CANADA Coronavirus contact tracing poses serious threats to our privacy

Academic rigour, journalistic flair

Tracing apps will rely on smart devices to log movement and contact as a way of containing the coronavirus pandemic. (Shutterstock)

Coronavirus contact tracing poses serious threats to our privacy

May 10, 2020


We are all wondering how COVID-19 will end. We will not likely return to normal without a broadly distributed vaccine, which is a bracing proposition. It is also becoming increasingly clear that we will have to find a way to trace transmission and maybe even enforce individual quarantines in the interim.

I want to say that I am not an epidemiologist, nor am I a public health official. As a faculty member within the Centre for Digital Humanities at Brock University, my role is to communicate the social and cultural consequences of digital media, including potential privacy and security risks of software used to limit the effects of COVID-19.

In the coming weeks and months, I expect that we will hear a lot about “contact tracing.” Contact tracing involves interviewing patients to collect information on all the people they have had sustained contact with and all the places they have been. It is laborious and error-prone because it is dependent on memory, interviews and detective work.
Digital contact tracing will use people’s mobile devices to track their movements and who they come into contact with.

Because of the scale of contact tracing needed for COVID-19, using cellphones to detect and record proximity appears to be an ideal solution. The Canadian government is exploring contact tracing and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed that “all options are on the table.”
Civil liberties in crisis

Before the Canadian government makes decisions that infringe on civil liberties through widespread digital surveillance, we need to think about the concessions we make during a time of crisis. Crises have long been used as an opportunity by governments and corporations to infringe on civil liberties in the name of public safety.

We need only think of the legislative overreach in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the United States, the extraordinary powers granted by the Patriot Act were revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden when he disclosed NSA and CIA surveillance. Those disclosures shook the country to the core. In Canada, the omnibus Bill C-36 was passed, which contained the Anti-Terrorism Act.

During the post-9/11 period, Canadians learned a lot about phone tracking. In 2017, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-59, which amended the earlier Anti-terrorism Act and acknowledged past legislative overreach.

Contact tracing using digital technology represents an opportunity to battle COVID-19 and reopen the economy, but its application will create unprecedented surveillance infrastructure beyond anything we have seen before.
There is an app for that

In recent days, the federal government has indicated that the provinces will be responsible for managing their plans to reopen their economies, which will result in a patchwork of contact tracing apps across the country. There are risks that such a network of policies, laws and collection techniques will muddy the data about COVID-19 nationally.

By contrast, many countries have turned to nationally mandated mobile applications to automate contact tracing. South Korea, Singapore, Germany and China have all implemented their own digital tools to assist public health officials and trace the spread of COVID-19.

There are several models that Canadians can think about with regard to contact tracing apps. China dealt with this problem first, and chose some rather extraordinary methods. Citizens were allowed to travel between checkpoints based on an app embedded in online payment systems like Alibaba’s Alipay or Tencent’s WeChat. Without a green QR code, citizens were not allowed to travel and could face detention for violations.

Currently, the Canada COVID-19 app — a partnership between private health-care software company Thrive Health and Health Canada — allows you to volunteer your location data and self-report symptoms. This volunteer approach was led by Singapore’s TraceTogether app, which goes a step further by accessing the Bluetooth radio in smartphones to detect proximity.

The limitations of the TraceTogether app include the difficulty of running an app 24 hours a day, which depletes battery life and results in less reliable data.

The Alberta provincial government has recently released the ABTraceTogether app; it is unclear how effective this system will be in the province.
The Alberta government has launched a contact tracing app.

Because the use of digital contact tracing was meant to correct for the errors of human interviews and memory, the partnership between Google and Apple has drawn a tremendous amount of attention. In this case, our phones would eventually detect proximity and duration using a low level operating system process that would allow for 24/7 tracking.

The security and privacy implications are profound.

Regardless of the optimism of the technology news observers, these systems are too complex and lacking in the transparency necessary for legislators to make adequately informed decisions on their implementation.

There is no reason the general public should trust these corporations to not monetize this system and maintain this surveillance infrastructure after the crisis has passed. While the need for digital contact tracing is clear, Canadians must take steps to protect their personal data.
Non-technical recommendations

It will be important for Canadians to discuss these systems before plans are put in place and laws are passed that may violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, particularly with regard to the security of the person. With any luck, the conversation held by Canadians with their provincial leaders and federal counterparts will include the following:
A sunset clause to define when surveillance ends.
A chain of custody agreement for data passed between government, industry and researchers, which includes a process to delete data.
A plan to protect data sovereignty, which ensures that data are subject to Canadian laws and governance structures.
A public use of judicial oversight of government, industry and researchers to ensure the laws we choose as Canadians are followed.
A commitment to corporate accountability if our data are misused, stolen or sold.

Digital contact tracing will likely become central to the government’s approach to stifling the resurgence of the virus and reopening the economy.

The complexity of these systems is a risk for the general public who may agree to something that is not well understood. It is critical to inform the public about these risks before governments take extraordinary powers and infringe on our civil liberties.

Author
 

Aaron Mauro
Assistant Professor of Digital Media, Brock University
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Celebrate Mother’s Day with feminist solidarity

It’s critical to acknowledge that global health of women impacts the health of a nation. Here, Tohono O’odham women lead the Tucson 2019 Women’s March. The sign says: ‘My Mom, Sisters, Aunties and Grandmas are sacred.’ (Dulcey Lima/Unsplash)

Women have been working overtime during COVID-19, as care providers at home, in clinics, hospitals and other spaces. Women constitute the majority of health-care providers, both formally and informally, all over the world.

