Tag: police state

COVID & The Escalation Of Medical Tyranny

The coronavirus crisis has served as a powerful tool in highlighting many of the faults that previously existed in society. It exposed which politicians have an inherent need to control and which ones are guided by humility. It reminded us of the political power that lies in fear, and how crucial it is to be skeptical of prevailing narratives. It emphasized the different economic realities for those who live paycheck to paycheck and those who benefit from economic financialization.

It should also make perfectly clear the danger of handing over healthcare to the state.

Already we have seen agents of the state, at various levels, seek to leverage a viral medical crisis to expand their power. Governors and local officials have sought to use vague “emergency” powers to lock down businesses and to create criminal penalties, and have then attacked any attempts by judiciaries to rein in their actions. Judges have sought to leverage the power they hold in deciding child custody to force citizens to make medical decisions they disagree with. Anointed government experts, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, in spite of his own inconsistencies, have been held up as the final word on science, at the expense of the voices of other credible scientists.

Whether by design or by the instinctual reaction, we have seen a concerted effort of government authorities—amplified by a corporate press with a particularly vivid political agenda, and supported by the credentials of an academic landscape that suffers from ideological capture—to weaponize a centralized scientific narrative for the purpose of achieving certain policy ends. It is appropriate that some have dubbed this union “the Cathedral,” as we have seen the divine right of kings renewed in the divine right of approved scientists.

None of this should be a surprise.

Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray N. Rothbard, and others have long warned of the dangers of “scientism.” As Jonathan Newman has noted on this site, we’ve seen it play out increasingly in American pop culture with the fetishizing of figures like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye.

Now, luckily, the current healthcare system has limits on the degree to which we, as individuals, must submit to the power of the “scientific consensus.” How long, however, will that doctor-patient relationship remain sacred?

Keep reading

World’s first Covid passport technology will be trialled on flights from Heathrow this week in bid to let passengers travel without risk of quarantine in future BUT requires authorities to trust test lab results from abroad

Coronavirus passport trials are taking place at Heathrow this week to test technology to let people travel the globe without risk of being quarantined.

Passengers on United Airlines and Cathay Pacific are trying out an app called the CommonPass.

The phone software is a digital health pass which can hold a certified COVID-19 test status or show someone has been vaccinated in future in a way designed to satisfy various governments’ different regulations.

It has been launched by non-profit trust Commons Project Foundation, part of the World Economic Forum, in the hope of it will end the days of flyers producing bits of paper, often in different languages.

The tech is very much at the trial stage using volunteers on flights between London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore under government observation.

But it is seen as a longer-term measure to allow air travel to return to something like pre-coronavirus levels. 

However, it is reliant on Governments around the world accepting test results from ‘certified’ laboratories in other countries and allowing those with negative results to enter freely on their say-so.

Dr Bradley Perkins, chief medical officer of The Commons Project, said: ‘Without the ability to trust COVID-19 tests – and eventually vaccine records – across international borders, many countries will feel compelled to retain full travel bans and mandatory quarantines for as long as the pandemic persists.

‘With trusted individual health data, countries can implement more nuanced health screening requirements for entry.’ 

It comes as hopes for a UK airport testing breakthrough this week look set to be dashed after ministers decided to launch another review of the issue.

Keep reading

The Post-Pandemic ‘New Normal’ Looks Awfully Authoritarian

We’re told that life is never getting back to normal, so we need to suck it up and accept a world of mask-wearing, economic disruption, and social distancing. It’s a denatured echo of the warnings we’ve heard before that government responses to COVID-19 are pushing the world toward authoritarianism—but dressed up as if that’s a good thing.

That’s unfortunate, given that less-intrusive responses to the pandemic are proving at least as effective as heavy-handed ones. And that’s before we even discuss the inherent value of the freedom that looks destined to be pushed aside by public health concerns  and by disingenuous government officials.

“As 2020 slides into and probably infects 2021, try to take heart in one discomfiting fact: Things are most likely never going ‘back to normal,'” wrote CNN International Security Editor Nick Paton Walsh last week. In his piece he discusses the likely permanency of mask mandates, telecommuting, reduced physical contact, and similar changes to life.

Some of the alterations Walsh mentions may be matters of personal choice, but a good many of them are imposed by “politicians who pretend that ‘normal’ is just around the corner,” as Babson College’s Thomas Davenport says in the article.

We’re supposed to accept our newly constrained lives as “the new normal”—in a phrasing that’s already very tired, indeed.

Actually, repeated references to a “new normal” aren’t just tired; they’re ominous.

Keep reading

Thousands Of Mathematicians Call For Boycotting Predictive Crime A.I. From Police

After a flurry of police brutality cases this year and protests swarming the U.S. streets, thousands of mathematicians have joined scientists and engineers in calling for boycotting artificial intelligence from being used by law enforcement.

Over 2,000 mathematicians have signed a letter calling to boycott all collaboration with police and telling their colleagues to do the same in a future publication of the American Mathematical Society, Shadowproof reported.

The call to action for the mathematicians was the police killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and many more just this year.

“At some point, we all reach a breaking point, where what is right in front of our eyes becomes more obvious,” says Jayadev Athreya, a participant in the boycott and Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington. “Fundamentally, it’s a matter of justice.”

The mathematicians wrote an open letter, collecting thousands of signatures for a widespread boycott of police using algorithms for policing. Every mathematician within the group’s network pledges to refuse any and all collaboration with law enforcement.

The group is organizing a wide base of mathematicians in the hopes of cutting off police from using such technologies. The letter’s authors cite “deep concerns over the use of machine learning, AI, and facial recognition technologies to justify and perpetuate oppression.”

Predictive policing is one key area where some mathematicians and scientists have enabled the racist algorithms, which tell cops to treat specific areas as “hotspots” for potential crime. Activists and organizations have long criticized the bias in these practices. Algorithms trained on data produced by racist policing will reproduce that prejudice to “predict” where crime will be committed and who is potentially a criminal.

Keep reading

Report A Social Worker For Sexual Harassment And He Might Take Your Kids

Natia Sampson volunteered to become the legal guardian of her niece after the girl’s parents were incarcerated. And the social worker on the case took a liking to Natia.

At first she politely rejected his advances, fearing that reporting these instances would be met with retaliation. But soon it turned into sexual harassment, and she was forced to contact his superiors. But nothing changed. Until one day, the social worker exploded at Natia, saying, “I don’t know where you get off sending all these complaint emails and making all these calls, but you are going to find out that we at [Child Services] stick together, and cover for each other.”

Soon after, he lodged claims of child neglect against Natia. She eventually fought off the completely unsubstantiated charges.

Natia then sued the social worker and the Department of Children and Family Services for so obviously violating her rights. But the case was dismissed last month. The Judge’s decision reads:

“the right of private individuals to be free from sexual harassment at the hands of social workers was not clearly established at the time of defendants’ conduct in this case.”

Keep reading