Stephen Harper involved in company looking to arrange sale of surveillance tech to UAE

Wed., September 29, 2021

Former prime minister Stephen Harper and the UAE's de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed, meet in Abu Dhabi in December, 2019. On Twitter, Harper called the Emirates “a remarkable nation” and the Crown Prince a “friend and great leader.More

Former prime minister Stephen Harper heads the advisory committee of a Toronto-based company now looking to facilitate the sale of cutting-edge surveillance technology to the United Arab Emirates — a country with a troubling human rights record.

AWZ Ventures finances Israeli surveillance technology systems, including facial recognition and crowd detection systems and services that deliver comprehensive information on individuals in real time.

The prospect of such technologies being offered to a country with a history of human rights abuses is being condemned by international cyberthreat and human rights experts in Canada, the U.K. and Israel.

Harper is a major player in this investment firm, serving as president of its advisory committee — which is composed of former members of the Mossad and other Israeli and American intelligence agencies, among others.

He is also a business partner with the firm, which has investments in 18 Israeli cybersecurity companies, according to its website.

Vimeo

AWZ Ventures is in the process of incorporating a subsidiary in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Former Canadian diplomat Katherine Verrier-Fréchette has been hired as managing director of this subsidiary, AWZ Horizons, which will be based in Abu Dhabi, UAE's capital.

Verrier-Fréchette has been working full time for AWZ since February 2021, according to her Linkedin account.

She also has been tasked by AWZ with facilitating the sale of cybersecurity technologies to other countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, and countries in North Africa.

Palestine Monetary Authority

"The sale of cyber surveillance technologies to a country like the UAE is inherently problematic from a human rights perspective," said Siena Anstis, senior legal adviser to Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto research body focused on the study of digital threats.

AWZ Ventures defends its decision to do business with the United Arab Emirates.

In an email in response to Radio-Canada's questions, AWZ's co-founder and spokesperson Yaron Ashkenazi said the firm invests in "defensive security technologies which are designed so that they cannot be circumvented or reverse engineered for nefarious purposes."

Ashkenazi said his firm works "diligently" with its portfolio companies "to ensure they comply with the highest ethical and regulatory investment standards in Canada and other markets in which we operate."

CORSIGHT/YouTube

'Very, very dangerous'

But one Israeli human rights lawyer said the UAE has used this kind of technology to control its population and block democratic reforms.

"It's very, very dangerous," said Eitay Mack, who has been calling on Israel to be more transparent when it comes to defence exports.

He said he finds it "very sad" that a former Canadian prime minister would associate himself with the sale of cyber-surveillance tech to the UAE.

"I think he should have done better things for humanity than to put his name and also his reputation as a Canadian prime minister (to this project)," said Mack. "It gives big legitimation to not only this project but also to the human rights violations in the UAE."

Harper and Verrier-Fréchette did not respond to Radio Canada/CBC's request for comments.

Ashkenazi said the commercial relationship between AWZ Ventures and the UAE is being established "in the spirit of the Abraham Accords" — peace treaties between Israel, the UAE and other Arab countries.

Twitter @stephenharper

He added that his company has personnel on the ground "to ensure ethical operations."

Canada and the UAE have strong diplomatic and trade relations and share membership in international organizations, such as La Francophonie.

UAE accused of spying on journalists, activists

An international investigation led by 17 news agencies revealed this summer that the UAE and other repressive regimes were clients of the Israeli NSO Group, the developer of the Pegasus spyware, which can be installed covertly on mobile phones.

The investigation identified 1,000 phone numbers of potential targets for the Pegasus spyware, including political leaders, human rights activists and journalists in many parts of the world. The UAE has denied spying on these individuals.

In the past, Citizen Lab has reported that the UAE used spyware against one of its human rights defenders, Emirati blogger Ahmed Mansoor, who has been imprisoned since 2017.

In convicting Mansoor, courts in the UAE based their verdict on the Emirati cybercrimes law, which makes even the slightest criticism of authorities a criminal offence. Email exchanges and WhatsApp conversations with representatives of human rights organizations were used against him at trial, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

"Companies cannot plead ignorance," said lawyer Siena Anstis of Citizen Lab. "In the case of the UAE, there are multiple public examples of the government using and abusing cyber surveillance technology by deploying it against human rights actors and dissidents in violation of international human rights law."

