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Appeals Court Pauses Order Limiting Biden Administration Contact With Social Media Companies
A federal appeals court Friday temporarily paused a lower court’s order limiting executive branch officials’ communications with social media companies about controversial online posts.
Biden administration lawyers had asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to stay the preliminary injunction issued on July 4 by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty. Doughty himself had rejected a request to put his order on hold pending appeal.
Friday’s brief 5th Circuit order put Doughty’s order on hold “until further orders of the court.” It called for arguments in the case to be scheduled on an expedited basis.
Mississippi, Under Judge’s Order, Starts Allowing Religious Exemptions for Childhood Vaccinations
Mississippi is starting the court-ordered process of letting people cite religious beliefs to seek exemptions from state-mandated vaccinations that children must receive before attending daycare or school. In April, U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden ordered Mississippi to join most other states in allowing religious exemptions from childhood vaccinations.
His ruling came in a lawsuit filed last year by several parents who said their religious beliefs have led them to keep their children unvaccinated and out of Mississippi schools. The lawsuit, funded by the Texas-based Informed Consent Action Network, argued that Mississippi’s lack of a religious exemption for childhood vaccinations violates the U.S. Constitution.
Ozerden set a deadline of this Saturday for the state to comply with his order. The Mississippi State Department of Health website will publish information on that day about how people can seek religious exemptions, according to court papers filed on behalf of Dr. Daniel Edney, the state health officer.
Under Mississippi’s new religious exemption process, state health officials cannot question the sincerity of a person’s religious beliefs. The exemption must be granted if forms are properly filled out, Michael J. Bentley, an attorney representing the health officer, wrote.
U.S. Data Privacy: ‘Stark Imbalance’ of Protection Across States
When it comes to data privacy protection, the U.S. isn’t exactly a superpower. The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) could be the first comprehensive federal privacy legislation that citizens, experts, and digital rights activists have been calling for. Unfortunately, the Act is under review and nowhere near being implemented anytime soon.
Americans enjoy vastly different privacy protections based on where they live. This creates opportunities for data breaches and unscrupulous companies to exploit customers’ most personal and confidential information. Especially now, one year after Roe vs Wade fell, people in the U.S. need to know how to protect the privacy of their digital lives.
“In an increasingly digital era where so much information about our lives is now online, it is vital that all states recognize the importance of digital privacy for their citizens,” said Charlotte Scott, Digital Rights Advocate at PIA.
At the bottom of the rankings with the worst privacy protection in all of the U.S. are Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Researchers observed a lack of progress in enacting new laws to protect citizen data and privacy.
How a Combination of COVID Lawsuits and Media Coverage Keeps Misinformation Churning
Over the course of the pandemic, lawsuits came from every direction, questioning public health policies and hospitals’ authority. Petitioners argued for care to be provided in a different way, they questioned mandates on mask and vaccine use, and they attacked restrictions on gatherings.
Even as COVID-19 wanes, lawyers representing the healthcare sector predict their days in court aren’t about to end soon. A group of litigators and media companies, among others, are eyeing policy changes and even some profits from yet more lawsuits.
Lawyers are organizing to promote their theories. Late in March, a group of them gathered in Atlanta for a debut COVID Litigation Conference to swap tips on how to build such cases. “Attention, Atlanta lawyers!” proclaimed an ad promoting the event. “Are you ready to be a part of the fastest-growing field of litigation?”
The conference was sponsored in part by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, which was established on vaccine-skeptical views. The gathering promised to share legal strategies for suing federal and state public health agencies over COVID policies, as well as hospitals and pharmaceutical firms for alleged malfeasance.
Striking SAG Actors in Disbelief Over Studios’ Dystopian AI Proposal
Hollywood is officially a Black Mirror episode come to life. That was the sentiment several members and non-members of SAG-AFTRA shared with Rolling Stone following Thursday’s announcement that the 160,000-member union would join the WGA union on the picket lines after failing to secure a new contract with movie studio and streaming service executives.
Both SAG-AFTRA and WGA — which has been on strike since May 2 — mark the first time since 1960 that both unions have been on strike simultaneously. One of the major points of contention for both groups has been the rapid development and implementation of AI and fears of how it could potentially replace writers and actors.
And their concern was justified, as chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland laid bare the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’s (AMPTP) so-called “groundbreaking AI proposal,” which holds the potential to wipe out an entire pathway to breaking into the industry, as well as a reliable source of income for many.
The reported proposal hinged on the ability for background actors to be “scanned, get paid for one day’s pay” and for that company to “own that scan of their image, their likeness, and to be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation.”
The Key to Protecting Privacy Is Locked in an Underfunded Government Agency
Amazon told its users they could delete voice recordings gathered by the Alexa smart speaker and location data gathered by the Alexa app — but Amazon actually kept some of that data for years. Even worse, Amazon kept voice recordings from children indefinitely. That’s all according to the Federal Trade Commission, which, along with the Department of Justice, recently charged Amazon for deceiving parents and violating a children’s privacy law.
The complaint against Amazon follows a slate of recent FTC enforcement actions, each targeting violations of Americans’ privacy and abuses of their data. Last August, the agency sued location-data broker Kochava for selling mobile location data that could be used to track hundreds of millions of people (a saga that is still unfolding, after a court dismissed the lawsuit and the FTC refiled).
In February, the FTC proposed a $1.5 million fine for telehealth and prescription drug company GoodRx, which the agency says shared consumers’ health data with Facebook, Google, and other companies; in March, it proposed a $7.8 million settlement with online counseling service BetterHelp, which it says secretly shared consumers’ health data — including identifiable mental health data, such as experiences with depression and thoughts of suicide — with third parties. The privacy enforcement actions keep coming.
But there’s a little-known fact: The team doing much of this work is comprised of just a few dozen people. Among tech-focused government organizations, the FTC’s privacy team punches well above its weight, rolling out enforcement actions covering data about health, mental health, children, geolocation, and more. Congress, meanwhile, has stalled on passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation. While that debate continues, Congress can do something much quicker to help further protect Americans’ privacy in the short term, in a way that will complement a future privacy law: give more money to the FTC’s privacy and enforcement staff.
Brevard GOP Moves to Ban COVID Vaccine, Calling It a ‘Biological Weapon’
The Brevard Republican Executive Committee has joined a growing list of Florida GOP chapters calling on Gov. Ron DeSantis to ban the COVID-19 vaccine, which it called a “biological weapon” in a resolution this week.
The nonbinding resolution was passed by a supermajority vote of committee membership Thursday. It now goes to DeSantis, Brevard County’s legislative delegation and state party leaders, joining similar motions of support from committees in more than half a dozen other counties.
“Strong and credible evidence has recently been revealed that COVID-19 and COVID-19 injections are biological and technological weapons,” the Brevard draft resolution says, citing claims that have been disproven and disputed by respected medical groups.
It calls on DeSantis to ban the sale and distribution of the vaccine “and all related vaccines,” and for Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to seize all remaining doses in the state for safety testing, “on behalf of the preservation of the human race,” it says.
