Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Rotten apple: New York dubbed 'least free state' in country in new study
https://www.foxnews.com/us/rotten-apple-new-york-dubbed-least-free-state-country-new-study
Biden sold off nearly half the U.S. oil reserve. Is it ready for a crisis?
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/16/biden-oil-reserve-fuels-00121298
The occupation of WATER by the Israelis.
The Occupation of Water
The legacy of Israel’s 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories has been systematic human rights violations on a mass scale. One of its most devastating consequences is the impact of Israel’s discriminatory policies on Palestinians’ access to adequate supplies of clean and safe water.
Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, in June 1967, the Israeli military authorities consolidated complete power over all water resources and water-related infrastructure in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). 50 years on, Israel continues to control and restrict Palestinian access to water in the OPT to a level which neither meets their needs nor constitutes a fair distribution of shared water resources.
In November 1967 the Israeli authorities issued Military Order 158, which stated that Palestinians could not construct any new water installation without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. Since then, the extraction of water from any new source or the development of any new water infrastructure would require permits from Israel, which are near impossible to obtain. Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation continue to suffer the devastating consequences of this order until today. They are unable to drill new water wells, install pumps or deepen existing wells, in addition to being denied access to the Jordan River and fresh water springs. Israel even controls the collection of rain water throughout most of the West Bank, and rainwater harvesting cisterns owned by Palestinian communities are often destroyed by the Israeli army. As a result, some 180 Palestinian communities in rural areas in the occupied West Bank have no access to running water, according to OCHA. Even in towns and villages which are connected to the water network, the taps often run dry.
Strangeness in trading...
It doesn't show up but I'll add a screen shots
10/24/23 10:10:46 5.08 5.07 5.08 112
10/24/23 10:10:46 5.08 5.08 5.09 100
10/24/23 10:10:46 5.08 5.08 5.09 100
10/24/23 10:10:42 5.085 5.08 5.09 1,000
10/24/23 10:10:26 5.09 5.08 5.09 100
10/24/23 10:09:52 5.08 0.00 0.00 626
10/24/23 10:09:37 5.08 0.00 0.00 626
10/24/23 10:09:22 5.09 0.00 0.00 626
10/24/23 10:09:07 5.09 0.00 0.00 626
10/24/23 10:08:52 5.09 0.00 0.00 251
10/24/23 10:08:37 5.0735 0.00 0.00 251
10/24/23 10:08:22 5.09 0.00 0.00 251
10/24/23 10:08:07 5.0735 0.00 0.00 251
10/24/23 10:07:52 5.08 0.00 0.00 2,144
10/24/23 10:07:37 5.06 0.00 0.00 2,144
10/24/23 10:07:22 5.09 0.00 0.00 2,144
10/24/23 10:07:07 5.06 0.00 0.00 2,144
10/24/23 10:06:52 5.055 0.00 0.00 128
10/24/23 10:06:37 5.04 0.00 0.00 128
10/24/23 10:06:22 5.055 0.00 0.00 128
10/24/23 10:06:07 5.04 0.00 0.00 128
10/24/23 10:05:52 5.03 0.00 0.00 2,249
10/24/23 10:05:37 5.02 0.00 0.00 2,249
10/24/23 10:05:22 5.05 0.00 0.00 2,249
10/24/23 10:05:07 5.02 0.00 0.00 2,249
10/24/23 10:04:52 5.015 0.00 0.00 187
10/24/23 10:04:37 5.01 0.00 0.00 187
10/24/23 10:04:22 5.015 0.00 0.00 187
10/24/23 10:04:07 5.01 0.00 0.00 187
10/24/23 10:03:10 5.01 5.00 5.01 20
10/24/23 10:03:08 5.01 5.00 5.01 170
10/24/23 10:03:08 5.01 5.01 5.02 100
10/24/23 10:03:08 5.01 5.01 5.02 100
Later another two more gaps showed up.....
