#Legislation

[prokopetz]

It's generally true that institutions don't make rules prohibiting things that nobody is doing (i.e., the existence of the prohibition demonstrates the existence of whatever it's prohibiting), but then I think about the moral panic back in the 1980s where people genuinely thought that shitty movies about white dudes dressing up in ninja costumes were teaching children to be ninja assassins, and passed a bunch of laws banning "ninja weapons" for which their only source of knowledge were those selfsame movies, with the result that, to this day, many jurisdictions have laws on the books prohibiting weapons which do not exist, and I reflect that every principle has exceptions.

#media #movies #moral panics #ninjas #legislation #swearing

[dduane]

Sorry, the original EuroNews link seems to have gone away. Here's a CNN one instead.

...The EU AI Act outlaws social scoring systems powered by AI and any biometric-based tools used to guess a person’s race, political leanings or sexual orientation. It bans the use of AI to interpret the emotions of people in schools and workplaces, as well as some types of automated profiling intended to predict a person’s likelihood of committing future crimes. Meanwhile, the law outlines a separate category of “high-risk” uses of AI, particularly for education, hiring and access to government services, and imposes a separate set of transparency and other obligations on them. Companies such as OpenAI that produce powerful, complex and widely used AI models will also be subject to new disclosure requirements under the law. It also requires all AI-generated deepfakes to be clearly labeled, targeting concerns about manipulated media that could lead to disinformation and election meddling.

#AI #legislation #EU

[charliejaneanders]

Seriously, call your Senators now. This needs to be stopped before it goes any further. They want to drive LGBTQIA+ off the internet entirely, and Democrats are going along with this.

#politics #lgbtqia #internet #legislation #surveillance

[lordbeelz]

It's crazy how kosa will affect the entire internet and yet there's barely enough of anyone speaking out about this. If you can raise awareness and spread the word, you should do it to the best of your ability. When the internet is a means of communication for so many people, it's unfair not to take action. I've seen people who thought it was dead just because we stopped talking about it! Don't just reblog posts or whatever, tell those in your actual personal life. Contact your senators and make your opposition known. I know they bring this back every year, and it's tiring, but don't give up now. We need to try all we can to prevent this from passing.

#stop kosa #kosa #bad internet bills #anti censorship #internet privacy #signal boost #important #call to action #legislation

[timeclonemike]

Recent Developments Regarding KOSA (February Edition)

Some folks may have been following the recent congressional hearings on internet content and content handling, which involved big names in the industry. Given both the topic and the timing, it comes as no surprise that some of those involved in it have been trying to push the Kids Online Safety Act both in terms of congressional and public support. It's gone through some superficial changes but the heart of the legislation that makes it a threat to free speech on the internet is the same.

Quick reminder that if it does pass into law, it will allow various states to:

Block access to / sue the providers of any information on abortion resources

Block access to / sue the providers of any information on gender affirming care and transition resources

Censor any talk of what is happening in Palestine / Sudan / other regions threatened by genocide, as well as any protests against such treatment

Monitor and surveil internet use in general, both in terms of what people say and in what they search for

Allow state attorneys general the power to arbitrarily criminalize content with no appeals process

Allow conservative states to get a head start in pushing their Project 2025 agendas

The good news is that this legislation has been pushed back over and over again throughout the whole of 2023, and 2024 is an election year with a LOT of seats up in the air, meaning that the danger of losing voter support carries much more weight than it normally does. In other words, we pushed this back before and we can do it again. You can find the contact information for the senators from your state at the official Senate website, and given the timing of the hearings any such calls / messages / letters should have a somewhat greater impact than they otherwise might.

Remember to be polite and respectful, and to phrase your concerns in such a way that it aligns with the politics of the senator you are calling; conservatives WANT to restrict access to stuff like abortion services and HRT, so you have to scare them with something else, like gun control. Be sure to do your research on who and what has bought your senator and tailor your complaints accordingly for maximum impact. For most democratic senators, the abortion rights issue might be enough on its own, since they've been watching the GOP step on that rake every election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and they want that to work for them, not against them.

#KOSA #Bad Internet Bills #Censorship #Legislation #call your senators

[reality-detective]

And there it is...

US Senator Dick Durbin, suggests recruiting illegal immigrants—with zero allegiance or affinity to the host nation, or its citizens—into the military, in exchange for citizenship.

What could possibly go wrong?! 🤔

#pay attention #educate yourselves #educate yourself #knowledge is power #reeducate yourself #reeducate yourselves #think about it #think for yourselves #think for yourself #do your homework #do some research #do your own research #ask yourself questions #question everything #legislation #military #government corruption #treason #you decide #news #national news

[enigma2meagain]

RESTRICT Act: The TikTok Ban is a Smokescreen for PATRIOT ACT 2.0. EDIT: KOSA and EARN IT Act are also back.

