Transportation Authority Now Seizing Cars of Toll Evaders - YouTube
Gravitas: Iranians dance to protest the crackdown on happiness - YouTube
#protest
An older man danced in public with 12 men providing chorus around him, it was on SM. The 12 were picked up and beaten. His SM profile, which also had videos of him dancing, was scrubbed and replaced with the emblem of the Iranian judiciary. ‘Shut down for creating criminal content.’ Many people have posted videos of themselves dancing to this song now. Even the Iranian national soccer team.
The man's SM account was restored, reportedly.
Encrypted Client Hello - Online Privacy's Missing Piece - YouTube
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¿Qué consecuencias tendrá para Panamá el cierre de la mina de cobre más grande de Centroamérica? - YouTube
#protest
Why Bill Gates Is Pushing for Global Digital IDs and Taking Over America’s Farmland – Seamus Bruner - YouTube
On Hold for 11 DAYS Trying to Get Unemployment - YouTube
In Michigan, he said, they had put in an algo that would detect patterns and decide ‘this is fraudulent’ and without a decision by a person, the system would act and issue a letter to the person ‘We’ve determined what you're doing is fraudulent.' When people said ‘No, I didn’t do anything fraudulent,' it was a problem trying to get that straightened out. ‘Some of the things that were flagged were inappropriately flagged.’
One of the biggest issues employment insurance has is identity fraud.
‘Any time you call for someone to collect your money, they’ll answer really fast. Any time you call to complain, hm, not so fast.' Everyone has noticed this. It can be the same company. They route these different types of calls to different departments. Someone running the company has decided we will assign this many people to sales, this many to customer service. They've probably discovered that they can leave you on hold, and you probably won't change services. -
‘The First Amendment is a very qualified right.’ - Schreli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0STyovb1y0
#Protest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5UqgY7OA48
#India
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRdEwWHvQlQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln4rsxWq3WM
But the Mexican government didn't like that Samsung and Motorola did this, and economically punished them.
The phone companies did this through the devices IMEI. It reached into devices and locked the users from accessing their info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N0tiuXNmKY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I7W99OVcjo
#Protest
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OzkkNb2cpo
Arrested for misplacing a document at a council meeting, after arranging a petition for the resignation of the mayor.
She couldn't sue the city council officials because they have qualified immunity, and they had made sufficient probable cause to arrest her (that she had perhaps stolen her document).
“Backdoor censorship."
The police in that city arrested her and then released her a day later, dropping the charges. Ie she wasn't taken to trial. But she as the defendent has been trying to have the court to take it to trial so she can prove she had been wronged through law/police.
She's trying to say that the qualified immunity does not fit this case.
It's a ‘what if’ case. What if we allow city councils and authorities to do this.
Institute of Justice is working on it. Is IoJ the new ACLU?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH3VYCh7z5o
Is good faith enough?
Some people were killed at home, and the police requested anyone (among 1b search users) who had searched that address.
There is little about a person that isn't revealed by reviewing a 1-month search history, including things they tell no one because they're private (and sometimes they would otherwise not even address).
The majority recognized people have a constitutional right to privacy in their internet search querries, and that these impact speech rights.
Before the Amendments were written, there was a ‘general warrant’ where a judge gave police a general warrant to go around, knock on random doors and say ‘we have a warrant’ and barge in. Since the Amendment, police need a specific warrant where they say who or what they are looking for.
EFF disappointed with the results of the case.
Go to your search results for the month and look through them, and see if you would like strangers/authorities to have that info. Now consider that of your family members.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpU9LdxO9aE
The court took the trial on the road and it was hosted at a highschool. It's much easier to go see.
The argument police/city used was “We didn't need a warrant because we were just flying a drone over your property.” They also used “an anonymous tip by a neighbor" for an impetus. Their argument was that the drone was not touching the ground.
The town council is using tax dollars and “don't even seem to care” if this case is taken to the Supreme court and the costs associated?
