Trump’s emergency powers worry some senators, legal experts

WASHINGTON (AP) — The day he declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency, President Donald Trump made a cryptic offhand remark.

“I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about,” he said at the White House.

Trump wasn’t just crowing. Dozens of statutory authorities become available to any president when national emergencies are declared. They are rarely used, but Trump last month stunned legal experts and others when he claimed — mistakenly — that he has “total” authority over governors in easing COVID-19 guidelines.

That prompted 10 senators to look into how sweeping Trump believes his emergency powers are.


They have asked to see this administration’s Presidential Emergency Action Documents, or PEADs. The little-known, classified documents are essentially planning papers..

The documents don’t give a president authority beyond what’s in the Constitution. But they outline what powers a president believes that the Constitution gives him to deal with national emergencies. The senators think the documents would provide them a window into how this White House interprets presidential emergency powers.

“Somebody needs to look at these things,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said in a telephone interview. “This is a case where the president can declare an emergency and then say ’Because there’s an emergency, I can do this, this and this.’”

King, seven Democrats and one Republican sent a letter late last month to acting national intelligence director Richard Grenell asking to be briefed on any existing PEADs. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wrote a similar letter to Attorney General William Barr and White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

“The concern is that there could be actions taken that would violate individual rights under the Constitution,” such as limiting due process, unreasonable search and seizure and holding individuals without cause, King said.

“I’m merely speculating. It may be that we get these documents and there’s nothing untoward in their checks and balances and everything is above board and reasonable.″

Joshua Geltzer, visiting professor of law at Georgetown University, said there is a push to take a look at these documents because there is rising distrust for the Trump administration’s legal interpretations in a way he hasn’t seen in his lifetime.

The most publicized example was Trump’s decision last year to declare the security situation along the U.S.-Mexico border a national emergency. That decision allowed him to take up to $3.6 billion from military construction projects to finance wall construction beyond the miles that lawmakers had been willing to fund. Trump’s move skirted the authority of Congress, which by law has the power to spend money in the nation’s wallet.


“I worry about other things he might call an emergency,” Geltzer said. “I think around the election itself in November — that’s where there seems to be a lot of potential for mischief with this president.”

The lawmakers made their request just days after Trump made his startling claim on April 13 that he had the authority to force states to reopen for business amid the pandemic.

“When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total,” Trump said, causing a backlash from some governors and legal experts. Trump later tweeted that while some people say it’s the governors, not the president’s decision, “Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect.”

Trump later backtracked on his claim of “total” authority and agreed that states have the upper hand in deciding when to end their lockdowns. But it was just the latest from a president who has been stretching existing statutory authorities “to, if not beyond, their breaking point,” said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas.

Questions about Trump’s PEADs went unanswered by the Justice Department, National Security Counsel and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of a national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said PEADs have not been subject to congressional oversight for decades. She estimates that there are 50 to 60 of these documents, which include draft proclamations, executive orders and proposed legislation that could be swiftly introduced to “assert broad presidential authority” in national emergencies.

She said the Eisenhower administration had PEADs outlining how it might respond to a possible Soviet nuclear attack. According to the Brennan Center, PEADs issued up through the 1970s included detention of U.S. citizens suspected of being subversives, warrantless searches and seizures and the imposition of martial law.

“A Department of Justice memorandum from the Lyndon B. Johnson administration discusses a presidential emergency action document that would impose censorship on news sent abroad,” Goitein wrote in an op-ed with lawyer Andrew Boyle published last month in The New York Times.

“The memo notes that while no ‘express statutory authority’ exists for such a measure, ‘it can be argued that these actions would be legal in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear attack based on the president’s constitutional powers to preserve the national security.”’

Goitein said she especially worries about any orders having to do with military deployment, including martial law.

“You can imagine a situation where he (Trump) engineers a crisis that leads to domestic violence, which then becomes a pretext for martial law,” said Goitein, who insists she’s simply playing out worst-case scenarios. “What I worry about is the extreme interpretation under which he asserts the authority to declare martial law and take over all the functions of government, including running the elections.”

She also wonders if there is a PEAD outlining steps the president could take to respond to a serious cyberattack. Would the president aggressively interpret telecommunications law and flip an internet kill switch, or restrain domestic internet traffic? she asks.

Bobby Chesney, associate dean at the University of Texas School of Law, said some fears might be exaggerated because while Trump makes off-the-cuff assertions of authority far beyond past presidents, he doesn’t necessarily follow up with action.

Says Chesney: “His actions don’t match the rhetoric always — or even often.”

CAPITALISM IS CRISIS

Pandemic claims another retailer: 118-year-old J.C. Penney

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

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FILE - In this May 8, 2020, file photo, a J.C. Penney store sits closed in Roseville, Mich. The coronavirus pandemic has pushed troubled department store chain J.C. Penney into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth major retailer to meet that fate. Penney said late Friday, May 15, 2020, it will be closing some stores and will be disclosing details and timing in the next few weeks. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, FileYORK (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has pushed the storied but troubled department store chain J.C. Penney into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth major retailer to meet that fatAs part of its reorganization, the 118-year-old company said late Friday it will be shuttering some stores. It said the stores will close in phases throughout the Chapter 11 process and detail of the first phase will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

Penney is the biggest retailer to file for bankruptcy reorganization since the pandemic and joins luxury department store chain Neiman Marcus, J.Crew and Stage Stores. Plenty of other retailers are expected to follow as business shutdowns across the country have evaporated sales. In fact, U.S. retail sales tumbled by a record 16.4% from March to April.

“The coronavirus pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for our families, our loved ones, our communities, and our country,” said Penney’s CEO Jill Soltau in a statement. “As a result, the American retail industry has experienced a profoundly different new reality, requiring J.C. Penney to make difficult decisions in running our business to protect the safety of our associates and customers and the future of our company. “

Many experts are skeptical about Penney’s survival even as it sheds its debt and shrinks the number of its stores. Its fashion and home offerings haven’t stood out for years. And moreover, its middle-to-low income customers have been the hardest hit by massive layoffs during the pandemic. Many of them will likely shop more at discounters — if they shop at all, analysts say.

