from major social media networks to smaller platforms, ad tech entities, civil society organizations and fact-checkers.
Suppressing Debate on COVID Policies Leads to Mistrust in Public Health + More
Cory Franklin: Suppressing Debate on COVID Policies Leads to Mistrust in Public Health
China has abandoned its zero-COVID-19 campaign, and with the loosening of social restrictions, the country has shifted its focus from preventing COVID-19 infections to managing them. As part of that program, Li Guangxi, with China’s State Council Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism, gave an interview last month encouraging people to take Chinese medicine for severe COVID-19, specifically ginger and Chinese ginseng, “the best ginseng in the world.”
Are ginger and Chinese ginseng effective in fighting COVID-19? Who knows? There must be some studies out there somewhere. But that brief interview touting unproven medicines was startling.
Think about what may have happened if an American scientist or official had given the same advice publicly. Hearing those recommendations, our medical influencers might have gone nuclear. A high public official in totalitarian China basically said things that conceivably could get a U.S. speaker censored or canceled by the American scientific establishment.
It is discouraging to witness the extreme tactics the medical community has used to keep its members in line during the pandemic. Public intimidation, harassment, personal attacks, retraction of scientific papers after publication and career sabotage have been carried out with an eye toward bringing any dissenters in line, making sure they self-censor and refrain from expressing their views on controversial subjects such as the origin of COVID-19. Reader beware: It’s as much what you don’t read as what you do.
If You’ve Ever Posted Anything Online, ChatGPT Has Probably Seen It
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Within two months of its release, it reached 100 million active users, making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever launched. Users are attracted to the tool’s advanced capabilities — and concerned by its potential to cause disruption in various sectors.
A much less discussed implication is the privacy risks ChatGPT poses to each and every one of us. Just yesterday, Google unveiled its own conversational AI called Bard, and others will surely follow. Technology companies working on AI have well and truly entered an arms race.
The problem is it’s fueled by our personal data. ChatGPT is underpinned by a large language model that requires massive amounts of data to function and improve. The more data the model is trained on, the better it gets at detecting patterns, anticipating what will come next and generating plausible text.
The data collection used to train ChatGPT is problematic for several reasons. None of us were asked whether OpenAI could use our data. This is a clear violation of privacy, especially when data are sensitive and can be used to identify us, our family members, or our location.
NYC Unions Demand Reinstatement, Back Pay for Workers Fired for Refusing COVID Shots: ‘Make These People Whole’
New York City’s public sector unions are doubling down on a quest to get their members reinstated with back pay if they were fired for refusing to vaccinate themselves against COVID-19.
The renewed push for reinstatement comes in response to Mayor Adams’ announcement on Monday that his administration will later this week drop the city government’s longstanding coronavirus vaccine mandate.
Under Adams’ mandate rollback plan, city workers terminated for not getting their coronavirus shots would have a chance to reapply for their old jobs — but Municipal Labor Committee Chairman Harry Nespoli said that’s not good enough.
Nespoli, who also serves as the head of the Sanitation Department’s largest union, argued that all city workers axed because of the mandate should be automatically given their jobs back, and awarded back pay to compensate for the time they went without income. “I’m going to take all legal action I can to make these people whole,” Nespoli told the Daily News on Tuesday.
Biden Calls for Ban of Online Ads Targeting Children
President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address unveiled a tech agenda focused on protecting children’s privacy online. Biden’s speech called out tech companies’ grip on young Americans and sounded the alarm on how social media affects teenagers’ mental health.
“It’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on our kids and teenagers online,” Biden said. “Ban targeted advertising on children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data that companies collect on all of us.”
He called for similar measures at last year’s State of the Union as well.
Digital privacy concerns for children have grown exponentially, especially as more than half of America’s teens say it’d be difficult to give up social media. Those concerns include the use of targeted advertising geared toward children, and the collection of their data, both of which are bipartisan issues on Capitol Hill.
Biden Administration Opposes Overturning COVID Vaccine Entry Requirements
Non-U.S. citizens who are not permanent residents of the U.S. have been required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination before entering the country.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it opposes House Resolution 185, which would remove the government’s ability to enforce the requirement. The opposition comes despite the administration saying it plans to end the United States COVID-19 emergency declaration this spring.