Unrecognized and ignored, the work of mothers has increased as day cares, schools and workplaces have closed, with more family members at home, increasing demands for in-home meals, care and higher needs for disinfecting.

At the same time, public health mandates to shelter-in-place have created violence traps for those who live with abusers. Male violence against women has tripled in some places during COVID-19. Family members and friends, fearing the virus, are less likely to offer shelter and other supports. So women have decreased capacity to find emergency housing, medical care and emotional assistance.

As a public health scholar, I believe it’s critical to acknowledge both the invisible and visible contributions that mothers and other women are making to public health efforts related to COVID-19 — especially as we approach Mother’s Day.

While the situation is not necessarily celebratory, it bears marking, at the very least.

Canadian feminists have a long tradition of working with international partners for women’s rights. Canada’s current feminist approach to international assistance, with its Feminist International Policy, is one worthy of further development. Created by the Trudeau government in 2017, the policy recognizes that “supporting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is the best way to build a more peaceful, more inclusive and more prosperous world.”
Maternal health globally

Here in Canada, government aid programs have lessened the financial burdens of the virus for many mothers. The impacts of COVID-19, however, are not equally spread among mothers, neither here in Canada nor around the globe.

Globally, the extreme measures that some nations have adopted are negatively impacting maternal mental and physical health. The list of ways in which the COVID-19 crisis has been used to veil state and corporate control is long: for example, enforcing curfews with police violence in Kenya, quarantining people in dog cages in the Philippines, granting authoritarian regimes unlimited powers in Hungary, using tracking technologies to erode human rights in Israel, weaponizing personal protective equipment by deciding who gets it along ideological lines in the United States.

Worry about uncertainties related to COVID-19 and the economy has increased rates of anxiety and depression that disproportionately impact women.
Poverty

In some lower- and middle-income countries, the secondary effects of COVID-19 may cause higher mortality than COVID-19 itself. This includes hunger, disease and violence.

Poverty is a major obstacle in achieving improved maternal health status. Now, and in non-pandemic times, poor socioeconomic conditions are responsible for key maternity-related complications such as hemorrhage, sepsis, hypertensive disorders, unsafe abortion and obstructed labour, which lead to an increase in maternal death worldwide.

These problems include inaccessible clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, inadequate calories and nutrition, poor housing conditions, illiteracy, precarious working conditions and a lack of transportation to access life-saving health care facilities and places of work.

Lack of access to clean drinking water is a significant threat to maternal health. (Ibrahim Rifath/Unsplash)

The inability to pay for clinical care is a significant cause of maternal death in many lower- and middle-income countries where universal health care systems are not established.

Poverty contributes to delayed decisions to seek medical care, increased time to reach health care facilities, and impediments in receiving appropriate care. Eliminating poverty and increasing literacy of women in lower and middle income countries improves maternal health.

Making a difference

Canadian social justice initiatives, in support of global strong feminist movements aim to alter social structures and perceptions about women’s value and worth. The initiatives hold great promise to reduce poverty, sexism, discrimination, illiteracy and other barriers to good health.

Canadian organizations such as Maternal and Infant Health Canada collaborate with sister organizations in lower and middle income countries to strengthen women and children’s human and health rights. Working across borders like this moves us towards a better day for all mothers.

Women’s autonomy, buttressed by education and employment, contributes to achieving better general and maternal health. Improvements in women’s socioeconomic status thus decrease maternal mortality rates.

Feminist solidarity can save lives. Here, a mother and baby, cassava farming in Sierra Leone. (Annie Spratt/Unsplash)

Women with more freedom access greater levels of antenatal care and opt for safe delivery care, which in turn leads to less maternal death. This begins to explain how feminist initiatives improve maternal health.

For many years, Canada has committed to spending 0.7 per cent of GDP to international development and not met this target. In 2019, the federal government devoted only 0.28 per cent of GDP to this vital form of international support.

Canada’s commitment to the allocation of 0.7 per cent of the country’s GDP to international development would help reduce maternal deaths in lower- and middle-income countries. Spending these dollars wisely will make all the difference.

Physical distancing, isolation and other measures that are in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 will necessitate the creation of new ways to honour mothers without actual hugs and breakfast in bed.

Feminist solidarity can save lives. On Mother’s Day, let’s dream about and create a more just world for all women and girls.

MAY 6, 2020

Author

Farah Shroff

Adjunct professor, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia
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“If Not Now, When?”


Queer and Trans People Reclaim
their Power in Lebanon’s Revolution

By Rasha Younes

Videos by Amanda Bailly

https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2020/05/07/if-not-now-when-queer-and-trans-people-reclaim-their-power




At the main protest site in downtown Beirut, a unified plea for change carries the crowd forward.

“We want to topple sectarianism; it must go!” a queer woman chants, as the crowd repeats the refrain.

“We want to topple patriarchy; it must go!” she says, and the crowd roars its approval.

“We want to topple homophobia; it must go!” she’s screaming now, and voices of the protesters reverberate, a mixture of cheering and emphatic agreement.

Topple “Transphobia, classism, racism…’’ the chant continues, as thousands of protesters repeat.

To the right of the crowd, the phrase ‘faggot is not an insult’ is etched on the wall. To the left, graffiti declaring ‘homophobia is a crime’ is spray-painted above the slogan ‘down with sectarianism.’ Words and images celebrating sexual and gender diversity fill the walls of central Beirut.

The October 17 uprising in Lebanon - fueled by rampant corruption and the country’s worst economic crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990 - has sparked a newfound collective consciousness where the rights and identities of marginalized groups are part and parcel of the protests. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, once considered taboo and excluded from the political terrain, have entered the mainstream as a pillar of resistance for the first time. They have become part of Lebanon’s revolution.