EDIT: So now we not only have RESTRICT to worry about, but we also have the EARN IT Act and the Kids Online Safety Act to deal with.

See here for my previous post on it. Fuck Blumenthal and Blackburn for trying to bring back two pro-censorship bills on top of the RESTRICT Act.

And Evan provides some insight on it.

EDIT: SO it turns out that Meta IS partly behind this, but it’s also due to Silicon Valley AND the government wanting more power and control. More information in the links provided below.

EDIT: List of Sponsors has been removed for easier reading. You can still find the list in the Link to the bill itself.

EDIT: Meta-related information apparently incorrect. Updated for accuracy.

----

Here is a link to the bill:

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This RESTRICT Act is EXTREMELY authoritarian and violating privacy and the 1st Amendment. It’s being disguised as being about banning TikTok, but it’s VASTLY overreaching and basically gives far too much power to the government.

How bad is this bill? Bad enough that pretty much every side of the political spectrum opposes this bill once they took a closer look at it beyond the TikTok smokescreen.

The following points were articulated succinctly by tumblr user @logan-galbraith (used with permission):

This act, while saying it's to insure American's personal information will be safe from foreign powers, it goes much deeper than that.

It will give the United States Government the power to remove and ban ANY online service they deem "a security risk" while making it so they do not need just cause and do not need to clarify or release a public statement.

It allows them the power to gather American's data without our knowledge or consent and even force us to submit documentation for anything they wish.

It protects the government from scrutiny on this, and if you try to speak about it and inform people on what it ACTUALLY allows, they can claim it to be false information and charge you.

It prevents you from using a VPN as it's seen as a breach of information security, thus they can charge you. (Uncertain on accuracy. Crossed out until more concrete information is revealed)

Failure to abide by these "guidelines" can lead to a fine up to ONE MILLION DOLLARS and/or 20 YEARS in prison.

And above all it does NOTHING to prevent AMERICAN companies from collecting and selling your data.

It doesn't matter what political party you're on, because BOTH parties in office want this. This is not about sides. This is about the ENTIRE government stripping our rights away so they can keep lining their own pockets.

And that’s what the TikTok ban really is; a smokescreen for Congress to grab more power. This is the PATRIOT ACT VERSION 2. This has BIPARTISAN support and approval from the Biden Administration.

The scary part is that this bill is being approved under THIS administration...and it’s STILL incredibly bad.

What would end up happening if an openly fascist leader were brought into power? All of sudden, ANYONE and ANYTHING could become a target or considered an adversary under the flimsiest of pretenses.

What should YOU do?

Well, the same thing as past horribly invasive bills like EARN IT and KOSA; we make a LOT of noise, and get the word out.

While there has been increasing amounts of negative press and opposition on this bill, it’s hard to tell how much this has really slowed thing down. As such, getting the word out on how bad this bill is CRUCIAL. Make it EXTREMELY CLEAR that the TikTok ban is just a smokescreen, and that this is nakedly authoritarian and dangerously unconstitutional.

And PLEASE call your Senators.

Find your 2 senators numbers here.

Fax them, email them.

Tell them they MUST oppose this bill. Calmly make it clear to them that if they support this bill, then you will vote for someone else who doesn’t go along with this blatant act of authoritarian intent. CONTACT any major human rights and cybersecurity related organizations and let them know about this bill. Get this out to any local news groups that you can.

There’s some petitions by groups like ACLU: https://go.peoplepower.org/letter/tiktok-ban

They are betting on people being blissfully ignorant of this, that it’s “Just about a Silly App”, so they will not expect you to contact them about this. They are trying to weasel this through in order to give themselves more power, and we won’t be able to do anything about it without the risk of being jailed or censored.

Here’s a part of a rough script if you need one. Add in more based on what is relevant:

"Just to make you aware I do not support the TikTok ban and I do not support the Restrict Act. If this bill is passed I will not support any official who supports that bill. Instead, I will be spending all my time and energy supporting your opponents in the primaries."

