Category Archives: Surveillance state

Quelle Surprise: NYT Article on U.S. Contact Tracing Deficiencies Doesn’t Fall for Big Tech’s Claim that Effective Contact Tracing Requires an App, But Fails to See What Good Health Care Has to Do with It

NYT piece on contact tracing doesn’t see what good health care has to do with why some of these efforts elsewhere have worked well.

COVID-19 Mistakes to Avoid: Don’t Conflate Contact Tracing with Contact Tracing By App

Big Tech and Big Pharma each has a dog in the COVID-19 fight and wish to replace what has worked before and is working now with technofixes.

Key CIA-Backed Ally Indicted for Organ Trade Murder Scheme

A sordid example of what happens when the CIA is willing to get in bed with just about anyone to advance what it sees as US interests.

No, We Don’t Need to Place Our Faith in Downloading Some Untested, Privacy-Infringing App as the Only Possible COVID-19 Slayer; Why Don’t We Look to Places that Have Successfully Limited Disease Spread and Copy Their Policies?

Ars Technica clutches pearls at poll showing decline in those willing to download privacy-infringing app to stymie spread of COVID-19.

Police State Watch: Amnesty Targets Tear Gas

Amnesty International has yesterday launched a resource on global misuse of tear gas, in the US and elsewhere:

China’s Covid-19 Recovery Is Intensifying Class Exploitation

China’s response to the pandemic is to furth disempower its domestic and peripheral populations.

Watch: This Is What It Looks Like When the Response to Protests Against Police Violence Is… More Police Violence

Compilation of footage of police response to protests in various U.S. cities over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd, plus Amnesty International condemnation.

Why We Need the Human Touch in Contact Tracing for Coronavirus

Contact tracing with the human touch works better than the highly-touted app panaceas du jour – and without raising the same civil liberties concerns.

Contact Tracing Via Old Shoe-Leather Epidemiology While Spurning the Techno-Fix Fairy: How Hong Kong Quells COVID-19 Without Killing Civil Liberties

Countries jostle to surrender civil liberties to a techno-fix app to quell COVID-19, but should instead heed Hong Kong’s low-tech lesson.

New Mexico Attorney General Sues Google Over Kiddie Privacy

New Mexico AG Hector Balderas sues Google for violating children’s privacy under federal and state statutes. Don’t be evil indeed!

Evil is Baked into Big Tech’s Business Plan. Now What?

In her new book, Don’t Be Evil, Rana Foroohar explores how companies like Google and their tech brethren stampede over all of us.

Fleeing the Hellscape of Google Search with Qwant

Comparing Google to Qwant for user interface/user experience, privacy under the GDPR, and the “filter bubble”

US Medical Data Security Gets Worse 2 Months After Expose of Hundreds of Millions of Images, Related Patient Info Open on the Internet

Another medical data horrorshow.