No export permit required

In Canada, a company such as AWZ Ventures does not need an export permit to facilitate the sale of cybersecurity technology.

Only companies that facilitate the movement of military equipment, or items that can be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, need to obtain a broker permit.

"The regime governing this is totally stuck in the Cold War," said Edin Omanovic, advocacy director for the U.K.-based Privacy International, which advocates against the use of pervasive surveillance technologies.

Omanovic said the controls in place in Canada and many other countries focus on conventional weapons, excluding many types of surveillance tech.

Twitter: Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development

"Such controls are completely out of date and incapable of addressing the human rights risks posed by these emerging industries," he said.

The Israeli companies financed by AWZ Ventures that are producing the cybersurveillance technologies need to obtain export permits from the Israeli government.

But the Canadian government still has a responsibility under international law to ensure Canadian companies aren't undermining human rights abroad, said Mack.

"Maybe according to the regulations in Canada and the regulations in Israel, only the Israeli companies that actually sell the equipment have the direct legal obligations," he said. "But the Canadian government should be responsible for how finances are being transferred through Canadian companies and how it influences human rights."

Global Affairs Canada declined to comment on AWZ Ventures' business dealings.

In an email to Radio-Canada/CBC, however, the department said that "Canada has one of the most rigorous export control systems in the world, and respect for human rights is enshrined in our export control legislation."

The department also confirms that while some exports of cyber surveillance technologies require permits, companies that facilitate the sale of such technologies don't require authorization.

Appeals are mounting in Purdue Pharma bankruptcy settlement

Wed., September 29, 2021, 


Objections to a historic settlement with Purdue Pharma are mounting in the form of appeals, with Rhode Island's attorney general saying Wednesday the plan doesn't hold the OxyContin maker or its owners accountable for its role in sparking the opioid crisis.

Rhode Island appealed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Separate appeals have already been filed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Washington state, plus some Canadian local governments and other Canadian entities.

Any successful appeal could undo the deal, not just that state’s piece of it.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, a Democrat, said he doesn't accept that the resolution between Purdue Pharma and thousands of state and local governments is sufficient. The Sackler family has not been transparent about its wealth, he said, so it's difficult to calculate how much punishment any resolution will inflict.

Estimates have put the collective wealth of family members who own the company at over $10 billion.

Neronha also said he dislikes that the settlement protects the Sacklers from lawsuits over opioids.

The state would be entitled to an estimated $21.6 million over nine years, or about $2.4 million annually, he said.

“It's just not a lot,” Neronha said. “It may sound like a lot, I guess, but it's not a lot, given the scope of the problem, both past, present and future.”

A federal bankruptcy judge approved a plan this month to turn Purdue, based in Stamford, Connecticut, into a new company no longer owned by members of the Sackler family, with its profits going to fight the opioid epidemic.

The deal resolves some 3,000 lawsuits filed by state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions, hospitals and others who claimed the company’s marketing of prescription opioids helped spark and continue an overdose epidemic.

Company profits and $4.5 billion in cash and charitable assets from members of the Sackler family will be used to pay some individual victims and help fund opioid treatment and prevention programs.

Members of the Sackler family have said that while they dispute the allegations made about their family, they “embraced this path in order to help combat a serious and complex public health crisis.”

Purdue has said the settlement averts “years of value-destructive litigation” and ensures that billions of dollars will be used to help people and communities hurt by the opioid crisis.

Purdue said in an email Wednesday that the bankruptcy court and the vast majority of its creditors believe the settlement is the only way to fund programs to end the opioid crisis.

“Appeals will only further hurt the states, victims and creditors by delaying and eroding their recoveries,” the email read. “Now is the time for the remaining objectors to join the overwhelming majority of creditors so that billions of dollars can begin to flow as quickly as possible.”

Rhode Island's case against opioid makers is scheduled for trial in state court in January. But the state's claim and all others against Purdue were put on pause when the company filed for bankruptcy two years ago. The state's only hope of being able to move ahead with a claim against the company would be winning an appeal.