“This is a long, sad story,” said Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics, a retail research firm. “Penney offers no reason to shop there compared to its competitors, whether it’s Macy’s or T.J. Maxx or Walmart. How are they going to survive?”

Penney said that it has $500 million in cash on hand and has received commitments of $900 million in financing to help it operate during the restructuring. It said that it will be looking at different options, including the sale of the company. The restructuring should reduce several billion dollars of its debt and provide more flexibility to navigate the financial fallout from the pandemic, Penney said.

Like many department stores, Penney is struggling to remain relevant in an era when Americans are buying more online or from discounters. Sears has now been reduced to a couple hundred stores after being bought by hedge fund billionaire and its former chairman Eddie Lampert in bankruptcy in early 2019. Barneys New York closed its doors earlier this year and Bon-Ton Stores went out of business in 2018.

The pandemic has just put department stores further in peril as they see their sales evaporate with extended closures. Even as retailers like Penney start to reopen in states like Texas and Florida that have relaxed their lock downs, they’re also facing Herculean challenges in making shoppers feel comfortable to be in public spaces.

In fact, Green Street Advisors, a real estate research firm, predicted in a report last month that more than 50% of all mall-based department stores will close by the end of 2021. It expects that Penney will eventually liquidate its business, noting that a smaller company won’t solve its main problems.

Like Sears, J.C. Penney’s troubles were years in the making, marking a slow decline from its glory days during the 1960s through 1980s when it became a key shopping destination at malls for families.

The company’s roots began in 1902 when James Cash Penney started a dry good store in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The retailer had focused its stores in downtown areas but expanded into suburban shopping malls as they became more popular starting in the 1960s. With that expansion, Penney added appliances, hair salons and portrait studios.

But since the late 1990s, Penney struggled with weak sales and heavier competition from discounters and specialty chains that were squeezing its business from both ends. Penney’s began flirting with bankruptcy nearly a decade ago when a disastrous reinvention plan spearheaded by then CEO Ron Johnson caused sales to go into free fall.

Johnson drastically cut promotions and brought in hip brands that turned off loyal shoppers. As a result, sales dropped from $17. 3 billion during the fiscal year that ended in early 2012 to $13 billion a year later. Many longtime customers walked away and have not returned. Johnson was fired in April 2013 after just 17 months on the job.

Since then, Penney’s has undergone a series of management changes, each employing different strategies that failed to revive sales. The company based in Plano, Texas, has suffered five straight years of declining sales, which now hover around $11.2 billion. Its shares are trading at less than 20 cents, down from $1.26 a year ago, and from its all-time peak of $81 in 2006.

Soltau has acted swiftly since joining the company in October 2018. She jettisoned from stores major appliances that were weighing down operating profits. That reversed the strategy of her predecessor, Marvin Ellison, who brought appliances to the showroom floor after a 30-year absence in an attempt to capitalize on the troubles of ailing Sears.

Soltau turned the company’s focus back to women’s clothing and goods for the home like towels and bed sheets, which carry higher profit margins. Furniture is still available, but only online.

Still, sales and profits have remained weak. For the fiscal fourth quarter ended Feb. 1, sales at stores opened at least a year dropped 4.7 adjusted for the exit of appliances. Profits were down 64%.

_________

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Hong Kong watchdog absolves police over protest crackdown, dimming prospects of accountability























50 SLIDES © Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters Slideshow by photo services

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HONG KONG —Hong Kong's police complaints council in a report released Friday found no serious wrongdoing in the force's response to last year's mass protests, despite significant evidence to the contrary, instead focusing primarily on the actions of violent demonstrators.


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The review, whose scope was limited, dashed hopes among pro-democracy leaders and protesters that the Hong Kong government would hold officers to account for their part in inflaming political tensions throughout months of escalating conflict with demonstrators.

“We have a simple conclusion after reading this report: We m

ust continue to fight,” said James To, a pro-democracy lawmaker. “The report has led us to feel no confidence in our political system whatsoever.”

The protests were sparked by a now-shelved bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. But they widened to encompass calls for full democracy and an independent inquiry into what protesters alleged was police brutality, and they ultimately became an uprising against Beijing’s efforts to crush the democracy movement.

A lack of reconciliation, experts say, risks exacerbating a volatile political climate as protests heat up again over China’s interference in Hong Kong’s affairs. The report also fuels perceptions that the city’s police have become a tool for the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on dissent, according to academics and political analysts.

“Everywhere you go, the problem isn’t necessarily that the police do things wrong. They do things wrong everywhere,” said Clifford Stott, a policing expert at Britain’s Keele University. “The issue is that they aren’t held to account in Hong Kong.”

Stott was among a panel of international experts invited to work with the complaints council on the report, all of whom quit in December over disagreements about its scope.

The head of the complaints body is appointed by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who herself was picked by a small committee loyal to Beijing. The complaints council, unlike police watchdogs elsewhere, does not have the power to summon witnesses and cannot compel police to hand over evidence.

Rather than examining complaints against the force, the report by the Independent Police Complaints Council billed itself as a “thematic” study of key moments that altered the relationship between the police and residents.

These include the first major police operation on June 12, an attack by pro-Beijing triad gangs on pro-democracy protesters on July 21, and a police operation inside an enclosed subway station. The council said it had received 1,755 complaints since unrest began in June.

The report said that police should improve their operational practices, but it did not fault them for using excessive force or responding too slowly when pro-democracy protesters were attacked. It also focused on protesters who “doxed” police officers — a type of harassment involving the dissemination of personal information online.
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Hong Kong may never be the same again as mass arrests erode public trust in the government



Later Friday, Lam held a news conference to discuss the report, pointing out the IPCC’s role in supervising the police force. But the bulk of her comments instead addressed the behavior of protesters, and she was standing in front of a backdrop titled “The Truth About Hong Kong,” framed with photos of protesters building barricades and throwing gasoline bombs.