Another what if case. Every town council will buy a drone and regularly fly it over every property all the time and look for things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lietcrJy1MU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7W296G2ik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rnzQ6A2Nv8
Said to be to combat planned obsolesence and companies selling cars that they know won't last. The bill also has things to do with right to repair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJcsXRhArA8
What about TV? Phones? Junk food? Exercise?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MnGgsOKjqs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHOFZUCC5E
Can't take drone images ‘for surveilance’. Originally journalists had sued to be able to and won, but on appeal this. It's legal only up to 8 feet off the ground and you can't use ‘ampificaiton’ (zoom).
‘And nothing in the No-Fly provisions has anything to do with speech or expression. These are flight restrictions, not speech restrictions.’
#Drones #Privacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQfloQlSmFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MirpRkmruOg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8mFzFaGE-c
First in US. Seattle PD can't knowingly lie, saying it undermines public trust in police (not outweighed, said mayor). We might also say in society in general, since police will lie to one friend saying his friend said he did things and thereby pressure him into ratting on his friend. People have falsely confessed to murder because they were lied to and browbeaten in this way. The can still lie for felonies but not minor property crimes.
Seattle PD can't make a false statement to press or in any way that ‘shocks the conscience’ so we don't know what that means yet.
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Juice jacking. If you use a cable that has 4 wires (which are fairly standard, the kind you can use to connect your phone to your computer), obviously data can be transferred through them, including malware. So use a power outlet and your wall charger for your phone. Technically speaking, you can use a 2-wire cable (only transmits power) even with a unit set up to send malware.
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Palm oil. No alternative currently?
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BBC cancelling shows because presenters refuse to go on air.Lineker had tweeted criticism of PM Sunak's migrants policy."When you work for a public institution ... it can be hard to differentiate between the person's views and the corporation's views."Did he cross the guidelines of BBC policy?Result, in terms of public framing/understanding of the story: Lineker crisis exposes impartiality row at heart of BBC • FRANCE 24 English - YouTubeBut who was right? BBC in attempting to preserve impartiality of journalists who work for a public news service? or did they just give in to protest?
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Days after US Congress made headlines for being set to ban TikTok on government devices.
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Example of how censorship is an expensive staple of government? Also an example of once a small minority speaks up, the 75% or whatever who are choosing left when they know it's right are less fearful to chose right?
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You look around, you don't see a lot of positive examples of uprisings that turned out well (in the Middle East) - AltermanBecause political elements (not just rights, which are inclusive)? Because authoritarian response? Because law on how to arm and how to enable security forces?
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FRED, Central Bank digital currency, biggest holder of mortgages, Citi, BNU Mellon, US Bank, Wells, etc. France, Switzerland, Singapore cross-border CBDC.BIS is a private institution overseeing government things. Control over purchases, no cash, government can freeze accounts like Canadian Truckers participation and support. Events can also be faked while backdroors are pushed through. One digital identity mapped across all bank accounts, KYC. Carbon scores, social credit.
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Control data collection on millions of users, and control information algo if they so chose.
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And smart glasses.
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Rustdesk an 'opensource' (not really) Teamviewer / Anydesk alternativeIt has closed source parts in the software though, so some have already started to say it's not really.
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Sri Lanka protests. Destroyed the leaders house. He resigned. India did not send military aid.
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Protesting because of their savings.One sign read, 'No deposits. No human rights.' Interesting to contrast the impetuses that cause Westerners and Chinese to protest.
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Tesla banned from some places in ChinaUpcoming CCP meeting and they're banned from the island for 2 months. When Xi visits some places, they're also banned. Government locations (like military) Teslas can't enter. Government workers (some?) aren't permitted to drive in Teslas.Reason: National Security
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Bye bye, DuckDuckGo'Overall' versus 'ultimately' in language hints.Currently, Brave is moving to the best search engine (?and browser?), but quantity is the solution in any marketplace.
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200k cameras in Moscow can identify protesters. Also in Ukraine to identify people killed in the war to tell their families.There's no control over false positives.
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Musk bought like 10% of Twitter stockStock rose 25%. It went down a bit in the following days, but is still up significantly.A few days earlier he engaged with the public on his Twitter, asking about if Twitter respects democracy and stuff and what should be done, and people wondered if he might buy a majority in Twitter for a few billion.A few days after buying his 10% in stoc, he offered to buy all of Twitter for like $40b or something. It wasn't accepted. News is discussing it.
