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ron desantis
The Fight Against Fascism Starts on Campus
Colleges are ahead of the curve when it comes to surveillance creep, and the ivory panopticon will only get worse as surveillance technologies get more advanced.
Nov 17, 2024
With the significant red shift this election, led by a man who is described by many as a fascist, resisting and reversing fascist creep is more important now than ever. Even at our supposedly most liberal institutions, we have seen increasingly unreasonable overreactions to dissent dictated not through democratic means, but through authoritarian decree.
Take, for example, the University of Pennsylvania. Early in the morning on October 18, a dozen armed university police stormed an off-campus student house to issue a warrant related to the throwing of red paint on a campus statue on September 12 as part of pro-Palestinian protests—red paint that was pressure-washed off within hours. Would UPenn faculty agree that an armed raid is an appropriate response to their own students who are angry and feeling helpless against the injustice of tens of thousands killed in Gaza? Where is shared and democratic governance when it comes to protest response on campus?
Penn Students Against the Occupation announced the paint incident on Instagram as being done by an “autonomous group.” They included a grainy video clip of a masked individual (let’s call them Sam) throwing the paint, echoing protest tactics used for decades from PETA showing disgust in fur coats to Just Stop Oil activists highlighting the hypocrisy of the attention paid to art versus the climate. Sam, presumably a student, clearly did not want to be caught—most likely because they saw how UPenn responded to protests last academic year—with arrests and academic sanctions and increased rules that prohibit protest activities like chalking and civil disobedience, including interrupting a guest speaker. Students know that if they want to be heard but don’t want to risk expulsion, they need to turn to subterfuge. And on a residential university campus, this is particularly tricky.
For free expression, students and faculty need to feel safe in expressing their ideas that push the boundaries of their institution, and they won’t feel safe to do that with complete surveillance of their activities.
While we are all subject to daily state and corporate surveillance of our activities, college campuses are unique examples of Foucault’s panopticon. Colleges serve as internet service provider, landlord, doctor, corner store, laundromat, gym, department of public safety, and, oh right, educator. And they have access to data for all those services, all handily linked to a student ID, collected in one place densely covered by surveillance cameras. What is unique about colleges compared to the broader U.S. is that the surveillance data is held by one institution rather than many. U.S. colleges are also known to employ analytics on their surveillance data: automated license plate reading, social media monitoring, face recognition, device tracking. Sam would have been easily identifiable despite wearing a mask if their phone automatically connected to campus wifi or if they were caught on camera without a mask approaching the scene.
Universities will say this surveillance is for the students—for their safety, health, and success. Yes, campus shootings are real and scary, but surveillance measures have a very limited ability to stop them. Yes, our youth are experiencing a mental health crisis, but monitoring student’s online behavior hasn’t proven to help either. Visible security has been shown to not increase student success, and if we need to track students to make them go to class are we really legitimizing the existence of higher education? The level of surveillance that universities engage in is more reminiscent of that undertaken by fascist and other authoritarian systems than means to support education.
But perhaps universities simply are fascist. After all, they are led by appointment rather than election. They are capitalist, in competition with one another to accumulate enrollment bases. They have their own rules and policies including strict guidelines on student conduct, which in many instances go far beyond those of broader society. They are awash with unbridled nationalism school pride with a deep hatred of other schools’... colors. And sadly, they have resorted to police intimidation and violence against student protesters of university policies, or allowed truly violent opponents to do this on their behalf.
When, last spring, universities set up mobile surveillance units (MSUs), either rented from private companies or on loan from the Department of Homeland Security, around peaceful and non-destructive protest encampments, it became hard to view campus surveillance as anything but a tool to maintain the institutional status quo. Particularly when those MSUs likely didn’t have any capabilities beyond what the campuses already had. They only served to remind students and faculty that the university is watching, and it is watching because it doesn’t approve.
This all makes universities sound like the fascist institutions that Vice President-elect JD Vance wants and that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is building rather than bastions of academic freedom and liberalism run by shared governance.