“I believe this is a comprehensive report that is objective and based on fact,” Lam said. “The protesters have no regard for the law and hurt people with political views different to them.”

The findings also address public perceptions of the police, noting that the force needs to rebuild trust.

But the review cautioned the police about their use of tear gas, saying that officers should ensure its use falls within appropriate toxicology limits for Hong Kong’s dense streets. Many residents complained of being gassed in their homes when police were dispersing protests.

A Washington Post investigation last year found that Hong Kong police repeatedly broke their own guidelines during the crackdown and faced no consequences.

Human rights groups have documented extensive abuse of arrested protesters by police. In another instance, an Indonesian journalist lost sight in one eye after police fired a projectile at her. The officer responsible has not been identified by the force nor publicly held accountable.

Police said that 22 officers have been reprimanded in connection with their actions in responding to the protests.


Friday’s report came at a sensitive time in Hong Kong. With health concerns over the covid-19 pandemic fading, protests are stirring ahead of the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing and the anniversaries of key dates in last year’s upheaval.


At the same time, Beijing is flexing its muscles, asserting recently that it is not bound by a constitutional provision that outlaws the central government’s involvement in Hong Kong’s local affairs.© AFP/Getty Images Police arrest a pro-democracy demonstrator in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong on May 10 this year.

Diplomats and observers say there have been no real attempts at reconciliation over last year’s unrest. They said they fear that another explosion of dissent could be more violent and destabilizing for the financial hub.

Lam continues to reject calls for a full commission of inquiry into the upheaval, saying that the complaints council report is enough.

Also on Friday, a 22-year old lifeguard, Sin Ka-ho, who pleaded guilty to rioting charges for participating in the June 12 protest, was jailed for four years.



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Family separation is back for migrants at the U.S./Mexican border, say advocates

Trump administration plan to send asylum-seekers back to Mexico

WASHINGTON — Several immigrant rights organizations are outraged by a new choice U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is presenting to migrant parents: Separate from your child or stay together in detention indefinitely.

Starting on Thursday, the groups claim, ICE began distributing a form in all three of its family detention centers that would allow parents to apply for their minor children to be released. The form, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, states that it is in compliance with the Flores court agreement, which prohibits ICE from holding minors for more than 20 days.

The released children are placed with family members, sponsors or placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Trump administration faced intense criticism for a Zero Tolerance policy in 2018 in which undocumented migrant children were separated from parents who had illegally crossed the order. The policy was implemented in May 2018 but reversed after an outcry in June.
Click here to see the form.

© Wang Ping A protester holds a placard during the "Families Belong Together" rally at Daley Plaza in Chicago on June 30, 2018.

The current, "voluntary" concept was previously termed "binary choice," but has never been fully implemented. Now, lawyers representing clients in ICE family detention say parents may be persuaded to separate from their children if they are worried about exposing them to COVID-19 in detention.

The timing is no coincidence, said Shayln Fluharty, director of the Dilley Pro Bono Project, which provides legal services for families in detention in Dilley, Texas. A federal judge recently told ICE it was not in compliance with the Flores agreement, and the forms, said Fluharty, are a way for ICE to show that these parents have chosen to keep their children in detention.

Fluharty said she expected the government to release children to show the judge it was in compliance, not to ask parents to waive their rights to have their children released.

ICE did not respond to an NBC News request for comment.

ICE detention centers, which hold immigrants in large open-floor cells with many detainees sharing the same toilet, sink and living area, are becoming a hotbed for COVID-19 infections. The New York Times reported 85 cases in ICE detention in New York and New Jersey. ICE confirmed the first COVID019death of a migrant in its custody on May 7. The migrant was at the single adult detention facility in Otay Mesa, California.

Families Together, a group that advocates for the reunification of separated migrant families, Tweeted on Thursday night: "@ICEGOV gave families a choice today — we'll let your children go if you give them up. But not you. In the middle of a pandemic. This is horrific."

RAICES of Texas, which offers legal services to refugees and immigrants, Tweeted on Thursday, "ICE is asking parents to sign a form that would permit their children to be separated from them and released from detention, while forcing the parents to remain detained."

Medics around the world face hostility over virus stigma


By SAMY MAGDY and EMILY SCHMALL, Associated Press


CAIRO (AP) — Dr. Dina Abdel-Salam watched in terror last month as scores of strangers gathered under the balcony of her aunt’s empty apartment in the Egyptian city of Ismailia, where she’d temporarily sheltered after leaving her elderly parents at home to protect them from exposure to the coronavirus

© Provided by Associated Press FILE - In this May 3, 2020, file photo, an Indian Air Force helicopter showers flower petals on the staff of INS Asvini hospital in Mumbai, India as part of Armed Forces' efforts to thank the workers, including doctors, nurses and police personnel, who have been at the forefront of the country's battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Many cities across the world erupt at sundown with collective cheers thanking front-line workers for their selfless battle. But in Egypt, India, the Philippines, Mexico and elsewhere, doctors have been attacked, intimidated and treated as pariahs because of their work. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade, File)

The crowd called out her name, hurling threats until she dialed the police for help.


“You have moved here to make us sick,” someone shouted.

Abdel-Salam’s ordeal is just one of many in a wave of assaults on doctors, illustrating how public fear and rage can turn against the very people risking their lives to save patients in the pandemic.

While many cities across the world erupt at sundown with collective cheers to thank front-line workers treating COVID-19 patients, in Egypt, India, the Philippines, Mexico and elsewhere, some doctors and nurses have come under attack, intimidated and treated like pariahs because of their work.

The pandemic, especially in places with limited healthcare infrastructure, has already subjected doctors to hardships. But medical workers, seen as possible sources of contagion, face another staggering challenge in these countries: the stigma associated with the illness.

“Now more than ever, we need to recognize the importance of investing in our health workforce and take concrete actions that guarantee their well-being and safety,” Ahmed al-Mandhari, the World Health Organization's regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a virtual news conference earlier this week.