1 Coexistence Horizontal English





Marwan Tahtah for Human Rights Watch
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/supporting_resources/2019_08_lebanonresponse_lgbt.pdf

Indeed, there should be no going back – but even if Lebanon continues to deny LGBT people their basic human rights and chooses to silence their voice in public discourse, the streets and walls of Beirut will remember.

“Right before the revolution, I had tweeted that I am part of a generation that has nothing to wake up for and no one to go home to,” says Malak, 26. “On October 17, I felt for the first time that we had something to look forward to, and we are going home to the beautiful people we met on the streets. I want to look at the two queer young women who shyly asked me to take their picture at the protest and tell them that we had done everything for them to live a better life than we did.”

TRUMP'S BROWN SHIRTS 

The private militias providing “security” for anti-lockdown protests, explained

Militia groups asked to provide “security” are being decried by Republicans as “a bunch of jackasses.”

By Jane Coastonjane.coaston@vox.com May 11, 2020

Armed protesters provide security as demonstrators take part in an “American Patriot Rally,” organized on April 30, 2020, by Michigan United for Liberty on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, demanding the reopening of businesses. Jeff Kowalski/AFP

The anti-social distancing and anti-stay-at-home order rallies that have taken place in state capitals across the country haven’t yet changed public views on state-level shutdown orders meant to slow the novel coronavirus pandemic. Recent national polling indicates that Americans largely oppose efforts to reopen private businesses and may even support stricter shutdown protocols.

But the rallies have attracted a host of fringe actors and attendees, including anti-vaccination activists and believers in conspiracy theories like QAnon, as well as armed members of militia groups.

Many protests aimed at a specific policy or entity (no matter their politics) attract a host of groups with their own interests, or people more interested in self-promotion.

The militia members, though, are different. They aren’t just showing up to the protests. In at least one case, they were invited by organizers: In Michigan on April 30, militia members were expressly invited by organizers of the “American Patriot Rally” to provide “security.”

The response to their presence came fast and furious, even from supporters of the shutdown protests more generally. In a tweet praising the overall protest, Michigan Republican state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said of the armed members of the protests (including militia members): “They do not represent the Senate Republicans. At best, those so-called protestors are a bunch of jackasses.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity said of the “show of force” in Michigan that while “everyone has the right to protest, protect themselves and try to get the country open,” “This, with the militia look here, and these long guns, uh ... no. Show of force is dangerous. That puts our police at risk. And by the way, your message will never be heard, whoever you people are.”


Echoing Sean Hannity, Fox & Friends scolds reopen protestors in Michigan who brought long guns and confederate & nazi flags to their rallies, saying "it puts our police in danger" and "squelches your message." pic.twitter.com/MgKw7kb5hr— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) May 6, 2020

The militia movement in America is broad, with groups varying widely in their purported goals. Michigan alone has dozens of militia groups with hundreds of members, with varying political and cultural objectives.

“Different groups have different aims,” said Jared Yates Sexton, author of The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage. “Some are only interested in protecting themselves and their families from societal collapse, others are looking to battle the New World Order, some are explicitly interested in creating a white ethnostate for white Americans, others are angling for that second civil war that would start with a race war.”

But he argues that militia groups are using anti-shutdown order protests as cover — some for recruiting more people to their cause, but others looking to bring down the state and local government entirely.

Militia groups are “always searching for moments of cultural and political vulnerability” to exploit, Sexton said. And in the midst of a pandemic, they may have found it.

The militia movement, briefly explained

While militia groups differ widely, they also have important similarities, particularly regarding their perceived role. (Private militias are very different from state militias. Under federal law, 22 states and Puerto Rico have state-level militias regulated by the National Guard.)

Private militias are “armed paramilitary groups who take on extralegal law enforcement roles,” said Nicole Hemmer, assistant professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. “They often have uniforms or insignias, and some engage in training exercises modeled after military exercises. That sense of having law enforcement responsibilities generally separates them from other fringe groups.”

Hemmer added that private militias tend to lean to the right, but not always: “In the modern movement, [militias are] primarily but not exclusively right-wing — Redneck Revolt and the Socialist Rifle Association are two anti-racist militias present at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.” And the political views of even conservative-leaning militia groups can be complex — back in 2016, one right-leaning militia in Michigan took part in protests aimed at the state government’s handling of the Flint water crisis.

But in general, Hemmer told me, private militia groups staunchly oppose regulations on guns and believe that “individuals and groups have inherent law enforcement powers deriving both from common law and the Second Amendment.” And in response to what they view as the excessive power of the federal government, many militia members “believe that armed resistance to state power is necessary.”

The militia movement has waxed and waned in prominence since the 1970s, but experts largely cite the disastrous 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff between federal authorities and a far-right activist as a launch point. In a 2016 interview with my colleague Libby Nelson, former Homeland Security analyst Daryl Johnson said:

We had a lot of anti-government reaction to that event because of the government’s overzealous, heavy-handed tactics that were used that resulted in the death of civilians.

And so in 1992, a group of people gathered together in Estes Park, Colorado, to discuss that standoff and what their response would be to another type of standoff. John Trochmann, out of Montana, was at this conference and introduced the idea of forming private citizen armies or militia groups.

It wasn’t until the Waco standoff in 1993, in February, which culminated in the fire at the Branch Davidian compound, that we actually saw this idea that John Trochmann had introduced put into action. And the first two modern-day militias were the Michigan Militia and the Militia of Montana. 

