News — At The Edge — 2/22
For the U.S., the handwriting is the wall — privacy, militarization, robot jobs, children and healthcare — as to where we now are being oriented.
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Surprise! Audit finds automated license plate reader programs are a privacy nightmare —
“[M]any law enforcement agencies are violating state law…retaining personal data for lengthy periods of time, and…disseminating [it]…[which] is totally unacceptable….
[LA] alone stores 320 million license plate images, 99.9% of which were not being sought by law enforcement at the time of collection…[yet] shared with ‘hundreds’ of other agencies…[with] no record of how this was justified legally or accomplished properly.
None of the agencies has a privacy policy in line with requirements…or protections regarding account creation and use and…never audited their own systems.” https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/13/surprise-audit-finds-automated-license-plate-reader-programs-are-a-privacy-nightmare/
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Trump is sending armed tactical forces to arrest immigrants in sanctuary cities —
“[Trump’s] targets sanctuary cities — which do not…share information with ICE or hand over immigrants…[but] waste of…law enforcement resources…endangers immigrant communities…[and] ‘put lives at risk by further militarizing our streets’….
[At] State of the Union…Trump characterized sanctuary cities as a danger to public safety and broadly painted immigrants as violent criminals…[but] characterization doesn’t hold water….[because] studies have found…they either slightly decrease crime rates or have no effect….
- Urban Affairs Review in 2017 found…cities with similar characteristics but for their sanctuary policies had ‘no statistically discernible difference’ in their rates of violent crime, rape, or property crime….
- [Another] study found…counties with sanctuary policies tend to have lower crime rates than those that don’t: about 35.5 fewer crimes per 10,000 people on average. The counties with the smallest populations exhibited even bigger differences in crime rates.
Many police chiefs say…[these] policies facilitate better crime reporting and cooperation with law enforcement in criminal investigations.” https://www.vox.com/2020/2/14/21138272/cbp-tactical-ice-immigrants-sanctuary-cities
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Robots may well take your job — eventually —
“[With] robots and artificial intelligence (AI) 30% of American workers believe their jobs are likely to be replaced…in their lifetime….
In the past the relationship…has been driven by two factors: the substituting effect…and the complementing effect…[to] work more productively….
[Ahead] the substituting effect will dominate.
Advances in AI have been so rapid…[it’ll] eventually be better than people at most activities…[and] be the ‘default choice’….
A few highly paid humans will still be employed, but the rest will either struggle to find work or…[be] stuck in jobs that are…poorly paid…unstable and stressful….
[Altering] this scenario will require a change in political thinking….
[One] answer would be a ‘conditional basic income’, paid by the government and financed by taxes on the better-off…with provisos: recipients would have to make some contribution to society, such as providing social care or teaching children.
Given all the…free time, societies will also need a more coherent leisure policy….
[But] there will always be demand for services with the human touch, just as there is an appetite for ‘artisanal’ loaves as well as sliced white bread.” https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/01/23/robots-may-well-take-your-job-eventually
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Health of Children Under Threat Worldwide, Study Finds —
“[The] wealthy countries…United States, Australia, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates rank in the bottom 10 countries for providing children and adolescents a healthy, sustainable future…[says] 40 child and adolescent health experts convened by the World Health Organization….
Norway, South Korea, the Netherlands, France and Ireland rank in the top five….
[Another] threat is the impact of marketing…[with] children in some countries…[seeing] 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a year…[but] ‘worse still: we have few facts and figures about….social media advertising and algorithms aimed at our children.’” https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-02-18/study-childrens-health-is-under-threat-worldwide
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Medicare for All Would Save $450 Billion Annually While Preventing 68,000 Deaths, New Study Shows —
“[A] single-payer health care system would actually save…the average American family…about $2,400 in annual savings…[though] conservative because it doesn’t factor in…[underinsured that] couldn’t afford the copays and deductibles’….
[So] annual savings of about 13 percent in national health care costs, while providing better health care access….[to] about 37 million…[who] do not have health insurance…[and] 41 million people do not have adequate [coverage]…[and] funded with less financial outlay than is incurred by employers and households paying for health-care premiums combined with existing government allocations….
’The real question is how soon…[because] seems hard to imagine that something like M4A would not…[deliver] large savings over…a decade or more.’” https://www.newsweek.com/medicare-all-would-save-450-billion-annually-while-preventing-68000-deaths-new-study-shows-1487862
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Doc Huston