But in many places, that’s a difficult task as mistrust, fear and misinformation can have devastating effects. Decades of poor education and scant government services in some places have created deep misgivings about the medical profession.

In central India, a group of five health workers, dressed in full protective suits, entered a neighborhood to quarantine contacts of a confirmed COVID-19 patient when a mob descended, slinging stones and screaming insults.

“Some people felt that the doctors and nurses will come and take their blood,” said Laxmi Narayan Sharma, the health union president in Madhya Pradesh, in central India.

In the southern Indian city of Chennai, another stone-throwing mob broke up a funeral for Simon Hercules, a neurologist who died from COVID-19, pelting the ambulance carrying his remains and forcing his family and friends to run for their lives.

In Afghanistan, conspiracy theories undermine the credibility of medical professionals. Nearly 19 years after the U.S.-led coalition defeated the Taliban, many blame Western nations for the country’s deterioration. One commonly shared conspiracy theory is that the virus was allegedly manufactured by the U.S. and China to reduce the world population, said Sayed Massi Noori, a doctor at one of two Kabul hospitals testing for coronavirus.

Last week, several physicians at the emergency unit of the Afghan Japan Hospital, where Noori works, were mobbed by 15 family members of a patient who died of the virus. The doctors had their noses bloodied.

“The relatives believe it is the doctors who killed their family members,” Noori said.

The coronavirus hotline in Ouagadougou, the capital of war-torn Burkina Faso, fields calls about persistent coughs and headaches. But it has also gotten death threats.

“They call and say that after they’re finished killing the soldiers in the north, they’re going to come and kill everyone here,” said Red Cross volunteer Emmanual Drabo.

Health workers across the Philippines have been attacked and targeted more than 100 times since mid-March, resulting in 39 arrests, police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar told The Associated Press. In one attack, five men stopped a nurse heading to work in the Sultan Kudarat province in late March, throwing liquid bleach into his face and burning his eyes.

Tough-talking President Rodrigo Duterte, long censured for his violent approach to curbing crime, responded: “I told the police, maybe it’s illegal but I’ll answer for it. Pour it back on the attackers of doctors and nurses.”

In Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, doctors and nurses say just venturing out in scrubs invites danger. One city hospital instructed its workers to shed their uniforms when they clock out, and the government has assigned National Guard troops to public hospitals.

Similar fears have sparked arrests in Sudan. In Omdurman, across the Nile River from the capital, Khartoum, a riot erupted at a hospital when rumor spread it would take COVID-19 patients. Police arrested several people who tried to attack the building, said hospital director Babaker Youssef.

In Egypt, even hospital administrators have faced public anger.

Ahmed Abbas, the vice president of a government hospital in Egypt’s Nile Delta city of Zagazig, was wearing scrubs when he was jostled and cursed while waiting in line at an ATM. The head of Egypt’s Doctors’ Union, Ihab el-Taher, says such incidents are “limited" but still disheartening.

On top of a global shortage of respirators, virus testing, and protective equipment, increased public hostility has deprived some medical professionals of basic needs — such as housing and transportation.

In India’s capital, New Delhi, doctors and first responders reported being evicted by their landlords. A nurse in Ethiopia said taxis refuse to pick up workers coming out of the nation's main hospital dedicated to coronavirus patients.

As the wave of attacks spurs government efforts to better support medical personnel and dispel rumors, many doctors draw optimism from growing public awareness.

After police dispersed the mob beneath her balcony in Ismailia, some people came back to apologize, Abdel-Salam said. In India, two of the doctors pelted with stones in Madhya Pradesh were cheered when they returned with gifts of saplings a day later, after health officials had explained the purpose of their visit.

Yet painful memories linger.

After the aborted burial of Dr. Hercules in southern India, one of his colleagues had to pick shards of glass off his shrouded body. Another colleague, Pradeep Kumar, gathered two hospital workers and returned under the cover of night to cover the dug-out grave with dirt.

“We had to literally use our hands,” Kumar said. “This man deserved something better than that.”

___

Schmall reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Chonchui Ngashangva in New Delhi; Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; Tameem Akhgar in Kabul, Afghanistan; Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed.

Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths

Toluse Olorunnipa, Ariana Eunjung Cha, Laurie McGinley

For two months, President Trump repeatedly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus, asking would-be patients “What the hell do you have to lose?”

Growing evidence shows that, for many, the answer is their lives.

Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of the Trump-backed drug is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients. Evidence showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating covid-19 has been scant. Those two developments pushed the Food and Drug Administration to warn against the use of hydroxychloroquine outside of a hospital setting last month, just weeks after it approved an emergency use authorization for the drug.

Alarmed by a growing cache of data linking the anti-malaria drug to serious cardiac problems, some drug safety experts are now calling for even more forceful action by the government to discourage its use. Several have called for the FDA to revoke its emergency use authorization, given hydroxychloroquine’s documented risks.

“They should say, ‘We know there are harms, and until we know the benefits, let’s hold off,’ ” said Joseph Ross, a professor of medicine and public health at Yale University, who added that the original authorization may have been warranted but new evidence has emerged about the drug’s risks.

“I’m surprised it hasn’t been revoked yet,” said Luciana Borio, who served as director for medical and biodefense preparedness of the National Security Council and was acting chief scientist at the FDA.

Testimony this week from a former top vaccine official removed from his post last month further highlighted allegations that Trump’s White House pressured government scientists to quickly sign off on the untested drug in March, at the same time the president was pitching it as a “game changer.”

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, told Congress Thursday that political pressure forced “dozens of federal scientists” to spend a harried 48-hour stretch rushing to put together a protocol for approving hydroxychloroquine for widespread use in covid-19 patients. Ultimately, that approach wasn’t taken. The FDA issued an emergency authorization for hospitalized covid-19 patients who cannot participate in a clinical trial.

In his whistleblower complaint, Bright said he was removed from his position in part due to his reluctance to promote the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, because they had not been tested and deemed safe for treating covid-19.