(RUBY RIDGE WAS BEFORE WACO AND WAS THE ORIGIN OF THE CALL TO RESISTANCE THAT  LED TO THE OKLAHOMA GOVERNMENT BUILDING BOMBING BY WHITE MILITIA) 

Ruby Ridge, 1992: the day the American militia movement ...

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › aug › ruby-ridge-1992-modern-a...

Aug 26, 2017 - Ruby Ridge, 1992: the day the American militia movement was born. A firefight between six US marshals and two boys and their dog began a

While militia membership dropped during the George W. Bush administration, Hemmer said, “with the election of Barack Obama, militias in the US surged. That’s when some of the more well-known militia groups, like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, were born.”

The growth of these groups in the 1990s was fueled by fears of gun restrictions instigated by the passage of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and in the 2000s by the election of a Democratic (and black) president, she said.

And she said that militia groups have differing views on the presidency of Donald Trump. “Some militias do not support Donald Trump — they feel he wields too much power, and they oppose nationalism as a threat to individual rights,” Hemmer said. “Some militias do support Trump, which makes their opposition to the federal government tricky — which is, I suspect, the reason so much attention has been trained on statehouses.”
Some militia groups see anti-shutdown protests as recruiting events

Private militias may have their own reasons for attending right-leaning political rallies and protests.


“Militias often see right-leaning rallies and organizations as ways to build alliances and legitimization,” Hemmer told me. “They were present at some Tea Party rallies in places like Oklahoma and Michigan, and are commonly involved with pro-gun and anti-tax groups. They’ve been present at the lockdown protests, of course, and before that had been very visible at protests against new laws coming out of the Democratic state house in Virginia.”

For example, militia groups were present at the Unite the Right rally in 2017, causing then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe to say, “You saw the militia walking down the street. You would have thought they were an army. … [The militia members] had better equipment than our state police had.” (Three of the militias present at UTR have been banned from the city of Charlottesville.)

Right-leaning militia groups have also “volunteered” to provide security in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, at pro-Trump rallies, and at the US-Mexico border:


In March and April 2019, a spokesperson for [a militia group], Jim Benvie, regularly posted livestream videos on Facebook showing militia members chasing and capturing migrants while armed with assault rifles, and detaining them until they could be turned over to U.S. officials. In other posts, the United Constitutional Patriots described themselves as combatants in a “war” raging along the border due to migrants’ “invasion” of the country and actively sought to recruit people with military or law enforcement experience to join them. One such recruit, upon observing migrants while on “patrol” at the border, reportedly grabbed his AR-15 and asked his fellow militia member, “Why are we just apprehending them and not lining them up and shooting them?”

Even the use of private militia groups for “security” purposes by right-leaning organizations is not new. In 2017, the Oregon-based Multnomah County Republican Party passed a resolution stating that the party “may utilize volunteers from the Oregon Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, and other security groups.”

For militia members, serving as “security” at the anti-shutdown protests doesn’t just provide more visibility but also offers a useful networking opportunity — one that allows them to share their message by arguing that the coronavirus shutdowns prove their point about government overreach.

These protests were “a great opportunity for them because they see people who are fearful and angry and their anger is directed toward the government,” said Alex Friedfeld, a researcher from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “That is something that they have always been advocating for, and this is a great opportunity for them to keep expanding.”

He added that militias that are supportive of President Trump are using these protests to “have it both ways,” attacking state government officials while avoiding targeting the federal government, despite federal coronavirus efforts encouraging the same policies as the states. “The lockdown protest created this opportunity where they can kind of resolve that dissonance by shifting their focus away from the federal government and targeting instead state government officials, particularly if they’re Democratic.”

He noted that some groups have targeted Republican governors as well — but not Trump, despite Trump and the federal government providing markedly similar coronavirus mitigation guidelines.

But the presence and use of militia groups for security purposes raises major questions. As Hemmer told me, some militia groups “rely on the threat of political violence (and sometimes engage in political violence),” meaning that they may be more likely to attempt to foment unrest than stop it.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI
Meet the woman who spearheaded California’s recent back-to-work protests

Anti-lockdown protesters rally in downtown San Diego on May 1, 2020, calling on state and local officials to fully reopen the economy. Many in attendance waved branded signs provided by a new group called We Have Rights.
(Joshua Emerson Smith / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Anti-lockdown protests have simultaneously erupted all over California using the website wehaverights.com

By JOSHUA EMERSON SMITH MAY 10, 2020

A group calling itself We Have Rights has recently started organizing large back-to-work protests throughout California, calling on state and local leaders to end social-distancing orders aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

The group, which popped up in just the last two weeks, has a professional-looking website and growing social media presence, which provide details for upcoming events, instructions for dealing with the media, highly produced Instagram videos, as well as T-shirts and other branded merchandise for sale.

The campaign — which turned out hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters from San Diego to Sacramento starting May 1 and continuing through this weekend — also has had a charismatic front woman with something of a controversial past: 38-year-old Vivienne Nicole Reign.

Reign, who has been living with her husband in a $3 million home in Newport Beach, according to legal documents, is currently embroiled in legal challenges concerning several neuropathy treatment clinics she owns and operates with a chiropractor. The defendants have maintained their innocence, denying claims brought by former clients of medical negligence, financial elder abuse and fraud.

The Orange County-based entrepreneur recently told The San Diego Union-Tribune in a lengthy phone interview Thursday that she created the website wehaverights.com after having to layoff members of her staff as a result of the pandemic lockdown.