10/24/23 10:46:46 4.77 4.77 4.78 100
10/24/23 10:46:46 4.77 4.77 4.78 100
10/24/23 10:46:46 4.77 4.77 4.78 100
10/24/23 10:46:43 4.77 4.77 4.78 100
10/24/23 10:45:52 4.7765 0.00 0.00 125
10/24/23 10:45:37 4.77 0.00 0.00 125
10/24/23 10:45:22 4.7765 0.00 0.00 125
10/24/23 10:45:07 4.77 0.00 0.00 125
10/24/23 10:44:52 4.77 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:44:37 4.77 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:44:22 4.775 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:44:07 4.775 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:43:52 4.77 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:43:37 4.77 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:43:22 4.77 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:43:07 4.77 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:40:52 4.79 0.00 0.00 100
10/24/23 10:40:37 4.79 0.00 0.00 100
10/24/23 10:40:22 4.79 0.00 0.00 100
10/24/23 10:40:07 4.79 0.00 0.00 100
10/24/23 10:39:52 4.80 0.00 0.00 1,436
10/24/23 10:39:37 4.79 0.00 0.00 1,436
10/24/23 10:39:22 4.82 0.00 0.00 1,436
10/24/23 10:39:07 4.79 0.00 0.00 1,436
10/24/23 10:38:52 4.79 0.00 0.00 1,096
10/24/23 10:38:37 4.78 0.00 0.00 1,096
10/24/23 10:38:22 4.80 0.00 0.00 1,096
10/24/23 10:38:07 4.78 0.00 0.00 1,096
10/24/23 10:37:52 4.78 0.00 0.00 575
10/24/23 10:37:37 4.74 0.00 0.00 575
10/24/23 10:37:22 4.78 0.00 0.00 575
10/24/23 10:37:07 4.74 0.00 0.00 575
10/24/23 10:36:52 4.73 0.00 0.00 238
10/24/23 10:36:37 4.73 0.00 0.00 238
10/24/23 10:36:22 4.74 0.00 0.00 238
10/24/23 10:36:07 4.74 0.00 0.00 238
10/24/23 10:35:52 4.75 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:35:37 4.75 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:35:22 4.75 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:35:07 4.75 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:34:00 4.745 4.74 4.75 1
10/24/23 10:33:24 4.745 4.74 4.75 2
10/24/23 10:33:23 4.745 4.74 4.75 50
10/24/23 10:57:37 4.69 4.69 4.71 100
10/24/23 10:56:45 4.69 4.69 4.71 6
10/24/23 10:56:45 4.69 4.69 4.71 100
10/24/23 10:55:59 4.69 4.69 4.71 100
10/24/23 10:55:43 4.69 4.69 4.71 100
10/24/23 10:54:52 4.70 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:54:37 4.70 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:54:22 4.70 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:54:07 4.70 0.00 0.00 50
10/24/23 10:53:52 4.71 0.00 0.00 73
10/24/23 10:53:37 4.71 0.00 0.00 73
10/24/23 10:53:22 4.72 0.00 0.00 73
10/24/23 10:53:07 4.72 0.00 0.00 73
10/24/23 10:52:52 4.73 0.00 0.00 25
10/24/23 10:52:37 4.73 0.00 0.00 25
10/24/23 10:52:22 4.73 0.00 0.00 25
10/24/23 10:52:07 4.73 0.00 0.00 25
10/24/23 10:51:52 4.73 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:51:37 4.73 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:51:22 4.75 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:51:07 4.745 0.00 0.00 75
10/24/23 10:50:20 4.77 4.77 4.78 1,000
10/24/23 10:49:41 4.77 4.77 4.78 100
10/24/23 10:48:03 4.78 4.77 4.78 1
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/end-naked-short-selling-230100677.html
Is This The End Of Naked Short Selling?
Editor OilPrice.com
Tue, October 17, 2023 at 1:01 AM GMT+2·29 min read
American investors have been taken for a trillion-dollar ride by naked short sellers, in what could turn out to be the biggest financial regulatory scandal in North American history.
While what is now an all-out war on naked short sellers intensifies, there is a new flashpoint on the front line–a potentially devastating ruling targeting those who are alleged to make illegal naked short selling possible: The Facilitators: bankers and brokers.