“It’s important to use available clinical data,” Bright told lawmakers. “And if we know there are potential risks, we need to make sure that we are cognizant of those risks and make sure those drugs are used in a very safe and controlled manner.”

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar attacked Bright on Thursday, saying “his allegations do not hold water.”

In a recent interview, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn denied that he was pressured to authorize hydroxycholoquine. “I can assure you 100 percent that the president has never pressured me to make a decision regarding any regulatory aspect of the FDA’s work.”

The FDA said in a statement Friday that it is continuing to evaluate its emergency use authorization for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, as it does with all such authorizations for drugs to ensure their continued safety.

“In general, the FDA may revise or revoke an EUA under certain circumstances, including information related to linked or suspected adverse events, newly emerging data that may contribute to revision of the FDA’s initial conclusion that a product may be effective against the particular threat or a material change in the risk/benefit assessment based on evolving understanding of the disease or condition,” the statement said.

Trump has continued to promote hydroxychloroquine without reservation while attacking those who question its effectiveness. He has described Bright as a “disgruntled employee” who is resisting the proposed treatment without cause.

“So we have had some great response, in terms of doctors writing letters and people calling on the hydroxychloroquine,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “And this guy is fighting it. There’s no reason to fight it. There’s no reason. But more importantly than that, we’ve had tremendous response to the hydroxy.”

But doctors, health experts and officials from Trump’s own administration say the evidence does not back up the president’s positive assertions. Those assertions, which Trump has claimed are partly based on “a feeling,” could be costing lives, they said.

Yogen Kanthi, assistant professor in the division of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Michigan, said that it has been clear that the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin — used to treat bacterial infections — could lead to cardiac arrhythmias, which cause the heart to beat irregularly or too fast or slow. Many patients hospitalized for covid had underlying cardiovascular disease that put them at higher risk for arrhythmias, “so it shouldn’t be surprising we saw an increase in death,” he said.

“The question has been answered that if you have the infection and it’s significant enough to be in the hospital, the drug doesn’t seem to do anything for you,” he said. “It may be the horse is out of the barn.”

Many hospitals have stopped using the drug outside of clinical trials.

“We no longer are keeping large quantities and have returned most of it,” said Nishaminy Kasbekar, director of pharmacy for the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia. “I think they should revoke the EUA because clearly based on the data it is no longer considered a treatment for covid.”

Some doctors, including one in Texas who is also a Republican committeeman, have continued to give the drug to coronavirus patients — with mixed results.

A study of Veterans Affairs patients hospitalized with the coronavirus found no benefit and higher death rates among those taking hydroxychloroquine, researchers said last month.

More than 27 percent of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine died, and 22 percent of those treated with the combination therapy died, compared with an 11.4 percent death rate in those not treated with the drugs, the study said.

The National Institutes of Health announced Thursday that it had begun a clinical trial of 2,000 adults to determine if the combination of hydroxychloroquine an azithromycin — the cocktail touted by Trump — works as a therapeutic for those with coronavirus.

“Although there is anecdotal evidence that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin may benefit people with COVID-19, we need solid data from a large randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether this experimental treatment is safe and can improve clinical outcomes,” Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said in a statement.

While Fauci has cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from anecdotal evidence, Trump’s promotion of the drug has been almost exclusively based on personal stories he has heard — often on cable news. He has largely ignored scientific studies to pitch the drug without caveat.

In a tweet shared 102,800 times and liked 384,800 times on Mar. 21 Trump claimed that “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”

He invited several recovered coronavirus patients to the White House last month, including some who said hydroxychloroquine saved their lives.

From mid-March through early April, Trump touted the drug as a potential panacea while downplaying any potential risks.

“The nice part is it’s been around for a long time, so we know that if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody,” he told reporters on March 19.

The president’s associates, including Fox host Laura Ingraham and his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, have also pushed the drug as a treatment for covid-19 in private Oval Office meetings and phone calls.

Some Republican lawmakers have continued to promote hydroxychloroquine while attempting to defend Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 86,000 Americans.

“When you’re the physician at the bedside, and there is a medication that has promise, and that has a safety profile that we understand — doctors will use this medication offline,” Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) told Bright during Thursday’s hearing. “That’s what’s happening. Whether that’s right or wrong, it might take us years to prove, but in the meantime, people can die.”

The Trump administration deployed tens of millions of doses of the drug from the Strategic National Stockpile as the president promoted the FDA’s emergency use authorization. His repeated statements that the drug had been fully “approved” by the FDA in record time added to the false sense that hydroxychloroquine had been vetted and declared safe for use, experts said.

While the FDA didn’t intend for the authorization to signal an endorsement, many physicians and patients interpreted it that way, especially with “political figures saying the FDA had approved the drug,” said Jesse Goodman, former chief scientist at the FDA and now a Georgetown University professor.

“There’s a misperception out there that the EUA means that the FDA has approved the drug,” said Aaron S. Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “That’s wrong, of course, but it’s a widespread misconception driven by irresponsible statements from certain politicians and members of the media.”



Goodman and Kesselheim are among a growing number of medical experts calling for the FDA to revoke its emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine in light of new evidence about its risks.

While an emergency use authorization is not a full-fledged approval by the FDA, it allows unapproved drugs and devices to be used during a public health emergency. The standard for an emergency authorization is that the agency “determines that the known and potential benefits of the medical products for their intended uses outweigh their known and potential risks,” according to the agency.

Mark McClellan, who was FDA commissioner during President George W. Bush’s administration, said he disagreed with calls to revoke the authorization. He called for it to be strengthened with additional warnings about side effects for those with heart disease, adding that removing the emergency authorization could create access issues for people who need the drug for ailments other than covid-19. In weeks before the Veteran’s Administration study was released in late April, there was a steady stream of warnings from different physician groups about the potentially deadly side effects of hydroxychloroquine. On Apr. 8, the United States’ three cardiology medical groups urged “caution” in using the combination. On Apr. 21, a National Institutes of Health panel recommended against using hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin due to potential toxic effects.