“I’ve had to let go of people that have worked with me for 10 years, and it happened overnight,” she said. “I’ll find a way to make it through this, but there are people who depend on me, and I feel a great sense of responsibility to provide them a paycheck.”

Reign did not cite political reasons as the driving force behind the campaign, however the rallies have overtly promoted President Donald Trump and conservative talking points.

Reign said the campaign has a wealthy backer but would not identify the person.

“Yes, we do have people who have contributed and we do have a benefactor who has contributed, and my husband and I have put money out of our own pocket,” she said.

The New York Times has reported that many of the anti-lockdown protests happening throughout the country are being bankrolled by wealthy conservative leaders and groups, including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots.

Members of the Michigan Liberty Militia, including Phil Robinson, right, join protesters at a rally at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., Thursday, April 30, 2020.
(Matthew Dae Smith / Lansing State Journal)

However, Reign’s campaign stands out compared to similar efforts in other parts of the country, said Jared Holt, an investigator with the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Right Wing Watch.

“If something like this is happening in other states,” he said, “it’s certainly not as slick and well-produced as it seems to be in California where this shadowy source of money is coming in with a very branded effort.”

In something of a twist, Reign sent an email to the Union-Tribune on Friday, a day after her interview, saying that she had decided to donate the website and social-media accounts to a unnamed nonprofit.

“I will let them decide when they would like to announce who they are,” she said in the email.

“We are happy to have contributed to helping all of the grassroots groups organize and get their message of preserving and protecting our rights out across California,” she added. “We have confidence the group we are handing it over to will do wonderfully at continuing the efforts even better than we did!”

Reign’s recent organizing efforts don’t appear to be directly connected to those of San Diego resident Naomi Israel Soria, who promoted similar rallies on Facebook.

The 27-year-old Soria is facing misdemeanor criminal charges, including up to six months in jail, for putting together protests in San Diego that law enforcement officials have said violated county public health orders around social distancing. She’s being represented by the high-profile conservative attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who has filed multiple lawsuits against the state of California over its stay-home orders.

Who is Thomas Paine?

Until recently, Dan Summers had never heard of We Have Rights or Vivienne Reign.

Summers, a 70-year-old resident of Ramona, has long been plugged in to conservative politics and activism in the San Diego region. He’s served on the Republican Party’s local central committee and currently heads up an umbrella group called The Circle, which coordinates efforts between prominent conservative and libertarian groups throughout the region.

So it didn’t surprise Summers when an organizer from We Have Rights contacted him out of the blue looking for his help, and his access to mailing lists of about 6,000 people across the region, to boost turnout at a rally that was planned for May 1 in downtown San Diego. The group was also organizing events for that day in Huntington Beach, Los Angeles and Sacramento.

“I got a phone call from the guy who organized these four rallies who wanted to know if I could help him in San Diego, and I said, ‘Yes, I can,’” Summers recently told the Union-Tribune.

The group’s representative called himself “Thomas Paine,” Summers explained, noting that this was also the name of the famous American revolutionary.

“They’ve got a very good website,” he added.

The website’s homepage urges: “Be part of the biggest movement in California.” It demands the ability to worship at church, earn a living and assemble freely at sporting events, conferences and other gatherings.

“The elderly, sick, and high risk are encouraged to quarantine while the healthy and the able have a right to live their lives,” the website states.

Protests gathered on May 1, 2020 in downtown San Diego demanding local and state officials fully reopen the economy despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
(Joshua Emerson Smith / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

LIKE THE NAZI LABOUR FRONT THIS ARBEIT MACHT FREI REVIVAL UNDERMINES MAYDAY AS A WORKERS DAY OF REVOLT AGAINST CAPITALISM TO ONE OF SUPPLICATION TO RETURN TO WAGE SLAVERY

The back-to-work rally in downtown San Diego ended up drawing hundreds of people, many waving American flags and few wearing face masks. Some flew “Trump 2020" flags and many wore the iconic red hats.

While many protesters cited financial hardship as a reason for coming out, those in attendance also criticized everything from vaccines to Gov. Gavin Newsom to socialism.

Summers addressed the boisterous crowd with a bullhorn, as cars and trucks circled the block honking.

During the event, a person dressed in We Have Rights-branded merchandise passed out dozens of signs, declaring slogans such as “Freedom is essential” and “Open CA now.”

A woman dressed in branded merchandise from the group We Have Rights hands out signs at a rally in downtown San Diego.
(Joshua Emerson Smith / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Other We Have Rights rallies that day across the state drew even larger crowds, including more than 1,000 people on the capitol steps in Sacramento.

“Over 40,000 Patriots took a stand against the lockdown to demand Newsom fully open California and restore our rights!” the website said of the May 1 actions.

While Summers was pleased with the turnout, he still didn’t know much about Paine. Although, the phone number he used to communicate with Paine traced back to a Thomas Knight Reign, 46, of Newport Beach, according to multiple legal and business records.

Reign, according to his IMDb profile, appeared to be a once-aspiring movie producer and director. Over the years, he started several film-production businesses, including Red Horizon Films LLC, Xposure Entertainment LLC and the still operative Agency X LLC.

However, he has almost no professional or personal online presence that the Union-Tribune could find.

When the Union-Tribune reached out to Reign, he declined to comment and directed all questions to fullyopenca@gmail.com, which used the display name Thomas Paine.

According to court records, Thomas Reign and Vivienne Reign were married in 2011 — although at the time their legal names were Thomas John Wozny and Nicole Melanie Anderson.

She adopted the last name Wozny, but then in 2018, they both legally changed their monikers to Reign.