On September 29, Federal District Court Judge Lorna Schofield of the Southern District of New York issued a ruling that has the potential to significantly disrupt Wall Street compliance, and is a major first step towards protecting retail investors from fraud.
In Harrington Global Opportunity Fund Ltd. v. CIBC World Markets, Inc et.al, Judge Schofield found that broker-dealers may be primarily liable for manipulative trading initiated by their customers because they serve as “gate-keepers” of trading on securities exchanges.
These broker-dealers have a “continuing responsibility to ensure that their customer’s order flow ... is in compliance with all applicable rules, regulations and laws and detect and prevent manipulative or fraudulent trading … under the supervision and control of the firm,” the judge ruled.
The defendants in the case had motioned to dismiss Harrington’s claims of market manipulation and spoofing (when traders place market orders and then cancel them before the order is ever fulfilled, manipulating prices in the meantime). Judge Schofield denied the motion after hearing arguments that broker-dealers are not responsible for “their customers’ trading”.
Instead, the ruling recognizes that not only are broker-dealers the gate-keepers who can enable illegal naked short selling, but they are responsible, and thus liable for their customers’ actions. Schofield described broker-dealers as “reckless in not knowing that the trades being executed at their customers’ direction were manipulative”.
Naked Short Selling: ‘Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction’
Naked shorting creates a dangerous minefield for retail investors. But it’s a minefield that dealer-brokers may now be held liable for thanks to the recent ruling.
Short-selling itself isn’t illegal. In order to legally sell a stock short, traders must first secure a borrow against the shares they intend to sell. Where the September 29 ruling comes into play is at the point of the broker-dealer. Any broker who enters into a stock short on behalf of a trader must have assurances that his client will make a settlement.
As opposed to a “long” sale (where the seller owns the stock), a “short” sale can be either “covered” or “naked”.
If it’s covered, then there is no issue: the short seller has already borrowed or arranged to borrow the shares when the short sale is made.
When things get naked, the regulatory environment becomes riddled with compliance holes. With a naked short, the short seller is selling shares it doesn’t own and has made no arrangements to buy. That means the seller cannot cover or “settle” in this instance. More profoundly, it means they are selling ghost shares that simply do not exist without their further action. The ability to sell an unlimited number of non-existent shares in a publicly-traded company gives a short seller the ultimate power: To destroy and manipulate a company’s share price at will.
This illicit practice artificially dilutes share prices and then companies find themselves in a position where they have to scramble for capital, Bryan Barkley points out in in-depth research published by the Medium.
That scramble then leads to shareholder dilution in more capital raises, in the best cases, and bankruptcy, in the worst cases. If things get to bankruptcy, Barkley writes, then short sellers win big because they no longer need to close out their short positions.
Following the 2008/2009 financial crisis, naked short selling was classified as illegal in the United States, though that labeling has done nothing to thwart this lucrative game.
What makes the September ruling so impactful is this: Without the big banks and financial institutions’ complicity, this highly destructive form of naked short selling could never happen. Instead, they actively facilitate the destruction of shareholder value.
The reason some big banks allow it, despite their sizable compliance departments, appears quite simple: These illegal transactions are highly lucrative. The short-term windfall profits associated with the creation of counterfeit shares are too tempting to resist.
“[...] brokers will place a marker or pledge to deliver the shares on the investors’ accounts, which are made by the seller’s clearing firm”, Barkley explains. “Abusive and unchecked naked shorting can lead to a loss of shareholder rights, including disenfranchisement by overvoting and the resulting throwing out of votes by brokers to conceal the breadth of the naked shorting problem, which could also lead to fraudulent vote results orchestrated by broker-dealers instead of shareholders.”
It often goes well beyond “ghost” shares, too. The most nefarious of short sellers target companies with negative reports–sometimes with legitimate information, and sometimes with falsehoods or half-truths–to drive down share prices with maximum impact, thus ensuring that the companies lose their ability to obtain financing. Once that process is completed, naked shorters then begin to offer those same companies alternative financing (predatory debt), which they have no option but to accept.
When broker-dealers are complicit in this, the system is broken. And complicity takes many forms, including willful booking of client shares as “long” when they are actually “short”.