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David Beckham handed his Insta account (70m followers) over to a Kharkiv doctor, a child anesthesiologistThe doctor is named Irina (last name not provided).
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In Brazil, they amended the constitution to guarantee data protection as a fundamental rightThe guys on Techlore said they didn't seen anything like that possibly happening in the States for decades. The only thing they could see was if they expanded the Fourth Amendment to include digital property.
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Video being reported on where a Ukrainian is dipping bullets in pig fat, to use against Chechen Muslim
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Feds are buying data about people from a company that gets it from several appsIf you are an app developer, and you sell your app data to some company, it can be used this way.Some of these apps are for things like gay dating (Bro) and religious prayer and study (Muslim Pro, an app that notifies people 5 times per day it's time for them to pray) (Full Quran, an audio book of the Quran), as well as one where people upload their faces and do virtual makeup on it (Perfect365).
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... reportedly, for the past 2 years during the Pandemic.
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Canadian Freedom Convoy... is a large group of semi truck drivers who are making their way across Canada, in a protest against the liberties the government has taken against human and civil rights under the banner of Covid measures.Makes it actually visible, there is an opposition, and gives people an opportunity to partake in this voice. It is a world wide news story. It is also longer term, since it's been in the news for weeks now."It can't be ignored," some people noted about it.Politicians in Canada have reportedly tried focusing on the Confederate Flag and a Swastika (MSM apparently doing a lot of the disparagement work in this), as if people were rallying behind either of those in any meaningful way. And there's reportedly been some political attempts to stop the GoFundMe funding. Or they already froze it, with over $10m raised by 130 or 140k people. Facebook also kicked off the 130k people who subscribed to a group for American truckers to get involved, or something.Brian Peckford went on Jordan Peterson's podcast to publicly announce his legal challenge to the government's restrictions on Canadians' civil liberties because he didn't think he could get the truth told about what he was doing on ANY other Canadian news outlet, Peterson commented.Last Friday the police were talking about doing digital tracking, reportedly. And now protesting isn't allowed, I heard.PM Trudeau apparently will not talk with the truckers.I would perhaps say, though, that the MSM and politicians in that country have always been like this, and have frequently misrepresented events and news, but that there's never been anything that's happened that any amount of Canadians have cared enough about.Trudeau publicly called the people protesting a "small fringe minority" "who are hold unacceptable views," although I doubt he would, if given time to think about this statement, really state any views were unacceptable, maybe.
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"Phone numbers suck" - Techlore guy"They're hard to get compared to something like email. They're expensive. Most people only get one. And these issues just make them a very unique datapoint. A phone number is one of the most invasive data points used against us by companies."A new thing is eSIMs. A real phone number, not a virtual number like VOIP.No outbound calls though.
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Settler violence is a 'tool' Israel uses to take over Palestinian land - B'TselemAccording to B'Tselem's recent report, Israel uses 2 techniques to take over land in the West Bank:1) Official annexation through the judicial system2) Acts of violence carried out by settlersB'Tselem called settler violence there systemic, organized and institutionalized.
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Mysterious blasts in China?WION reported that there have been 10 high-intensity blasts in 7 days across China. No real info from China on the blasts.Why is China not talking about the mysterious blasts?
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Israeli Blue WolfWP reported this.It's facial recog system trained on a huge database of images acquired by Israeli army soldiers on smartphones, to target people for detension.
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Palestinian activists hacked with Pegasus"It's a strong feeling to have your privacy violated," said one man. "Even the simplest of things. My wife couldn't sleep for three days after finding out, being extremely worried. Our privacy was violated as a family. Our children, their pictures. Our conversations with family and friends."Pegasus is sold to govts around the world by NSO (Israeli company), under license from Israel's MOD.Pegasus is supposed to be blocked from use on Israeli and Palestinian phones.NSO commented "We cannot confirm or deny the identity of our government customers. ... NSO Group does not operate the products itself. The company licenses approved government agencies to do so."Last month, 3 days after the investigation into suspected phone hacking began, Israel designated all 6 organizations as terror groups, accusing them of funneling money to the PLF and other things.