Vivienne Reign said her husband changed his last name as part of his writing business, and at that point she, too, decided to change both her first and last names. She would not elaborate on what her husband does for work, other than to say he’s a “surfer” and “creative artist.”

“I thought Vivienne was just a pretty name,” she explained. “I thought it was a little timeless, and so I left Nicole as my middle name.

“I go by Viv now, unless it’s my father, and then it’s still Niki,” she added.

From entrepreneur to activist

Vivienne Reign grew up Nicole Melanie Ackermann in the Orange County city of Cypress. She said her mother still lives in her childhood home and her father lives in Redondo Beach.

Her parents were in the aerospace industry and worked hard to give her an education at a private high school, she said. That’s where, at 16, she met her first husband, Darren Anderson.

Anderson, who lives in Mission Viejo, said he and Reign have remained good friends over the years.

“She’s great,” he said. “She’s a hard charger. She’s highly ethical. She’s one of the people in my life that I respect the most.

After graduating high school in 1999, Reign started classes at Fresno City College. However, she said she quickly dropped out to work full time and eventually start her own business.

“I did attend college for a short time, but to be honest, the entrepreneurial bug kept getting at me,” she said.

She said that before joining We Have Rights, she had never been an activist or even attended a protest. In 2016, she donated $250 to help Rand Paul’s presidential run.

Today, Reign has at least eight active companies operating under 17 different business names. Her companies largely focus on medical procedures not covered by health insurance, from stem cell injections to treatments for neuropathy.

Most notably, she owns a company with Orange County chiropractor Philip Straw called Neuropathy Solutions, which has been the subject of at least one patient lawsuit alleging fraud and financial elder abuse.

Reign and Straw have worked together for years, including with his previous business Optimal Health Straw Chiropractic, which has been the subject of about a half-dozen similar lawsuits. Straw was cited by the Board of Chiropractic Examiners in 2012 for falsely portraying himself as a neuropathy expert and advertising his services in a potentially deceptive way.

The businesses have also been bombarded by angry online reviews and drawn the attention of the local media.

The company’s clinics currently go by the name Superior Health Centers, with locations in Corona, Gardena, Glendale and Placentia.

According to court records, Reign is in charge of handling front-office staffing and other administrative tasks, including organizing free dinners used to market the company’s neuropathy treatments to seniors.

Senior citizens Harvey and Donna Stone attended one of those dinners in 2016 where the married couple watched a presentation on peripheral neuropathy, a type of nerve damage that can cause weakness and numbness in hands and feet.

They were told at the dinner that if the condition was not properly treated, it could lead to gangrene and amputation, according to an ongoing lawsuit brought by the couple. When they followed-up with a free medical evaluation at one of the company’s clinics, they were told they both had the condition.

To pay for the treatment, which wasn’t covered by their insurance, they agreed to take out a line of credit and make monthly payments at nearly 15 percent interest for a final sum of $18,655, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers have argued that the staff at the businesses were not trained or licensed to treat peripheral neuropathy and deceived the couple into thinking otherwise. The treatments included massages and exposure to light and electrical stimulation.

At one point, Harvey Stone was badly burned when staff used administered electrical shocks to his legs using a device dubbed the “HAKO-MED,” according to the lawsuit.

“It’s like the old West salesman setting up shop in a town and selling bottles of snake oil,” said Arnold Gross, senior trial attorney with State Law Firm, who is handling the couple’s case. “This is not a recognized treatment.”

After the Stones took out the high-interest loan, Donna’s primary care physician told her that she didn’t have neuropathy, Gross said.

Lawyer for the defendants Christopher R. Clark declined to comment on the ongoing litigation, other than to say in an email: “We are looking forward to prevailing in this case at trial on behalf of our client.”

According to the defense’s court filings, Harvey Stone received more than two dozen electro-stimulation treatments from the business, and he had acknowledged that “progress was being made and his symptoms were improving.”

Reign also wouldn’t talk about the lawsuit in detail, but said of the court battle: “Unfortunately, it is part of business in today’s age that those things do occur.”

Reign, who traveled to Sacramento for a big rally on May 1, said as recently as Thursday that she planned to focus her efforts on reopening the economy.

However, she has now changed her mind, according to the email she sent the Union-Tribune on Friday.

“I have enjoyed my time working on this, and I feel we made great strides in a short time,” she wrote. “However, as I mentioned, I have many demands on my time with various business investments and wanted to pass this to people who have this as a full time passion and can do the movement justice.”

Staff researcher Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.

AUSTRALIA & THE VIETNAM WAR

50 years on, the Vietnam moratorium campaigns remind us of a different kind of politics

May 7, 2020

Fifty years ago this month, hundreds of thousands of Australians assembled across the country to call for an end to the Vietnam War. The first of the moratorium campaigns, the demonstrations of May 8 1970 were the zenith of the anti-war movement in Australia that had been five years in the making.

The largest of the May 8 marches took place in Melbourne, confirming its status as the national capital of protest politics. An estimated 100,000 demonstrators clogged the city’s streets.

Despite scaremongering in preceding weeks by conservative politicians and large sections of the media about the threat of violence and mayhem, the event passed peacefully. Relieved and exultant, the movement’s leader, Jim Cairns, told the sea of protesters gathered in Bourke Street:


Nobody thought this could be done … The will of the people is being expressed today as it never has been before.

The moratorium movement was important in a number of ways.

First, and most obviously, it galvanised many ordinary Australians to join the protest actions, making a powerful statement about the collapse of support for the nation’s continued participation in the Vietnam conflict. Though the Liberal-Country Party government led by Prime Minister John Gorton obdurately dismissed the demonstrations and insisted they would have no material influence on its policy-making, it was no coincidence that 1970 marked the beginning of the withdrawal of Australia’s military forces from Vietnam. It was a policy reversal that mimicked the direction of the United States, which had witnessed its own massive anti-war moratorium demonstrations at the end of 1969.