Gaps in the regulatory environment have continued to fail to subdue these illegal activities.
etc etc
The Hasbarada project....
Never heard of it before now, but it rings true...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_of_Israel
Zeihan - The End of Germany as a Modern Economy || Peter Zeihan
This is the model for California and Germany. They drank the green cool aid.
Starve the people so the corporations can bank more cash...
https://www.c40.org/
An egregious scam:
Now they're really bringing out the high level MKUltra psyop tactics with the murder of babies in the Israel and Gaza conflict to really get people behind the war machine. Where have we seen this before?
— Inversionism (@Inversionism) October 10, 2023
OH RIGHT. Nayirah. She was a 15 year old Kuwaiti girl who testified to… pic.twitter.com/yd5J1BbjZA
2010 - When False Flags Don't Fly...
https://www.corbettreport.com/articles/20100419_false_flags.htm
1000 peer reviewed articles on “Vaccine” injuries
https://drtrozzi.org/2023/09/28/1000-peer-reviewed-articles-on-vaccine-injuries/
Video of the Rep. Massie's comments to congress:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/xxWAci8rva41/
Tweet Text
@WallStreetApes - Wall Street Apes
HORRIFYING Our Food Is About To Be Poisoned With NEW “Transgenic Edible Vaccines”
They’re Being Funded Right Now BY TAXPAYERS, mRNA Food Vaccine FACTORIES
“The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment, which states that none of the funds made available by this act may be used to fund any grant related to any transgenic edible vaccine. Does the term transgenic edible vaccine sound far-fetched? Well, it's not. We're funding it.
In fact, scientists from the University of California, Riverside, funded with your taxpayer dollars, have been studying whether they can turn edible plants such as lettuce and spinach into mRNA vaccine factories, thereby creating a transgenic edible vaccine. One associate professor at UCR explained that, ideally a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person. We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens. Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it. I don't think this is a good idea.
I don't think the American people should be funding this. And I think, and I would hope, that we've learned something from the COVID experience with SARS-CoV-2, that some of our science projects aren't the best ideas. And with that, I reserve. Gentlemen from Kentucky is recognized. My colleague on the other side of the aisle talks about keeping prices low. I think there's more to it than that for the American people.
He also speaks as if these vaccines, these transgenic edible plant vaccines, are only used for livestock. Well, in fact, they have been used for livestock. I'll get to that in a second. But they're also being used for people. That is the intended outcome of many of these programs that we are funding, funding with money from the USDA. What could possibly go wrong with this research? Well, we found out a few years ago when a biotech company was experimenting growing in corn a vaccine to keep pigs from getting diarrhea. What happened? Well, the next year where the corn was grown, the prior year the corn came up, and it got co-mingled with soybeans that were being grown there. It contaminated 500 bushels of soybeans, which were then co-mingled with 500,000 bushels of soybeans. And those all had to be recalled and destroyed. Luckily, they caught it.
Do we want humans eating vaccines that were grown in corn meant to stop pigs from getting diarrhea? I don't think we want that to happen. Yet that almost happened, and it could happen. There's another case where the pollen cross-contaminated another crop of corn, and 155 acres of corn had to be burned. What are the cases where we're not discovering this? I think it's dangerous to play God with our food.
I think we need a safe food supply. And this is about food safety. Ultimately, the people in this country need to know what's in their food. And if we start contaminating the DNA of our food with DNA from other animals or viruses, the pollen could spread, and we don't know what could happen. And I would hope we've learned a lesson from the Wuhan lab that sometimes things escape sometimes things don't go as you plan and so that's why i think it's a bad idea to fund transgenic edible plant vaccine research from the u.s. day i urge adoption of my amendment and i yield back the balance of my time the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from kentucky those in favor say aye those opposed say no in the opinion of the chair the ayes have it the amendment is agreed to”
Interesting observations on the origins of Pinocchio...
https://www.historydefined.net/original-pinocchio/
Edward Snowden update:
https://social.benzinga.com/s/edward-snowden-moon-landings/?as=6dap
"Michigan still dealing with fallout from Flint water crisis 9 years later; Plus new water worries"
How is this possible?
