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Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Connecticut Law That Eliminated Religious Vaccination Exemption
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a 2021 Connecticut law that eliminated the state’s longstanding religious exemption from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and daycare facilities.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the contentious law. A lower court judge had earlier dismissed the lawsuit challenging the law, which drew protests at the state Capitol. The change allowed current students in K-12 who already had a religious exemption to keep it.
Brian Festa, vice president and co-founder for the group We The Patriots USA Inc., a lead plaintiff in the case, called the decision “disappointing” but said it’s “not the end of the road for us in our fight to win back religious exemptions for schoolchildren.”
The group — which has challenged other vaccination laws, including for COVID-19 — had argued along with several parents that Connecticut violated religious freedom protections by removing the exemption. The new law shows a hostility to religious believers and jeopardizes their rights to medical freedom and child rearing, they said in court papers.
Years After the End of COVID, NYC Remains Trapped in ‘Long Lockdown’
Four years to the day since Big Apple restaurants were finally allowed to serve food outdoors again as part of COVID-19 “Phase II” reopening, we are still locked down. Not physically but emotionally and psychologically.
The miserable three months of government-mandated “sheltering in place” that began on March 20 of 2020 not only shattered the economy that’s yet to fully recover, it indelibly altered our brain chemistry. The Times Square “Ghost Town” is history. But it’s the stubborn squatter in our psyches that can’t be evicted.
If there’s such a thing as Long COVID, there’s Long Lockdown. Lockdown’s lingering effects haunt our waking and sleeping hours — not just when I see physical vestiges like a “maintain six feet of social distance” sign, a number which Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted was made up out of thin air.
The lockdowns were hypocritical and politically motivated as well. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio did nothing to curb Black Lives Matter protests where thousands of un-masked demonstrators breathed and shouted in each other’s faces.
But I hope our elected leaders who profess to “follow the science,” as then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo loved to repeat, will follow common sense should another viral nightmare ever befall us — and heed the damage of lockdowns that almost broke New York City.
How Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Failed Children on Safety, States Say
The New York Times via The Seattle Times reported:
In April 2019, David Ginsberg, a Meta executive, emailed his boss, Mark Zuckerberg, with a proposal to research and reduce loneliness and compulsive use on Instagram and Facebook.
In the email, Ginsberg noted that the company faced scrutiny for its products’ impacts “especially around areas of problematic use/addiction and teens.” He asked Zuckerberg for 24 engineers, researchers and other staff, saying Instagram had a “deficit” on such issues.
A week later, Susan Li, now the company’s chief financial officer, informed Ginsberg that the project was “not funded” because of staffing constraints. Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s head, ultimately declined to finance the project, too.
The email exchanges are just one slice of evidence cited among more than a dozen lawsuits filed since last year by the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia. The states accuse Meta of unfairly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the hazards. Using a coordinated legal approach reminiscent of the government’s pursuit of Big Tobacco in the 1990s, the attorneys general seek to compel Meta to bolster protections for minors.
A New York Times analysis of the states’ court filings — including roughly 1,400 pages of company documents and correspondence filed as evidence by the state of Tennessee — shows how Zuckerberg and other Meta leaders repeatedly promoted the safety of the company’s platforms, playing down risks to young people, even as they rejected employee pleas to bolster youth guardrails and hire additional staff.
Masks Are Going From Mandated to Criminalized in Some States
State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinian protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among COVID-cautious Americans.
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said earlier this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident where masked protesters on a train shouted, “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces.
Lawmakers eager to reinstate pre-pandemic mask restrictions say legislation would not target medically vulnerable people and others trying to avoid respiratory viruses. But critics say such an approach would be impractical and sets mask wearers up for further ostracization and harassment by police and fellow citizens.
In a statement accompanying his veto, Cooper said the legislation “removes protections and threatens criminal charges for people who want to protect their health by wearing a mask.” Opponents of mask restrictions question how a health exception could work if protesters wearing medical grade masks say they’re trying to stay healthy in a crowd.
Ticker: Facial Recognition Startup Clearview AI Settles Privacy Suit
Facial recognition startup Clearview AI has reached a settlement in a lawsuit alleging its massive photographic collection of faces violated the subjects’ privacy rights. Attorneys estimate the deal could be worth more than $50 million. Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, of the Northern District of Illinois, gave preliminary approval to the agreement Friday.
But the unique agreement gives plaintiffs in the case a share of the company’s potential value, rather than a traditional payout. Clearview does not admit any fault as part of the agreement. An attorney for the company says it is pleased to have reached an agreement.
UN Chief Tells Consumer Tech Firms: Own the Harm Your Products Cause
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday demanded that big consumer technology firms take responsibility and “acknowledge the damage your products are inflicting on people and communities.”
Taking aim at the companies, which he did not name, and their social media platforms, he said: “You have the power to mitigate harm to people and societies around the world. You have the power to change business models that profit from disinformation and hate.”
Guterres was speaking at a news conference to launch a set of U.N. global principles for information integrity, which he called a starting point to combat misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.
Guterres also told governments to: “Ensure regulations uphold human rights. Refrain from drastic measures, including blanket internet shutdowns. Respect the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”
TikTok Says U.S. Ban Is Inevitable Without a Court Order Blocking Law
TikTok and Chinese parent ByteDance on Thursday urged a U.S. court to strike down a law they say will ban the popular short video app in the United States on Jan. 19, saying the U.S. government refused to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022.
Legislation signed in April by President Joe Biden gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 next year to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets or face a ban on the app used by 170 million Americans. ByteDance says a divestiture is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on lawsuits filed by TikTok and ByteDance along with TikTok users on Sept. 16. TikTok’s future in the United States may rest on the outcome of the case which could impact how the U.S. government uses its new authority to clamp down on foreign-owned apps.
