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U.S. Immigration Agency Operates Vast Surveillance Dragnet, Study Finds

The Guardian reported:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has built a vast digital surveillance system that gives it access to the personal details of almost every person in America, a two-year investigation by Georgetown University law center has found.

Researchers from the Center on Privacy & Technology on Tuesday released one of the most comprehensive reviews of ICE activities, concluding that the federal organization has strayed well beyond its duties as an immigration body to become what is in effect a domestic surveillance agency.

Operating largely in secret and with minimal public oversight, ICE has amassed a formidable armory of digital capabilities that allows its agents to “pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time.”

The Georgetown researchers base their report, American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century, on hundreds of freedom of information requests and a review of more than 100,000 previously unseen ICE spending transactions.

NYC Lifts Student Vaccine Mandate for Prom

New York Post reported:

New York City public school students no longer have to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend prom this year, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday. “I am thrilled that, starting this year, every one of our young people will have the chance to celebrate all of their hard work with a prom and graduation, regardless of vaccination status,” Adams said in a statement about the policy change.

The announcement comes a day after The Post reported a group of City Council members had sent a letter to the Health Department blasting the exclusion of unvaccinated students from their proms.

City Hall noted in its prom announcement that students were previously told they were allowed to attend graduation ceremonies this year, even if they hadn’t gotten the jab. Friends and family of graduates, however, will still need to be vaccinated if the ceremony is in a school building.

Vaccination requirements of a venue also supersede city policy — meaning attendees of proms or graduations held at a college or private location with an inoculation mandate will be held to those rules, sources said.

Employers Requiring Job Applicants to Have a COVID Vaccine Is Declining, Study Finds

CNBC reported:

The share of job ads that require candidates to have a COVID-19 vaccine seems to be on the decline.

About 6.7% of U.S. job listings cited vaccination as a necessity for applicants as of April 29, according to a new analysis by AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed, a job site.

The share has slowly fallen since March 12, when it touched a pandemic-era peak of 7.1%. (The data looks at the seven-day moving average of Indeed listings.)

The job listings don’t cite vaccination against COVID-19 specifically. However, that’s the implication since there were essentially no job ads requiring vaccination before the coronavirus pandemic, Konkel said.

There’s wide variation in the vaccine requirement when parsed by state. For example, 12.4% of job ads in Oregon note vaccination as a prerequisite, the largest share of any state, according to the Indeed analysis. That’s true of only 2.4% of ads in Montana, the lowest share.

A COVID Vaccine Mandate for New York Schools? Not This Year.

The New York Times reported:

Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have both said they favor making COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for all public schoolchildren. But my colleague Sharon Otterman says it’s not likely to happen in time for the next school year.

For the COVID-19 vaccine to join 12 other vaccinations required by state law for school attendance, the New York State Legislature would have to amend the public health law. Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills in Albany to do that.

But Senator Brad Hoylman, who introduced the childhood COVID vaccine bill in the State Senate last October, said it was such a hot potato that it had not even been assigned a formal bill number. “That is clearly an indication that it is not ready to be considered,” he said.

Adams has said repeatedly that he would back a mandate for schoolchildren once the vaccine is fully FDA-approved for them. A decision about Pfizer’s vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds could come in the next few months.

With COVID Back on the Rise, Some Cities, Agencies Mulling a Return of Health Mandates

The Mercury News reported:

As the Bay Area braces for yet another COVID-19 surge, a few cities and agencies are reinstating indoor mask mandates as the region continues debating the worth of a patchwork of coronavirus-related health orders.

Since late March, California’s case rate has nearly tripled and the Bay Area — which historically experienced a lower case rate than the rest of the state — has emerged as a COVID hotspot.

The uptick, driven by the emergence of two Omicron subvariants that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now account for most of the cases nationally, has prompted some cities such as San Jose to revisit lifted mandates. Others continue to wait and see, reluctant to change the rules again for a public tiring of mixed messages.

San Jose reinstated an indoor mask mandate Friday for city employees.

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit by Former Doña Ana County Employees Over COVID Vaccine Mandate

KFOX 14 reported:

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by two former employees of the Doña Ana County Detention Center over the county’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement Friday.

In a 34-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Martha Vázquez upheld the county’s vaccination policy, stating the mandate did not violate federal law.

