Saturday, July 31, 2021
The American Descent into Madness
America went from the freest country in the world in December 2019 to a repressive and frightening place by July 2021. How did that happen?
July 18, 2021
Nations have often gone mad in a matter of months. The French abandoned their supposedly idealistic revolutionary project and turned it into a monstrous hell for a year between July 1793 and 1794. After the election of November 1860, in a matter of weeks, Americans went from thinking secession was taboo to visions of killing the greatest number of their fellow citizens on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Mao’s China went from a failed communist state to the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno, when he unleashed the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
In the last six months, we have seen absurdities never quite witnessed in modern America. Madness, not politics, defines it. There are three characteristics of all these upheavals. One, the events are unsustainable. They will either cease or they will destroy the nation, at least as we know it. Two, the law has largely been rendered meaningless. Three, left-wing political agendas justify any means necessary to achieve them.
Citizenship as Mere Residency
Two million people are anticipated to cross the southern border, en masse and illegally, over a 12-month period. If that absurdity were to continue, we would be adding the equivalent of a major U.S. city every year. The new arrivals have three things in common: Their first act was to break U.S. law by entering the country. Their second was to break the law by residing here illegally. And their third will be to find false identification or other illegal means to continue breaking the law. One does not arrive as a guest in a foreign country and immediately violate the laws of his host—unless one holds those laws in contempt.
Arrivals now cross a border that had been virtually closed to illegal immigration by January 2021. In the cynical and immoral logic of illegal immigration (that cares little for the concerns either of would-be legal immigrants or U.S. citizens), arrivals will be dependent upon the state and thus become constituents of progressives who engineered their arrival.
Yet the issue is not illegal immigration per se. If protests were to continue in Cuba, and 1 million Cubans boated to Miami, the Biden Administration would stop the influx, in terror that so many anti-Communists might tip Florida red forever.
How strange that the U.S. government is considering going door-to-door to bully the unvaccinated, even as it ignores the daily influx of thousands from Mexico and Latin America, without worrying whether they are carrying or vaccinated for COVID-19. Meanwhile, the progressive media shrilly warns that the new Delta Variant of the virus is exploding south of the border. Note how the administration applies standards to its own citizens that it does not apply to foreign nationals illegally entering the country.
Crime as Construct
Crime is another current absurdity. There exists a mini-industry of internet videos depicting young people, disproportionately African American males, stealing luxury goods from Nieman-Marcus in San Francisco, clearing a shelf from a Walgreens with impunity, or assaulting Asian Americans. These iconic moments may be unrepresentative of reality, but given the mass transfers and retirements of police, and the frightening statistics of large increases in violent crime in certain cities, the popular conception is now entrenched that it is dangerous to walk in our major metropolises, either by day or at night. Chicago has turned into Tombstone or Dodge City in the popular imagination.
Scarier still is the realization that if one is robbed, assaulted, or finds one’s car vandalized, it is near certain the miscreant will never be held to account. Either the police have pulled back and find arrests of criminals a lose-lose situation, or radical big-city district attorneys see the law as a critical legal theory construct, and thus will not enforce it. Or the criminal will be arrested and released within hours.
So a subculture has developed among Americans, of passing information about where in the country it is safe, where it is not, and where one can go, where one cannot. This is clearly not America, but something bizarre out of Sao Paulo, Durban, or Caracas.
The Campus Con
The universities over the past 40 years were intolerant, hard Left, and increasingly anti-constitutional. But they also fostered a golden-goose confidence scheme that administrators dared not injure, given the precious eggs of federally guaranteed student loans that ensured zero academic accountability and sent tuition costs into the stratosphere. There was an unquestioned supposition that a degree of any sort, of any major, was the ticket to American success. In cynical fashion, we shrugged that most prestigious institutions were little more than cattle branders that stamped graduates with imprints that gave them unearned privilege for life.
Yet universities now have both hands around their golden goose’s neck and are determined to strangle it. The public is becoming repulsed at the woke McCarthyite culture on campus, and will be more turned off when campuses open in the fall in 2019-style. At the Ivy League or major state university campuses, admissions are no longer based on proportional representation in the context of affirmative action, but are defined increasingly by a reparatory character.
Grades, test scores, and “activities” of the white and Asian male college applicants are growing less relevant. Only “privileged” white males with sports skills, connections, or families who give lots of money are exempt from the new racial reparation quotas. The new woke admission policy ironically is targeting the liberal suburban professional family, the Left’s constituency, whose lives are so fixated on whether children graduate from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, or like campuses.
Given the radical change in incoming student profiles, the faculty increasingly will have to choose between accusations of racism, or grading regardless of actual performance, given thousands of new enrollees do not meet the entrance standards of just two or three years ago. Remember that since wokeism was always a top-down elite industry, minority progressives still will fight it out with white leftists in intramural scraps over titles, salaries, and managerial posts.
The public has had enough. For the first time, people will ask why are we subsidizing student loans, why are multibillion-dollar endowments not taxed, and why do we think a B.A. in sociology or psychology or gender studies is an “investment” that prepares anyone for anything?
Commissars and Jacobins
The critical race theory craze is reaching peak woke, or is already on the downslope. No complex and sophisticated society is sustainable with a Maoist creed of cannibalizing citizens for thought crimes. Commissars do not produce anything or serve anybody, but only monitor thoughts and speech to ascertain the purity of diversity, equity, and inclusion. They are not just a drain on the productive sector but will insidiously destroy it, since their currency is to ensure a timid, obsequiousness and banal orthodoxy.
We know from the failed Soviet system and from the French Revolution that the most mediocre in society became its most eager auditors of correct behavior. The arbiters of proper thought—the self-righteous paid toady, the perpetual victim employed in service to government payback, the freelancing snitch—were always the villains of freedom, productivity, and humanity, whether we read of the killing off of Alexander the Great’s inner circle, the forced suicides of the Neronian circle, the Jacobin murder spree, or the nightmarish world described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
That the Biden Administration has now joined with Silicon Valley to hunt down on social media any dissenters from this month’s official policy on vaccinations and mask-wearing was not so shocking as to be expected from a media that banned coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop. In Cuban-fashion, millions of judge-jury-executioner online snitches, with government encouragement, will help root out incorrect thoughts at light speed.
Inflation Is a Mere Construct
We used to know what inflation was, its pernicious role in past civilizations, and how to combat it. The danger of worthless currency is a staple of classical literature from Aristophanes to Procopius. The scary fact is not just that we are destroying the value of our money—the exploding price of gas, food, appliances, lumber, power, and housing are overwhelming even Joe Biden’s entitlement machine—but that we are constructing pseudoeconomics to justify the nihilism.
Right now, we witness a multitrillion-dollar fight over borrowing beyond our $30 trillion debt to build “infrastructure,” a word that has been expanded to include mostly anything but roads and bridges. What exactly is so liberal about the farmworker paying $5 a gallon for gas to commute to the fields, the small contractor doing a remodeling job with plywood at $80 a sheet, or the young couple whose loan qualification is always a month behind the soaring price of a new home?
Our People’s Military
Americans during this entire descent in madness sighed, “Well, at least there is the military left.” By that, I think they meant John Brennan had all but wrecked the CIA, while James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Kevin Clinesmith, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, et al. had weaponized the FBI. But the military was still a bastion of traditional, nonpartisan service, whose prime directive was to defend the country, win any war it was ordered to fight, and to maintain deterrence against opportunistic enemies. It was not envisioned as a “people’s army.” It was not a revolutionary Napoleonic “nation in arms.” And it was not a “liberation army.” The Constitution, 233 years of tradition, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice all reassured America of its wonderful defense forces.
And now? We are in the process of a massive reeducation and indoctrination campaign. The revamping not only draws scarce resources away from military readiness, but targets, without evidence, the white working class, and defames it as insurrectionary—the very same cohort that disproportionately died in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If only General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, had been as animated, as combative, and as fired up in congressional testimony about winning in Afghanistan or deterring the Chinese in the waters off Taiwan as they were in defense of their recommended lists of Marxist-inspired critical race theory texts!
One purpose of the Uniform Code of Military Justice was not to prevent retired top brass from attacking beloved presidents, or even blasé ones. Its aim was to remind the country that it is the business of civilians, not pensioned retired military subject to recall in times of crisis, to galvanize opinion against loudmouth unpopular presidents like Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, or Donald Trump.
The reason why the “revolving door” became a bipartisan worry was that four-star officers had mastered the navigation of Pentagon procurement. They possessed a rare skill easily—and hugely—monetized upon retirement, and thus its use was to be discouraged wholeheartedly.
And now?
The code is a mere construct. The revolving door is an advertisement for advancing to high rank. Policing the thoughts of American soldiers is apparently more important than fathoming the minds of our enemies on the battlefield.
Keep Cuba Castroite?
What was so hard about understanding that Cuba since 1959 has been a Communist gulag, antithetical to human freedom and consensual government? What was so difficult about conceding that Cuba had been an ally of the nuclear Soviet Union, always egging it on to war against the United States?
Yet here we are with protestors against a failed, evil state in the streets of Havana, and our own government, media, and professional classes are worried that ossified Communism in Cuba may fall.
After opening the U.S. southern border to pseudo-political refugees, the Biden Administration is terrified that thousands of real ones might come to Miami in the fashion it invited millions to storm into Texas. The Biden Administration, and the Left in general, finally revealed what many of us have known: it had no real ideological view on illegal immigration. Its immigration policy was entirely utilitarian and hinged only on whether illegal immigration altered the demography of the electorate in the correct way.