Jennifer Mcdermott And Geoff Mulvihill, The Associated Press

Court annuls EU-Morocco deals over Western Sahara policies


Wed., September 29, 2021, 



BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's general court on Wednesday annulled the 27-country bloc's approval of agriculture and fishing agreements that allow Morocco to export goods from Western Sahara.

The ruling could damage the EU's relationship with Morocco, although the court said the effects of the 2019 agreements would be maintained over a certain period "to preserve the European Union’s external action and legal certainty over its international commitments."

The EU is Morocco’s leading trade partner and the biggest foreign investor in the North African kingdom, according to the bloc.

The case was brought to the court by the Polisario Front, the movement seeking Western Sahara's independence from Morocco. The movement challenged decisions by the European Council, the body that acts on behalf of EU member countries.

In its findings, the court determined that the Polisario Front was “recognized internationally as a representative of the people of Western Sahara," and that the EU did not ensure it secured the consent of the Saharawi people before sealing the agreements with Morocco.

In a joint statement, the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, and Morocco's minister of foreign affairs, Nasser Bourita, said they would act “to ensure the legal framework which guarantees the continuation and stability of trade relations.”

Oubi Bachir, the Polisario representative to the EU, celebrated in a message posted on Twitter “a great victory for the desert cause." He later called on EU leaders to comply with the court's ruling, saying in a statement that “their defiance of European justice continues to hinder the process of decolonization of Western Sahara."

Morocco’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said would appeal the ruling, calling it a “biased and ideologically motivated decision.”

The European Court of Justice ruled in February 2018 that a fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco could not include the waters off Western Sahara.

Morocco considers the vast, mineral-rich Western Sahara its “southern provinces” and rejects any actions it regards as a threat to its territorial integrity. The territory’s status is one of the most sensitive topics in the North African kingdom.

Morocco annexed the former Spanish colony in 1975 and fought the Polisario Front independence movement. The U.N. brokered a cease-fire in 1991 and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor it.

But the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said Western Sahara isn’t part of Morocco, so its waters aren’t part of the EU-Morocco agreement. In 2018, the court said including those waters would contravene “certain rules of general international law” such as the right to self-determination.

Morocco and Spain are the countries most affected by the ruling. On the fishing agreement alone, Morocco is set to lose about 52 million euros annually, for four years, in exchange for allowing 128 vessels from 11 European countries fishing in the waters off the western African coast. Ninety-two of those vessels are Spanish.

Spain’s Foreign Ministry declined to answer questions over whether Spain would join Morocco in seeking an appeal.

“Regarding the judicial decisions, we value that there is a transitional period,” a ministry spokesman, who was not authorized to be named in media reports, told The Associated Press.

The ruling came as the governments of Spain and Morocco have hastened contact to try to solve the diplomatic crisis that led to the sudden arrival of some 10,000 migrants, including unaccompanied children, at the city of Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa.

The humanitarian crisis started as Morocco and Spain argued over Madrid’s decision to provide COVID-19 care to Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Western Sahara pro-independence front, which angered authorities in Rabat.

Moroccan authorities, meanwhile, denied that they encouraged people to try to enter Ceuta without authorization.

___

Lorne Cook in Brussels, Aritz Parra in Madrid and Tarik El-Barakah in Rabat contributed to this story.

Samuel Petrequin, The Associated Press

EU Lawmakers to Tackle Energy Crunch as Calls for Action Grow

Ewa Krukowska and Nikos Chrysoloras
Thu., September 30, 2021

EU Lawmakers to Tackle Energy Crunch as Calls for Action Grow


(Bloomberg) -- The unprecedented spike in European Union energy prices is amplifying concerns about public support for the world’s most ambitious climate reform and reshaping agendas for key political meetings.

The crisis is set to be debated by environment ministers on Oct. 6 following Poland’s call to carefully consider its impact on a planned green economic overhaul, two diplomats with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg Wednesday. The energy crunch hijacked a gathering of energy ministers last week and is also expected to be discussed at a summit of EU heads of government next month.

“Energy prices are currently soaring across the EU and putting unprecedented pressure on both energy companies and on our citizens,” the Polish government said in a note seen by Bloomberg News. “When designing energy and climate policies, we have to ensure their social acceptability, otherwise we risk their failure.”

