News StoriesExcerpts of Key News Stories in Major Media
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When Ben was 11 years old, his parents noticed that his grades dropped. He stopped talking about school. “These are all typical signs there might be a bullying problem,” says Bettina Dénervaud, co-founder of the Swiss initiative Hilfe bei Mobbing, which translates as “Help with Bullying.” She and her two colleagues use a 30-point checklist to evaluate if there is an underlying issue of mental, emotional and physical bullying or something else — maybe a conflict, which might require conflict resolution. Instead of being punished, the bullies are invited to help the bullied student. In a 2008 study that looked at 220 bullying cases, the No-Blame Approach was successful in 192, or 87 percent, of the cases. In most schools that were evaluated, it only took two or three weeks for the bullying to stop. The second step is the core of the No-Blame Approach. It includes calling six to eight children that the teacher chooses into a meeting that is set up as a social get together: in Ben’s case, three of the bullies, three students Ben felt he could count on and two “neutral” tag-alongs. The children are not told the meeting is about Ben. “I have a problem,” the teacher might start the discussion. “I noticed some students don’t feel supported in class. What can we do to help them, for instance, Ben?” The third step includes follow-ups with all students, including Ben, within the next few weeks. If necessary, the intervention might be repeated or tweaked. "The goal is to change the social dynamic," Dénervaud says. Younger children often start crying in these meetings, Dénervaud has observed, “because they realize for the first time what has been happening and how unhappy the bullying victim has been."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
More than 300 electric cooperatives across the United States are building their own Internet with high-speed fiber networks. These locally-owned networks are poised to do what federal and state governments and the marketplace have not accomplished. First, they are protecting open Internet access from the Internet service providers (ISPs) that stand to pocket the profits from the rollbacks of net neutrality the Trump administration announced. Second, they are making affordable and fast Internet accessible to anyone. In Detroit, for example, 40 percent of the population has no access of any kind to the Internet. Detroit residents started a grassroots movement called the Equitable Internet Initiative, through which locals have begun to build their own high-speed Internet. The initiative started by enlisting digital stewards—locals who were interested in working for the nonprofit coalition. They aim to build shared tools, like a forum and a secured emergency communication network—and to educate their communities on digital literacy. Just 30 of the more than 300 tribal reservations in the United States have Internet access. Seventeen tribal reservation communities in San Diego County have secured wireless Internet access under the Tribal Digital Village initiative. Another local effort, Co-Mo Electric Cooperative ... has organized to crowdfund the necessary resources to establish its own network. The biggest dilemma for cities is the erosion of the capacity for communities to solve their own problems. As a result, local Internet service providers are bringing the power back to their people.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
To heal you must love - so believes a woman who not only forgave the man who killed her husband 28 years ago during Rwanda's genocide, but allowed his daughter to marry her son. Bernadette Mukakabera has been telling her story as part of continuing efforts by the Catholic Church to bring reconciliation to a society torn apart in 1994 when some 800,000 people were slaughtered in 100 days. "Our children had nothing to do with what happened. They just fell in love and nothing should stop people from loving each other," Bernadette told the BBC. [In 1994] thousands of Hutus ... began well organised killings - turning on their Tutsi neighbours. One of these was Gratien Nyaminani, whose family lived next to Bernadette's. After the massacres ended, with a Tutsi rebel group taking power, hundreds of thousands of people accused of involvement in the killings were detained. Gratien was taken into custody and eventually tried by one of the community courts, known as gacaca, set up to deal with genocide suspects. At these weekly hearings, communities were given a chance to face the accused and both hear and give evidence about what really happened - and how it happened. The final reconciliation happens in public where the accused and the victim stand together. The victim stretches their hands towards the accused as a sign of forgiveness. In 2004, Gratien told Bernadette how he had killed her husband and apologised - and at the same hearing she chose to forgive him. This meant that he did not have to serve a 19-year jail term, but a two-year community service sentence instead.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Dr. Anthony Fauci confessed to lawmakers Tuesday that guidelines to keep six feet of separation — ostensibly to limit the spread of COVID-19 — “sort of just appeared” without scientific input. Fauci, 83, revealed to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that the “six feet apart” recommendation championed by him and other US public health officials was “likely not based on scientific data.” Schools nationwide remained closed well into the second year of the pandemic as a result of the social distancing guidelines, which were disputed by both research studies and other health officials. Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas), who sits on the panel, said Tuesday night that Fauci had shown an “amazing ability to either forget what happened or then to find ways to shirk any sort of responsibility for the influence that was had,” during the two-day affair. “They wash their hands of any sort of responsibility, saying, ‘Oh, those decisions were made by school districts.’ But the school districts know, if you don’t follow the guidance that’s coming out of the federal government, you open yourselves up to lawsuits,” Cloud said of Fauci and other US pandemic response officials. “He says he’s still not convinced that there was learning loss — that in his view, that’s still really open for discussion,” Cloud [said]. “I think [if] you ask any parent, they’ll tell you it was a major hit on their child’s development.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Victims who suffered life-changing injuries from the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine say they have faced censorship on social media when trying to discuss their symptoms. The UK-based pharmaceutical giant is being sued in the High Court in a test case by a father-of-two who suffered a significant permanent brain injury as a result of a blood clot after receiving the jab in spring 2021. A second claim is also being brought by the widower and two young children of a woman who died after having the jab. Some who have experienced serious adverse reactions from the AstraZeneca vaccine ... have been given “warnings” on social media websites such as Facebook when trying to talk to one another about their experiences. They say they are being forced to “self censor” and speak in code to avoid having their support groups shut down. In one instance, YouTube attempted to censor a video of testimony given by lawyers to the Covid Inquiry about vaccines, flagging the clip as a violation of its “medical misinformation policy”. UK CV Family, a private Facebook group with 1.2k members for people left injured or bereaved from Covid vaccines, was started in November 2021 by Charlet Crichton after she suffered an adverse reaction from the AstraZeneca jab. Facebook blocked Ms Crichton from commenting at one stage “to prevent misuse” and there were occasions where her account was temporarily banned because her “activity didn’t follow our community standards”.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government COVID vaccines and media manipulation from reliable sources.
In March 2020, Dr. Robert Kadlec addressed a House committee to confirm his role and responsibilities as the federal government’s top preparedness official coordinating the government’s COVID-19 response. As assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, Kadlec offered a lengthy statement to lawmakers on the “four principal functions” of his role. None of those functions involved downplaying without scientific evidence a theory that the virus emerged from a laboratory in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But that’s what Kadlec now says he did by assisting Dr. Anthony Fauci ... in his effort to suppress the lab leak theory. Kadlec says it’s a decision that keeps him up at night. “I wake up at usually about 2 or 3 a.m. and think about it honestly, because it’s something that we all played a role in,” Kadlec [said]. For much of 2020 and 2021, anyone who brought up the possibility that COVID-19 emerged from Wuhan risked being labeled a conspiracy theorist by legacy media and “fact-checkers.” In September, the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic revealed that Fauci was secretly admitted to CIA headquarters while the agency conducted its analysis of the virus’s origins, allegedly to “‘influence’ the Agency’s review.” A ... CIA whistleblower claims the agency attempted to bribe six analysts tasked with assessing the origin of the virus.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Kesha Jackson was preparing for her husband, John, to be home in a few weeks. But then Jackson got a concerning call from other inmates. Her husband, in the special housing unit, was going in and out of consciousness. He died soon after. And as she waited for some explanation, Jackson was surprised to learn what prison officials pronounced as the manner of death: "natural." By deeming the death natural, prison authorities were not required to conduct an autopsy for Jackson's death. It's how they characterize at least three-quarters of all federal prison deaths since 2009. "When his medical records came home after he passed away, I saw that it was MRSA," Jackson said. "Saying that it's a natural death can sometimes be misleading because I believe that having the proper medical treatment could have possibly saved his life," Jackson said. The CDC says natural deaths happen either solely or almost entirely because of disease or old age. Yet 70% of the inmates who died in federal prison the last 13 years were under the age of 65. NPR found that potential issues such as medical neglect, poor prison conditions and a lack of health care resources were left unexplained once a "natural" death designation ended hopes of an investigation. Meanwhile, family members were left with little information about their loved one's death. Homer Venters, a federal court monitor of jail and prison health care, calls deaths like Jackson's "jail attributable."