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/michigan-still-dealing-with-fallout-from-flint-water-crisis-9-years-later/
Swiss Cardiologist forcibly hospitalized for speaking up against mRNA vax:
Swiss cardiologist Dr. Thomas Binder says he was forcibly hospitalized – and required to take psychiatric medications – for speaking out against pandemic panic and the narrative surrounding COVID-19. He joins Ask Dr. Drew to discuss the weaponization of psychology and how truth is suppressed by force in the age of Covid. ••
Dr. Thomas Binder: The entire modified RNA platform must be banned immediately
BY RHODA WILSON ON JUNE 12, 2023 • ( 18 COMMENTS )
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Thomas Binder, a Swiss medical doctor, warned in a video he tweeted yesterday that the pharmaceutical industry is currently working on transferring all vaccinations onto using the mRNA platform. “Even having a trace of intelligence, is enough to realise that the modified RNA vaccine platform is totally nonsensical and life-threatening,” he said. “The entire modified RNA platform must be banned immediately.”
Dr. Binder studied medicine at the University of Zurich, obtained a doctorate in immunology and virology, specialised in internal medicine and cardiology and has 35 years of experience in the diagnosis and therapy of acute respiratory infections, in hospitals, intensive care units and his medical practice.
Along with others, Dr. Binder has been speaking out about the unscientific, unlawful, inhumane covid narrative and measures since February 2020. “For doing this, we were censored, labelled or, like me at Easter 2020, even brutally arrested by a counter-terrorist unit in my doctor’s office and shipped off to the looney bin because of alleged ‘self endangerment in covid insanity’,” he said. “Today we are totally vindicated.”
“The corona narrative and the modRNA vaccination platform are such obvious utter unscientific nonsense and deadly that every doctor who hadn’t instantly informed the populace is a total dead loss who shouldn’t have passed the exam, sorry to say,” he tweeted yesterday and attached the video below. It is his message to the public:
“Others and myself who had a minimal basic medical and immunological knowledge, had read the pivotal studies, and have some common sense and spine had already explained the futility, ineffectiveness and insecurity of the modified RNA injections before their criminal emergency approval.
“Today, we know that they are even negative effectiveness, promote illness and death from covid, and have already killed over 10 million people through side effects, prevented millions of fertilisations and induced millions of stillbirths – in the absence of evidence that they save even one single human life.
“While there has never been a pandemic of a killer virus, there was a pandemic of cowards … This modified RNA genocide is the greatest medical crime in human history, a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented proportions.”
The WHO is trying to convert all vaccines to Mrna....
https://www.facebook.com/groups/807204453048822/user/100089617609646/?__cft__[0]=AZU8am7tAS1QrPlGutc81rEdrx6fcfIpUofI0QtkNHHXKMG5qoMKjTLxZ_cdrHqLuehH5qaoiRyREAySkvRxC3-OClAkDTuTvkO73ueaYKobdoq7CM-QMCxMcnq728uWUlaL7HoK2ZvzWhsyU_FbuKkXPID8nBDnletSBkRcdfAYWc2cUPvASFRz-uv4gkFWcaBPQVmEEMcikVC7xPHsDL6V&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R
We've been had... The Ukraine mess is a deliberate attempt to bankrupt our government.
A List of American Taxpayer Funds sent to Ukraine since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict:
— Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) September 7, 2023
2/20/2023 $500 Million
2/23/2023 $10 Billion
2/24/2023 $2 Billion
3/3/2023 $400 Million
3/20/2023 $350 Million
4/04/2023 $2.6 Billion
4/19/2023 $325 Million
5/08/2023 $1.2…
The House Judiciary Committee Thursday subpoenaed Citibank over allegedly providing the FBI with private customer data in the wake of January 6th.
Documents obtained by the committee show that a Citibank representative was included in an email from the FBI on January 29, 2021 requesting “information sharing, both strategic and operational, related to the Capitol Riots.” Citibank employees also attended a Zoom call with the FBI ostensibly following that email.
Also included in the email was JPMorgan Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo, HSBC, PayPal, Barclays and Bank of America.