The surging costs of power, natural gas and carbon-emission permits are threatening to inflict double-digit percentage increases on consumer electricity bills, prompting EU member states to employ unorthodox measures to blunt the impact. Greece promised to subsidize power bills and suggested creating a carbon-market fund to hedge against rising prices. Spain wants to slap a windfall tax on utilities and proposed a central platform for natural gas purchases.

The same day as the environment ministers discuss the energy crunch at their meeting in Luxembourg, the European Parliament will tackle the issue at its plenary sitting. Lawmakers gathered in Strasbourg will hear statements from representatives of the European Commission and member states on “solutions to the rise of energy prices for businesses and consumers,” according to a draft agenda of the session seen by Bloomberg News on Thursday.

The debate on immediate actions to tackle the crisis comes as European policy makers start negotiations on exact steps to reach the region’s new binding goal of reducing greenhouse gases by at least 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels. In a set of draft laws known as “Fit for 55,” the European Commission proposed measures from putting a price on emissions from heating and transport fuels to a ban on new combustion-engine cars as soon as 2035.

Talks on the package, which also includes a 72-billion euro ($84 billion) fund to help the most vulnerable households, micro enterprises and transport users, will take around two years. The laws require support from the EU Parliament and member states in the Council of the EU to be approved, with each institution entitled to propose changes.

“The social context clearly needs to be at the heart of our discussion on the Fit for 55 proposal, but the current situation shows that vulnerability to high energy prices is a major problem that has to be tackled now – not in a few years’ time,” the Polish government said.

Low gas inventories in Europe, ebbing pipeline imports and strong Asian demand driving liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo diversions form a constructive backdrop for regional wholesale gas prices into heating season. Tapering domestic output, competitive global LNG markets and increased gas burn for power generation amid carbon-price volatility may keep balances tight in 2022 as a post-pandemic recovery unfolds.

Poland wants a two-fold approach by the EU: offering flexibility for member states to introduce immediate measures to protect consumers, and ensuring long-term mechanisms to reduce energy poverty in the region.

It also called for urgent measures to curb the influence of financial investors in the EU Emissions Trading System and urged Brussels to be “assertive” when faced with unfair gas-market practices.

Gas and power prices are breaking records as European economies rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic. The demand surge coincides with limited gas imports from Norway and Russia. Some countries accuse Moscow of manipulating supplies to boost pressure on the EU to secure approval for the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would bring more Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany, circumventing Ukraine.

“We cannot allow any producer to abuse his dominant position and treat gas supplies as a political tool,” the Polish government said. “Leaving existing pipelines and storage capacities largely unused in the midst of supply scarcity is a clear sign of market manipulation and a foretaste of what the EU can expect in the future.”

Even so, others disagree, including Uniden, a French group of energy-intensive manufacturers.

“Nord Stream 2 must be opened as soon as possible,” Uniden President Nicolas de Warren said, warning that otherwise some industrial plants will be forced to close because of high gas prices.

(Updates with European Parliament debate in the fifth paragraph, Uniden in last.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

THE LAST POST FOR FIRST NATIONS

Teaching Canadians to observe solemn new Truth and Reconciliation Day could take time

OTTAWA — These days thoughts of Remembrance Day conjure images of chilly, solemn ceremonies, red poppy wreaths and the sound of the Last Post reverberating over silent crowds.


© Provided by The Canadian Press

But a century ago, many marked Remembrance Day with long-weekend getaways, since the statutory holiday always fell at the beginning or end of the week.

While other federally recognized holidays are celebrations complete with travel, large meals, and fireworks, The Royal Canadian Legion has worked hard over the decades to make sure Nov. 11 isn’t just another day off for public servants, but a day of reflection.

“The fear is that we will go back to the practice of when it did become a long weekend, and people did not spend the time in reflection or in remembrance, rather, made it an opportunity for a long-weekend trip before the Christmas period started,” said Steven Clark, the executive director of The Royal Canadian Legion.

Now Canada prepares to add another sombre holiday to its shared cultural tradition with the inaugural National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30 — a day to recognize the horrors of Canada’s residential schools, and honour the lost children and survivors.

The holiday grants a paid day off to federally regulated employees and public servants, and some provinces have done the same for their workers.

Public sector unions hope the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation doesn’t suffer the same fate Remembrance Day once did.