Then the Israeli army gave itself the power to shut down offices, confiscate money, and make arrests.Last week, the US blacklisted NSO. -
SKorea govt provided 170m facial images of national and international travelers without consentWe're talking about the face photos they take during the immigration process.They gave it to a private sector company to develop an AI screening tool.
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Data collected on 50m Moscow drivers for sale for $800From a hacker.Full names, dates of birth, phone numbers, vehicle ID numbers, licence plate numbers, and car brand model and registration date.It's confirmed legit.
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FBI commanded Signal to give them account infoHere's the account they wanted more info about, and Signal's (represented by the ACLU) response.Note that just because this appears like Signal is secure, it doesn't for sure mean it's not a smokescreen.
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Moscow uses facial recognition for payments on the metroOstensibly they are using it to give passengers the option to pay that way. Their face is tied to their credit card in this optional system, and they can pay for their trips that way.15k people volunteered to test the system before it was made public this week.To do facepay, you have to stop in front of the camera for a second before entering the train gates.Moscow has over 200k facial recognition cameras.They were used earlier this year in the arrests of demonstrators at opposition protests.
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Amazon introduces a spy device on wheels for people's homes... called Astro. It's Alexa on wheels. It's designed to look small and cute.It can play movies, do video calls.
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San Jose police officer quits to speak out against vaccine mandate"When we received a email saying that you're gonna have a vaccine by a certain date or face discipline up to and including termination, I took it as a threat. Because I don't plan to be vaccinated. And I decided to turn in my badge so I could speak up cause others can't for fear of losing their job," David Gutierrez told Fox News.In Gutierrez's case, he didn't want to put the thing in his body for religious reasons.
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Rayban changes leading design into 'waycreepers'?It's been reported Rayban has licensed or partnered or something with fb to put camera's in their most iconic line.So now are we going to be looking for this design to spot people creeping on public locations?The last time a large glasses-camera attempt was made was a few years ago. It was Google Glass. What ended it was when a wearer (you might imagine that people interested in buying these products correlate somewhat with people who don't respect the public privacy of others) was punched for wearing them somewhere. Whether for the pr or whatever that might follow this, the project was turned down or off. Will we see the same thing here, to end the current movement towards spying on all public life?
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Protonmail logged IP of French activist upon order by Swiss authorities... his alleged crime was truancy. He was a member of Youth for Climate Action in Paris, and they were using Protonmail to schedule and organize an event where they would skip school to go and protest, reported Mental Outlaw on YT. The youths were going to protest governments and corporations they believed were causing climate change.Have you ever skipped school?Protonmail does not have any userside/clientside encryption. Tor or mixnet would have put something between the user and Protonmail.Mental Outlaw pointed out that although Protonmail may not comply with a request from an outside state (France, US, whoever), they could just go through Switzerland.Protonmail updated it's privacy policy to more accurately reflect what they do.
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US collected biometric records on 5m Afghanis... and now those people are at risk due to this very thing, according to some like Margaret Hu, who calls it a lesson in the life-and-death consequences of data collection.The US left this data behind, along with iris scans and names.Consortium News commented that the US is going after Assange in part because (they allege) Assange endangered lives by revealing names of informants (when he was actually redacting them).The Taliban reportedly have control of US biometric devices – a lesson in life-and-death consequences of data privacy
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Taliban's future plans and update from themAbdul Qahar Balkhi, from the Taliban’s Cultural Commission, in the Taliban’s first official interview since it took control of Kabul a week ago (talking to AJ):On government formation"The consultations are ongoing, and of course it is going to be an inclusive system.
"The talks include whether the capital will remain in Kabul or move to [the group’s birthplace] Kandahar.
On the chaos at Kabul airport
Balkhi: We are in talks and we have a relationship, a working relationship, with the Americans about the security arrangement.
The outside checkposts are in our control, and inside is under the control of the US forces, and we are in constant contact with one another.On the lack of trust between people in Kabul and the Taliban
Balkhi: It is very unfortunate for people to be rushing to the airport the way they are at the moment.
Because we have announced a general amnesty for everyone in the security forces from the senior to the junior level… this fear, this hysteria that has taken place is unfounded.