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A list of links/citations:

Truthout Article 4/02/2023: Restrict Act Critics Call the Far-Reaching “TikTok Ban” Bill a “Patriot Act 2.0”

Dailydot Article 3/10/2023: “The RESTRICT Act isn’t about banning TikTok—it’s designed to force a sale”

Lawfareblog.com 3/23/2023: “Two New Bills on TikTok and Beyond: The DATA Act and RESTRICT Act”

Reuters Article 3/28/2023: “If TikTok is banned, brace for epic First Amendment fight”

VICE Article 3/29/2023: The 'Insanely Broad' RESTRICT Act Could Ban Much More Than Just TikTok

Reason Article 3/31/2023: The RESTRICT Act Would Restrict a Lot More Than TikTok

ArsTechnica Article 3/31/2023: Meta can’t buy TikTok, so it hired GOP operatives to run a smear campaign

https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1642721929013362688?s=46&t=9ilK5pqP73XDblTtTbb4Qg

https://twitter.com/Imani_Barbarin/status/1640527908790837250?t=nTf7qCAcXB1s1RE-fb2Cwg&s=19

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#STOPRESTRICTACT #tiktok ban #RESTRICT ACT #Fuck the RESTRICT Act #internet censorship #free speech #stop internet censorship #Mass surveillance #internet privacy #everyone for this bill wants to be even richer #legislation #politics

[starry-genome]

If you have ever wondered why health insurance in the US is so messed up, I highly recommend checking out Dr. Glaucomflecken’s 30 days of Healthcare series. Click here for the YouTube playlist or click here for the TikTok playlist.

Each video is about 1-3 minutes and goes through different aspects of the healthcare industry explaining how it works and especially how corrupt it is.

I spent 5 years working hospital finance watching the way health insurance directly affected my patients, and oftentimes seeing the ways lack of access to affordable healthcare resulted in chronic and emergent conditions, and even death. I cannot stress enough that I literally saw people die because their insurance denied them treatment. And on the billing side, the things people would complain about to me as something the doctors or hospital were doing wrong were usually a direct result of the way health insurance runs everything. It’s disgusting.

At the end of the series, he has a call to action - ways we (as regular people) can help work to improve healthcare (other than pushing for universal healthcare/Medicare for all). A lot of people talk about how ridiculous US Healthcare is but rarely do I see anyone talking about what we can do to change it. I think this is the most important video of all, so I’m including it here.

This video series is probably the most comprehensive, easiest to understand breakdown of the way healthcare fucks everyone over - patients, doctors, and hospitals alike. Please check it out!

#healthcare #health insurance #medical insurance #us health insurance #us health system #us healthcare #american healthcare #unitedhealthcare #anthem #Cigna #blue cross blue shield #aetna #optum health #medicare #medicaid #doctors #hospitals #medical corruption #healthcare corruption #legislation #healthcare reform #health #prior authorization #health and wellness #healthcare industry #private healthcare #private insurance #what else can I tag this as #signal boost #starrygenome.txt

[transformationsproject]

A snapshot of the Anti-Trans campaign in state bills as of last month.

As you can see the biggest focuses this year have been in school and censorship bills. Note that some bills can be in multiple categories and that these short descriptions are just introductions. Many bills are highly unique in the ways they remove our civil rights.

You can fight back by organizing and hassling your local representatives.

#trans rights #transgender #trans formations project #protect trans kids #lgbtq #trans #lgbt #legislation

[phoenixyfriend]

Positive news for the optimistic!

I first heard about this on the BBC Global News Podcast (starts at around 14:40 for me, but that may vary based on the ads they give you), but I found an article from The Guardian as well, if you work best with a text format. Preview:

The G20 group of the world’s most powerful countries is exploring plans for a global minimum tax on the world’s 3,000 billionaires, aiming to end a “race to the bottom” that has enabled the super-rich to pay less than the rest of the population.

#economics #international policy #international economics #global economics #taxation #policy #legislation #phoenix politics #politics #current events #g20 #g20 summit #the guardian #bbc #bbc global news podcast

[annailujjay]

If you’re not following my insta ( annailujj_ ) here are some snippets from my story today Friday January 19th 2024, there’s much more on there if you wish to read further. - xoxo Annailujj

#world news #world politics #american news #american politics #yemen #gaza #palestine #political activist #legislation #lgbtqia #lgbtq news #social justice #justice system #florida #blm #new musician #new singer #new artist #annailujj #tags for attention #taylor swift #kpop #beyonce #disney

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

You might have heard that the Big Cat Public Safety Act was passed by Congress last week, and is on its way to be signed into law by the President. While I so not oppose with the main goals of the act (ending private ownership of big cats and public contact with them), I have had serious concerns about the impact of other aspects of it for a long time.

For years, I’ve been pointing out that vague language regarding exemptions in the bill could really negatively impact credible zoos and sanctuaries. The bill authors/sponsors clearly didn’t intend the bill to have that result, but because they weren’t more exact with their wording, the full impacts of the law won’t be clear until it’s fully implemented by the Department of the Interior. Since a different federal department oversees zoo and sanctuary regulation, it doesn’t make sense to assume that the Department of the Interior will automatically interpret the new law in a way that aligns with how the industry currently functions.

