How “Smart” Bulbs Track Your Behavior (Even When Lights Are Turned Off) and Why Manufacturers Want Your Data

Privacy and security experts have warned for many years about privacy and cybersecurity risks associated with ALL “Smart” and wireless technology – cell phones (see 123), medical devices and implants (see 12), personal and “Smart” home devices and wearables (see 123456), utility “Smart” meters (electric, gas, and water), and everything that uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology (see 1, 2). Last month, researchers from Carnegie Melon University proposed product warning labels that would make it easier for consumers to understand this.

Of course, manufacturers may not be in a hurry to use them because their “Smart” products allow them to collect data on consumers to analyze and sell to 3rd parties.  This is referred to as “Surveillance Capitalism.” “Smart” light bulbs can be used for this as well.

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Microsoft, Cigna form coalition for digital records of COVID-19 vaccination

Microsoft Corp, health insurer Cigna Corp and Mayo Clinic are part of a coalition pushing for digital records of people who get vaccinated against COVID-19.

A key aim of the project, called Vaccination Credential Initiative, is to help people store encrypted digital copies of their immunization records in a digital wallet of their choice, the companies said in a joint statement on Thursday.

These records could eventually be used, with an individual’s consent, by colleges that are trying to re-open or even for entry into concerts in the future, Joan Harvey, an executive at Cigna unit Evernorth told Reuters.

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The poison found in everyone, even unborn babies – and who is responsible for it

Imagine that a small group of people coordinated the intentional manufacture and release of a lethal poison – and imagine they knew this poison had special properties that meant, once released into the world, it would be inevitable that it would make its way into the blood of virtually every person on the planet, even babies in their mother’s womb, and stay there, like a ticking time bomb.

Well, that “ticking time bomb” waiting to explode into serious, even fatal, disease is not a fictional device from some doomsday thriller; it is real, it is inside virtually all of us, right now. Tick, tick, tick.

And we know exactly who is responsible. For a long time, powerful corporate interests succeeded in keeping this heinous, brazen, and ongoing public health threat hidden from regulators, from scientists, and from the public. But it is now a matter of public record that these people knew the potential for harm and grave threat to human life, and continued anyway.

The only reason the world knows anything about this today is because, in 1998, Earl Tennant, a courageous farmer from West Virginia, came to me demanding answers. His cattle were dying in droves and he was certain the trouble stemmed from the white foaming crud defiling his creek where his cattle drank. Something was efficiently killing off not only his cattle but also the deer and other wildlife. Earl wanted answers and I wanted to help him. Neither of us could have fathomed just how bad or how deep this really went.

Getting the answers required over two decades of litigation, continuing to this day. But like the cattle and other animals on his farm, Earl would not survive long enough to get all his answers. The dark secrets deliberately withheld from Earl about his creek and his dying cows, went far beyond his property line. The poison flowing into Earl’s creek was also leaching into the drinking water of 70,000 of his neighbors, but no one was being told a thing. And this was just the tip of the iceberg. In secret, the poison had in fact streamed all across the country, and into the bloodstreams of virtually every American.

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Employers can bar unvaccinated employees from the workplace, EEOC says

With the first doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine now being administered in the U.S., the federal government is giving employers around the country the green light to require immunization for most workers.

In general, companies have the legal right to mandate that employees get a COVID-19 shot, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said Wednesday. More specifically, employers are entitled — and required — to ensure a safe workplace in which “an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of individuals in the workplace.” That can mean a company requiring its workforce to be vaccinated.

The Americans with Disabilities Act limits an employer’s ability to require workers to get a medical examination. But the EEOC’s latest guidance clarifies that getting vaccinated does not constitute a medical exam. As a result, ordering employees to get a COVID-19 shot would not violate the ADA.

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