While hydroxychloroquine is approved by the FDA to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, some medical groups have long voiced concern that using it for coronavirus patients was particularly risky.

Several studies have been published since then that support those initial findings. Doctors in Brazil stopped a trial of chloroquine, closely related to hydroxychloroquine, after 11 patients died. They reported in JAMA Open Network on April 24 that in 81 patients, those who took high doses of the drug had a 3.6-fold higher death rate as compared to a lower dose group.

Brazil’s top health official resigned Friday following reported disagreements with President Jair Bolsonaro over the efficacy of the anti-malarial drug in curbing the rapid rise of coronavirus in Latin America’s largest country.

The departure of the oncologist Nelson Teich, who resigned less than one month after becoming health minister, came as Bolsonaro has followed Trump’s lead in wagering heavily on the drug. He has ordered its mass production despite serious questions over its side effects and its effectiveness in a country that now has the worst outbreak in the Southern Hemisphere.

Many public health officials have called for Trump to defer to his medical experts, a push that intensified last month after the president pondered aloud whether light or disinfectant could be used internally to kill the coronavirus.

“Data free advocacy for projects rarely turns out well,” said Peter Lurie, a former top FDA official and president of Center for Science in the Public Interest who has criticized the promotion of hydroxychloroquine by politicians. “This was a product that never had a solid basis for believing it worked, and the data that has since emerged are not encouraging. The best thing to do is to leave drug review to the experts. That goes for hydroxychloroquine, it goes for bleach and it goes for ultraviolet light as well.”

Terrence McCoy contributed to this report.

Yet another study shows hydroxychloroquine doesn't work against Covid-19

By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN

A new study -- the largest of its kind -- shows that hydroxychloroquine, the drug touted by President Trump, does not work against Covid-19 and could cause heart problems.

© Buda Mendes/Getty Images RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - APRIL 10: In this photo illustration, tablets on a blister pack of Plaquinol (Hydroxychloroquine) are displayed on April 10, 2020 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Controversial hydroxychloroquine is being suggested as a potential medication that could treat the Coronavirus pandemic in Brazil. According to the Ministry of health, as of today, Brazil has 19,638 confirmed cases infected with coronavirus (COVID-19) an at least 1057 recorded fatalities. (Photo illustration by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

The study was published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It follows a study published last Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine that also showed the drug doesn't fight the virus.

Even before these reports were published, the US Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health issued warnings about using the drugs for coronavirus patients.

In the most recent study, researchers at the University at Albany looked at 1,438 patients with coronavirus who were admitted to 25 New York City area hospitals. After statistical adjustments, the death rate for patients taking hydroxychloroquine was similar to those who did not take the drug. The death rate for those taking hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin, was also similar.

However, the patients who took the drug combination were more than twice as likely to suffer cardiac arrest during the course of the study. Heart issues are a known side effect of hydroxychloroquine.

"The big takeaway for me from this study is that it's very consistent with the FDA and NIH guidelines that came out in April," said one of the study's senior authors, David Holtgrave, dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany. "When deciding on public health interventions and treatments for Covid-19 or any other disease, it's really important to follow the data and follow the science and make sure decisions are being made on the highest quality data possible."

This study likely won't be the last word on the drugs. Researchers at the University of Washington, New York University and other centers are still testing the drug in patients.

In the clinical trials, coronavirus patients are randomly assigned to take the drugs or to take placebos, which have no effect, and then the death rates between the two groups will compared. These types of studies are considered the most reliable.

Trump's enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine

Starting in mid-March, President Trump became a frequent cheerleader for hydroxychloroquine, used to treat malaria, lupus and other diseases and the antibiotic azithromycin, often sold under the brand name Zithromax, or as a"Z-pack."

He promoted the drugs nearly 50 times, despite pleas from scientists to let studies decide if the treatment worked or not.

"HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine," Trump tweeted on March 21.

Fox News frequently echoed Trump, but both the network and the president quieted down about the drugs once studies started showing they didn't work and possibly could hurt.
No difference in death rates

Trump's enthusiasm for the drugs was based on a French study of 20 patients in March that showed the drugs might work against the virus. That study was criticized for poor methodology, with experts calling it "pathetic" and "a complete failure."

The medical society that published that study later said the study "does not meet the Society's expected standard."

But the study was enough to excite Trump, and enough to excite doctors, who were free to prescribe the drugs because they're both already on the market to treat patients with other illnesses.

The latest study in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at the medical records of 18% of all coronavirus patients hospitalized in the New York City area from March 15 to March 28.

In this group, doctors prescribed both drugs to 735 patients, just hydroxychloroquine to 271 patients, just azithromycin to 211 patients and neither drug to 221 patients.

They found that those taking hydroxychloroquine, either alone or with the antibiotic, were sicker than other patients to begin with and as time went on had a higher death rate. However, once the researchers statistically adjusted for the fact that the patients who took the drugs were sicker to start with, there was no statistical significance between the two death rates.

Overall, the patients had a 20% death rate.

The patients in the study were in the hospital, and other research teams are studying whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent coronavirus infection or slow it down in the beginning stages of the disease.

Fact check: The coronavirus pandemic isn’t slowing climate change

The claim: Drops in carbon emissions aren’t enough to significantly curb climate change

© Sam McNeil, AP FILE - In this Nov. 28, 2019 file photo, smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in Hejin in central China's Shanxi Province. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday at a two-day international meeting on climate change, that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed how fragile societies are, but that if governments work together on common challenges, including global warming, it can be an opportunity to 'rebuild our world for the better.' (AP Photo/Sam McNeil, File) ORG XMIT: DMSC307

With the coronavirus pandemic shutting down most global activity, a consequent crash in global carbon emissions has been widely reported.

While analysts agree the historic lockdowns will significantly lower emissions, some environmentalists argue the drop is nowhere near enough.