The United Nations Über Alles
Finally, almost all Americans used to agree that the U.S. Constitution was unique and guaranteed personal freedom in a way the United Nations charter could not. Dozens of fascist, Communist, totalitarian, and authoritarian regimes, usually the majority of governments on earth, ensured that any General Assembly or U.N. committee ruling would parrot the views of its illiberal and corrupt members.
Not anymore. Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has invited in the U.N. to assess whether the United States meets global standards of justice or, in fact, is racist and in need of global censure: “I urge all U.N. member states to join the United States in this effort, and confront the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia,” he said last week.
That is like asking Libya in 2001 to assess whether our airline pilot training met proper standards or having China adjudicate the conditions in U.S. prisons.
America went from the freest country in the world in December 2019 to a repressive, and frightening place by July 2021. It went not so much hard-Left, as stark-raving mad.
That abrupt descent, too, is not workable and millions will collectively decide they have no choice but to push back and conclude, “In the 233rd year of our republic, we tens of millions are not going to cede freedom of thought and expression to thousands of Maoists. Sorry, no can do.”
Friday, July 30, 2021
Australian Military to Help Enforce Sydney COVID-19 Lockdown as Cases Rise
By Reuters Wire Service Content • July 28, 2021, at 8:20 p.m.
By Colin Packham and Renju Jose
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's military will help enforce a lockdown in Sydney after the city of 6 million posted a record daily rise in COVID-19 cases on Thursday and state authorities said the outbreak was likely to get worse.
The lockdown of Australia's biggest city has increased pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is now trailing in opinion polls, and heightened concern that Australia's A$2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) economy could slide into recession.
Despite an extended lockdown in Sydney since an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant, 239 new locally acquired coronavirus cases were recorded in the city over a 24-hour period, the biggest daily rise since the pandemic began.
"We can only assume that things are likely to get worse before they get better given the quantity of people infectious in the community," said Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital.
Berejiklian said one new death took the toll from the latest outbreak to 13 and the national total was now 921.
With little sign that of restrictions reducing infections, Berejiklian said new curbs would be imposed on the southwestern and western areas of Sydney where the majority of COVID-19 cases are being found.
Residents there will be forced to wear masks outdoors and to stay within five km (three miles) of their homes.
With even tighter restrictions set to begin on Friday, New South Wales Police said it had asked for 300 military personnel to help enforce lockdown orders.
The personnel will deploy on Friday, Defence Minister Peter Dutton said, and will begin assisting police with ensuring compliance with restrictions next week.
LOCKDOWN EXTENDED
Berejiklian extended the Sydney lockdown by another month on Wednesday.
New South Wales accounts for over a third of Australia's economy. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he expected the national economy to shrink in the September quarter but the ability to avoid a technical recession would depend on whether New South Wales can avoid a longer lockdown.
"With respect to the December quarter, that does depend to a large extent how successful New South Wales, our largest state economy, is in getting on top of this virus," Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Berejiklian has said restrictions need to remain as too few people in Sydney are vaccinated amid tight supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, with which Australia had hoped to inoculate everyone under 60 years old.
All adults in Sydney have been urged to seek an AstraZeneca vaccine. Some, citing rare blood clots, are reluctant and would prefer to wait several months when Australia is expected to receive additional Pfizer supplies.
($1 = 1.3561 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Renju Jose and Colin Packham in Canberra; additonal reporting by Xihao Jiang in Tokyo; Editing by Michael Perry, Lincoln Feast and Timothy Heritage)
Priest brother of late Genovese crime family boss Vincent ‘Chin’ Gigante accused in Bronx sexual abuse lawsuit
By LARRY MCSHANE
TRONC |
JUL 30, 2021 AT 12:24 PM
Retired Bronx priest Louis Gigante, the brother of late mob boss Vincent and a former City Council member, was accused of molesting a bible study student in his parish during the 1970s, according to court documents.
The 13-page Bronx Supreme Court filing alleges the high-profile Gigante assaulted the 9-year-old boy back in 1976-77, and seeks unspecified damages from the Archdiocese of New York and his old home base of St. Athanasius Church.
“Plaintiff was forced to endure prolific and profound abuse at St. Athanasius Church by Father Gigante,” charged the court papers filed this past May. “Plaintiff would attend bible study at the church with Father Gigante and (he) would find ways to get plaintiff alone ... and repeatedly performed oral sex on him.”
Father Louis Gigante, brother of Mafia boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante, shows up for Funeral Mass for Cardinal O'Connor in 2000. (Turnbull, Bill)
Louis Gigante, the youngest of the five brothers raised in Greenwich Village by Italian immigrant parents, stood by his older sibling Vincent when the Mafia chief was accused and eventually convicted as boss of the powerful Genovese crime family.
Vincent Gigante, known as “Chin,” died in prison in 2005 after avoiding prosecution for decades with his “crazy act” — feigning mental illness to frustrate federal investigators. The brothers were often seen together in the Village, where Vincent wandered the streets in a ratty bathrobe as part of his law enforcement dodge.
The complaint described the risk of sexual abuse to the anonymous plaintiff as “open and obvious and known by many students, children, clergy and administration, yet the defendants failed to take any action to stop and/or prevent the abuse from occurring.”
In addition, the court papers alleged, “the archdiocese knew or should have known that Father Gigante was sexually abusing children and/or had the propensity to do so. The defendants ... knew or should have known of the abuse that (plaintiff) and other young children were suffering at the hands of their clergy.”
Vincent "The Chin" Gigante (center) is escorted by two unidentified men to a waiting car back in 1997 on his way to attend court in his federal racketeering trial in Brooklyn. (JON LEVY/AFP via Getty Images)
Louis Gigante, a college basketball star at Georgetown, eventually landed in 1962 at the Bronx parish where his congregation once included future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He became deeply involved in developing the South Bronx and in politics, serving two terms on the City Council before a failed run for Congress in 1980.
His Southeast Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO) rehabilitated or built several thousands housing units in the needy neighborhood. A statue honoring the activist priest was erected in the area, and he was honored in 2017 for his rebuilding efforts in the South Bronx.
Attempts to reach Gigante for comment were unsuccessful.
“The Archdiocese of New York takes all allegations of sexual abuse of minors seriously, and responds with sensitivity and respect,” said spokesman Joe Zwilling. “However, we cannot comment on individual lawsuits brought under the Child Victims Act.
The accuser’s lawyer noted the deadline for filing such abuse suits arrives next month.
“The Child Victim’s Act has been a true blessing to survivors,” said attorney Antigone Curis. “Time is of the essence to get the justice that these survivors deserve as the deadline is quickly approaching on August 14, 2021.”
Louis Gigante, a college basketball star at Georgetown, eventually landed in 1962 at the Bronx parish where his congregation once included future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He became deeply involved in developing the South Bronx and in politics, serving two terms on the City Council before a failed run for Congress in 1980.
His Southeast Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO) rehabilitated or built several thousands housing units in the needy neighborhood. A statue honoring the activist priest was erected in the area, and he was honored in 2017 for his rebuilding efforts in the South Bronx.
Attempts to reach Gigante for comment were unsuccessful.
“The Archdiocese of New York takes all allegations of sexual abuse of minors seriously, and responds with sensitivity and respect,” said spokesman Joe Zwilling. “However, we cannot comment on individual lawsuits brought under the Child Victims Act.
The accuser’s lawyer noted the deadline for filing such abuse suits arrives next month.
“The Child Victim’s Act has been a true blessing to survivors,” said attorney Antigone Curis. “Time is of the essence to get the justice that these survivors deserve as the deadline is quickly approaching on August 14, 2021.”
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Climate tipping points are now imminent, scientists warn
The call comes as extreme weather causes catastrophes across the world.
28 JULY 2021 14:03 IST
UPDATED: 28 JULY 2021 14:08 IST
Around 13,000 researchers have called for urgent action to slow down the global climate emergency.
Thousands of scientists reiterated calls for immediate action over the climate crisis in an article published on July 28 in the journal BioScience.
"The extreme climate events and patterns that we've witnessed over the last several years — not to mention the last several weeks — highlight the heightened urgency with which we must address the climate crisis," said Philip Duffy, co-author of the study and executive director of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in the US state of Massachusetts.
Two years ago, more than 10,000 scientists from around 150 countries jointly declared a global climate emergency. They are now joined by over 2,800 more signatories in urging the protection of life on Earth.
Since the 2019 declaration, Earth has seen an "unprecedented surge" in climate-related disasters, researchers noted.
What are the signs?
For the study, researchers relied on "vital signs" to measure planetary health, including greenhouse gas emissions, glacier thickness, sea-ice extent and deforestation. Out of 31 signs, scientists found that 18 hit record highs or lows.
The year 2020 was the second-hottest year since records began, scientists said. And earlier this year, the carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth's atmosphere was higher than at any time since measurements began.
The authors noted that all-time low levels of ice mass have been recorded in Greenland and Antarctica. Glaciers are melting 31 per cent faster than they did just 15 years ago, they added. Meanwhile, the annual loss rate of the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high in 2020.
Tim Lenton, director of the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute and co-author of the study, said the recent record-breaking heat wave in the western United States and Canada showed that the climate had already begun to "behave in shocking, unexpected ways."
"We need to respond to the evidence that we are hitting climate tipping points with equally urgent action to decarbonize the global economy and start restoring instead of destroying nature," he said.
How can we respond to the climate crisis?
Researchers reiterated calls for transformative change, listing three main emergency responses in the immediate term:
Phasing out and eliminating fossil fuels
Implementing "a significant carbon price"
Restoring ecosystems such as carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots
Climate change should be included in core curricula in schools worldwide to raise awareness, the authors said.