Note: Private companies like Corizon are often responsible for inmate medical care. In 2015, investigations in Arizona, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, and New York uncovered escalating inmate deaths related to Corizon's for-profit medical services. A New York Times article about this was published but it quickly disappeared. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.
With 2023 drawing to a close, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) completed its first full year under the leadership of Director Colette Peters. The BOP has huge responsibilities in the care and feeding of over 150,000 prisoners in its care and over 36,000 staff. It has an $8.7 billion annual budget and houses some of the most infamous criminals in the United States. It also houses nearly 50,000 inmates who are low and minimum security prisoners, many of whom are eligible for earlier release due to the First Step Act, a 2018 law that can decrease a sentence term by up to a year. The BOP’s facilities are, for lack of a better term, falling apart. As of May 2022, the BOP’s estimated cost for needed, major repairs was approaching $2 billion. However, an Office of Inspector General audit found that the BOP’s budget requests have been far below its own estimates of resource needs: for example, BOP sought less than $200 million for its infrastructure needs from Congress in FY 2022, and Congress appropriated $59 million. One of the reasons cited for the BOP not receiving more funding was its lack of a strategic plan on how to effectively spend funds it may be given. The BOP will see more push for congressional oversight. Senator Chuck Grassley recently pushed to make the director of the Bureau of Prisons a Senate-confirmed position, adding that he has "... inquired about reports of rife abuse in the past and continue to push for transparency in the federal prison system."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.
Newly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents have described bombshell allegations about sex tapes involving Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson. In emails sent by Epstein victim Sarah Ransome – sections of which were included as exhibits in one of the filings unsealed on Monday – she said that an unnamed friend “had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson” and that these encounters had been filmed by Epstein and that she herself had later seen the sex tapes. In the messages, Ms Ransome said that her friend later came forward to report what happened “with Epstein, Clinton, Branson and Prince Andrew” to the police in 2008 but said that “nothing was done” and “she was made to feel like a dirty whore and a liar”. A couple of months later, her friend was allegedly “approached by Special Agents Forces Men sent directly by Hilary [sic] Clinton herself, in order to protect her presidential campaign in 2008”, Ms Ransome claimed. Ms Ransome went on to allege that the friend was given a “substantial” payout directly from the Clinton Foundation “to keep her quiet”. She alleged that if her friend was to break the agreement to stay quiet, “she is dead”. The woman also allegedly tried to sue Epstein for damages but was “severely bullied and threatened” by his attorney, Mr Dershowitz – a man who she claimed “she also had sexual relations with and who was also heavily involved in Epstein’s paedophile ring”.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
While nobody has offered hard evidence that intelligence agencies, and in particular the CIA or Mossad, were directly involved in Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell's blackmailing of public figures, many of the journalists who investigated the Epstein case have concluded that they were running what is known in the intelligence community as a “honeypot” or “honeytrap” aimed at using sex to blackmail people. The current director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, had scheduled three meetings with Epstein in 2014. Epstein's private calendar showed that he had dozens of meetings with Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Meetings with many other wealthy, well-connected individuals occurred years after Epstein became a convicted sex offender. Reporter Vicky Ward ... wrote a story about the Justice Department's 2007 “non-prosecution agreement” with Epstein. Alexander Acosta was the U.S. Attorney for South Florida who arranged the lenient sentence. “I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," Acosta said. In addition to his possible ties to American intelligence, Epstein may have also been connected to the Israeli Mossad. A former Israeli spy, Ari Ben-Menashe, said he was Robert Maxwell's “handler” and claimed to have introduced Epstein to Mossad. “They were agents of the Israeli Intelligence Services,” said Ben-Menashe. The CIA has a long record of using sexual blackmail. In 1975, the Washington Post reported that for years, the CIA had “operated love traps in New York City and San Francisco, where foreign diplomats were lured by prostitutes in the pay of the CIA ...Through hidden one-way mirrors, CIA agents filmed the sexual adventures and later tried to blackmail the victims into becoming informants."
