Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

HOMELAND SECURITY WORRIES COVID-19 MASKS ARE BREAKING FACIAL RECOGNITION, LEAKED DOCUMENT SHOWS

WHILE DOCTORS AND politicians still struggle to convince Americans to take the barest of precautions against Covid-19 by wearing a mask, the Department of Homeland Security has an opposite concern, according to an “intelligence note” found among the BlueLeaks trove of law enforcement documents: Masks are breaking police facial recognition.

The rapid global spread and persistent threat of the coronavirus has presented an obvious roadblock to facial recognition’s similar global expansion. Suddenly everyone is covering their faces. Even in ideal conditions, facial recognition technologies often struggle with accuracy and have a particularly dismal track record when it comes to identifying faces that aren’t white or male. Some municipalities, startled by the civil liberties implications of inaccurate and opaque software in the hands of unaccountable and overly aggressive police, have begun banning facial recognition software outright. But the global pandemic may have inadvertently provided a privacy fix of its own — or for police, a brand new crisis.

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Are official figures overstating England’s Covid-19 death toll?

Matt Hancock has announced an urgent review into how Public Health England (PHE) counts Covid-19 deaths after discovering what appeared to be a serious issue in how rates are calculated.

Following the health secretary’s move on Friday, Yoon K Loke and Carl Heneghan, of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, wrote in a blogpost: “It seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the Covid test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community.”

A Department of Health and Social Care source summed this up as: “You could have been tested positive in February, have no symptoms, then be hit by a bus in July and you’d be recorded as a Covid death.”

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FBI Agents Raid Ohio House Speaker’s Home in Multi-Million Dollar Corruption Probe

The home of Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder has been raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as part of a probe into a multi-million dollar racketeering conspiracy, according to Dayton Daily News outlet.

It’s alleged that up to US$60 million in bribes have been paid to a state official and associates – while full details on the case are yet to be released, FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman and US Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio David DeVillers are expected to brief the press later today.

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The Pandemic Is a Lucrative Revenue Opportunity for Incompetent Politicians

The federal government’s response to COVID-19 has been a hot mess, and state and city officials haven’t done much better. But if there’s one thing at which governments have excelled during this crisis, it’s been collecting fines from anybody who steps out of line.

Whatever else it is, the great pandemic of 2020 has turned into a revenue-collection opportunity for officials who demonstrate little competence at anything other than squeezing their unfortunate subjects.

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St. Louis Couple Charged With Felony After Using Firearms To Ward Off Trespassing Protesters

A wealthy St. Louis couple who made headlines last month for displaying firearms in front of their home as a group of BLM activists marched towards the Mayor’s house will be charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon, and face a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree assault.

St. Louis’ top prosecutor, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, announced on Monday that she would be filing charges against personal injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey.

“It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner — that is unlawful in the city of St. Louis,” Gardner said in a statement, adding that she was recommending community service in lieu of up to four years in prison, according to Politico.

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