Second, the demonstrations were a potent symbol of the larger culture of dissent that had flowered in the second half of the 1960s. The protests expressed a restless mood for change, and represented a key moment in the puncturing of the oppressive Cold War atmosphere that had dominated Australian public life for some two decades.

One contemporary observer of the moratorium marches captured their confounding spirit of anti-authoritarianism by referencing Bob Dylan:


Because something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?

Two years later, much of the yearning for change would be channelled back into institutional politics with the election of the Whitlam Labor government. But in 1970, the streets had become a major outlet for political expression.

 

Vietnam moratorium march in Melbourne, May 8 1970. Australian Living Peace Museum

Third, the success of the May 1970 moratorium was a watershed in legitimising protest in this country. As the anti-war movement developed from the mid-1960s, it found its activities circumscribed by provisions of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, state laws and local government regulations that severely constrained the right to demonstrate. Under the terms of a Melbourne City by-law, for example, it was illegal to hand out leaflets in city streets.

In that context, the moratorium’s mass occupation tactics struck a mighty blow for the right to public protest and enlarged the space for democratic action. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that demonstrators since, regardless of their cause, have been benefactors of the legacy created by the moratorium campaigners of the early 1970s.

Fourth, the leadership exercised by Cairns was remarkable and unique. Because he became a figure of derision over the circumstances that ended his ministerial career in the Whitlam government in 1975, it is easy to overlook what Cairns achieved as the spiritual leader of Australia’s anti-Vietnam War movement. He was that rare thing: a politician who managed to straddle the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary spheres. Perhaps the nearest parallel in more recent times has been the former Greens leader Bob Brown.

Jim Cairns was a strong leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Evatt Foundation

Cairns was critical to the success of the May 8 moratorium campaign. He stoically wore the slings of the radical, younger elements of the movement who were prepared to spill blood in the name of peace, while at the same time calmly rebutting the histrionics of his conservative political opponents who equated mass demonstrations with “mob rule”.

In a parliamentary debate on the moratorium in April 1970, Cairns articulated what was described as the movement’s “manifesto of dissent”:

Some … think that democracy is just Parliament alone … But times are changing. A whole generation is not prepared to accept this complacent, conservative theory. Parliament is not democracy. It is one manifestation of democracy … Democracy is government by the people, and government by people demands action by the people … in public places all around the land.

Half a century on, it is striking how quaint these ideas seem. We have mostly retreated to practising politics as a spectator sport. This is despite the evident limits of this passivity.

Consider climate change, for example. More than a decade of relying on our political representatives for progress has yielded little more than conflict, frustration and inertia.

Notably, throughout these years of missed opportunity, none of our political leaders have emerged to emulate the role that Cairns fulfilled in the era of the Vietnam War, namely, sustaining a campaign for action on climate change both in the parliament and out in the community.

But then they were different times and Cairns, notwithstanding his later follies, was a special kind of politician.

Author

Paul Strangio

Associate Professor of Politics, Monash University

Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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CANADA
Do you have the right to refuse to return to work? Employment lawyers weigh in

Alexandra Mae Jones CTVNews.ca writer  Thursday, May 7, 2020 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/do-you-have-the-right-to-refuse-to-return-to-work-employment-lawyers-weigh-in-1.4930305
Returning to work amid COVID-19

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Employment lawyers Muneeza Sheikh and Stuart Rudner join CTV News Channel to break down employees' rights when they head back to work.
Returning to work amid COVID-19

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TORONTO -- As some provinces start to show promising signs of having flattened the curve of the pandemic, talk is turning to how we handle a return to the workplace, and what rights workers have in this tumultuous time.

Some provinces are already setting the wheels in motion for reopening non-essential businesses. For example, Manitoba has already reopened retail businesses, salons, museums, libraries and playgrounds; Quebec has allowed retail businesses outside of the Montreal area to open; and Ontario released a list on May 4 of businesses that could open, including golf courses and gardening centres.

Employers and employees across the country are looking ahead to plan what the new normal could look like in the workplace.

CTV News spoke to employment lawyers Muneeza Sheikh and Stuart Rudner in order to sift through some of the complicated questions about worker and employee rights.

MY WORKPLACE HAS REOPENED, BUT I DON’T THINK IT’S SAFE TO RETURN YET. DO I HAVE TO?

Yes, Rudner and Sheikh say. The law is on the employer’s side here, even in a pandemic.

“If work is available, you are expected to be there,” Rudner said. “And failure to attend for your regularly scheduled work hours [will be seen as] basically abandoning your job.”
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Employers are required to provide a safe work environment, which means that an employee has grounds to complain if no attempts at implementing physical distancing and cleaning procedures have been made in order to facilitate the return of workers.

Rudner added there may be exceptions to the rule.

“Most provinces have job-protected leaves in place if you have COVID-19-related reasons for not going back into work,” he said. “If you are immunocompromised, you may need the accommodation of your employer. Or if the workplace is unsafe, and you can prove that it is unsafe, then you may not have to go back to work.”

But if a workplace has the proper precautions in place, workers won’t be able to remain home without being penalized by employers.

“If [physical distancing] is not possible, and sometimes it’s not, you’re going to take whatever steps you can,” Rudner advised employers. “Constant cleaning, providing soap, providing hand sanitizer, providing masks potentially, gloves.”