On the swift takeover of Kabul
Balkhi: The developments were so fast that all people were taken by surprise.
When we entered Kabul, and it was not planned because we announced initially that we do not want to enter Kabul, and we want to reach a political solution before entering Kabul and making a joint and inclusive government. But what happened was that the security forces left, abandoned their places, and we were forced to ask our forces to enter and take over security.On governance and women’s rights
Balkhi: The point of intra-Afghan talks was precisely that we come to an agreement about what those rights actually entail.
Islamic law is known to everyone and there are no ambiguities about the rights of women, the rights of men, not only women but also the rights of men and children. And right now we’re in a situation that hopefully during the consultations there will be clarifications about what those rights are.On the reported targeted killings and harassment of government and civil society figures
Balkhi: OOn the chaos at Kabul airportur foremost priority is the discipline in our own ranks, and not enforcing laws on others but enforcing it on ourselves first and then giving it an example for the rest of society to follow suit. So we’re the first ones and our members, if they are involved in such things, [they] will be the first to be prosecuted.
On the group being labelled ‘terrorists’
Balkhi: I don’t think people believe we are terrorists. I think it’s just “the war on terror”, it was just a term coined by the United States and anyone [who did] not fall in line were labelled terrorists....What a difference it makes to hear a non-aggressive man speak English. It's the first time I've heard anything other than Taliban elders speaking with subtitles underneath. While they may have sounded a bit rough or stern, perhaps part of that was simply a rougher, sterner way of just speaking normally there.Although some wondered if it was just a charm offensive, not representative of the Taliban.AJ English on YT: Taliban official reveals more about the group’s vision for the future
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New China data privacy law... goes into effect Nov. 1.It targets digital companies. Collecting a lot of random info on users in order to 'provide a better service' seems it'll be not as available to businesses. The restrictions in the bill target businesses and don't really apply to the CCP.Under the law, companies are required to only collect the minimal amount of data for a service, and must obtain consent for collecting sensitive info (like biometrics), offer easy opt-out options, and if they want to transfer data overseas they have to get govt approval first.Does this put China ahead of the West in internet privacy?
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Nigeria governor tells locals to arm themselves against banditsFor years there've been kidnappings of schools full of students in Nigeria. Sometimes they're held for years waiting for ransoms. Sometimes ransoms are paid, sometimes other strategies are used.Katsina State's governor has told people there to pick up guns and protect themselves, that they are not currently doing enough. He said it was morally wrong for people to sit back and allow bandits to take control of their lives.Katsina is the home state of the president of Nigeria. For many, if the pres can't secure that state he can't secure any part of the country, and last December bandits abducted around 300 students there. Those in charge have reportedly blamed the citizens, saying that because they're not fighting back, it's emboldening the criminals.Other officials have said the same thing in the past. The defense minister recently said the defense of the people should be in the hands of the people. They feel that because the government has problems protecting people, it sends the wrong message to the bandits.
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Assange case: Bit of progress for US gov sideMany are heartbroken.Last January a London court (Judge Baraitser) ruled he couldn't be extradited to the US over concerns of 'risk of suicide' (and some mental health concerns) while not opposing the US gov on the more central political issue.In the US's appeal, now Britain's High Court has granted permission to the US to expand their grounds for appealing the decision to not send Assange to the US.Next trail date is Oct 29.APnews: US granted more grounds to appeal on Assange extradition
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Apple to put software on iPhones that will scan all photos user-side... unlike things Microsoft and Dropbox currently do, which is scan images people upload to their cloud storage, Apple has said they are going to actually scan users phones themselves. They cited 'harm against children' as their auspice.Commenters have pointed out that in addition to just being privacy-invading and certain to lead to governments around the world monitoring journalists, dissidents, and everyone else, it means there will be unknown people in a room somewhere reviewing any photos they take of their children being bathed in a sink, etc.Commenters say it marks a change in direction for Apple, who had built a (somewhat dubious but somewhat popular) rep as going against attempts to invade their customer's privacy.