Scientists also urged slashing pollutants, stabilizing the human population and switching to plant-based diets. "We need to stop treating the climate emergency as a standalone issue — global heating is not the sole symptom of our stressed Earth system," said William Ripple, a lead author of the study and professor of ecology at Oregon State University's College of Forestry.
"Policies to combat the climate crisis or any other symptoms should address their root cause: human overexploitation of the planet."
fb/nm (AFP, dpa)
UPDATED: 28 JULY 2021 14:08 IST
Around 13,000 researchers have called for urgent action to slow down the global climate emergency.
Thousands of scientists reiterated calls for immediate action over the climate crisis in an article published on July 28 in the journal BioScience.
"The extreme climate events and patterns that we've witnessed over the last several years — not to mention the last several weeks — highlight the heightened urgency with which we must address the climate crisis," said Philip Duffy, co-author of the study and executive director of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in the US state of Massachusetts.
Two years ago, more than 10,000 scientists from around 150 countries jointly declared a global climate emergency. They are now joined by over 2,800 more signatories in urging the protection of life on Earth.
Since the 2019 declaration, Earth has seen an "unprecedented surge" in climate-related disasters, researchers noted.
What are the signs?
For the study, researchers relied on "vital signs" to measure planetary health, including greenhouse gas emissions, glacier thickness, sea-ice extent and deforestation. Out of 31 signs, scientists found that 18 hit record highs or lows.
The year 2020 was the second-hottest year since records began, scientists said. And earlier this year, the carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth's atmosphere was higher than at any time since measurements began.
The authors noted that all-time low levels of ice mass have been recorded in Greenland and Antarctica. Glaciers are melting 31 per cent faster than they did just 15 years ago, they added. Meanwhile, the annual loss rate of the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high in 2020.
Tim Lenton, director of the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute and co-author of the study, said the recent record-breaking heat wave in the western United States and Canada showed that the climate had already begun to "behave in shocking, unexpected ways."
"We need to respond to the evidence that we are hitting climate tipping points with equally urgent action to decarbonize the global economy and start restoring instead of destroying nature," he said.
How can we respond to the climate crisis?
Researchers reiterated calls for transformative change, listing three main emergency responses in the immediate term:
Phasing out and eliminating fossil fuels
Implementing "a significant carbon price"
Restoring ecosystems such as carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots
Climate change should be included in core curricula in schools worldwide to raise awareness, the authors said.
Scientists also urged slashing pollutants, stabilizing the human population and switching to plant-based diets. "We need to stop treating the climate emergency as a standalone issue — global heating is not the sole symptom of our stressed Earth system," said William Ripple, a lead author of the study and professor of ecology at Oregon State University's College of Forestry.
"Policies to combat the climate crisis or any other symptoms should address their root cause: human overexploitation of the planet."
fb/nm (AFP, dpa)
Coincidence? Three presidents dead after blocking distribution of Covid vaccines
'Covid denier' Haitian President Jovenel Moise with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau. Wikipedia
Coincidence? Three presidents dead after blocking distribution of Covid vaccines
The leaders of three different countries died after having stopped the distribution of the experimental Covid-19 jabs. All three countries took the decision to distribute the vaccines to their citizens only after their leaders passed away.
Published: July 17, 2021, 11:26 am
One of them was Haitian President Jovenel Moise, who was assassinated at his home in Port-au-Prince recently by a group of mercenaries.
The Caribbean country has been eligible for free vaccines through the COVAX scheme, run by the World Health Organisation as well as global vaccine charities, but Moise had notably refused the AstraZeneca shots. Only days after his murder, the US dispatched vaccines to Haiti, together with a team of FBI agents.
This means that Haiti is now no longer the only country in the Western Hemisphere not to accept the Covid injection.
Soon after President John Magufuli of Tanzania had declared the vaccines dangerous, he passed away from a “heart ailment”. In February 2021, his health minister had told the media: “We are not yet satisfied that those vaccines have been clinically proven safe.” The death of the immensely popular Magufuli resulted in thousands of mourners crowding into a stadium to view his body. However, soon after Magufuli’s death, Tanzania ordered a huge shipment of the products worth millions of dollars for its 60 million citizens.
“You should stand firm. Vaccinations are dangerous. If the White man was able to come up with vaccinations, he should have found a vaccination for AIDS by now; he would have found a vaccination [for] tuberculosis by now; he would have found a vaccination for malaria by now; he would have found a vaccination for cancer by now,” Magufuli had warned in January, 2021.
Magufuli, a former chemistry teacher, also trashed PCR tests by demonstrating how a goat and a papaya fruit had both tested positive for Covid-19. Magufuli’s view on PCR tests is shared by the international trial lawyer Dr Reiner Fuellmich who has launched a historic class-action lawsuit in Germany and the US against Christian Drosten and the other scientists who created the PCR testing protocol used to “diagnose” Covid-19.
President John Magufuli of Tanzania. Wikipedia
In November, 2020, an appeals court in Portugal had ruled that “the PCR process is not a reliable test for SARS-CoV-2, and therefore any enforced quarantine based on those test results is unlawful”. The judges, Margarida Ramos de Almeida and Ana Paramés, referred to several pieces of scientific evidence showing that in PCR tests with 35 cycles or more the accuracy dropped to three percent, meaning up to 97 percent of positive results could be false positives.
In March this year, an Austrian administrative court acknowledged the limitations of PCR and antigen testing in use currently, ruling that “PCR tests have no diagnostic value”. This view was echoed in April by a German court in Weimar, stating that PCR tests were not “suitable for determining an ‘infection’ with the SARS-CoV-2 virus”. It also ordered the lifting of various restrictions in the region.
Burundi was the second African country to reject Covid shots in February this year. The health minister of the African nation, Thaddee Ndikumana, told reporters that prevention was more important, and “since more than 95 percent of patients are recovering, we estimate that the vaccines are not yet necessary”.
Burundi’s late President Pierre Nkurunziza was harshly criticized for not advancing the notion of injections against SARS-CoV-2. Remarkably, the current President Evariste Ndayishimiye now describes the virus as Burundi’s “worst enemy”.
In the most vaccinated countries, like Israel, the UK or the Seychelles, and especially in Gibraltar which boasts a 100 percent vaccination rate, the alleged delta variant now doubles every 3 days. Perhaps the current 23 cases is not significant, but 23 cases in an area with 35 000 inhabitants is the equivalent of 45 000 cases per day in a country like France.
And it has been more than a month and a half since 100 percent of the population of Gibraltar was vaccinated with two doses. This “paradise” for the vaccinated vindicates the hesitation of the Africans to take part in the mass experiment.
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
Water a potential new focus of US/Vatican partnerships, Biden official says
John L. Allen Jr.
Jul 24, 2021EDITOR
According to UN statistics, some 2.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water around the world, more than half the global population doesn’t have safe sanitation, three billion people aren’t able to wash their hands with soap on a regular basis, and an estimated 673 million people practice open defecation because of lack of access to toilets. (Credit: Relief International.)
ROME – From the beginning, it seemed the new Biden administration and Pope Francis’s Vatican likely would see eye-to-eye on many social and humanitarian concerns, creating a large swath of potential partnerships between the world’s leading hard power in Washington and the Vatican’s citadel of soft power in Rome.
Now some of that potential is being filled in, and one early focus may be surprising, if only for how prosaic it could seem: Water.
“Small investments in water, sanitation and hygiene, with groups such as our Rome-based partners, are able to get to the farthest reaches of communities in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, in Asia, around the world, and have a great impact,” said Adam Phillips, Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships & Local, Faith and Transformative Partnerships at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
“If you don’t have clean water in a maternity ward, for instance, it’s going to have a ripple effect on the health care system for that child, and that family, and that community, “Phillips said. “It’s groups such as the ones we’re meeting here who will make the difference.”
Adam Phillips, Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships & Local, Faith and Transformative Partnerships at USAID. (Credit: USAID.)
Phillips, a former Evangelical pastor who was part of the Biden campaign in 2020, is in Rome for his first round of meetings with Vatican officials and other Catholic organizations since taking his post in March.
On his agenda are Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, who heads the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, as well as Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, who specializes in migrant and refugee issues. Phillips is also seeing other Vatican officials, such as Italian Sister Alessandra Smerilli, under-secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy and a member of the Vatican’s commission on the Covid pandemic.
In addition, Philips is making the rounds of organizations and movements, such as the Avsi Foundation, one of Italy’s largest overseas development NGOs; a group known by its Italian acronym CUAMM, which promotes medical and scientific development in Africa; and the Community of Sant’Egidio, which is engaged around the world in development, peace-making, reconciliation and ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue, as well as a wide range of other social and humanitarian endeavors.
Phillips told Crux his trip was motivated in part by the fact that a colleague is currently wrapping up an embassy fellowship in Rome devoted to what development experts call “WASH,” meaning “water, sanitation and hygiene,” before moving on to a posting in South Sudan, and he wanted to take advantage to see what possibilities for making a difference might loom.
“We wanted to learn what he’s been up to this summer and to see what we can do when we go back to D.C. to find ways to partner around a really integral, essential concern, which is clean water and sanitation,” Phillips said.
According to UN statistics, some 2.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water around the world, more than half the global population doesn’t have safe sanitation, three billion people aren’t able to wash their hands with soap on a regular basis, and an estimated 673 million people practice open defecation because of lack of access to toilets.