He also pointed out that some areas are releasing guidelines for businesses that are preparing to reopen.

“While [employers] do have a legal obligation to accommodate a valid reason for not being at work, whether it’s medical leave, or whether it’s family status related … what [employers] don’t have an obligation to do is accommodate someone’s fear and anxiety about getting COVID-19 in the workplace,” Sheikh said.

DO I HAVE TO TELL MY EMPLOYER IF I’VE HAD COVID-19?

Under normal circumstances, an employer prying into the personal health of an employee would be considered a serious privacy issue. But Rudner and Sheikh emphasized that this situation is new territory.

“We’re balancing two different rights or obligations,” Rudner said. “There is the right to privacy, there’s an employer obligation to take reasonable steps to provide a safe work environment. And often these two rights or obligations collide.

“When we’re talking about privacy rights, one of the ways that employers are able to infringe upon those rights is in the name of safety.”

Sheikh said that because there has been community spread of this virus, and because the stakes are so high, employers may ask questions they wouldn’t before. And she believes it would be hard for them to “get in trouble” for asking whether an employee had COVID-19.

Rudner added that it will depend on the nature of the workplace and whether the employer has a good reason to ask as well.

Sheikh said that employers should still “tread carefully,” as they are still not entitled to a worker’s diagnosis.

IF I’VE HAD COVID-19, DO I HAVE TO HAVE A DOCTOR’S NOTE TO GO BACK TO WORK?

One pressing question for those who have recovered from COVID-19 is whether or not they will even be allowed to physically return to work if their workplace reopens.

According to Sheikh, it’s not a simple yes or no.

With a common cold or flu in the past, an employer might tell an employee to simply return whenever they feel better.

But with a virus like this, the stakes are higher for infecting other coworkers, particularly if the workplace in question is one where practicing physical distancing on the job isn’t possible. She said that due to these unique situations, her advice would be for employers to require a doctor’s note for an employee who previously had COVID-19 to return to work.

“Because this can be so highly contagious, and unfortunately the implications are so detrimental, I would say get a medical note before you bring them back to work,” she said.

Doctor’s notes have always been a contentious issue, particularly so during the pandemic. Many individuals do not have regular doctors they can procure a note from, or they aren’t able to get a doctor’s note at short notice, meaning that employers who require doctor’s notes are sometimes forcing workers to attend work while sick.

In Ontario, the provincial government introduced legislation to waive all doctor’s note requirements in mid-March, as a response to the severity of the pandemic.

Eliminating medical notes to excuse an absence allowed workers to prioritize their health without losing their jobs. But facilitating the return of workers to a physical workspace while still prioritizing the health of everyone is a different story.

Rudner pointed out that the Ontario Medical Association is strongly against requiring doctor’s notes, but that “this is entirely new and unprecedented and safety is paramount here.

“I would certainly not discourage an employer from asking for a doctor’s note where it’s appropriate,” he said. “In these situations, if someone was diagnosed [with COVID-19] and now they want to come back to work, that’s pretty appropriate in my view.”

I’M FEELING SICK AT WORK. WILL I GET SENT HOME?

“The employer has a right to send you home, perhaps even against your will,” Sheikh said.

An employer sending home a worker on unpaid leave because of one sneeze or cough is “problematic,” she said, but if there’s a genuine concern that a person might have COVID-19, that’s different.

Full-time workers with benefits will be able to get paid leave and then use their sick days if they do contract the virus.

However, contract workers may get left in the dust.

Sheikh called it “very, very difficult, if not almost impossible,” to get things such as paid sick leave from an employer if you are a contract worker who would not normally receive those benefits.

“We have a lot of people out there who are paid as contractors when really they’re employees in all but name,” Rudner said. “And a lot of times they do that because they get better tax treatment, but the reality is they don’t have the protections that [a full-time employee] does.”

Government assistance can hopefully fill in the gap, he said.

“The CERB will help a little bit, because the CERB will help out those who are self-employed.”

WHAT ABOUT PART-TIME HEALTH CARE WORKERS WHO HAVE LOST WORK?

Even as workplaces reopen, not everyone will be able to gain back the same amount of jobs as they held before the pandemic. For personal support workers and health-care workers who used to work part-time at multiple institutions, the landscape has changed.

In B.C., Dr. Bonnie Henry issued an order in late March requiring workers at long-term care homes to limit their work to one care home instead of working at several. In Ontario, the government made similar recommendations in March, but stopped short of requiring employees to stay at one facility.

Those who follow the guidelines to work in only one care home to prevent cross-contamination could be losing a significant part of their income.

Sheikh said that the problem is that employers do not technically have to do anything about this.

“Where they’re working the one part-time job, is that specific employer responsible for supplementing the income of the other part-time job? Absolutely not."

If a worker is part of a union, they may have more options, he said. But non-unionized workers can fall through the cracks.

Sheikh said that government funding might be able to fill in the blanks for some PSWs in this situation, but the hope is there will be more avenues soon.

“Because I can appreciate how unfair [this loss of jobs] might be, especially for those health-care workers that are not unionized,” she said.“The last thing you want to do is demoralize our health-care workers.”

Questions surrounding the rights of workers are increasingly complicated right now, Sheikh said.

“I think we’re in sort of the wild, wild west, so to speak, right now, in terms of how this virus and the implications for our workplaces is going to play out in the next few weeks,” she said.

Because of the increased murkiness around when workers can refuse unsafe work, and when employers can ask questions that would violate previous privacy rules, Sheikh anticipates that there could be “a significant amount of litigation and people filing lawsuits … around what was appropriate and what wasn’t appropriate during this time.”