The bill has garnered 29 Republican cosponsors. While not a cosponsor, House Energy and Commerce Committee Health Subcommittee Chair Brett Guthrie said it’s time for the mandate to end.
“It is long past due to end this mandate,” Guthrie said. “Doing so will align the United States with the rest of North America’s COVID-19 vaccine policy for people coming into the country and recognize COVID-19 is an endemic — rather than a pandemic.”
Redmond Terminates Orders Requiring COVID Vaccines for Firefighters
Redmond firefighters and paramedics will no longer be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to work in the Eastside city.
The firefighters who lost their jobs for not complying with the state’s 2021 coronavirus vaccine mandate won’t be getting their jobs back as a result, however. The city says the former firefighters have the option to apply for a job, regardless of their vaccination status — but currently, there are no open positions in the department.
Redmond Mayor Angela Birney this week terminated two executive orders that mandated firefighters and paramedics be vaccinated against COVID, echoing decisions by King County and the city of Seattle to no longer require proof of vaccination for employees.
Maine Community Colleges Stop Requiring COVID Vaccine
Maine’s community college system has ended a requirement that on-campus students receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The Maine Community College System’s board ended the requirement and the change is effective immediately, the system said in a Wednesday statement.
The board’s vote was unanimous. It also adopted language “to strongly encourage all learners to receive the COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters,” the system said in a statement.
One exception to the new rule is that students in some programs might be required to receive the vaccine due to requirements at third-party locations, the system said. The system includes seven colleges and about 25,000 students.
After U.S. Scrutiny of WeChat, Chinese Conglomerate Tencent Holdings Spent Millions on Federal Lobbying
Chinese multimedia conglomerate Tencent Holdings is one of the largest companies in the world and owns hundreds of brands and subsidiaries, including WeChat. With over a billion active users, WeChat serves as China’s primary messaging app, social media platform and payment app all rolled into one platform. But WeChat, like ByteDance’s TikTok, has come under heavy scrutiny over concerns of user privacy and national security.
Over the last three years, Tencent has spent $6.3 million lobbying the federal government. Tencent began spending on federal lobbying in 2020, the same year former President Donald Trump signed executive orders banning WeChat and TikTok in the United States.
While WeChat has become a staple of everyday Chinese life, the app reportedly became pivotal to Beijing’s surveillance and censorship apparatus. Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch have warned the Chinese government has used WeChat to monitor citizens, spread propaganda and crush dissent.
Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Against Internet Chat Website Cleared to Move Forward
A federal judge has rejected a motion to dismiss a sexual trafficking lawsuit filed against the website Omegle.com, allowing a complaint to move forward involving allegations that a pre-teen was blackmailed and harassed into sending “obscene” content to a sexual predator through the internet chat room.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of a plaintiff identified only with the initials A.M., who indicates that the social media chat site paired her up with a man who sexually abused her online, alleging that Omegle knew it was pairing minors with sexual predators, but continued to do so in order to maintain profits at children’s expense.
A.M. indicates she was only 11 years old in 2014 when Omegle paired her in one-on-one chats with Ryan Fordyce, who was in his late 30s. The lawsuit claims Omegle’s most common use is for live sexual activity, but the company did not have adequate age verification procedures in place, and actively marketed its services to young children.
While Judge Mosman did dismiss a negligence claim, he allowed the other five claims against Omegle to proceed, including defective design, defective warning, failure to warn and sex trafficking of children by force, fraud or coercion.
Alphabet Loses Over $110 Billion Market Cap After AI ChatBot ‘Glitch’
Google owner Alphabet has continued crashing after an underwhelming launch raising concerns that its new artificial intelligence chatbot Bard may yield inaccurate responses. Google was forced to respond after the shares collapsed, saying in a statement that Bard’s response “highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process.”
The company said it will combine external feedback with its own internal testing to ensure Bard’s responses “meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”
Today’s drop has wiped over $110 billion off of Alphabet’s market cap. It’s the second-largest daily market cap decline ever. Reuters reports that Google published an online advertisement in which its much anticipated AI chatbot BARD delivered inaccurate answers.
Presidents Gain Too Much Power When Emergencies Like COVID Hit + More
Presidents Gain Too Much Power When Emergencies Like COVID Hit
President Biden’s decision on Jan. 30 to formally end the COVID-19 national emergency this spring, unilaterally relinquishing exceptional powers the executive branch has claimed for three years, is a milestone worth celebrating.
