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Vaccine Mandate for Federal Employees Awaits Court Ruling
A federal judge in Texas overstepped his authority when he blocked President Joe Biden’s requirement that all federal employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, an attorney for the administration told a federal appeals court panel Tuesday.
Department of Justice lawyer Charles Scarborough argued that the Constitution gives the president, as the head of the federal workforce, the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation has to require that employees be vaccinated. “This is the president exercising his authority as an employer,” Scarborough said.
Arguing for those challenging the mandate, lawyer Trent McCotter said it was the administration that was exceeding its statutory and constitutional power. McCotter referenced the recent Supreme Court opinion that the government cannot force private employers to require employee vaccinations. He said the federal employee mandate was the same kind of “coercive choice” struck down in that case. “It’s a sort of freestanding, ongoing constitutional injury,” McCotter said.
Navy Says It Can’t Deploy Destroyer While Commander Remains Unvaccinated
Navy warship remains docked and can’t be deployed because it’s commanded by an officer who refuses to get the COVID-19 vaccine, Navy officials said.
The ongoing legal battle over whether the military can force troops to get the jab has left the ship docked in Norfolk, Virginia. U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday issued an order last month banning the Navy and Marine Corps from taking any disciplinary action against the unnamed Navy warship commander and a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel for refusing to get the vaccine.
Merryday granted a preliminary injunction barring the Navy from requiring the commander or the lieutenant colonel to take the vaccine or issuing “any punitive or retaliatory measure against [them] pending a final judgment in the case,” according to Stripes and Stars.
On Thursday, Merryday denied the U.S. Department of Defense’s request to halt the injunction.
Governments, Colleges May Be Barred From Asking Workers, Students About COVID Shot Status
Louisville Courier Journal reported:
State and local governments and public colleges would be prohibited from requiring employees or students to disclose their COVID-19 vaccine status under a bill that cleared a House committee Tuesday.
Filed by Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, HB 28 would ban state government, local governments and state colleges from forcing employees or applicants to disclose whether or not they have received any COVID-19 vaccine shots, or “take adverse action” against those who do not disclose their vaccine status.
If a governmental entity violates the provisions, it would be subject to possible civil action with penalties of up to $1,000 per day, per violation. If public colleges violate the law — inquiring about the vaccine status of their faculty, staff and students — they could be denied state funding or their authority to operate.
Ted Cruz Says People Hug Him on Planes for Protesting Vaccine Mandates in Viral Video
A clip of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, posted on Twitter by The Recount, was recorded while Cruz was speaking to the media following a meeting with leaders of the “People’s Convoy” and fellow GOP Senator Ron Johnson.
While discussing the meeting, which was promoted as being about the “harmful effects of President Biden‘s vaccine mandates,” Cruz told a story about how people on planes thank him for attempting to stop the restrictions and rules targeting federal employees and large businesses.
“Every week, I fly back and forth to Houston. Almost without exception every time I’m on an airplane, either the captain or a flight attendant will come up to me, will hug me and say thank you for fighting for us,” Cruz said.
“Because I’ll tell you United Airlines — sadly Houston’s a hub of them — has fired thousands of pilots and flight attendants. What difference does it make? We’re in the District of Columbia, right now there are mandates affecting kids in DC. This is wrong,” Cruz added.
Djokovic Is Included in the Draw at Indian Wells Despite His Unclear Vaccination Status
Novak Djokovic, one of the world’s most prominent sports stars to hold out against getting a coronavirus vaccination, was included in the field for this week’s Indian Wells tennis tournament in Southern California, even though there are doubts over whether he will be able to enter the United States and participate.
Djokovic has expressed reluctance to be vaccinated against coronavirus, saying that he was not convinced by the science. He said the issue was more important to him than adding to the 20 Grand Slam tournaments he has won.
Under U.S. immigration law, people who are not citizens and also not immigrants must show proof of full vaccination as well as a negative coronavirus test to enter the country by air.
GOP Senators Cruz and Johnson Meet With ‘People’s Convoy’ Truckers
Trucker protesters against COVID vaccine mandates and restrictions met Tuesday with a pair of Republican lawmakers for two hours on Capitol Hill.
Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Ted Cruz of Texas spoke with a small group of protesters from “The People’s Convoy,” who said they won’t end their now three-day long circuit along the DC beltway — traveling around 55-60 miles per hour along the often congested corridors of Maryland and Virginia — until they sit down with other members of Congress and their demands for the rollbacks of a national state of emergency and vaccine mandates are met.
Convoy truckers are also asking for congressional hearings on the origins of the pandemic along with an investigation into state and federal COVID responses.