Note: Read more about former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe's claims that Epstein was running a sexual blackmail operation on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
Scientists at the center of the “lab leak” controversy visited Anthony Fauci’s institute at the National Institutes of Health in 2017 to discuss their research — just months before NIH lifted a pause on high-risk virology. Wuhan Institute of Virology Senior Scientist Shi Zhengli [visited] National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases staffers in June 2017, where she gave a presentation about novel coronaviruses. Shi is known internationally as the “Bat Lady” for her work with bats and their coronaviruses. Though ostensibly a civilian lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology has conducted research projects “for defensive and biosecurity needs of the military” since at least 2017, according to U.S. intelligence. EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. research organization, partnered closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, subcontracting NIAID funding to Shi’s lab, and arranged the meeting. Fauci himself met with [EcoHealth Alliance President Peter] Daszak four months later, in October 2017. By December 2017, NIH had resumed funding for gain-of-function research that generates new viruses in the lab following a three year pause and debate about the possibility that such research could cause a pandemic. A 2021 State Department fact sheet stated that “despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution,” it has conducted classified research on behalf of the Chinese military “since at least 2017.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
A paper published in Archives of Disease in Childhood found that real-world effectiveness of child mask mandates to prevent COVID-19 transmission and infection has “not been demonstrated with high-quality evidence” and that “the current body of scientific data does not support masking children for protection against COVID-19.” “There were no radomised controlled trials in children assessing the benefits of mask wearing to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection or transmission,” [said the study]. “The six observational studies reporting an association between child masking and lower infection rate or antibody seropositivity had critical (n=5) or serious (n=1) risk of bias; all six were potentially confounded by important differences between masked and unmasked groups and two were shown to have non-significant results when reanalysed. Sixteen other observational studies found no association between mask wearing and infection or transmission. Real-world effectiveness of child mask mandates against SARS-CoV-2 transmission or infection has not been demonstrated with high-quality evidence.” The importance of this study is that it examined the risks of bias among studies across the board. The higher the risk of bias in a study, the less trustworthy its results can be. The authors of the study pointed out that the risk of bias in studies across the board was present ... but that in the best studies out there (least bias) no benefit was found for masking children.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID from reliable major media sources.
Even after spending a year and a half in prison in Tehran, I knew that if I wanted to go on writing about Iran, I would be a target for plenty of public attacks. But I never imagined the U.S. State Department would be funding my attackers. Last week, several astute Iran watchers drew attention to a series of inflammatory tweets associated with the Iran Disinformation Project, a State Department-funded initiative that its website claims “brings to light disinformation emanating from the Islamic Republic of Iran via official rhetoric, state propaganda outlets, social media manipulation and more.” The targets of the tweets included think-tank analysts, human rights activists and journalists. The common thread is that we are all perceived by regime change proponents and supporters of the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure policy to be soft on Iran because we are critical of crushing economic sanctions and the threat of the use of military force. For these thought crimes, we are branded by @IranDisinfo and similar social media accounts as Tehran’s “mouthpieces,” “apologists,” “collaborators,” and “lobbyists” in the West. We’re faced with the irony that an initiative aimed at combating Tehran’s disinformation campaigns is resorting to disinformation campaigns of its own, using taxpayer funds to spread lies about U.S. citizens. We need programs that fight the spread of falsehoods and propaganda, but such efforts shouldn’t combat lies with other lies.
Note: For lots more on this eye-opening event, see this excellent article by Matt Taibbi. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.