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Hong Kong man jailed 'under national security law'The man, during pro-democracy protests in HK against the Chinese government, purposefully rode his superbike at a line of police. He carried a flag which read 'Liberate Hong Kong.'Western media is headlining this as the first person to be charged under Hong Kong's new national security law, and highlighting the law's restrictions on protest slogans that are 'capable of inciting others,' on secessionist activity, and that without a guilty plea there should be no leniency.... despite this man's actions being clearly not just protest oriented.This may logically make China appear unfairly presented, and give China a valid claim to such. American commenters on the story noted that the man would probably have been gunned down by US police if he tried that in NY. ... However, China may follow this trial of what many consider an aggressive act with trials of peaceful protesters, journalists (which reportedly it has lined up about 30 of them), etc.9 years. He will appeal.(following this video clip, the motorbike was on the ground with police surrounding him. It appears he slowed and turned to the side and did not hit any police once he charged up close to them.)
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India up in arms over film'Padmavati,' a Bollywood film based on poem about a probably fictional Hindu queen called ani Padmini, who chose to self immolate rather than submit to a Muslim king.No one has seen the film yet, but there are threats and bounties for violence against the director and actors, and lawsuits to ban the film in the Supreme Court.Among the things they take issue on (it is the Hindu's taking offense, not Muslims, despite the Muslim king being 'portrayed as barbaric') is the romance between the Hindu queen and Muslim king.
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France dismissed an imam for sermon... reportedly, it had something to do with something Imam Mmadi Ahamada said about the wives of Mohammad, which the French interior minister said was 'contrary to the values of the republic' ('against gender equality').Minister Gerald Darmanin asked the Loire governor's office to dismiss the imam and ensure his residence permit is not renewed.He's now had 2 imam's fired it seems.
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British Muslim politician's car... reportedly firebombed (she was not in the car) amid a reported 'hate campaign' calling to stop 'an enclave of a new Muslim nation within our nation.' Arooj Shah (elected to lead the Oldham Council in May of this year after service as a councillor since 2012) had previously spoken about facing hate, abuse and racism throughout her political career.A 23-year-old man was arrested in connection.
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Audacity turns bad... according to everyone in the privacy forums and bloggers, because it updated it's policies to tell users it would be collecting unknown data from them and using it in unknown ways.Audacity was bought by Muse Group (which owns Musescore and Ultimate Guitar). The new owners pledged to keep it 'free and opensource' but it seems they might have found another way to monetize their investment here).One of the things people were most excited to point out about the new policy for Audacity was they added a 'only use if over age 13' type line, because under GDPR 'The age threshold for obtaining parental consent is established by each EU Member State and can be between 13 and 16 years.'Many people just said they wouldn't use it anymore and deleted it from their machines. Other options offered by the community were to fork or use a previous version, or to limit port access.
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US seized and blocked 33 Iranian media websitesThe US justice dept said the publishers, including a channel used by Yemen's Houthi rebels and 3 websites using by a Hezbollah group in Iraq, were using the sites to spread misinformation.The domains for the sites are registered in the US.Iran recently elected a new president who reportedly has already ruled out meeting with Biden, while negotiators from Iran, the US, Russia, China and other countries are working on revising the 2015 nuclear deal. Negotiators reportedly are close to a deal that would bring Iran again into compliance.Some wonder if the action has the possibility to derail the negotiations.Some critics point out that there is a concern in turning the domain name system (DNS) into a tool of geopolitical info warfare because that threatens the integrity of the internet and the global network."What the US did to Iranian websites was a breach of all principles of freedom of speech, which the United States is proud of." - Some guy not identified by RTWho gets to decide what is info and what is misinformation? The censor of the internet?
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Americans trust in news down to 29%According to Digital News Report's study of many countries. US trusted their news the least of all countries included. Canadians trusted their news 45%. Finlanders trusted theirs the most at 65%.The US level has declined steadily from 40% in 2017, and it is thought to be due in part to the pandemic, the media relationship with Trump, and increasingly prioritizing their audience's preferences or reactions to presenting quality news.The business model of creating hate and outrage to sell news to a particular demographic is considered to probably continue to increase, according to some analysts.