In the best case scenario, there’s nothing to worry about. In a worst case scenario, though, credible zoos and sanctuaries might find their operations, exhibit construction, and animal programs detrimentally impacted. If there’s any possibility of the latter occurring, there has to be attention on the process to try to ensure it doesn’t come to pass.

This article is my overview of some of the biggest possible problems that could come from a bad implementation of the Big Cat Public Safety act. It’s short (for me), sweet, and simple. Just because the law has been passed doesn’t mean the work has ended - now it just involves holding the federal government accountable for implementing the bill in a way that doesn’t cause harm to credible facilities and programs.

#big cats #big cat public safety act #federal legislation #legislation #substack is where I’ve started putting my more industry and business ops writing so I don’t spam y’all with it

[allthecanadianpolitics]

In what party leader Jagmeet Singh describes as an effort to pressure the Liberal government on the file, the NDP has tabled legislation to establish a universal single-payer pharmacare system in Canada. "This is a first step towards universal medication coverage for all," Singh told a news conference. "We believe no one should have to choose between buying their medication or buying their groceries, and this bill will move us towards that." The creation of a national universal pharmacare program by the end of the year is a condition of the House of Commons supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and the NDP. NDP health critic Don Davies sponsored the private member's bill, titled the Canada Pharmacare Act. The legislation has little chance of passing through Parliament without the support of the Liberal government, but Singh encouraged the Liberals to turn it into a government bill.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #Pharmacare #NDP #Jagmeet Singh #healthcare #legislation #federal

[worldbuildingwanderlust]

People over profit

Benevolence over business

Generosity over greed

#my writing #poetry #poem #creative writing #anti capitalism #anti imperialism #anti work #anti facist #economy #government #legislation #spilled ink #poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #writers and poets #quick write

[ancientorigins]

Tudor England's Vagrancy Act of 1547 brought to bear a harsh reality for the unemployed, with drastic measures taken during King Edward VI's reign to combat unemployment. Punishments included branding and enslaving the jobless, and the fate of vagabond children was the worst part.

#poverty #Tudor #Edward VI #slavery #legislation #ancient #history #ancient origins

[losech]

Did you know that the best way to have a beautiful lush lawn isn't to drench it in synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides? It's rotational grazing.

That's right, livestock.

The impact animals have on grass is tremendous. They crop it short, trample it into the ground, and shit on it. All of which, when not done excessively, is exactly what the grass needs. Grazing stimulates new growth. Stomping and scratching "till" plant matter into the soil without disrupting it. Manure adds essential nutrients back to the ground.

A key to this process is the word rotational. Keeping the animals in one spot and never moving them will eventually result in no plant matter, and if you don't add enough bedding or remove manure on time, an unpleasant smell. You need to put the animals into a pen or "tractor" and move them every day or every few days, allowing them to graze and forage without eating and digging everything up. Each patch of grass needs a rest period where no animals are present for a while so the grass can regrow and the manure break down into the soil. This is a well documented, low impact, and highly successful process that many small (and some large) farms and backyard livestock enthusiasts employ.

You cannot accurately replicate this process with mechanical and synthetic means. You create a sterile polluting environment devoid of important microbes, insects, topsoil, and plant diversity. It needs constant attention because it's not a thriving symbiotic ecosystem.

A huge benefit to small scale livestock such as chickens and rabbits is they can give you that beautiful grass with very little cost. Chickens can eat leftovers, taking care of an important source of food waste. They also eat bugs and greatly reduce the umber of pest species without killing all the beneficial pollinators as well. Chickens provide eggs and meat in return. Rabbits love plants like clover and dandelions, put them in areas with weeds and they will take care of them for you. A few rabbits can provide several pounds of highly nutritious meat.

You can put a pen of chickens or rabbits in one spot for a while, continuously adding new hay and straw (this is important) until it's built up a bit, then remove the animals and let it compost. Put your garden there the next year. Or, if you have a set spot the animals live, collect their manure and bedding, compost it, and add it to your garden. Composted animal waste and bedding is a wonderful addition to gardens that synthetics can't come close to.

These small animals solve two issues at once: that perfect green lawn and food insecurity.

But often, keeping small livestock, especially within city limits and in HOAs, is illegal. With the current climate surrounding inflation, supply chain issues, and increasingly erratic weather, having a stable food supply not only close to but at home is becoming more and more important.

But people aren't allowed to feed themselves, due to legislation telling them what they can and cannot do on *their* property.

It's absolutely ridiculous and needs to change.

#food #food security #farming #chickens #rabbits #livestock #gardening #HOAs suck #legislation #mind your own fucking business #i hate lawns