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ACLU Comment on Bill Stopping Face Recognition Surveillance
Legislation comes after Robert Williams shares story of being wrongfully arrested because of the flawed technology.
WASHINGTON
Members of Congress today introduced legislation that would halt federal use of and funding for face recognition surveillance technologies. The bill, Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2020, comes after the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a complaint against Detroit police for wrongfully arresting Robert Williams, a Black man living in Michigan, because of flawed face recognition technology.
"No one should have to fear the government tracking and identifying their face wherever they go. No one should have to go through what the Williams family has gone through," said ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani. "It's past time Congress halted the use of face recognition and stopped federal money from being used to invest in invasive and discriminatory surveillance. This bill should immediately pass."
In an op-ed published by the Washington Post, Robert Williams wrote: "Why is law enforcement even allowed to use such technology when it obviously doesn't work? I get angry when I hear companies, politicians and police talk about how this technology isn't dangerous or flawed. What's worse is that, before this happened to me, I actually believed them. I thought, what's so terrible if they're not invading our privacy and all they're doing is using this technology to narrow in on a group of suspects?"
Robert Williams was arrested in broad daylight in front of his wife and two little daughters. He was detained for nearly 30 hours because of a false face recognition match.
The ACLU has been leading a nationwide effort to defend privacy rights and civil liberties against the growing threat of face recognition surveillance, and for years has been calling on Congress to immediately stop the law enforcement use of the technology. Just yesterday, as part of a coalition effort led by the ACLU of Massachusetts, Boston passed a resolution banning city use of the technology. Earlier, multiple localities banned law enforcement use of face recognition technology as part of ACLU-led campaigns, including San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, California, as well as Cambridge, Springfield, and Somerville, Massachusetts.
This release is here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-comment-bill-stopping-face-recognition-surveillance.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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'Fund Housing Not Genocide': Arrests at Capitol Protest Over US Complicity in Gaza
Demonstrators called on Congress to invest in climate action, education, healthcare, housing, and jobs rather than arming Israel.
Nov 19, 2024
At least 44 people were reportedly arrested at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday for a protest over government complicity in Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, as Congress prepares for key votes this week.
The demonstrators who descended on the Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building are "members of faith groups, moms, healthcare workers, educators, students, [and] veterans," according toZeteo reporter Prem Thakker.
Participants wore red T-shirts and unfurled banners—which footage on social media shows were snatched by police—urging Congress to fund climate action, education, healthcare, housing, and jobs, "not genocide." There were also messages pushing lawmakers to "stop arming Israel" and telling them it is "time to act."
Thakker reported that the protesters were calling on senators to support joint resolutions of disapproval (JRDs) that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced in September and plans to bring to the floor for a vote on Wednesday.
The JRDs would block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits, and other weapons to the Israeli government, which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for an assault on Gaza that has killed at least 43,972 Palestinians.
So far just six other members of the chamber—Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.)—have signaled support for the resolutions.
Even if the JRDs were passed by the Senate, they would need to get through the Republican-held U.S. House of Representatives to reach President Joe Biden's desk—and if the Democrat vetoed them, an override requires two-thirds support in both chambers.
Citing Capitol Police, ABC News reporter Beatrice Peterson said Tuesday that "all 44 individuals arrested were charged with crowding, obstructing, and incommoding. Two of them were also charged with assault on a police officer."
Meanwhile, in Illinois, 13 members of Chicago's chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) were arrested for shutting down Caterpillar's Business and Analytics Hub by blocking escalators and elevators.
"Caterpillar builds armored D9 bulldozers that the Israeli military uses in its genocidal campaign in Gaza and to demolish homes in the occupied West Bank," JVP Chicago said in a statement. "This protest comes at a historic moment: This week Congress is set to vote on legislation to block U.S. weapons sales to the Israeli government."
As the Chicago protesters were arrested, they called on Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) to support Sanders' resolutions.
The other upcoming congressional vote garnering attention from anti-genocide activists is H.R. 9495, which would empower the treasury secretary to strip organizations of their nonprofit status by labeling them terrorist supporters with no due process. Republicans are reviving the bill after it failed to pass the House via a fast-track procedure last week, despite bipartisan support.
JVP's national arm has called H.R. 9495 "dangerous and unconstitutional," and warned that it "would give the incoming Trump administration the power to unilaterally shut down nonprofit organizations it doesn't like."
"This bill is part and parcel of the MAGA assault on democracy and fundamental freedoms," JVP said, "and it must be defeated again."
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Watchdog Aims to Track Army of 'Self-Enriching Grifters' Slated to Join Trump's Cabinet
"The man who once said he was going to drain the swamp is instead flooding it."
Nov 19, 2024
As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump continues to select Cabinet picks for his second administration—and at least one is facing headwinds to confirmation despite a Republican-controlled Senate—the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen Tuesday unveiled a new resource to keep tabs on potential conflicts of interest among Trump's appointees.
"Like the first Trump administration, this administration appears ready to staff critical government posts with as many corporate lackeys and self-enriching grifters as they can hire," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen.
The group's other co-president, Robert Weissman, said that"Donald Trump may have run for office pretending he was going to advocate for regular people, but his appointments show in reality he’s planning to govern, again, on behalf of the corporate class."