Both former county employees refused the vaccine and did not request accommodation. One employee ultimately quit their job due to refusal of the directive while the other was terminated.

Offutt Airmen Ask Judge to Block COVID Vaccine Mandate, Citing Religious Beliefs

Lincoln Journal Star reported:

Three current or former Offutt airmen who have refused the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds asked a federal district court judge in Omaha on Monday to stop the Air Force from discharging or otherwise punishing them.

Capt. Ian McGee, an RC-135 instructor pilot with the Offutt-based 55th Wing, said he applied for a religious exemption eight months ago but hasn’t received a response from his chain of command. He expects it to be denied, as the Air Force has denied nearly all of the more than 7,800 airmen who have applied for them under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, known as RFRA.

McGee said he would give up his nine-year military career rather than be injected with a vaccine tested with cell lines taken many years ago from aborted fetuses.

The three airmen are part of a larger group of 36 — including active-duty, National Guard and reserves — who filed suit in U.S. District Court in Nebraska in March seeking to overturn the mandate issued by the Pentagon last August. They argue it is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

Shanghai Re-Tightens on COVID, Frustrating Trapped Residents

Associated Press reported:

The city of Shanghai is doubling down on pandemic restrictions after a brief period of loosening up, frustrating residents who were hoping a more than monthlong lockdown was finally easing as the number of new cases falls in China’s financial center.

On Tuesday, service was suspended on the last two subway lines that were still operating, marking the first time the city’s entire system has been shut down, according to The Paper, an online media outlet.

Teams in white protective suits have begun entering the homes of coronavirus-infected people to spray disinfectant, prompting worries among some about damage to clothes and valuables, and about leaving their keys with a community volunteer when they are taken to quarantine — a new requirement so disinfectant workers can get in.

Tesla Stutters Under Tighter Shanghai Lockdown; Beijing Keeps Hunting COVID

Reuters reported:

Tesla operated its Shanghai plant well below capacity on Tuesday, showing the problems factories face trying to ramp up output under a tightening COVID-19 lockdown, while China’s capital kept up its fight with a small but stubborn outbreak.

Many of the hundreds of companies reopening factories in Shanghai in recent weeks have faced challenges getting production lines back up to speed while keeping workers on-site in a “closed-loop” system.

The U.S. automaker has halted most of its production at the plant due to problems securing parts, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

COVID curbs in Shanghai, Beijing and dozens of other major manufacturing hubs across China are taking a heavy toll on the world’s second-largest economy, with significant knock-on impacts on global trade and supply chains.

Facebook Will Soon Stop Tracking Your Location and Delete Your Location History

Fast Company reported:

Facebook is taking a vacuum cleaner to one of your larger breadcrumb trails on the social network: Starting later this summer, it will whoosh away the location histories of its users.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms broke this significant news in a weirdly quiet way, notifying users via in-app prompts and emails but not making public announcements.

The message sent to one Facebook user said that Facebook’s apps would stop recording location data in the background on May 31 — and after August 1, the company would delete people’s location history.

That would make for Facebook’s biggest bulk deletion of data since its decision in November of 2021 to shut down its facial-recognition system and wipe the database it had built from that.

Here’s What Elon Musk Has Said About His Plans for Twitter

The Washington Post reported:

Elon Musk has revealed bits and pieces of what he plans to do once he is in control of Twitter — mostly in posts on Twitter itself.

Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who came seemingly out of nowhere to buy the social media site, had said before the deal was announced that he wanted to promote free speech and open up its algorithm to increase transparency.

Here are some of the most notable plans Musk has shared.

Slack’s Former Head of Machine Learning Wants to Put AI in Reach of Every Company

TechCrunch reported:

Adam Oliner, co-founder and CEO of Graft used to run machine learning at Slack, where he helped build the company’s internal artificial intelligence infrastructure. Slack lacked the resources of a company like Meta or Google, but it still had tons of data to sift through and it was his job to build something on a smaller scale to help put AI to work on the data set.

With a small team, he could only build what he called a “miniature” solution in comparison to the web scale counterparts. After he and his team built it, however, he realized that it was broadly applicable and could help other smaller organizations tap into AI and machine learning without huge resources.