The health consequences are staggering. UNICEF reports that more than 700 children dies every day around the world from diarrhoeal diseases related to shortages of water, sanitation and hygiene, and when fighting breaks out someplace, children are twenty times more likely to die from water-related diseases than from the combat itself.
According to Phillips, water, sanitation and hygiene are one example of a wide range of areas in which the administration and the Catholic Church can work together. He offered the example of his conversation with Smerilli on Covid.
“She’s a really a forward-thinker in terms of an evidence-based, solution-oriented approach to what we might call ‘building back better,’ what they might call ‘dreaming up a better future,’” he said.
“This alignment, in this moment, is really important. It’s an opportunity for us to reimagine … we’re not going back to pre-Covid, but how do we move forward? They were talking today about jobs for all, health for all, and these are values that are certainly in alignment with this administration’s concerns about how we build back better.”
“There’s so much more that we have in common when it comes to shared values,” Phillips said.
More broadly, Phillips said that looking to leverage resources with religious groups is simply smart policy.
“We know that when we’re looking to solve problems on behalf of the American people, to seek development solutions or humanitarian assistance, or even human rights and religious freedom, it’s institutions such as faith-based organizations with roots in Rome, and women’s religious who are the front lines of these concerns around the world, these are the partners we want to work with,” he said.
“We know that they’re solution-oriented, as we are.”
Although Phillips arrived in Rome in the wake of a controversy in the States over Biden’s Catholic standing, he said he’s not run into any ambivalence or hesitation here about partnerships.
“It’s been nothing but a spirit of hospitality and collaboration,” Phillips said. “Even just sitting at a table and breaking bread together, dreaming together about what we might be able to do, not just on Covid but also all the secondary challenges and concerns around Covid.”
“I’ve only experienced enthusiasm to say, ‘We’ve made it through this first terrible part of this pandemic together, in many ways, and let’s continue to work together,” he said.
Phillips also insisted that Biden’s commitment to working with religious groups isn’t just for show.
“Faith-based and neighborhood partnerships are at the center of this administration’s priorities when it comes to issues such as social development, humanitarian assistance,” he said. “These are matters around human dignity, and it’s going to take new and non-traditional partners, both faith-based and no particular faith at all, to address the challenges of our day, whether it’s climate, or Covid, or security issues.”
“This administration is prioritizing faith-based engagement across the US government,” he said. “There’s a real sense of purpose.”
Trial begins in 'rotten' Vatican financial scandal
PUBLISHED : 27 JUL 2021 AT 13:45
WRITER: AFP
It is not known whether former cardinal Angelo Becciu will appear on the trial's opening day.
VATICAN CITY: A financial scandal involving an opaque, loss-making Vatican property deal paid for with charity funds goes to trial Tuesday after a two-year probe that has implicated a once-powerful cardinal.
Vatican prosecutors allege that ten defendants, including high-rolling London financiers and church employees, engaged in various crimes such as embezzlement, fraud, and corruption.
It is unclear whether former cardinal Angelo Becciu, then number two at the powerful Secretariat of State, will appear in the makeshift courtroom held within the Vatican Museums on the trial's opening day.
Becciu, 73, who says he is the innocent victim of a plot, is the highest-profile defendant embroiled in the Church's ruinous purchase of a 17,000-sq metre London property in the upmarket neighbourhood of Chelsea under his watch.
The case against Becciu, which carries charges of embezzlement, abuse of office and witness tampering, also includes separate allegations over hundreds of thousands of euros of church funds paid to his brother's charity.
The trial ensnaring the former right-hand man to Pope Francis -- who was fired by the pontiff in September and stripped of his privileges as cardinal -- represents the first time a cardinal has been indicted by Vatican criminal prosecutors in modern history.
- Bags of money -
The complex case alleged by prosecutors paints a picture of dubious, risky investments involving millions of dollars of Vatican money, little or no oversight, and double-dealing by outside consultants and insiders trusted with the financial interests of the Secretariat of State, the Vatican's most important department charged with general affairs and diplomacy.
A 487-page indictment released earlier this month sheds light on hefty bank transfers, text messages between collaborators from seized cellphones -- even bags of money changing hands and secret meetings in luxury hotels.
The primary defendants are "actors in a rotten predatory and lucrative system, sometimes made possible thanks to limited, but very incisive, complicity and internal connivance," wrote prosecutors.
Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has vowed to clean up the Church's finances, dogged for decades by scandal. After a 2019 raid on the Secretariat's offices by Vatican police, Francis stripped the body of oversight of its own funds, handing that responsibility to others.
The scandal is particularly embarrassing because funds used for risky ventures, including the disastrous 350-million-euro ($415 million) investment in Chelsea, came from the Peter's Pence, an annual fund for the pope's charities.
- Risky ventures -
The current case dates from 2013, when the Secretariat borrowed more than $200 million, mainly from Credit Suisse, to invest in a Luxembourg fund managed by an Italian-Swiss businessman, Raffaele Mincione. Half was intended for stock market purchases and the rest for part of the London building.
Mincione, prosecutors allege, used the money to invest in high-risk ventures over which the Church had no control. By 2018, the Secretariat had already lost millions and tried to pull out of the deal.
But another London-based financier, Gianluigi Torzi, brought in to broker the purchase of the rest of the building and cut ties with Mincione, instead joined forces with him, say prosecutors.
Torzi arranged for the Holy See to give Mincione pound sterling40 million to buy out the financier's share of the London property, but allegedly inserted a clause into the deal that gave himself control of the building through voting rights.
Torzi is accused of demanding 15 million euros to relinquish control.
Mincione and Torzi were helped, prosecutors claim, by Enrico Crasso, a former financial consultant to the Secretariat, and employee Fabrizio Tirabassi, both of whom face charges including fraud.
Also implicated are two former top officials within the Vatican's financial regulator, including its ex-president, Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, whom prosecutors say did not do enough to protect the Secretariat's interests.
In another twist, is accused of paying defendant Cecilia Marogna 575,000 euros in Vatican funds earmarked for freeing captive priests and nuns abroad that Marogna -- dubbed "the Cardinal's lady" by the Italian press -- spent on luxury goods and hotels.
Prosecutors claim the Vatican's top hierarchy, including Becciu's boss and pope ally Cardinal Pietro Parolin, were in favour of the London venture, but unaware of its financial details.
VATICAN CITY: A financial scandal involving an opaque, loss-making Vatican property deal paid for with charity funds goes to trial Tuesday after a two-year probe that has implicated a once-powerful cardinal.
Vatican prosecutors allege that ten defendants, including high-rolling London financiers and church employees, engaged in various crimes such as embezzlement, fraud, and corruption.
It is unclear whether former cardinal Angelo Becciu, then number two at the powerful Secretariat of State, will appear in the makeshift courtroom held within the Vatican Museums on the trial's opening day.
Becciu, 73, who says he is the innocent victim of a plot, is the highest-profile defendant embroiled in the Church's ruinous purchase of a 17,000-sq metre London property in the upmarket neighbourhood of Chelsea under his watch.
The case against Becciu, which carries charges of embezzlement, abuse of office and witness tampering, also includes separate allegations over hundreds of thousands of euros of church funds paid to his brother's charity.
The trial ensnaring the former right-hand man to Pope Francis -- who was fired by the pontiff in September and stripped of his privileges as cardinal -- represents the first time a cardinal has been indicted by Vatican criminal prosecutors in modern history.
- Bags of money -
The complex case alleged by prosecutors paints a picture of dubious, risky investments involving millions of dollars of Vatican money, little or no oversight, and double-dealing by outside consultants and insiders trusted with the financial interests of the Secretariat of State, the Vatican's most important department charged with general affairs and diplomacy.
A 487-page indictment released earlier this month sheds light on hefty bank transfers, text messages between collaborators from seized cellphones -- even bags of money changing hands and secret meetings in luxury hotels.
The primary defendants are "actors in a rotten predatory and lucrative system, sometimes made possible thanks to limited, but very incisive, complicity and internal connivance," wrote prosecutors.
Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has vowed to clean up the Church's finances, dogged for decades by scandal. After a 2019 raid on the Secretariat's offices by Vatican police, Francis stripped the body of oversight of its own funds, handing that responsibility to others.
The scandal is particularly embarrassing because funds used for risky ventures, including the disastrous 350-million-euro ($415 million) investment in Chelsea, came from the Peter's Pence, an annual fund for the pope's charities.
- Risky ventures -
The current case dates from 2013, when the Secretariat borrowed more than $200 million, mainly from Credit Suisse, to invest in a Luxembourg fund managed by an Italian-Swiss businessman, Raffaele Mincione. Half was intended for stock market purchases and the rest for part of the London building.
Mincione, prosecutors allege, used the money to invest in high-risk ventures over which the Church had no control. By 2018, the Secretariat had already lost millions and tried to pull out of the deal.
But another London-based financier, Gianluigi Torzi, brought in to broker the purchase of the rest of the building and cut ties with Mincione, instead joined forces with him, say prosecutors.
Torzi arranged for the Holy See to give Mincione pound sterling40 million to buy out the financier's share of the London property, but allegedly inserted a clause into the deal that gave himself control of the building through voting rights.
Torzi is accused of demanding 15 million euros to relinquish control.
Mincione and Torzi were helped, prosecutors claim, by Enrico Crasso, a former financial consultant to the Secretariat, and employee Fabrizio Tirabassi, both of whom face charges including fraud.
Also implicated are two former top officials within the Vatican's financial regulator, including its ex-president, Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, whom prosecutors say did not do enough to protect the Secretariat's interests.