Direct cash programs are growing across America, offering a path out of poverty through economic mobility. During a two-week period in 2022, nearly a quarter of a million people in the Chicago area applied for the Cook County Promise Guaranteed Income Pilot, the nation's largest direct cash pilot, and ultimately 3,250 families were randomly selected to get $500 a month for two years. Similar direct cash initiatives have changed the physical, emotional, and economic lives of families that participate. Children are better cared for, and they excel in school. Adults experience improved health and stronger familial relationships. And crucially, when recipients have economic stability, they can plan and invest in their futures—many, for the first time in their lives. The Stockton SEED project, which gave $500 a month for two years to 130 people, saw results that mirrored prior direct cash research. The study ... found that the expansion of finances and the predictable, stable source of income brought by the program created "self-determination and capacity for risk-taking not present prior," meaning that when participants could predictably afford child care, transportation, and training programs they had the financial freedom to invest in their own futures. People have big ambitions, no matter the size of their bank account. For most Americans facing economic struggles, their chief problem is a lack of cash, and not a lack of character.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Michael Tubbs had just been elected the youngest and first Black mayor of Stockton, California, when he announced his intention to launch what would be the country’s first universal basic income program in decades. The year was 2017, and the plan was to pay some residents $500 a month, no strings attached. In the years since his announcement ... the 125 participants of the Stockton program showed that they used that extra $500 a month not for luxuries or frivolities, but to pay off debt, obtain full-time jobs and get medical treatment like dental work that they had put off for years because they could not afford it. Now, more than 100 cities and jurisdictions around the country have launched their own guaranteed income programs. The basis of guaranteed income is simple: poverty, a problem at the crux of so many societal woes, can be solved with money and it is the government’s job to solve it. It’s a guaranteed monthly income without the requirements that come with a welfare program – requirements that often keep recipients in poverty when the program benefits outweigh any job or income advancement they could make. “We’re talking about like life-changing impacts for a very small amount of dollars, in the grand scheme of things,” Tubbs said. The Stockton program was originally funded by a grant from the Economic Security Project, but some programs today are drawing directly from their governmental budgets.
Note: A documentary about the Stockton program titled "It's Basic" was recently featured at the Tribeca Film Festival. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Court documents made public on Wednesday disclosed the names of dozens of powerful men with alleged connections to convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein who died by suicide in 2019. Federal Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan unsealed the documents, revealing the names of numerous individuals described in a 2015 civil lawsuit as associates, affiliates or victims of Epstein. The documents include references to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, the magician David Copperfield, Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, actor Kevin Spacey, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, the late New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Vice President Al Gore, among others. The fact that people were named in these documents doesn't mean any of them face allegations or evidence of wrongdoing. Federal prosecutors say Epstein — who worked for decades as a private financier for a secretive list of wealthy clients — also operated an underage sex-trafficking ring based in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. Epstein allegedly developed a scheme to identify and exploit "dozens" of vulnerable girls and young women, some as young as 14 years old, beginning around 1994 and continuing at least until 2004. Some of his victims later claimed in civil lawsuits that Epstein instructed them to have sex with a who's-who of powerful men. Authorities in Florida first investigated Epstein for alleged sexual activity involving minors as early as 2005.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
Hundreds of pages of sealed records related to Jeffrey Epstein were made public on Wednesday, revealing previously unknown details about the late accused sex trafficker. Previously, the documents had been part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 civil case against Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2022 and is currently serving a 20-year sentence. Epstein was facing 45 years in prison for his alleged crimes, but he was found hanged in his Manhattan prison cell in August 2019.) Bill Clinton was friends with Epstein for years, and he was widely speculated to be one of the high-profile figures who would appear in the documents. In a transcript of a deposition given by Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, she said Epstein once told her that Clinton “likes them young, referring to girls.” In February 2022, Prince Andrew reached a settlement with Giuffre over accusations that he’d sexually abused her numerous times when she was still a minor. He denied the allegations, but was officially stripped of his royal and military titles. Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s former attorney who helped him clinch the 2008 “sweetheart deal” in which he avoided prosecution for sex crimes against minors, also plays a big role in the unsealed documents. According to testimony from Epstein’s former household staff, Dershowitz visited Epstein’s Florida home “very often,” allegedly going there by himself and spending time “in the presence of young girls.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