From private schools like Brown and UPenn to publics like UCLA and UC Davis, universities grossly overreach in their responses to students protesting injustice. For faculty and students to have a stake in campus response to protest, they need to start with a say in campus surveillance. There is no academic freedom or freedom of expression without privacy. FERPA, the federal law that governs student privacy, really only keeps student information from leaving the ivory tower. Universities need privacy policies that govern how information is shared and used within campus.
Colleges are ahead of the curve when it comes to surveillance creep, and the ivory panopticon will only get worse as surveillance technologies get more advanced. For free expression, students and faculty need to feel safe in expressing their ideas that push the boundaries of their institution, and they won’t feel safe to do that with complete surveillance of their activities. Which means the subjects of surveillance need to have a say in the surveillance. Students and faculty ought to demand answers as to why their institutions collect the data they do. They ought to demand evidence that their data policies holistically support student safety, health, and success. They ought to demand clarity as to whether their institution is being run as a Vance-approved or a DeSantis-built campus or as a place for academic freedom and legitimate higher education.
But then, will they be able to make these demands without being expelled or fired?
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Insurance Companies Are Not Good Neighbors to Have in a Climate Crisis
Major insurers are denying legitimate claims following extreme weather events while underwriting fossil fuels and lining their CEOs’ pocketbooks.
Oct 16, 2024
Do you know that you’re in good hands with Allstate? Or how about State Farm? Do you know that, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there? Of course you do. Insurance companies have been blasting slogans like these at us for years now. In 2022 alone, Allstate spent $617 million on advertising. State Farm spent an even more whopping $1.05 billion.
But if insurance giants like State Farm truly rated as our “good neighbors,” they’d be behaving—in real life—quite a bit differently than their award-winning advertising suggests.
In hurricane-plagued Florida, for instance, State Farm last year denied 46.4% of homeowner claims, refusals that directly impacted over 76,000 households.
Another reform approach might more quickly catch the attention of top insurance industry boards of directors: tying an insurance company’s tax rate to the ratio between that company’s CEO pay and the paychecks of the firm’s workers.
“Property insurers who deny legitimate claims,” notes Martin Weiss, the founder of the nation’s only independent insurer rating agency, “are sending the implicit message, ‘If you don’t like it, sue us.’”
To add injury to that insult, Weiss adds, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had just before last year signed into law new legislation that makes policyholder lawsuits against insurers “far more difficult.”
For recently retired State Farm CEO Michael Tipsord, insurance industry lobbying victories along that Florida line have helped him pocket some stunning personal rewards. Tipsord pulled down $24.4 million in compensation two years ago, almost $4 million more than his industry’s second-highest 2022 CEO pay total. Tipsord had pocketed even more, $24.5 million, in 2021.
“CEOs are living high on the hog while increasing insurance premiums for people living paycheck to paycheck,” the Consumer Federation of America’s Michael DeLong charged last October. “Insurers are telling regulators that ordinary consumers have to pay much more for auto and home insurance because the companies are struggling with inflation and climate change, but they are quietly handing CEOs gigantic bonuses.”
Overall, DeLong’s Consumer Federation reports, the chief execs at America’s ten largest personal insurance lines collected over a quarter-billion dollars in CEO compensation for their services in 2021 and 2022.
If we really had a “good neighbor” at State Farm—or any other insurance giant—those companies wouldn’t have been spending recent years denying relief to the victims of climate change. They would have been insisting instead that lawmakers crack down on the fossil-fuel corporate giants doing so much to foul our planet.
Top insurers did make an early feint in that direction over a half-century ago. Way back in 1973, notes Peter Bosshard, the global coordinator of the U.S.-based Insure Our Future campaign, “the insurance industry first warned about climate risks.” But that warning, in the years to come, wouldn’t stop insurers from “underwriting and investing in the expansion of fossil fuels.”
Giant insurance companies that actually took climate science seriously, Bosshard observes, would have been “suing fossil fuel companies, to make polluters pay for the growing costs of climate disasters and keep insurance affordable for climate-affected communities.”
Insurers haven’t been doing any of that.