In another twist, is accused of paying defendant Cecilia Marogna 575,000 euros in Vatican funds earmarked for freeing captive priests and nuns abroad that Marogna -- dubbed "the Cardinal's lady" by the Italian press -- spent on luxury goods and hotels.
Prosecutors claim the Vatican's top hierarchy, including Becciu's boss and pope ally Cardinal Pietro Parolin, were in favour of the London venture, but unaware of its financial details.
Monday, July 26, 2021
UNFSS Pre-Summit for the Food Systems Summit - Secretary-General Remarks...
UNFSS Pre-Summit for the Food Systems Summit - Secretary-General Remarks (26 July 2021)
Jul 27, 2021
United Nations
Video message by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, speaking at the Opening Ceremony of the Pre-Summit of the Food Systems Summit, which started in Rome.
Jul 27, 2021
United Nations
Video message by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, speaking at the Opening Ceremony of the Pre-Summit of the Food Systems Summit, which started in Rome.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 40th governor of California since January 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and as the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.
Gavin Newsom
Newsom in 2019
40th Governor of California
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 7, 2019
Lieutenant Eleni Kounalakis
Preceded by Jerry Brown
49th Lieutenant Governor of California
In office
January 10, 2011 – January 7, 2019
Governor Jerry Brown
Preceded by Abel Maldonado
Succeeded by Eleni Kounalakis
42nd Mayor of San Francisco
In office
January 8, 2004 – January 10, 2011
Preceded by Willie Brown
Succeeded by Ed Lee
Member of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
from the 2nd district
In office
January 8, 1997 – January 8, 2004
Preceded by Kevin Shelley
Succeeded by Michela Alioto-Pier
Personal details
Born
Gavin Christopher Newsom
October 10, 1967 (age 53)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Political party Democratic
January 8, 2004 – January 10, 2011
Preceded by Willie Brown
Succeeded by Ed Lee
Member of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
from the 2nd district
In office
January 8, 1997 – January 8, 2004
Preceded by Kevin Shelley
Succeeded by Michela Alioto-Pier
Personal details
Born
Gavin Christopher Newsom
October 10, 1967 (age 53)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Political party Democratic
Children 4
Father William Newsom
Residence Fair Oaks, California, U.S.
Website Governor website
Newsom attended Redwood High School and graduated from Santa Clara University. After graduation, he founded the PlumpJack wine store with family friend Gordon Getty as an investor. The PlumpJack Group grew to manage 23 businesses, including wineries, restaurants, and hotels. Newsom began his political career in 1996 when San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown appointed him to serve on the city's Parking and Traffic Commission. Brown appointed Newsom to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors the following year, and Newsom was later elected to the board in 1998, 2000, and 2002.[1]
In 2003, at the age of 36, Newsom was elected the 42nd mayor of San Francisco, becoming the city's youngest mayor in a century.[2] Newsom was re-elected in 2007 with 72% of the vote.[3][4] Newsom was elected lieutenant governor of California in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014. He was elected governor in the 2018 election. Newsom faced criticism for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic in California, including the slow initial rollout of vaccines and for the timing and scope of state COVID-19 restrictions, and he is set to face an election for his recall in 2021.[5][6]
Newsom hosted The Gavin Newsom Show on Current TV and wrote the 2013 book Citizenville.[7]
Early life
Gavin Christopher Newsom was born in San Francisco, to Tessa Thomas (née Menzies) and William Alfred Newsom III, a state appeals court judge and attorney for Getty Oil. He is a fourth-generation San Franciscan. One of Newsom's maternal great-grandfathers, Scotsman Thomas Addis, was a pioneer scientist in the field of nephrology and a professor of medicine at Stanford University. Newsom is the second cousin, twice removed, of musician Joanna Newsom.[8]
His father was an advocate for otters and the family had one as a pet.[9]
While Newsom later reflected that he did not have an easy childhood,[10] he attended kindergarten and first grade at Ecole Notre Dame Des Victoires, a French American bilingual school in San Francisco. He eventually transferred because of severe dyslexia that still affects him. His dyslexia has made it difficult for him to write, spell, read and work with numbers.[10] Throughout his schooling, Newsom had to rely on a combination of audiobooks, digests and informal verbal instruction. To this day, Newsom prefers to interpret documents and reports through audio.[11]
He attended third through fifth grades at Notre Dame des Victoires, where he was placed in remedial reading classes. In high school, Newsom played basketball and baseball and graduated from Redwood High School in 1985. Newsom was a shooting guard in basketball and an outfielder in baseball. His skills placed him on the cover of the Marin Independent Journal.[12]
Tessa Newsom worked three jobs to support Gavin and his sister Hilary Newsom Callan, the PlumpJack Group president, named after the opera Plump Jack composed by family friend Gordon Getty. In an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle, his sister recalled the Christmas holidays when their mother told them they would not receive any gifts.[12] Tessa opened their home to foster children, instilling in Newsom the importance of public service.[12][13] His father's finances were strapped in part because of his tendency to give away his earnings.[13] Newsom worked several jobs in high school to help support his family.[3]
Newsom attended Santa Clara University on a partial baseball scholarship, where he graduated in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science in political science. Newsom was a left-handed pitcher for Santa Clara, but he threw his arm out after two years and has not thrown a baseball since.[14] He lived in the Alameda Apartments, which he later compared to living in a hotel. He later reflected on his education fondly, crediting the Jesuit approach of Santa Clara with helping him become an independent thinker who questions orthodoxy. While in school, Newsom spent a semester studying abroad in Rome.[15]
Newsom's aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, the brother-in-law of Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.[10]
VA becomes the first federal agency to require healthcare workers get vaccinated
US Department of Veterans Affairs becomes the first federal agency to require healthcare workers get vaccinated
Dado Ruvic/Reuters
About 115,000 of the US Department of Veterans Affairs' healthcare workers will be required to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The department is the first federal agency to require COVID-19 vaccinations.
Veterans Affairs is the largest integrated healthcare system in the US, serving more than 9 million veterans.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Monday that it will require healthcare employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 within the next two months, becoming the first federal agency to do so.
"I am doing this because it's the best way to keep our veterans safe, full stop," Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs, told The New York Times of the new requirement that 115,000 of the department's healthcare workers be vaccinated.
The Veterans Affairs vaccine mandate applies to all frontline healthcare staff, like doctors, nurses, and dentists, McDonough told the Times.
Veterans Affairs is the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, providing care service to more than 9 million veterans at 171 medical centers and 1,112 outpatient sites across the nation.
About 115,000 of the US Department of Veterans Affairs' healthcare workers will be required to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The department is the first federal agency to require COVID-19 vaccinations.
Veterans Affairs is the largest integrated healthcare system in the US, serving more than 9 million veterans.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Monday that it will require healthcare employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 within the next two months, becoming the first federal agency to do so.
"I am doing this because it's the best way to keep our veterans safe, full stop," Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs, told The New York Times of the new requirement that 115,000 of the department's healthcare workers be vaccinated.
The Veterans Affairs vaccine mandate applies to all frontline healthcare staff, like doctors, nurses, and dentists, McDonough told the Times.
Veterans Affairs is the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, providing care service to more than 9 million veterans at 171 medical centers and 1,112 outpatient sites across the nation.
All NYC municipal workers must get COVID-19 vaccine before September...
No more options: All NYC municipal workers must get COVID-19 vaccine before September, de Blasio says
 |
NYPD officers will be among those subject to a vaccine mandate.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that all employees of the City of New York will be required to be vaccinated by September, as the spread of Covid-19 ramps up and a disconcerting amount of city employees remain unvaccinated.
The order will require all 340,000 municipal employees to get the jab by Sept. 13 — the first day of school for public school students — or submit to weekly mandatory Covid testing.
“This is about our recovery, this is what we need to do to bring back New York,” the mayor said during a virtual press briefing.
City Hall announced last week that public health workers in the city’s Health and Hospital system would be subjected to a vaccine mandate and hinted that further mandates would be soon to come.
New York City has managed to vaccinate roughly 70% of the city population, with over 9.8 million doses administered so far. Yet some public employees have proved more resistant to the vaccine, with only 43% of the NYPD vaccinated, and only 55% of the FDNY so far, despite their frontline status.
While the city’s infection rate hit an all-time low earlier in the summer as the vaccination rate increased, it has ticked upwards throughout July as the more infectious Delta Variant has become the dominant strain.
As of Monday, the city has a 2.35 percent infection rate, with 837 new reported cases on a 7 day rolling average.
The mayor has declined to institute another citywide mask mandate in the face of rising infections, opting instead to focus on ramping up the vaccination rate. He also repeated his calls for private sector employers to institute vaccine requirements for their employees.
“This is going to be a fight to keep the vaccinations moving more than the infections,” Hizzoner said.
The mayor did however institute a mask mandate for unvaccinated city employees while they are indoors, claiming that workers who refused to comply and wear a mask would be removed from their worksite.
“We’re just not going to tolerate unvaccinated city employees doing the wrong thing.
Sunday, July 25, 2021
US Workers Emerging From Pandemic Quit Jobs at Record Rate
The Great Resignation: US Workers Emerging From Pandemic Quit Jobs at Record Rate
July 25, 2021 03:03 AM
Download File
Embed
Download Audio
With the coronavirus pandemic easing in the U.S., experts say an unprecedented number of people are choosing to quit their jobs. Deana Mitchell reports from Austin, Texas.
July 25, 2021 03:03 AM
Download File
Embed
Download Audio
With the coronavirus pandemic easing in the U.S., experts say an unprecedented number of people are choosing to quit their jobs. Deana Mitchell reports from Austin, Texas.