An opaque network of government agencies and self-proclaimed anti-misinformation groups ... have repressed online speech. News publishers have been demonetized and shadow-banned for reporting dissenting views. NewsGuard, a for-profit company that scores news websites on trust and works closely with government agencies and major corporate advertisers, exemplifies the problem. NewsGuard’s core business is a misinformation meter, in which websites are rated on a scale of 0 to 100 on a variety of factors, including headline choice and whether a site publishes “false or egregiously misleading content.” Editors who have engaged with NewsGuard have found that the company has made bizarre demands that unfairly tarnish an entire site as untrustworthy for straying from the official narrative. In an email to one of its government clients, NewsGuard touted that its ratings system of websites is used by advertisers, “which will cut off revenues to fake news sites.” Internal documents ... show that the founders of NewsGuard privately pitched the firm to clients as a tool to engage in content moderation on an industrial scale, applying artificial intelligence to take down certain forms of speech. Earlier this year, Consortium News, a left-leaning site, charged in a lawsuit that NewsGuard’s serves as a proxy for the military to engage in censorship. The lawsuit brings attention to the Pentagon’s $749,387 contract with NewsGuard to identify “false narratives” regarding the war [in] Ukraine.
Note: A recent trove of whistleblower documents revealed how far the Pentagon and intelligence spy agencies are willing to go to censor alternative views, even if those views contain factual information and reasonable arguments. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on corporate corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.
Apple has said it now requires a judge’s order to hand over information about its customers’ push notification to law enforcement, putting the iPhone maker’s policy in line with rival Google and raising the hurdle officials must clear to get app data about users. It follows the revelation from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden that officials were requesting such data from Apple as well as from Google. Apps of all kinds rely on push notifications to alert smartphone users to incoming messages, breaking news, and other updates. These are the audible “dings” or visual indicators users get when they receive an email or their sports team wins a game. What users often do not realize is that almost all such notifications travel over Google and Apple’s servers. In a letter first disclosed by Reuters last week, Wyden said the practice gave the two companies unique insight into traffic flowing from those apps to users, putting them “in a unique position to facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps.” Apple and Google both acknowledged receiving such requests. Apple added a passage to its guidelines saying such data was available “with a subpoena or greater legal process.” The passage has now been updated to refer to more stringent warrant requirements. Wyden said in a statement that Apple was “doing the right thing by matching Google and requiring a court order to hand over push notification related data.”
Note: Read more about the controversial geofence warrants that use Big Tech data. As an older article about the Apple court order articulates, law enforcement can "intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been using a new camera to secretly snap photos and record videos of strangers in parks, on trains, inside stores and at restaurants. I was testing the recently released $300 Ray-Ban Meta glasses that Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking empire made in collaboration with the iconic eyewear maker. The high-tech glasses include a camera for shooting photos and videos, and an array of speakers and microphones for listening to music and talking on the phone. The glasses, Meta says, can help you “live in the moment” while sharing what you see with the world. Meta, Apple and Magic Leap have all been hyping mixed-reality headsets that use cameras to allow their software to interact with objects in the real world. To inform people that they are being photographed, the Meta Ray-Bans include a tiny LED light embedded in the right frame to indicate when the device is recording. When a photo is snapped, it flashes momentarily. When a video is recording, it is continuously illuminated. As I shot 200 photos and videos with the glasses in public, including on BART trains, on hiking trails and in parks, no one looked at the LED light or confronted me about it. And why would anyone? It would be rude to comment on a stranger’s glasses, let alone stare at them. The ubiquity of smartphones, doorbell cameras and dashcams makes it likely that you are being recorded anywhere you go. But Chris Gilliard, an independent privacy scholar who has studied the effects of surveillance technologies, said cameras hidden inside smart glasses would most likely enable bad actors — like the people shooting sneaky photos of others at the gym — to do more harm.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
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