”Insurers talk a lot about their climate commitments and supporting their clients through the energy transition, but this is plain greenwashing,” charges Ariel Le Bourdonnec, a Reclaim Finance insurance activist. “They are still profiting from providing cover that allows companies to develop new fossil fuel projects. Insurers could be a force for change, but instead they are undermining climate action.”
Other critics are emphasizing that insurance industry execs have gone beyond “greenwashing” to “bluelining,” as Lilith Fellowes-Granda, a Center for American Progress associate director, points out. These execs are increasing prices and withdrawing services “from regions they perceive to be at high environmental risk.” These moves typically hit hardest on the “communities most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”
Climate activists are advocating for a variety of policy changes to reverse these dynamics, everything from making sure property insurers must share the risks they cover to ensuring underserved communities access to affordable insurance.
Another reform approach might more quickly catch the attention of top insurance industry boards of directors: tying an insurance company’s tax rate to the ratio between that company’s CEO pay and the paychecks of the firm’s workers.
Inside the insurance industry, as in every other major U.S. economic sector, that ratio between CEO and worker has soared over recent decades.
In 2023, the chief executive at Chubb Ltd., Evan Greenberg, took home $27.7 million, enough to make him that year’s top-paid American property and casualty insurer. Those millions added up to 452 times more than the annual pay of the typical Chubb employee. In 2022, Greenberg pocketed a mere 346 times his company’s typical employee pay.
Back in 1965, the Economic Policy Institute noted last month in its latest annual CEO pay report, the top execs at major U.S. corporations only averaged 21 times what typical American workers earned. Nearly a quarter-century later, in 1989, CEOs were still only averaging 61 times worker pay.
How could we restore greater equity to corporate compensation and, at the same time, give top corporate executives an incentive to care about more than simply maximizing their own personal compensation? Lawmakers at the state and federal levels have over recent years advanced dozens of proposals that tie corporate tax rates to the size of the gap between top executive and worker pay.
In all these proposals, the higher a corporation’s CEO-worker pay ratio, the higher that corporation’s tax rate.
The Institute for Policy Studies has compiled an exhaustive guide to these CEO-worker pay gap proposals. Maybe the winds of Hurricane Milton will help give these moves the momentum they need to turn into law—and give top execs a reason to care about something more than the size of their own personal pay.
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FCC Chair Rebukes DeSantis-Run Florida for Threatening TV Station Over Abortion Ad
Another critic said that "this is the latest proof that there is no limit to how low DeSantis will stoop to censor free speech and punish dissent."
Oct 09, 2024
Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel on Tuesday called out a Florida agency for threatening a Tampa NBC affiliate with prosecution for airing an advertisement in support of a state abortion rights proposal on the November ballot.
"The right of broadcasters to speak freely is rooted in the First Amendment," Rosenworcel said in a statement. "Threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government's views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech."
Floridians Protecting Freedom's ad is designed to build support for Amendment 4, which if approved by voters next month would alter the Florida Constitution to outlaw pre-viability prohibitions on abortion care, including Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' six-week ban, which took effect earlier this year and has already been shown to harm patients.
The 30-second ad features a Tampa resident who was diagnosed with brain cancer while pregnant. Caroline, who already had one child at the time, says that "the doctors knew if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life, and my daughter would lose her mom."
"Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine," explains Caroline, who received abortion care in 2020, before the U.S. Supreme Court reversedRoe v. Wade and enabled bans like the one signed by DeSantis. "Amendment 4 is gonna protect women like me. We have to vote yes."
Florida journalist Jason Garcia revealed Monday that last week, John Wilson, general counsel at the state Department of Health (DOH), wrote to WFLA-TV vice president and general manager Mark Higgins, claiming that the ad contains information that is "categorically false" and constitutes a "sanitary nuisance," which could lead to criminal proceedings if it is not removed.
As HuffPostreported Tuesday:
It's unclear if the agency only sent the letter to the NBC affiliate, or to others as well. Either way, a threat like this could have a chilling effect on publicly advocating for the pro-choice measure, just weeks away from when it will be in front of voters. Florida's Department of Health did not respond to HuffPost's request for comment.