Facebook Wants You to Connect With God. On Facebook.
Elizabeth Dias
July 25, 2021, 10:39 am
Facebook Wants You to Connect With God. On Facebook.
Months before the megachurch Hillsong opened its new outpost in Atlanta, its pastor sought advice on how to build a church in a pandemic.
From Facebook.
The social media giant had a proposition, Sam Collier, the pastor, recalled in an interview: to use the church as a case study to explore how churches can “go further farther on Facebook.”
For months Facebook developers met weekly with Hillsong and explored what the church would look like on Facebook and what apps they might create for financial giving, video capability or livestreaming. When it came time for Hillsong’s grand opening in June, the church issued a news release saying it was “partnering with Facebook” and began streaming its services exclusively on the platform.
Beyond that, Collier could not share many specifics; he had signed a nondisclosure agreement.
“They are teaching us; we are teaching them,” he said. “Together we are discovering what the future of the church could be on Facebook.”
Facebook, which recently passed $1 trillion in market capitalization, may seem like an unusual partner for a church whose primary goal is to share the message of Jesus. But the company has been cultivating partnerships with a wide range of faith communities over the past few years, from individual congregations to large denominations, like the Assemblies of God and the Church of God in Christ.
Now, after the coronavirus pandemic pushed religious groups to explore new ways to operate, Facebook sees even greater strategic opportunity to draw highly engaged users onto its platform. The company aims to become the virtual home for religious community and wants churches, mosques, synagogues and others to embed their religious life into its platform, from hosting worship services and socializing more casually to soliciting money. It is developing new products, including audio and prayer sharing, aimed at faith groups.
Virtual religious life is not replacing in-person community anytime soon, and even supporters acknowledge the limits of an exclusively online experience. But many religious groups see new opportunity to spiritually influence even more people on Facebook, the world’s largest and arguably most influential social media company.
The partnerships reveal how Big Tech and religion are converging far beyond simply moving services to the internet. Facebook is shaping the future of religious experience itself, as it has done for political and social life.
The company’s effort to court faith groups comes as it is trying to repair its image among Americans who have lost confidence in the platform, especially on issues of privacy. Facebook has faced scrutiny for its role in the country’s growing disinformation crisis and breakdown of societal trust, especially around politics, and regulators have grown concerned about its outsize power. President Joe Biden recently criticized the company for its role in the spread of false information about COVID-19 vaccines.
“I just want people to know that Facebook is a place where, when they do feel discouraged or depressed or isolated, that they could go to Facebook and they could immediately connect with a group of people that care about them,” Nona Jones, the company’s director for global faith partnerships and a nondenominational minister, said in an interview.
Last month, Facebook executives pitched their efforts to religious groups at a virtual faith summit. Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief operating officer, shared an online resource hub with tools to build congregations on the platform.
“Faith organizations and social media are a natural fit because fundamentally both are about connection,” Sandberg said.
“Our hope is that one day people will host religious services in virtual reality spaces as well or use augmented reality as an educational tool to teach their children the story of their faith,” she said.
Facebook’s summit, which resembled a religious service, included testimonials from faith leaders about how Facebook helped them grow during the pandemic.
Imam Tahir Anwar of the South Bay Islamic Association in California said his community raised record funds by using Facebook Live during Ramadan last year. Bishop Robert Barron, founder of an influential Catholic media company, said Facebook “gave people kind of an intimate experience of the Mass that they wouldn’t normally have.”
The collaborations raise not only practical questions but also philosophical and moral ones. Religion has long been a fundamental way humans have formed community, and now social media companies are stepping into that role. Facebook has nearly 3 billion active monthly users, making it larger than Christianity worldwide, which has about 2.3 billion adherents, or Islam, which has 1.8 billion.
There are privacy worries too, as people share some of their most intimate life details with their spiritual communities. The potential for Facebook to gather valuable user information creates “enormous” concerns, said Sarah Lane Ritchie, a lecturer in theology and science at the University of Edinburgh. The goals of businesses and worshipping communities are different, she said, and many congregations, often with older members, may not understand how they could be targeted with advertising or other messages based on their religious engagement.
“Corporations are not worried about moral codes,” she said. “I don’t think we know yet all the ways in which this marriage between Big Tech and the church will play out.”
A Facebook spokesperson said the data it collected from religious communities would be handled the same way as that of other users and that nondisclosure agreements were standard process for all partners involved in product development.
Many of Facebook’s partnerships involve asking religious organizations to test or brainstorm new products, and those groups seem undeterred by Facebook’s larger controversies. This year Facebook tested a prayer feature, where members of some Facebook groups can post prayer requests and others can respond. The creator of YouVersion, the popular Bible app, worked with the company to test it.
Facebook’s outreach was the first time a major technology company wanted to collaborate on a development project, said Bobby Gruenewald, YouVersion’s creator and a pastor at Life.Church in Oklahoma, recalling how he also worked with Facebook on a Bible-verse-a-day feature in 2018.
“Obviously there are different ways they ultimately, I am sure, will serve their shareholders,” he said. “From our vantage point, Facebook is a platform that allows us to build community and connect with our community and accomplish our mission. So it serves, I think, everybody well.”
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was invited to be a Facebook faith partner in December, said Melody Smith, a spokesperson for the denomination’s missions agency. The denomination agreed in a contract that it would have no ownership of any products it helps Facebook design, she said.
Leaders of the Church of God in Christ, a largely African American Pentecostal denomination of roughly 6 million members worldwide, recently received early access to several of Facebook’s monetization features, offering them new revenue streams, said the denomination’s social media manager, Angela Clinton-Joseph.
They decided to try two Facebook tools: subscriptions where users pay, for example, $9.99 per month and receive exclusive content, like messages from the bishop; and another tool for worshippers watching services online to send donations in real time. Leaders decided against a third feature: advertisements during video streams.
The pandemic accelerated existing dynamics, packing years of technology development into one, said Bob Pritchett, who founded Faithlife, a Christian ministry platform with a suite of online services.
But spiritual life is different from the personal and professional spaces occupied by Facebook and LinkedIn, he said.
It is dangerous to have your community anchored “on a tech platform that is susceptible to all the whims of politics and culture and congressional hearings,” he said.
Facebook created its faith partnerships team in 2017 and began courting religious leaders, especially of evangelical and Pentecostal groups, in earnest in 2018.
“Facebook basically said, hey, we want to be the It; we want to be the go-to,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a Sacramento, California, pastor who leads a large coalition of Hispanic churches.
Minister groups for the Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal denomination with 69 million members worldwide, were early adopters of a Facebook tool allowing users to call in to a livestream. The Potter’s House, T.D. Jakes’ megachurch of 30,000 in Dallas, also tested various features before they were rolled out.
For some pastors, Facebook’s work raises questions about the broader future of church in a virtual world. So much of religious life remains physical, such as sacraments or the laying on of hands for healing prayer.
Online church was never meant to replace the local church, said Wilfredo De Jesús, a pastor and the general treasurer for the Assemblies of God. He was grateful for Facebook, but ultimately, he said, “we want everyone to put their face in another book.”
“The technology has created in the lives of our people this quickness, this idea that I can call and just show up at Target and park my car and they open my truck,” he said. “The church is not Target.”
For churches like Hillsong Atlanta, the ultimate goal is evangelism.
“We have never been more postured for the Great Commission than now,” Collier said, referring to Jesus’ call to “make disciples of all nations.”
He is partnering with Facebook, he said, “to directly impact and help churches navigate and reach the consumer better.”
“Consumer isn’t the right word,” he said, correcting himself. “Reach the parishioner better.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company
Months before the megachurch Hillsong opened its new outpost in Atlanta, its pastor sought advice on how to build a church in a pandemic.
From Facebook.
The social media giant had a proposition, Sam Collier, the pastor, recalled in an interview: to use the church as a case study to explore how churches can “go further farther on Facebook.”
For months Facebook developers met weekly with Hillsong and explored what the church would look like on Facebook and what apps they might create for financial giving, video capability or livestreaming. When it came time for Hillsong’s grand opening in June, the church issued a news release saying it was “partnering with Facebook” and began streaming its services exclusively on the platform.
Beyond that, Collier could not share many specifics; he had signed a nondisclosure agreement.
“They are teaching us; we are teaching them,” he said. “Together we are discovering what the future of the church could be on Facebook.”
Facebook, which recently passed $1 trillion in market capitalization, may seem like an unusual partner for a church whose primary goal is to share the message of Jesus. But the company has been cultivating partnerships with a wide range of faith communities over the past few years, from individual congregations to large denominations, like the Assemblies of God and the Church of God in Christ.
Now, after the coronavirus pandemic pushed religious groups to explore new ways to operate, Facebook sees even greater strategic opportunity to draw highly engaged users onto its platform. The company aims to become the virtual home for religious community and wants churches, mosques, synagogues and others to embed their religious life into its platform, from hosting worship services and socializing more casually to soliciting money. It is developing new products, including audio and prayer sharing, aimed at faith groups.
Virtual religious life is not replacing in-person community anytime soon, and even supporters acknowledge the limits of an exclusively online experience. But many religious groups see new opportunity to spiritually influence even more people on Facebook, the world’s largest and arguably most influential social media company.
The partnerships reveal how Big Tech and religion are converging far beyond simply moving services to the internet. Facebook is shaping the future of religious experience itself, as it has done for political and social life.