Bank of America was revealed to have shared private customer data with the FBI following January 6th without being prompted by the bureau. The bank provided the FBI with data on its customers who made transactions in Washington, DC during those 24 hours. Customers who had previously purchased firearms were moved to the top of the list provided by Bank of America.
“These documents suggest that the executive branch was brainstorming informal methods— outside of legal process—for obtaining private customer information from financial institutions,” wrote House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in a letter to Citibank executives. “Federal law enforcement’s use of back-channel discussions with financial institutions as a method to investigate and obtain private financial data of Americans is alarming,”
Jordan noted that Citibank had refused to comply with earlier requests from the committee for documentation and said that it would only provide the requested documents under subpoena.
The subpoena comes as concern grows over the unchecked power wielded by banks over customers with certain political views.
In May 2022 Chase Bank abruptly closed the account belonging to the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF), a nonprofit aimed at safeguarding freedom for all religions. No transactions had raised any red flags. NCRF made some calls and discovered the decision had come from the “corporate office” and that a note in their file forbade staff from providing any clarity as to why their account was closed.
Chase eventually told NCRF that it would restore the organization’s account, but only if it divulged its donors, the political candidates it planned to support, and other unnecessary information.
In 2021 a Chase-owned credit card processor notified the pro-life organization Family Council that “we can no longer support your business” because it was considered “High Risk”. But the nonprofit met none of the qualifications for the High Risk category.
Military AI’s Next Frontier: Your Work Computer
Spycraft developed by defense contractors are now being sold to employers to identify labor organizing. Regulators must step up to protect workers’ privacy.
Gabriel Grill and Christian Sandvig
Wired
June 22, 2023
IT’S PROBABLY HARD to imagine that you are the target of spycraft, but spying on employees is the next frontier of military AI. Surveillance techniques familiar to authoritarian dictatorships have now been repurposed to target American workers.
Over the past decade, a few dozen companies have emerged to sell your employer subscriptions for services like “open source intelligence,” “reputation management,” and “insider threat assessment”—tools often originally developed by defense contractors for intelligence uses. As deep learning and new data sources have become available over the past few years, these tools have become dramatically more sophisticated. With them, your boss may be able to use advanced data analytics to identify labor organizing, internal leakers, and the company’s critics.
It’s no secret that unionization is already monitored by big companies like Amazon. But the expansion and normalization of tools to track workers has attracted little comment, despite their ominous origins. If they are as powerful as they claim to be—or even heading in that direction—we need a public conversation about the wisdom of transferring these informational munitions into private hands. Military-grade AI was intended to target our national enemies, nominally under the control of elected democratic governments, with safeguards in place to prevent its use against citizens. We should all be concerned by the idea that the same systems can now be widely deployable by anyone able to pay.
FiveCast, for example, began as an anti-terrorism startup selling to the military, but it has turned its tools over to corporations and law enforcement, which can use them to collect and analyze all kinds of publicly available data, including your social media posts. Rather than just counting keywords, FiveCast brags that its “ commercial security” and other offerings can identify networks of people, read text inside images, and even detect objects, images, logos, emotions, and concepts inside multimedia content. Its “supply chain risk management” tool aims to forecast future disruptions, like strikes, for corporations.
Network analysis tools developed to identify terrorist cells can thus be used to identify key labor organizers so employers can illegally fire them before a union is formed. The standard use of these tools during recruitment may prompt employers to avoid hiring such organizers in the first place. And quantitative risk assessment strategies conceived to warn the nation against impending attacks can now inform investment decisions, like whether to divest from areas and suppliers who are estimated to have a high capacity for labor organizing.
It isn’t clear that these tools can live up to their hype. For example, network analysis methods assign risk by association, which means that you could be flagged simply for following a particular page or account. These systems can also be tricked by fake content, which is easily produced at scale with new generative AI. And some companies offer sophisticated machine learning techniques, like deep learning, to identify content that appears angry, which is assumed to signal complaints that could result in unionization, though emotion detection has been shown to be biased and based on faulty assumptions.