“Hey so it turns out that the people of earth accidentally did a global experiment to see if every individual could course correct climate change through mass personal change of habits, and it turns out, no! We can't!,” a Facebook post shared over 4,000 times reads.

The post shares a screenshot of another post that links to a Scientific American article, with the chatter, "Despite all the 'natural is healing' commentary global CO2 emissions have not considerably declined during the pandemic. This suggests emissions levels relate less to individual behavior than larger structural factors only addressable through regulation."
Projections for 2020 climate, carbon emissions

Analyses are nearly universal in finding that global carbon emissions will decline from the record peak in 2019. The declines, largely driven by a steep reduction in vehicle emissions, have been so large that photographs from space reflected the change.

The International Energy Agency, a policy advisory group to 30 member countries, projects that global carbon emissions are set to fall by 8%, or levels the world hasn't seen for a decade.

Estimates of the full drop in carbon emissions vary as analysts adjust their models around the coronavirus pandemic, but the lowest estimates still expect about a 5% drop in emissions.

“This may sound small at first, but it is the largest drop since World War II, as emissions have generally increased year-over-year, even during recessions,” Ankur Desai, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA TODAY.

Desai said the drop is attributable to commercial travel and business operations; a larger decline wasn’t recorded because “much of the economy is still going on,” including manufacturing, shipping and food production.

Despite the drop, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said 2020 is already the second-warmest year on record, and has a 75% chance of being the hottest ever.

“Our findings show that the annual average CO2 concentrations will still increase through this year, even though emissions are reducing,” a team from the United Kingdom’s National Weather Service said in a recent study, adding “This means that, although global emissions are smaller, they are still continuing — just at a slower rate. Additional CO2 is still accumulating in the atmosphere.”
Carbon accumulation, climate change

“The reported drops in carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases, while helpful, are insufficient to slow climate change,” Alex Hall, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UCLA, told USA TODAY.

Because current changes in the climate are the result of decades of accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, one year of slightly falling emissions will not counter long-term effects, Hall explained.

“Those emissions took place over of the past several decades,” he said. “To affect ongoing and future climate change, the recent emissions drop would have to be sustained over a much longer period than the likely duration of the coronavirus outbreak.”

The current drop in emissions is also not yet detectable in total carbon dioxide concentrations, according to Benjamin Houlton, a professor of environmental science at University of California, Davis. “The challenge is that carbon dioxide has an average lifespan of around 100 years in the atmosphere,” he told USA TODAY.

Emissions would need to drop by more than 25% to see a total drop in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and thus slow an annual global rise in temperatures, Houlton explained.

“There isn’t a scenario where global concentrations of CO2 do not increase this year,” Rob Jackson, a professor of earth systems at Stanford University, told USA TODAY.

“If we had a magic wand that would stop all emissions from today forward, it would still take decades for the atmospheric concentrations to return to normal,” he continued. “That is why we need to focus on carbon capture efforts as well.”

Kenneth Gillingham, a climate economist at Yale University, also cautioned that current emissions reductions were not sustainable, as they're the result of economic fallout rather a planned structural reduction in carbon emissions.

“The positive environmental impacts from COVID-19 are a silver lining but not something to be applauded,” he said. Gillingham was optimistic that some individuals and businesses would keep new habits like reduced commuting and increased telework after the coronavirus was contained.

“The only reason emissions dropped is that we’re all stuck at home,” Jackson said. “As soon as lockdowns lift, they are likely to rise again.”

While falling emissions may not have significantly impacted climate change, there have been some positive environmental outcomes from the pandemic. Air quality in cities around the world has improved over the last few months, according to preliminary studies.

“While this can’t be detected everywhere quite yet, there are signs in India and California, for example, that air quality improvements have been dramatic,” said Desai, the UW-Madison climate scientist.

Fact check: COVID-19 crisis has not created decreased long-term human environmental impact

The case study in falling carbon emissions may also hold significant lessons for climate scientists and policymakers going forward.

“Collective actions can have a real impact on emissions, rapidly,” Houlton said. “On the downside, the enormity of the challenge has been brought into greater focus: CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, which is what determines the magnitude of climate change, are very difficult to stabilize or reduce.”
Our ruling: True

While it is unclear how large carbon emission reductions will be for 2020, it is certain that the overall amount of carbon in the atmosphere will increase this year. Emissions have not fallen significantly enough to remedy any of the impacts on the climate, and current drops are unlikely to continue. We rate this claim TRUE because it is supported by our research.

Our fact-check sources:
USA TODAY, Will an 'unprecedented decline' in carbon emissions help limit climate change?

USA TODAY, Carbon dioxide reaches record high in Earth's atmosphere, scientists report

International Energy Agency, Global Energy Review 2020

Carbon Brief, Analysis: Coronavirus temporarily reduced China’s CO2 emissions by a quarter

USA TODAY, 2020 expected to be Earth's warmest year on record, scientists say

Carbon Brief, Analysis; What impact will COVID-19 have on atmospheric CO2?

Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: The coronavirus pandemic isn’t slowing climate change

9/11 saw much of our privacy swept aside. Coronavirus could end it altogether

Analysis by Nick Paton Walsh, International Security Editor, CNN

Spit into a cup when you land in an airport, and your DNA is stored. Every phone in every city talks to every other nearby device, their exchanges floating somewhere in the ether. Cross-border travel is enabled only by governments sharing data about millions of private movements.

© Vesa Moilanen/AFP/Getty Images A passenger, wearing a face mask, looks at her phone at the Helsinki International Airport in Vantaa, Finland, on May 13, 2020. - The Finnish airport operator Finavia requires the use of mouth-nose protectors of all airport employees who work in the customer interface. It also strongly recommends that passengers use a mask as they move about the airport. (Photo by Vesa Moilanen/AFP/Getty Images)
These are all possible visions of a future that the coronavirus pandemic has rushed on us -- decades of change effected, sometimes it feels, in just weeks. But a lurch into an even more intense era of mass data-collection -- the vast hoovering up of who went near whom and when, who is healthy to travel, and even scraps of personal DNA languishing in databases -- appears to be on the verge of becoming the new reality.