The company’s effort to court faith groups comes as it is trying to repair its image among Americans who have lost confidence in the platform, especially on issues of privacy. Facebook has faced scrutiny for its role in the country’s growing disinformation crisis and breakdown of societal trust, especially around politics, and regulators have grown concerned about its outsize power. President Joe Biden recently criticized the company for its role in the spread of false information about COVID-19 vaccines.
“I just want people to know that Facebook is a place where, when they do feel discouraged or depressed or isolated, that they could go to Facebook and they could immediately connect with a group of people that care about them,” Nona Jones, the company’s director for global faith partnerships and a nondenominational minister, said in an interview.
Last month, Facebook executives pitched their efforts to religious groups at a virtual faith summit. Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief operating officer, shared an online resource hub with tools to build congregations on the platform.
“Faith organizations and social media are a natural fit because fundamentally both are about connection,” Sandberg said.
“Our hope is that one day people will host religious services in virtual reality spaces as well or use augmented reality as an educational tool to teach their children the story of their faith,” she said.
Facebook’s summit, which resembled a religious service, included testimonials from faith leaders about how Facebook helped them grow during the pandemic.
Imam Tahir Anwar of the South Bay Islamic Association in California said his community raised record funds by using Facebook Live during Ramadan last year. Bishop Robert Barron, founder of an influential Catholic media company, said Facebook “gave people kind of an intimate experience of the Mass that they wouldn’t normally have.”
The collaborations raise not only practical questions but also philosophical and moral ones. Religion has long been a fundamental way humans have formed community, and now social media companies are stepping into that role. Facebook has nearly 3 billion active monthly users, making it larger than Christianity worldwide, which has about 2.3 billion adherents, or Islam, which has 1.8 billion.
There are privacy worries too, as people share some of their most intimate life details with their spiritual communities. The potential for Facebook to gather valuable user information creates “enormous” concerns, said Sarah Lane Ritchie, a lecturer in theology and science at the University of Edinburgh. The goals of businesses and worshipping communities are different, she said, and many congregations, often with older members, may not understand how they could be targeted with advertising or other messages based on their religious engagement.
“Corporations are not worried about moral codes,” she said. “I don’t think we know yet all the ways in which this marriage between Big Tech and the church will play out.”
A Facebook spokesperson said the data it collected from religious communities would be handled the same way as that of other users and that nondisclosure agreements were standard process for all partners involved in product development.
Many of Facebook’s partnerships involve asking religious organizations to test or brainstorm new products, and those groups seem undeterred by Facebook’s larger controversies. This year Facebook tested a prayer feature, where members of some Facebook groups can post prayer requests and others can respond. The creator of YouVersion, the popular Bible app, worked with the company to test it.
Facebook’s outreach was the first time a major technology company wanted to collaborate on a development project, said Bobby Gruenewald, YouVersion’s creator and a pastor at Life.Church in Oklahoma, recalling how he also worked with Facebook on a Bible-verse-a-day feature in 2018.
“Obviously there are different ways they ultimately, I am sure, will serve their shareholders,” he said. “From our vantage point, Facebook is a platform that allows us to build community and connect with our community and accomplish our mission. So it serves, I think, everybody well.”
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was invited to be a Facebook faith partner in December, said Melody Smith, a spokesperson for the denomination’s missions agency. The denomination agreed in a contract that it would have no ownership of any products it helps Facebook design, she said.
Leaders of the Church of God in Christ, a largely African American Pentecostal denomination of roughly 6 million members worldwide, recently received early access to several of Facebook’s monetization features, offering them new revenue streams, said the denomination’s social media manager, Angela Clinton-Joseph.
They decided to try two Facebook tools: subscriptions where users pay, for example, $9.99 per month and receive exclusive content, like messages from the bishop; and another tool for worshippers watching services online to send donations in real time. Leaders decided against a third feature: advertisements during video streams.
The pandemic accelerated existing dynamics, packing years of technology development into one, said Bob Pritchett, who founded Faithlife, a Christian ministry platform with a suite of online services.
But spiritual life is different from the personal and professional spaces occupied by Facebook and LinkedIn, he said.
It is dangerous to have your community anchored “on a tech platform that is susceptible to all the whims of politics and culture and congressional hearings,” he said.
Facebook created its faith partnerships team in 2017 and began courting religious leaders, especially of evangelical and Pentecostal groups, in earnest in 2018.
“Facebook basically said, hey, we want to be the It; we want to be the go-to,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a Sacramento, California, pastor who leads a large coalition of Hispanic churches.
Minister groups for the Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal denomination with 69 million members worldwide, were early adopters of a Facebook tool allowing users to call in to a livestream. The Potter’s House, T.D. Jakes’ megachurch of 30,000 in Dallas, also tested various features before they were rolled out.
For some pastors, Facebook’s work raises questions about the broader future of church in a virtual world. So much of religious life remains physical, such as sacraments or the laying on of hands for healing prayer.
Online church was never meant to replace the local church, said Wilfredo De Jesús, a pastor and the general treasurer for the Assemblies of God. He was grateful for Facebook, but ultimately, he said, “we want everyone to put their face in another book.”
“The technology has created in the lives of our people this quickness, this idea that I can call and just show up at Target and park my car and they open my truck,” he said. “The church is not Target.”
For churches like Hillsong Atlanta, the ultimate goal is evangelism.
“We have never been more postured for the Great Commission than now,” Collier said, referring to Jesus’ call to “make disciples of all nations.”
He is partnering with Facebook, he said, “to directly impact and help churches navigate and reach the consumer better.”
“Consumer isn’t the right word,” he said, correcting himself. “Reach the parishioner better.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company
Saturday, July 24, 2021
Andrews University Professor Collaborates on Project for G-20 Summit
Rabbi David Saperstein (left), recent United States Ambassador for Religious Freedom; Nicholas Miller, Andrews University professor; and Michael Suhr, current Ambassador for Religious Freedom of Denmark, collaborated on a policy paper for the G-20 meetings in Italy in June 2021. [Photo: Andrews University News]
JULY 21, 2021
Nicholas Miller presents paper on "COVID-19 and Religious Liberty" at Italy summit.
By: Isabella Koh, Andrews University News
Nicholas Miller, Andrews University professor of church history and director of the International Religious Liberty Institute, recently presented a policy paper on the topic of “COVID-19 and Religious Liberty” at a Freedom of Religion or Belief working group. The group met in conjunction with the pre-meetings of the G-20 in Matera, Italy, from June 28 to 30, 2021.
An updated version of the paper will be submitted to the G-20 in Bologna, Italy, in September. The G-20, a gathering of leading national governments, deals with economic and human rights issues and makes important decisions impacting financial, economic, environmental, and social issues for approximately 80 percent of the world’s population.
“I’m working with the Interfaith Forum,” Miller said, “which seeks to bring religious values and appreciation for freedom of religion and belief to the G-20 process.” At the meetings in Matera, he collaborated with other religious and legal scholars to draft proposals for greater religious involvement in the G-20, as well as increased protection for religious belief.
The basis for the policy paper was a research project led by Miller and Alexis Artaud de La Ferrière, senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Portsmouth in England. It seeks to find a fair balance between religious freedom and public health through constructive dialogue.
“The pandemic year has highlighted the importance of religious input into economic and social decisions, as religious practices have often been the first to be limited and the last to be restored in many locations,” Miller said. “We also believe that religious people and bodies have much to contribute to the social and moral discourse of our day.”
As part of its commitment to international reach, those involved with the project have collaborated on a number of fronts, including a virtual conference in December 2020 sponsored by Andrews University, Brigham Young University Law School, and the University of Portsmouth. The event invited scholars from across the U.S. and Canada to interact with those from Europe to understand the similarities and differences between pandemic closings and religious freedom across countries. “This kind of comparison can help us understand how better to protect religious freedom during public health emergencies,” Miller said.
As a result of the December conference, in March 2021 the Andrews University International Religious Liberty Institute, along with Miller and Ferrière, was invited to become part of a working group on Freedom of Religion and Belief of the Interfaith Forum, which collaborates with leaders of the G-20. Miller notes the profile this gives Andrews University in having “a seat at the table of discussion about religious freedom issues not only nationally, but internationally.”
Edited papers will eventually be released as a special edition of a journal published by the International Religious Liberty Association. The team also said they plan to publish a book of additional materials.
Priest outed via Grindr app highlights rampant data tracking
MATT O'BRIEN and FRANK BAJAK, AP Technology Writers
Updated: July 22, 2021 7:27 p.m.
When a religious publication used smartphone app data to deduce the sexual orientation of a high-ranking Roman Catholic official, it exposed a problem that goes far beyond a debate over church doctrine and priestly celibacy.
With few U.S. restrictions on what companies can do with the vast amount of data they collect from web page visits, apps and location tracking built into phones, there’s not much to stop similar spying on politicians, celebrities and just about anyone that’s a target of another person’s curiosity — or malice.
Citing allegations of “possible improper behavior,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday announced the resignation of its top administrative official, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, ahead of a report by the Catholic news outlet The Pillar that probed his private romantic life.
The Pillar said it obtained “commercially available” location data from a vendor it didn’t name that it “correlated” to Burrill’s phone to determine that he had visited gay bars and private residences while using Grindr, a dating app popular with gay people.
“Cases like this are only going to multiply,” said Alvaro Bedoya, director of the Center for Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law School.