The time has come — indeed, the time is overdue — to go back to the regular order of implementing sweeping new programs and policies. That requires, with what should be rare exceptions, agreement of the executive and legislative branches.
The administration has dubiously used the continuing “emergency” to engineer roughly $400 billion in student loan forgiveness by executive fiat, even four months after Mr. Biden himself said on “60 Minutes” that the pandemic was “over.”
The Supreme Court previously stopped the White House from using the emergency declaration to put a moratorium on evictions and to mandate that large employers require their workers to be vaccinated.
Microsoft and Google Are About to Open an AI Battle
Microsoft is about to go head-to-head with Google in a battle for the future of search. At a press event later today, Microsoft is widely expected to detail plans to bring OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot to its Bing search engine.
Google has already tried to preempt the news, making a rushed announcement yesterday to introduce Bard, its rival to ChatGPT, and promising more details on its AI future in a press event on Wednesday.
The announcements put the two tech behemoths, known for their previous skirmishes with each other, on a collision course as they compete to define the next generation of search.
Both companies are chasing a revolutionary new future for search engines: one where the results look more like short, simple answers generated by AI than a collection of links and boxes to click on. Google teased its Bard chatbot yesterday, with queries that seem to be similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. And today, Microsoft is expected to boost its Bing search ambitions with the addition of a ChatGPT-like interface that will answer questions in a way no search engine has before.
Lawyers for U.S., Navy Seals Battle Over Revoked COVID Vaccine Mandate
A lawyer representing Navy Seals who do not want to be vaccinated against COVID-19 told a federal appeals court Monday that their lawsuit over a now-withdrawn vaccine mandate isn’t moot even though Congress passed legislation last December ordering the policy canceled.
During arguments before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, attorney Heather Hacker said the service members still face the possibility of discipline over their refusal to get vaccinated and the government has not ruled out taking vaccination status into account when doling out future assignments.
Even though the mandate has been repealed, the Navy will continue to use vaccination status as a requirement for the class members to be able to fulfill their job duties,” Hacker said during the 40-minute argument. “It’s even worse now because the Navy will not even consider the plaintiffs’ requests for religious accommodation anymore.” The appeals court issued no immediate rulings on Monday.
Georgia Senators Vote to Bar COVID Vaccine Requirements
Georgia senators voted Tuesday to permanently block schools and most state and local government agencies from requiring people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Senate voted 31-21 in favor of the bill, which would make permanent what had been a one-year ban enacted in 2022.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming who is sponsoring the measure, said that when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine at least, the government shouldn’t be able to force anyone to get it or refuse services to people who are unvaccinated.
Seattle, King County Will No Longer Require COVID Vaccinations for Employees
King County and the city of Seattle will no longer require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for employees, ending one of the final pandemic protections at either level of government.
In a joint announcement Monday, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced that they would end the mandate, originally established in October 2021, citing guidance from Public Health — Seattle and King County.
Constantine also rescinded the county’s emergency proclamation on Monday, ending pandemic emergency protections that had been in place since March 2020. A spokesperson for the county said Monday there were no “significant operational impacts” from rescinding the emergency proclamation.
In total, 290 county employees were terminated because of the vaccine mandate, including 103 in King County Metro and 51 in the Sheriff’s Office. The city’s terminations, retirements and leaves related to the vaccine mandate disproportionately impacted a few departments, including the already staff-burdened Seattle police and fire departments.
Three U.S. Data Breaches Show Varied Healthcare Exposure Risks
Three recent data breaches from across the United States show that the risks of data breaches can come from multiple sources for healthcare providers. Employees, third-party vendor tools and cybercriminals all create data breach risks.
The DCH Health System in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, notified its patients on January 19 of a data-privacy breach. While conducting a routine privacy audit, the health system discovered one of the hospital’s employees “accessed the electronic medical records” of a patient without an apparent business reason.
After further investigation, the hospital discovered the employee had access to and viewed additional patient electronic records between September 2021 and December 9, 2022, “without a legitimate business need related to the employee’s job duties.”