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DOJ used powers to legally spy on Journalists and elected members of CongressWe don't know everything about the story, or what led to the Trump admin investigating journalists, because of the US's secrecy (even in its court trials).Rather than investigating the journalists, they went to the tech companies that had the emails and other information and served them not only a warrant for the information, but a gag order (non-disclosure order). Once the gag orders expired, companies were able to notify the journalists.
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FDA advisors are resigning because of Biogen's Alzheimer's drug approvalThe drug was approved, but when supporters were interviewed they couldn't say anything more compelling than that they were receiving the news positively because people suffered from Alzheimer's, without being able to say anything in favor of the drug itself.The drug came out a while back, and was not approved upon review last year (because no benefits were substantially proven, the FDA advisory board voted 10 against, 1 uncertain, 0 in favor), and since then nothing has changed, but the FDA decided to approve it now.It is rare for this type of decision to be overturned, and usually when it does happen, it's after a vote that is closer than the Biogen drug was.There are millions of potential consumers for the drug, and Biogen has priced it at $56,000 per year.Commenters said that after the third resignation, there might be some real attention on what's going on here.3 prestigious FDA advisors who quit:
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Belarus president causes Ryanair flight to land to arrest opposition activistConsidered the most brazen act from an Eastern European regime in a long time, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus had a the plane tailed by a fighter jet, and under the pretense of a bomb threat caused the plane to divert from its course (Greece to Lithuania) and land in Minsk.No explosives were found but they arrested
Roman Protasevich, who is seen as taking on the role of a sort of hero in recent anti-government protests through a Telegram channel.The country has him on charges of terrorism for his blogging on what the State calls extremist organization, and protest organizing, which the state refers to as organizing mass riots and enticing social hatred, it seems. Western powers are now calling Belarus' act one of 'State terrorism.'The EU wants to react strongly, but people wonder how they can do so. Some considerations that might hurt the Belarusian regime include blocking Belarus from the international banking system, in cooperation with the US. They could sanction state companies that support the Belarusian regime. They could stop oil imports and exports--the EU is the second-biggest trade partner of Belarus after Russia.Lukashenko said it was his country’s 'sovereign right' to arrest the activist: 'Let his numerous Western patrons answer this question: Which intelligence services did this individual work for? Not only him but his accomplice as well.'
Belarus later released videos of Protasevich and his girlfriend in custody confessing to crimes against the state. He said the activist had moved on from reporting solely on Belarus to 'working full out against Russia, thus showing the true goal of western strategists. ... Their goal is to dissolve the Belarusian people and move on to smothering their arch-enemy: the Russian.'Lukashenko commented on the bomb threat: 'Was Chernobyl not enough?, If there was a bomb on board the plane and terrorists wanted to blow it up, we couldn’t really have helped. But I couldn’t let the plane fall on our people’s heads.'
Belarusian authorities also arrested 14 staff from the organization Protasevich worked for in a tax evasion case. There were reports of numerous incidents of violence against journalists in the country.According to Reuters, 'a day after Protasevich's arrest, the government introduced new measures to regulate media activities, including a blanket ban on covering protests or publishing opinion polls without prior authorization from the government.'Many people, not least of all Russian journalists, have pointed out that in 2013 the USA and EU countries forced a Bolivian plane--carrying that country's president Evo Morales--to land in Austria (it was en route from Moscow to Bolivia after a summit) for 13 hours because they thought fugitive US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden might be on board, who was charged with conveying classified information to an unauthorized party, disclosing communications intelligence information, and theft of government property.The weekend following the incident, Lukashenko visited Putin and video footage was published of the two enjoying conversation and some laughs and dining together with Lukashenko's son on a yacht in the Black Sea in Sochi. During a televised conference between the two, Putin also brought up the 2013 incident of Morales' plane, laughing.#Terrorism #Lithuania #FreeSpeech #press #EdwardSnowden
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Convicts in private prisons serve 90 days longer than public prisonsThis is about 5% longer.In private prisons, the company's contract has it that they are payed a per diem for each occupied bed."The delayed release erodes half of the cost savings offered by private contracting and is linked to the greater likelihood of conduct violations in private prisons. The additional days served do not lead to apparent changes in inmate recidivism," according to the author.*Mukherjee, Anita. "Impacts of Private Prison Contracting on Inmate Time Served and Recidivism."