But these systems’ capabilities are growing rapidly. Companies are advertising that they will soon include next-generation AI technologies in their surveillance tools. New features promise to make exploring varied data sources easier through prompting, but the ultimate goal appears to be a routinized, semi-automatic, union-busting surveillance system.
What’s more, these subscription services work even if they don’t work. It may not matter if an employee tarred as a troublemaker is truly disgruntled; executives and corporate security could still act on the accusation and unfairly retaliate against them. Vague aggregate judgements of a workforce’s “emotions” or a company’s public image are presently impossible to verify as accurate. And the mere presence of these systems likely has chilling effect on legally protected behaviors, including labor organizing.
The corporations purveying these services are thriving in a context of obscurity and regulatory neglect. Defenses of workplace surveillance are made of the thinnest tissue. Industry apologists proclaim that their software, sold to help employers “ understand the labor union environment,” isn’t anti-union. Instead, they brand themselves as selling “corporate awareness monitoring” and prominently mention that “ every American is protected by federal, state, and local laws to work in safe conditions.” It’s apparently not the manufacturer’s fault if a buyer uses this software to infringe on a legally protected right to organize or protest.
Surveillance firms also deflect criticism by claiming that they only use publicly available information, like social media data and news articles. Even when this is true, their argument ignores the consequences of using everyday military-grade surveillance against the citizens of a free society. The same tools that track the movements of Russian tanks in Ukraine should not be given to your supervisor to track you. Intelligence software providers seem to hope that the practice of letting bosses look deeply into the lives of their workers will become so standard that employers will get to do so continuously, as a proactive measure. As capabilities have improved and the costs of gathering and analyzing data have plummeted, we are now facing a future in which any middle manager can mobilize the resources of their own CIA.
This kind of surveillance industry is fundamentally incompatible with a democracy. Companies that deploy such tools must be forced to disclose this use publicly so that existing laws can be enforced. And new regulations are urgently needed. Last year, the National Labor Relations Board announced that it would seek to outlaw “intrusive” and “abusive” labor surveillance, an important step. In addition, workers and unions should be testifying in legislative hearings about the future regulation of AI and workplace surveillance. We need specific rules that state which uses of AI, data sources, and methods are permissible
These technologies are already being sold and deployed across the globe and used for cross-border surveillance. In the best case, an active regulator needs to become a global leader in responsible AI and work to establish international standards for workplace technologies. Without doing this work, multinational companies with global supply chains will find it easy to flout or finesse country-specific protections.
Ultimately, our society may conclude that regulation is not enough: It’s the existence of this market that should be illegal. We may declare that there should be no place where anyone can buy an AI’s profile of your associations, intentions, emotions, and thoughts. Your life outside of work should be protected from your employer by default.
---------------------------
Gabriel Grill is a researcher at the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing at the University of Michigan.
Christian Sandvig is Director of the Center for Ethics, Society and Computing and the McLuhan Collegiate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan.
Can I get a F yea!
Biden administration plan to unfreeze Iran funds draws Republican fire. Sending the worlds biggest sponsor of terrorism $6 Billion.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-administration-plan-to-unfreeze-iran-funds-draws-republican-fire/ar-AA1fo6Gj
Is "Climate Change" the greatest con in history?
https://www.facebook.com/malcolmrobertsonenation/videos/1456433545139979
see also:
The Federal Reserve, stealing from you since 1913: (updated 5.5.23)
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171851332&txt2find=utopia%20capital
More food for thought - Noam Chomsky posts
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171673412&txt2find=utopia%20capital'';
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=57640598
Video from above - FASCISM in the U.S. is real...
People are waking up, the truth is coming out...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172394080
Foreign Policy Genius Joe Biden Openly Proclaims 'We've Run out of Ammunition,' and That Seems Like a Problem.
Biden tells the whole world we are running out of ammunition. Idiot!
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/07/09/foreign-policy-genius-joe-biden-openly-proclaims-weve-run-out-of-ammunition-and-that-seems-like-a-problem-n773688
It is clear to me that their is an effort to lower global population.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/15/kamala-harris-says-us-must-reduce-population-to-fight-climate-change-in-latest-gaffe/