The health system notified approximately 2,530 individuals that the employee may have accessed and viewed information including their name, address, date of birth, social security numbers, date of encounter, diagnoses, vital signs, medications, test results and clinical/provider notes.
Twitter Boss Elon Musk Accuses Government Agency of Being ‘Worst Offender in U.S. Government Censorship’
Elon Musk accused a federal agency Monday many have never heard of being the “worst offender in U.S. government censorship & media manipulation.”
Musk, who owns Twitter, was referring to the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which journalist Matt Taibbi described as a “fledgling analytic/intelligence” arm to participate in guiding Twitter’s moderation of content and how it often used the media to clash with the tech giant beginning in February 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic was underway.
The twelfth installment of “Twitter files” was focused on the eagerness of the GEC to flag Twitter accounts.
“The GEC flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA,’” Taibbi wrote. “State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. ZeroHedge, claiming the episode ‘led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.’ ZH had done reports speculating that the virus had lab origin.”
TikTok Is Crushing YouTube in Annual Study of Kids’ and Teens’ App Usage
For another year in a row, TikTok has found itself as the social app kids and teens are spending the most time using throughout the day, even outpacing YouTube. According to an ongoing annual review of kids’ and teens’ app usage and behavior globally, the younger demographic — minors ranging in ages from 4 through 18 — began to watch more TikTok than YouTube on an average daily basis starting in June 2020 and TikTok’s numbers have continued to grow ever since.
In June 2020, TikTok overtook YouTube for the first time, with kids watching an average of 82 minutes per day on TikTok versus an average of 75 minutes per day on YouTube, according to new data from parental control software maker Qustodio.
This past year, the gulf between the two widened, it said, as kids in 2022 saw their average daily use of TikTok climb to a whopping 107 minutes, or 60% longer than the time they spent watching video content on YouTube (67 minutes).
U.S. Senators Seek Answers From Meta on Whether User Data Was Accessed by China, Russia and Others
Top U.S. lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee want answers from Meta on a newly disclosed internal investigation it conducted in 2018 that found tens of thousands of software developers in China, Russia and other “high-risk” countries may have had access to detailed Facebook user data before the company clamped down on that access beginning in 2014.
In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, Sens. Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, the chair and vice-chair of the Senate committee, cited a document unsealed last week in an ongoing privacy lawsuit involving the company.
That document, an internal slide presentation from 2018, suggested that nearly 87,000 developers in China, 42,000 in Russia and a handful based in Cuba, Iran and North Korea had access to Facebook user information through an earlier version of the company’s programming interfaces. The presentation provides an interim update on the probe, which found, among other things, that Iran was home to a “significant number of seemingly Russian developers” of Facebook apps.
Texas Is Banning TikTok From State Government Devices
The Lone Star State is charging ahead with a TikTok ban. On Monday, Governor Greg Abbott unveiled a new statewide model security plan to prohibit the app from government-issued devices and networks in order to address potential “vulnerabilities,” presented by its use. Predictably, the Republican governor also used the opportunity to take a swipe at China.
“The security risks associated with the use of TikTok on devices used to conduct the important business of our state must not be underestimated or ignored,” Abbott said. “Owned by a Chinese company that employs Chinese Communist Party members, TikTok harvests significant amounts of data from a user’s device, including details about a user’s internet activity.”
Abbott’s model plan will prohibit TikTok from all state-issued cell phones, laptops, desktops, tablets, and other devices able to connect to the internet. The plan goes a step further though and prevents government employees from conducting any type of state business on outside devices with TikTok or other prohibited software installed on them. All state agencies will need to implement their own policies to enforce the ban by February 15, 2023.
Chinese Tech Giant Baidu Launching ChatGPT-Style AI Bot
The Chinese tech giant Baidu announced Tuesday that it is developing an AI bot as the program ChatGPT increasingly gains popularity.
Baidu said in a tweet that it is creating an AI chatbot project called ERNIE Bot, which was first proposed as a language model in 2019. The program was capable of understanding 96 languages as of January 2021, according to a timeline of milestones for ERNIE included in the post.
The tweet did not state the expected release date for the program but said the public should stay tuned for further updates.
Baidu’s announcement comes after Google announced its own AI chatbot called Bard to rival ChatGPT. The program, which can provide highly detailed answers to inquiries from users, will become more widely available to the public in the “coming weeks.”
