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Parents Sue California Over Religious Exemptions for School-Mandated Vaccines as Newsom Seeks to Add COVID Jab
Several parents backed by a conservative group are suing California over a state law that eliminated religious exemptions for school-mandated vaccines now that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state legislature are reportedly moving to add the COVID-19 jab to the list of required inoculations for schoolchildren.
The federal lawsuit brought by Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to protecting religious liberty, challenges SB 277, arguing the legislation restricting religious exemptions violates the constitutional rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children. The complaint, filed Tuesday in the Southern District of California, lists state Attorney General Rob Bonta as a defendant.
SB 277, which was signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown in June 2015 and took effect on Jan. 1, 2016, eliminated nonmedical exemptions from state-mandated immunizations for children entering public or private schools. It applies to children enrolled in private or public elementary or secondary schools, daycare centers, and public or private daycares and preschools.
In 2022, the lawsuit says, the state legislature and Newsom “made attempts to add COVID-19 to the list of required vaccines for school entrance even though the virus poses a small risk to schoolchildren.” Meanwhile, the complaint argues, California “allows immigrant and homeless children to attend public and private schools without proof of vaccination.”
U.S. Supreme Court Weighs if Public Officials Can Block Critics on Social Media
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday waded into the issue of free speech rights in the digital age during arguments in cases from California and Michigan involving whether public officials may legally block others on social media, a function often used on these platforms to stifle critics.
Lower courts reached different conclusions in the two cases, reflecting the legal uncertainty over whether such social media activity is bound by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment limits on the government’s ability to restrict speech. Supreme Court arguments were ongoing.
The justices are tasked with deciding whether the public officials engaged in a “state action” in blocking critics from social media accounts or were merely acting in their personal capacity. The First Amendment constrains government actors but not private individuals.
The first case involves two public school board trustees from Poway, California who appealed a lower court’s ruling in favor of parents who sued them after being blocked from the personal accounts of the officials on X, called Twitter at the time, and Facebook, which is owned by Meta Platforms (META.O).
Watch: COVID Authoritarians Want Forgiveness — Here’s Why They Don’t Deserve It
Do authoritarians deserve a chance to be treated with grace and forgiveness? The question is circulating regularly these days in the wake of the complete failure of COVID pandemic response and the victory of the anti-mandate movement. The answer relies on a series of counter-questions based on logic and predictable outcomes. It’s the kind of discussion that COVID cultists don’t want to have; they just want everyone to forget because they now have something to lose politically.
Scott Galloway, Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and member of the World Economic Forum’s “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” list, is one of the cultists who now wants to be given a free pass as he debates the issue in Real Time with Bill Maher.
The question that we need to ask Galloway is: How forgiving was he when confronted with people who opposed his authoritarianism? Galloway was rabidly pro-mandate. He consistently called for harsher punishments for people refusing to comply and he demanded that the unvaccinated be treated as second-tier citizens banned from places of business. As he argued in his blog titled ‘Half Of America Has Its Head Up Its Ass. It’s Time For A Vaccine Mandate’: “Enough already. Federal law should require any citizen who wants to cash a government check, use public transport, or enter a place of business to show proof of vaccination … ”
There were calls to fine the unvaccinated, imprison people who question the vaccine, put the vaccinated on home lockdown and even take away their children. In some states, like New York, there was active legislation put forward to create detention facilities for people who did not comply (COVID camps). That is some serious Stalinist behavior and we are still waiting for it to be addressed and for certain political leaders to be punished.
TikTok, Snapchat and Others Sign Pledge to Tackle AI-Generated Child Sex Abuse Images
Tech firms including TikTok, Snapchat and Stability AI have signed a joint statement pledging to work together to counter child sex abuse images generated by artificial intelligence.
Britain announced the joint statement — which also listed the United States, German and Australian governments among its 27 signatories — at an event on Monday being held in the run-up to a global summit hosted by the U.K. on AI safety this week.
“We resolve to work together to ensure that we utilize responsible AI for tackling the threat of child sexual abuse and commit to continue to work collaboratively to ensure the risks posed by AI to tackling child sexual abuse do not become insurmountable.”
Britain cited data from the Internet Watch Foundation showing that in one dark web forum, users had shared nearly 3,000 images of AI-generated child sexual abuse material.
Marin County to Require Masks in Patient-Care Settings Beginning Nov. 1
The threat of COVID and other respiratory viruses during flu season has Marin County requiring masks in patient-care settings.
The new mandate in Marin County requires patients, staff and visitors to wear a mask in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities for the fall and winter virus season from Nov. 1 through March 31 of next year.
County health officials said the mandate will apply to all individuals while they are in patient care areas. Children under age 6 and those with a valid medical reason are exempt.
UCSF’s Dr. Peter Chin-Hong doesn’t believe there will be any subsequent health mandates for masks in schools, restaurants and other settings besides patient care facilities.
‘Wholly Ineffective and Pretty Obviously Racist’: Inside New Orleans’ Struggle With Facial-Recognition Policing
In the summer of 2022, with a spike in violent crime hitting New Orleans, the city council voted to allow police to use facial-recognition software to track down suspects — a technology that the mayor, police and businesses supported as an effective, fair tool for identifying criminals quickly.
A year after the system went online, data show that the results have been almost exactly the opposite.
Records obtained and analyzed by POLITICO show that computer facial recognition in New Orleans has low effectiveness, is rarely associated with arrests and is disproportionately used on Black people. A review of nearly a year’s worth of New Orleans facial recognition requests shows that the system failed to identify suspects a majority of the time — and that nearly every use of the technology from last October to this August was on a Black person.
Facial recognition has many uses — you can use it to unlock your phone, to help find yourself in group photos and to board a flight. But no use of the $3.8 billion industry has concerned lawmakers and civil rights advocates more than law enforcement.
2 in 3 Physicians Concerned About AI Driving Diagnosis, Treatment Decisions: Survey
Two in three physicians are concerned about artificial intelligence’s (AI) influence on diagnosis and treatment decisions, according to a recent survey.
According to the Medscape survey released Monday, 65% of physicians in the survey are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about AI driving diagnosis and treatment decisions. Thirty-six percent said they were “not very” or “not at all” concerned about AI driving diagnosis and treatment decisions.
Other findings in the survey included 42% of physicians saying they are “enthusiastic” about AI’s future in the workplace. Thirty percent said they are “neutral” about the technology’s future in the workplace and 28% said they are “apprehensive” about it.
Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said AI could take over aspects of doctors’ jobs sooner rather than later in a July op-ed.
Advocates Raise Privacy, Safety Concerns as NYPD and Other Departments Put Robots on Patrol
In 2014, the creators of Knightscope told USA TODAY they wanted to create a fleet of robots that would cruise through shopping malls, corporate campuses and other public spaces, collecting data and alerting law enforcement when they spot trouble.
Nearly 10 years later, one of the public safety technology company’s 5-foot-2-inch, 400-pound robots is working the graveyard shift, patrolling the Times Square subway station for the country’s largest police department alongside a human New York Police Department officer.
Former Texas police officer and Knightscope co-founder Stacey Stephens said just under a dozen departments now use the Knightscope 5, or K5, and success stories from its deployment in the private sector are attracting the attention of other law enforcement agencies.
Law enforcement’s growing use of devices like the K5 and the robotic dogs produced by Boston Dynamics has been criticized by communities and privacy advocates concerned about the technology’s efficacy, increased surveillance, the potential for weaponization and the lack of clear laws and policies governing its use.