"The man who once said he was going to drain the swamp is instead flooding it," Weissman added.
Trump has already chosen many of the individuals he would like to serve in his Cabinet and other senior positions. On Tuesday he picked Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician and TV personality known as Dr. Oz, to helm the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Other high profile picks include nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a once prominent environmental lawyer who has spread false claims about vaccines—to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and selecting prominent Trump donor and the world's richest man Elon Musk to oversee a yet-to-be-created government agency devoted to slashing government spending and federal regulation. Musk will oversee that agency, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy.
Public Citizen's tracker so far details information for nine appointees, a list that "includes both Cabinet-level positions and other political appointments, many of which do not require Senate confirmation," according to a statement from the group. The tracker will be updated regularly and includes where the individual worked previously and former clients and/or business interests.
Sean Duffy, Trump's pick for transportation secretary, previously worked for the lobbying firm BGR Group, according to the tracker, where he lobbied on behalf coalition that included multiple airlines.
The group also details the past work of Susie Wiles, Trump's selection for chief of staff. Wiles has been a registered lobbyist on behalf of dozens of clients, including a tobacco company "that sought to block federal health restrictions on its candy-flavored cigars" and on behalf of a mining company "that wants to eliminate federal opposition to its plan to dig a massive mine in a pristine watershed," according to additional information on Wiles provided by Public Citizen that is linked in the tracker.
"As chief of staff, she'll be in a position to influence permits, approvals, and contracts that her former lobbying clients paid her to lobby for," according to the tracker.
The tracker notes that Musk's former clients and business interests include "himself" and the companies he owns, several of which are currently under federal probe. According to a longer briefing on Musk by Public Citizen, at least three of the entrepreneur's companies are currently under scrutiny for alleged misconduct by at least nine federal agencies. According to a pre-election breakdown by The New York Times, Musk's companies were "promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies." Both the probes and the contracts underscore Musk's exposure to a federal government that he is slated to play a key role in.
Musk has framed his quest to curb government regulation as existential. "Unless Trump wins and we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations (that have nothing to do with safety!), humanity will never reach Mars," he wrote on X in early October.
After Trump's victory earlier this month, legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who founded Public Citizen but hasn't been formally involved with the group for decades, warned of Musk's influence.
"Get ready this January for chaos, revenge, greed, rampant abuses of power, and the unbridled control of corrupt plutocrats and oligarchs," Nader wrote. "With Elon Musk in the lead."
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'Unfit': Trump Nominates Dr. Oz to Run Medicare
"By nominating RFK Jr. and Mehmet Oz," said one public health expert, "Trump is giving his middle finger to science."
Nov 19, 2024
If confirmed to be the next U.S. secretary of health and human services, anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be working "closely" with another official who's infamous for his questionable health guidance: Dr. Mehmet Oz, who President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Trump said in a statement that if confirmed, Oz would "cut waste and fraud within our Country's most expensive Government Agency"—a plan that advocates for Medicare said would be carried out by privatizing the healthcare program that serves more than 66 million senior citizens.
As The Lever reported in 2022, Oz aggressively pushed Medicare Advantage plans on his show, The Dr. Oz Show, airing one segment about the insurance agency MedicareAdvantage.com and urging viewers to sign up for the program via a hotline. Insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans are notorious for requiring "prior authorization" for doctors to provide certain medical procedures, subjecting patients to deceptive marketing, and harming senior citizens.
Considering his opposition to traditional Medicare, Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project said Oz "is not a good pick for a very powerful position in charge of a trillion dollars of healthcare spending."
The advocacy group Social Security Works noted that plans to "completely privatize Medicare" are also in Project 2025, the far-right policy agenda that Trump repeatedly tried to distance himself from while campaigning.
"Hands off our earned benefits!" said the group.
With Trump's support, Oz unsuccessfully ran to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate in 2022. The president-elect said Tuesday that if confirmed, Oz would work closely with Kennedy "to take on the illness industrial complex."
Kennedy's proposals for doing so include halting research on drug development, removing teeth-strengthening fluoride from drinking water, and firing Food and Drug Administration employees who have waged a "war on public health" through the "suppression" of the veterinary drug ivermectin and raw milk, which has been associated with disease outbreaks.
Oz has spent years peddling health advice, half of which University of Alberta researchers found to be "baseless or wrong" in a 2014 study published in the British Medical Journal. He promoted a study claiming coffee bean weight loss pills would "burn fat fast for anyone," but the research was later retracted. Oz also claimed that eating certain foods like red onion and endive could reduce a person's cancer risk by up to 75%, leading one paper published in the journal Nutrition and Cancer to assert, "Reality Check: There is no such thing as a miracle food."
Oz has also maintained close ties to multi-level marketing companies that promote products like vitamins with false claims about their ability to treat, cure, or prevent diseases.
"Dr. Oz is unfit to run CMS," said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute at Georgetown University. "He peddles conspiracy theories on vaccines and fake cures. He profits from fringe medical ideas."
"By nominating RFK Jr. and Mehmet Oz," he added, "Trump is giving his middle finger to science. Having worked for 40 years in public health, it's utterly disheartening."
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