The sanitary nuisance law is meant to curb conditions that can threaten or impair Floridians' health. It normally pertains to issues like overflowing septic tanks and problematic garbage disposals.
Attorneys for Floridians Protecting Freedom swiftly sent a letter to WFLA leaders, arguing that the DOH interjection "raises serious First Amendment concerns—indeed, it reflects an unconstitutional attempt to coerce the station into censoring protected speech," and "the advertisement is true."
The DOH letter "vaguely outlines the limited instances where abortions are allowed in Florida but fails to provide any evidence showing that Caroline's statements are false," the lawyers wrote. "Caroline was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant; the diagnosis was terminal."
Florida's ban has limited exceptions for abortions after six weeks—before many people even know they are pregnant. In cases of rape and incest, patients can receive care up to 15 weeks, if they can manage the burdensome paperwork. Abortions to protect the health or life of a pregnant person require two physicians to assert in writing that such care is necessary.
"The only instances where the Agency for Health Care Administration has provided guidance that abortions are permitted after six-weeks' gestation are when there is an immediate threat to the pregnant person's life," the lawyers noted. "Caroline's diagnosis was terminal. Practically, that means that an abortion would not have saved her life, only extended it. Florida law would not allow an abortion in this instance."
The group of attorneys is far from alone in criticizing the Florida DOH's attempt to get the ad off the air. Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), toldPopular Information that the department's letter stretches "the meaning of sanitary nuisance beyond recognition."
"Terr told Popular Information that even if the ad was false and violated Florida's sanitary nuisance law, the enforcement of the law against a political ad would be unconstitutional," the outlet added. "Terr notes that the First Amendment contains 'no general exception for false speech or misinformation, and that's because of the danger of the government having a general power to dictate what is true or false, especially when it comes to political speech.'"
As Slate's Mark Joseph Stern reported Monday:
Rebecca Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School and a First Amendment specialist, told me that the DeSantis administration's threat is "about as blatant a violation of the First Amendment as you'll see."
Jennifer Safstrom, director of the First Amendment Clinic at Vanderbilt Law School, condemned the administration's letter as an unconstitutional "weaponization of state law to suppress speech" that's "designed to have a chilling effect on advocates during a time critical to voter outreach." Alexander Tsesis, a professor at the Florida State University College of Law, said it seemed "absurd to threaten prosecution," and pointed out that stations' own "editorial decisions" are protected by the First Amendment. Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at Stetson Law, called the incident yet another episode in DeSantis' "long recent history of violating the First Amendment with abandon."
Seth Stern, director of advocacy of Freedom of the Press Foundation, similarly said in a Wednesday statement that "this is the latest proof that there is no limit to how low DeSantis will stoop to censor free speech and punish dissent."
"It comes on the heels of his efforts to rewrite defamation law to make it easier for the rich and powerful to bankrupt their critics, his Stop WOKE Act stunt, and other similarly unconstitutional nonsense," Stern noted. "A governor who is confident in his policies and secure in his leadership would welcome debate and correct statements he believes are misleading rather than trying to weaponize trash disposal laws against the free press."
"But DeSantis is not that governor. His administration's conduct would be silly if it weren't such a transparent bully tactic," he added. "Floridians care about the First Amendment, which is why DeSantis' outrageous censorship campaigns keep failing. We hope the news outlets he targets will not only ignore him but loudly shame him."
The governor has come under fire for various actions throughout the fight for Amendment 4. As Garcia highlighted on social media, while targeting Caroline's ad, "the DeSantis administration is running taxpayer-funded television commercials attacking Amendment 4 on ESPN, CNN, Fox News, The Weather Channel, and more."
The ads are part of what the ACLU of Florida has called an "unconstitutional misinformation campaign," which also includes a government website. Additionally, as Common Dreamsreported last month, multiple state residents have had law enforcement come to their homes to confirm that they signed the petition to get Amendment 4 on the ballot.
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