Will this grave new world intensify our desire for privacy, or extinguish what little left of it we had?

It took the attacks of September 11, 2001 to shove aside the previous decade's phobia of mass surveillance, and usher in an era where many of us imagined the state was probably skimming our emails, in exchange for keeping us safe from terror.

Over the next 15 years, billions of people agreed to a tacit deal where Facebook or Google were permitted to learn a staggering amount about them in exchange for free access to messaging apps, news, and shared pictures of a baby dancing, or a dog driving a car.

Eventually, that mutated into the heights exemplified by Cambridge Analytica -- private companies hoovering up the online lives of tens of millions in order to try to sway elections.


But the challenge presented by Covid-19 -- and the urgent need to trace contacts and movements -- is of another scale of intimacy. South Korea located over 10,000 cellphones near the latest outbreak and texted them to suggest a coronavirus test. The UK government has toyed with a centralized database of movements and health records, secured by government cyber-spies, able potentially to see who has been sick and who they have been near. Russia and many others have issued QR codes. China is putting surveillance cameras right outside people's doors.


Technology is again claiming the mantle of the savior we need to fill the gap between where we are now, and the new, knowledgeable, and capable place we need to be. Apple and Google are again offering solutions government cannot -- embedding into our phones anonymous methods of knowing who we may have infected and when. We are already seeing the extraordinary potential of these technologies in limiting the spread of the disease. But if they become ubiquitous, where does this new scrutiny end? When does it stop being helpful? Will we look back at 2020 as the moment privacy finally evaporated?
'Mission creep' feared

Few privacy advocates doubt the seismic nature of this moment. Some experts fear mission creep, while others see this as a chance to finally have our laws catch up with the digital age.

Privacy International called Covid-19's impact on privacy "unprecedented."

"9/11 ushered covert and overt surveillance regimes, many of which were unlawful," said Edin Omanovic, the campaign group's advocacy director. The surveillance industry "understands that this is an opportunity comparable to 9/11 in terms of legitimizing and normalizing surveillance. We've seen a huge willingness from people to help them as much as possible. However, helping health authorities fight the virus is different to helping security authorities use this moment as an opportunity for a data grab."

The way in which technology chooses to adapt to the moment may also define its success after it. The urgency of action after 9/11 -- and the things that were done "just for now" that became commonplace and permanent -- carry valuable lessons that governments may still choose to ignore. Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers exposed how huge amounts of phone or email data had been hoovered up by governments routinely, leaving some unsure if their democratic way of life was being eroded or protected by their security agencies.

Professor Jon Crowcroft, who pioneered one of the first influenza monitoring mobile apps at Cambridge University in 2011, said governments' introduction of apps, such as those in the UK, should be explicit about "sunsetting" -- the removal of data after a defined period.

"Just having a clear position on deleting that data after, say, 30 days, when it is clearly of no use for anyone -- because contacts will have recovered, epidemiologists will have improved their models -- would really help the public trust," he said.

Crowcroft fears two areas of "mission creep": the first being if the app or data is used to enforce isolation on people, and the second in imposing the need for an "immunity certificate" on a person who has the virus antibodies (though the science on this is far from settled).

But he added that, as we have seen in the past, practicalities may triumph over privacy: we will perhaps be less fascinated by how the apps technically gather and store data, "but will like the idea of being able to get out (to work & socialize) more safely and possibly sooner."

It's the same practical payoff that lured billions into social media; life was made better by platforms that did not appear to ask anything of you, yet created a trillion-dollar industry boosted by the commercial and predictive power of observing social media users. Despite growing privacy concerns, some 2.5 billion people use still use Facebook every month.
'Nothing here is inevitable'

The title of Shoshana Zuboff's book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" referred to the power and wealth accrued by tech companies who amassed huge amounts of data over the past two decades. She thinks Covid-19 could mark a moment not of the continued, inevitable dominance of these giants, but instead of people reasserting their rights in the way they should have done when these new online hyperpowers emerged.

"9/11 compromised our democracies in relationship to tech companies and their growing capabilities," she said. "We ended 2019 with people around the world in the process of waking up and appreciating the fact that surveillance capitalists have amassed these immense empires of unaccountable power. They have been given a free pass to do whatever they wanted: to steal our experience secretly, and combine that data to predict our behavior, then sell those predictions and become trillion-dollar companies."

This is a moment for better-informed societies to create the legal framework they've lacked to master the power of technology for their benefits, she said. Public health has always had an element of surveillance and tracking in it to monitor the spread of a disease, even before big-tech came along, she added.

"For people who are charged with tracking disease, surveillance systems are very important," she said, adding that we should permit some of our movements to be tracked for the good of common public health, a sacrifice of our privacy similar to how we choose to vaccinate children. But, she argued, new hi-tech surveillance has blighted that old, desperately needed health monitoring as being from the same intrusive fold.

"What's happened now is that we're so fearful of the other kind of surveillance that these things are conflated," she said. "We're hitting this wall of mistrust, because we have failed over the last 20 years to create the institutions, legislation, and regulatory paradigms that allow us to trust in this new invasive world."

Zuboff said the current vacuum in leadership in some Western countries meant tech giants could try to insert themselves into the problem as the only and obvious solution. "The dominant surveillance capitalists want us to believe and feel that in the vacuum that our leaders -- certainly in the UK -- have left in their wake, they are the ones to come and fill it."

But the pandemic could also present an opportunity to re-assert -- or finally assert -- regulation over the new digital age. "Nothing here is inevitable," she said. "We have a responsibility to society as well as to the privacy of individuals. And we can do both. The answer to that question is entirely up to us."

Yet, like 9/11, the moment is one of panic, coping, and rush for a return to normality, and less of a nuanced discussion about how the crisis can become an opportunity to fix the wrongs of the past. Without that discussion, our new normals may become a world in which a little bit more of our inner selves is out there in the ether, at risk of misuse.