FILE - In this Wednesday, May 29, 2019 file photo, a woman looks at the Grindr app on her mobile phone in Beirut, Lebanon. With few rules in the U.S. guiding what companies can do with the vast amount of information they collect about what web pages people visit, the apps they use and where they carry their devices, there’s little stopping similar spying activity targeting politicians, celebrities and just about anyone that’s a target of another person’s curiosity.Hassan Ammar, AP
Privacy activists have long agitated for laws that would prevent such abuses, although in the U.S. they only exist in a few states, and then in varying forms. Bedoya said the firing of Burrill should drive home the danger of this situation, and should finally spur Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to act.
Privacy concerns are often construed in abstract terms, he said, “when it’s really, ‘Can you explore your sexuality without your employer firing you? Can you live in peace after an abusive relationship without fear?‘” Many abuse victims take great care to ensure that their abuser can’t find them again.
As a congressional staffer in 2012, Bedoya worked on legislation that would have banned apps that let abusers secretly track their victims’ locations through smartphone data. But it was never passed.
“No one can claim this is a surprise,” Bedoya said. “No one can claim that they weren’t warned.”
Privacy advocates have been warning for years that location and personal data collected by advertisers and amassed and sold by brokers can be used to identify individuals, isn’t secured as well as it should be and is not regulated by laws that require the clear consent of the person being tracked. Both legal and technical protections are necessary so that smartphone users can push back, they say.
The Pillar alleged “serial sexual misconduct” by Burrill — homosexual activity is considered sinful under Catholic doctrine, and priests are expected to remain celibate. The online publication’s website describes it as focused on investigative journalism that “can help the Church to better serve its sacred mission, the salvation of souls.”
Its editors didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday about how they obtained the data. The report said only that the data came from one of the data brokers that aggregate and sell app signal data, and that the publication also contracted an independent data consulting firm to authenticate it.
There are brokers that charge thousands of dollars a month for huge volumes of location data, some of which is marketed not just to advertisers but to landlords, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters, said John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He said someone looking to “reverse engineer” a particular person’s data from that bulk package could potentially get it from any of the many customers in the data chain.
“It is surprisingly and disturbingly cheap to obtain location data derived from mobile phones,” Davisson said. “It’s easy enough that a determined party can do it.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said the incident confirms yet again the dishonesty of an industry that falsely claims to safeguard the privacy of phone users.
“Experts have warned for years that data collected by advertising companies from Americans’ phones could be used to track them and reveal the most personal details of their lives. Unfortunately, they were right,” he said in a statement. “Data brokers and advertising companies have lied to the public, assuring them that the information they collected was anonymous. As this awful episode demonstrates, those claims were bogus -- individuals can be tracked and identified.”
Wyden and other lawmakers asked the FTC last year to investigate the industry. It needs “to step up and protect Americans from these outrageous privacy violations, and Congress needs to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation,” he added.
Norway’s data privacy watchdog concluded earlier this year that Grindr shared personal user data with a number of third parties without legal basis and said it would impose a fine of $11.7 million (100 million Norwegian krone), equal to 10% of the California company’s global revenue.
The data leaked to advertising technology companies for targeted ads included GPS location, user profile information as well as the simple fact that particular individuals were using Grindr, which could indicate their sexual orientation.
Sharing such information could put someone at risk of being targeted, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority said. It argued that the way Grindr asked users for permission to use their information violated European Union requirements for “valid consent.” Users weren’t given the chance to opt out of sharing data with third parties and were forced to accept Grindr’s privacy policy in its entirety, it said, adding that users weren’t properly informed about the data sharing.
The advertising partners that Grindr shared data with included Twitter, AT&T’s Xandr service, and other ad-tech companies OpenX, AdColony and Smaato, the Norwegian watchdog said. Its investigation followed a complaint by a Norwegian consumer group that found similar data leakage problems at other popular dating apps such as OkCupid and Tinder.
In a statement, Grindr called The Pillar's report an “unethical, homophobic witch hunt" and said it does “not believe” it was the source of the data used. The company said it has policies and systems in place to protect personal data, although it didn't say when those were implemented. The Pillar said the app data it obtained about Burrill covered parts of 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Privacy activists have long agitated for laws that would prevent such abuses, although in the U.S. they only exist in a few states, and then in varying forms. Bedoya said the firing of Burrill should drive home the danger of this situation, and should finally spur Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to act.
Privacy concerns are often construed in abstract terms, he said, “when it’s really, ‘Can you explore your sexuality without your employer firing you? Can you live in peace after an abusive relationship without fear?‘” Many abuse victims take great care to ensure that their abuser can’t find them again.
As a congressional staffer in 2012, Bedoya worked on legislation that would have banned apps that let abusers secretly track their victims’ locations through smartphone data. But it was never passed.
“No one can claim this is a surprise,” Bedoya said. “No one can claim that they weren’t warned.”
Privacy advocates have been warning for years that location and personal data collected by advertisers and amassed and sold by brokers can be used to identify individuals, isn’t secured as well as it should be and is not regulated by laws that require the clear consent of the person being tracked. Both legal and technical protections are necessary so that smartphone users can push back, they say.
The Pillar alleged “serial sexual misconduct” by Burrill — homosexual activity is considered sinful under Catholic doctrine, and priests are expected to remain celibate. The online publication’s website describes it as focused on investigative journalism that “can help the Church to better serve its sacred mission, the salvation of souls.”
Its editors didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday about how they obtained the data. The report said only that the data came from one of the data brokers that aggregate and sell app signal data, and that the publication also contracted an independent data consulting firm to authenticate it.
There are brokers that charge thousands of dollars a month for huge volumes of location data, some of which is marketed not just to advertisers but to landlords, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters, said John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He said someone looking to “reverse engineer” a particular person’s data from that bulk package could potentially get it from any of the many customers in the data chain.
“It is surprisingly and disturbingly cheap to obtain location data derived from mobile phones,” Davisson said. “It’s easy enough that a determined party can do it.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said the incident confirms yet again the dishonesty of an industry that falsely claims to safeguard the privacy of phone users.
“Experts have warned for years that data collected by advertising companies from Americans’ phones could be used to track them and reveal the most personal details of their lives. Unfortunately, they were right,” he said in a statement. “Data brokers and advertising companies have lied to the public, assuring them that the information they collected was anonymous. As this awful episode demonstrates, those claims were bogus -- individuals can be tracked and identified.”
Wyden and other lawmakers asked the FTC last year to investigate the industry. It needs “to step up and protect Americans from these outrageous privacy violations, and Congress needs to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation,” he added.
Norway’s data privacy watchdog concluded earlier this year that Grindr shared personal user data with a number of third parties without legal basis and said it would impose a fine of $11.7 million (100 million Norwegian krone), equal to 10% of the California company’s global revenue.
The data leaked to advertising technology companies for targeted ads included GPS location, user profile information as well as the simple fact that particular individuals were using Grindr, which could indicate their sexual orientation.
Sharing such information could put someone at risk of being targeted, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority said. It argued that the way Grindr asked users for permission to use their information violated European Union requirements for “valid consent.” Users weren’t given the chance to opt out of sharing data with third parties and were forced to accept Grindr’s privacy policy in its entirety, it said, adding that users weren’t properly informed about the data sharing.
The advertising partners that Grindr shared data with included Twitter, AT&T’s Xandr service, and other ad-tech companies OpenX, AdColony and Smaato, the Norwegian watchdog said. Its investigation followed a complaint by a Norwegian consumer group that found similar data leakage problems at other popular dating apps such as OkCupid and Tinder.
In a statement, Grindr called The Pillar's report an “unethical, homophobic witch hunt" and said it does “not believe” it was the source of the data used. The company said it has policies and systems in place to protect personal data, although it didn't say when those were implemented. The Pillar said the app data it obtained about Burrill covered parts of 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Friday, July 23, 2021
The Assembly (WCC)
The 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany, from 31 August to 8 September 2022, under the theme "Christ's love moves the world to reconciliation and unity"
Brunnen Workshops
Apply for the Brunnen Workshops at the 11th WCC Assembly in Karlsruhe!
LEARN MORE
The 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches
About the Assembly
Assembly theme and symbol
Practical information
Resources
Past WCC Assemblies
The Assembly is the highest governing body of the World Council of Churches (WCC), and normally meets every eight years. It is the only time when the entire fellowship of member churches comes together in one place for prayer and celebration.
A WCC Assembly is a special time in the lives of member churches, ecumenical partners and other churches, as it brings together more than 4000 participants, coming from all over the world. It is a unique opportunity for the churches to deepen their commitment to visible unity and common witness. This makes a WCC Assembly the most diverse Christian gathering of its size in the world.
The 11th Assembly of the WCC will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany, at the joint invitation of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the Protestant Church in Baden, the Council of Churches in Germany, the Union of Protestant Churches in Alsace and Lorraine (UEPAL) and the Protestant Church in Switzerland.
Apply for the Brunnen Workshops at the 11th WCC Assembly in Karlsruhe!
LEARN MORE
The 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches
About the Assembly
Assembly theme and symbol
Practical information
Resources
Past WCC Assemblies
The Assembly is the highest governing body of the World Council of Churches (WCC), and normally meets every eight years. It is the only time when the entire fellowship of member churches comes together in one place for prayer and celebration.
A WCC Assembly is a special time in the lives of member churches, ecumenical partners and other churches, as it brings together more than 4000 participants, coming from all over the world. It is a unique opportunity for the churches to deepen their commitment to visible unity and common witness. This makes a WCC Assembly the most diverse Christian gathering of its size in the world.
The 11th Assembly of the WCC will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany, at the joint invitation of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the Protestant Church in Baden, the Council of Churches in Germany, the Union of Protestant Churches in Alsace and Lorraine (UEPAL) and the Protestant Church in Switzerland.