One point of contention for protestors who spoke during a roundtable discussion is that while COVID mandates are being rolled back, healthcare workers and members of the military have already been dismissed and discharged for refusing to get vaccinated.
Austria Says It Is Putting Its COVID Vaccine Mandate on Ice
Austria is suspending its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, its ministers for health and constitutional affairs said on Wednesday, six days before fines for breaches were due to start being imposed.
The measure, the most sweeping in the European Union as it applied to all adults with few exceptions, has been in effect since Feb. 5, but enforcement was only due to begin on March 15.
“We will…suspend the vaccine mandate in accordance with the principle of proportionality,” constitutional affairs minister Karoline Edtstadler told a news conference. “Why? Because there are many convincing arguments at the moment that this infringement of fundamental rights is not justified.”
German Government Produces New Legal Framework for Pandemic Rules
The German government introduced a legal framework for pandemic regulations and rules Wednesday. Most of the country’s current coronavirus restrictions are set to end by March 20.
The country’s health and justice ministers said if German lawmakers pass the framework, the country’s 16 state legislatures could adopt the new “hot spot” measures if virus cases rise again in certain regions, if hospitals are at risk of becoming overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients or if new virus variants start spreading.
The regulations cover matters such as mask requirements, social distancing, and requiring proof of vaccination, recovery from the illness or negative tests to be able to participate in certain parts of public life. Nationwide, masks would remain mandatory on long-distance trains and flights.
Amazon May Face Criminal Liability for Lying to Congress, House Lawmakers Allege
House lawmakers who spent much of 2019 and 2020 probing Amazon for possible antitrust violations now accuse the tech giant of lying to Congress and want the Justice Department to investigate “potentially criminal conduct” from the company and some of its executives.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland dated March 9, members of the House Judiciary Committee say “Amazon lied through a senior executive’s sworn testimony” about how the company had used the data it collects from third-party sellers. The lawmakers further allege the company “engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct,” which may have been an attempt “to influence, obstruct, or impede” the House committee’s investigation.
Facebook Gives Group Admins New Tools to Block Misinformation
Facebook is once again trying to stem the flow of misinformation within Groups. The social network is giving group admins new tools to help prevent misleading information from spreading.
With the update, group admins will be able to “automatically decline” posts that have been determined to be false or misleading by Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers. Admins who want to take an even tougher stance can use the feature to decline the post and block or suspend the user from future posts in the group.
China State-Backed Hackers Compromised Networks of at Least 6 U.S. State Governments, Research Finds
A Chinese state-sponsored hacking group successfully compromised the computer networks of at least six U.S. state governments between May 2021 and February this year, according to research published by cybersecurity firm Mandiant on Tuesday.
The group, known as APT41, allegedly exploited vulnerabilities in web applications to get their initial foothold into state government networks, Mandiant said.
APT41, which Mandiant claims carries out state-sponsored espionage on behalf of Beijing, took advantage of software flaws and quickly exploited security vulnerabilities that were made public by researchers. The hackers also adapted their tools to attack via different methods, it said.
Mandiant, the company behind Tuesday’s research, is a Nasdaq-listed cybersecurity firm based in the U.S. On Tuesday, Google said that it plans to acquire the company for around $5.4 billion.
HBO Hit With Class Action Lawsuit for Allegedly Sharing Subscriber Data With Facebook
HBO is facing a class-action lawsuit over allegations that it gave subscribers’ viewing history to Facebook without proper permission, Variety has reported. The suit accuses HBO of providing Facebook with customer lists, allowing the social network to match viewing habits with their profiles.
It further alleges that HBO knows Facebook can combine the data because HBO is a major Facebook advertiser — and Facebook can then use that information to retarget ads to its subscribers. Since HBO never received proper customer consent to do this, it allegedly violated the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), according to the lawsuit.
Twitter Quietly Launches Tor Service in the Face of Russian Censorship
Twitter just struck a blow against government censorship, even if the tech giant won’t come out and say so directly.
On Tuesday morning, Alec Muffett, a cybersecurity professional with a long history of working with the Tor network, announced he’d brought skills to bear at Twitter. Specifically, Muffett wrote that he’d helped the company launch a censorship-resistant way for users to access the social media platform — even if government officials in, say, a country like Russia, wanted to prevent that.
Tor works by sending users’ internet traffic through random servers, and encrypting that traffic at every step. This means a website can’t see who specifically is browsing it, and an ISP can’t see what sites its customers are viewing. Tor is great, to put it bluntly, for doing things you wish to keep to yourself.