“If we do nothing this year, then that may be the way it is for years to come, “ said Chris Aylward, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Unions have urged members to donate to charities that benefit Indigenous causes and read up on Canada’s Indigenous history and the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

But Aylward acknowledged no one can tell employees how to spend the free time they’ve been granted.

“I really hope that people who are given the day off on Sept. 30 don't view it as just another day off to do whatever they want. I'm really hoping that people who have the day off on Sept. 30 really use it as an opportunity to take real action to support Indigenous Peoples,” he said.

The enactment of a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was among 94 calls to action put forward by the TRC.

The law to mark Sept 30 as a national holiday was given royal assent just weeks after what are believed to be 215 unmarked graves were discovered by Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation on the grounds of a residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

Hundreds more potential grave sites were found near residential schools in the months that followed.

“I’ve always believed that we don’t take a moment for those who have experienced this, the survivors of residential schools, and those who were lost through residential schools, and that it’s important that we do that — that we take a moment for them, to understand what this country did to them, to acknowledge that it was wrong, and to commit to not doing it again,” said Murray Sinclair, the recently retired senator who served as chief commissioner of the TRC, in an interview with CBC’s Unreserved.

“Just like they do for veterans who come out of the war — that it’s not just about marching and dressing up and getting some time off from school and closing stores and getting some time off from work, but it’s about remembering what they have done.”

The federal government was to hold an event by the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill Wednesday night to mark the eve of the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

On Thursday, an opening ceremony is planned on the Hill, followed by a spirit walk to Confederation Park. Other ceremonies are planned across the country and online.

Sinclair told CBC he expects most people in the country won’t be using the day off for the purpose it was intended.

"But next year, there will be one more there, then the year after that there will be one more,” he said.

That is the same philosophy the Legion used to bring Canadians together to remember veterans.

“I think it's something that you instil in your youth,” Clark said.

Though public servants might have observed Remembrance Day by heading on vacation in the past, the traditions and education have been passed on through generations, Clark said.

That process is beginning now with the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

“It's a journey that we as a collective, as a society, have to take so that we are made aware of past injustices, aware of where we need to go and guidance on how to get there,” Clark said.

In time, the sound of drums on Sept. 30 may inspire the same type of reflection as the sound of the bugle on Nov. 11.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 29, 2021.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

YouTube bans all anti-vaxx content - not just misinformation about COVID-19 shots

insider@insider.com (Katie Canales)

YouTube said it is banning all content claiming that approved vaccines do not work or are harmful.

That includes vaccines for illnesses other than the coronavirus disease for the first time.

The ban is a departure from the industry's historical hands-off approach to content moderation.

YouTube is banning all anti-vaccine content on its platform, including misinformation about approved vaccines for common illnesses in addition to COVID-19, the company said Wednesday.

The Google-owned social media platform will remove any video that attempts to describe well-known vaccines that are approved by federal health officials as being harmful, it said in a blog post first reported by the Washington Post. That includes content claiming vaccines can cause autism, cancer, infertility, or can allow the recipient of the vaccine to be tracked via microchip.

YouTube previously had banned false information surrounding the coronavirus vaccines in October 2020. The company said it will still allow discussion around vaccine policies, new vaccine trials, and personal accounts of receiving the vaccine.

A YouTube spokesperson also confirmed to Insider that the company will remove the accounts of high-profile anti-vaxxers like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, and anti-vaccine activist and author Joseph Mercola.

Kennedy Jr. was one of 12 people that a recent report found to be the most prolific spreaders of COVID-19 disinformation online.

Wednesday's expansion of rules related to vaccine content marks a major change in how the company handles content on its service.

"Developing robust policies takes time," Matt Halprin - YouTube's vice president of global trust and safety - told the Post. "We wanted to launch a policy that is comprehensive, enforceable with consistency and adequately addresses the challenge."

YouTube and other social media companies have long taken a hands-off approach to moderating content. But pressure has increased from regulators and the general public in recent years, especially amid the pandemic and 2020 presidential election, for platforms to more actively police disinformation on their websites.

Facebook and Twitter have also moved to limit the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation online. Still, false content has still leaked through - private groups devoted to discussing and taking proven COVID-19 treatments like the horse drug Ivermectin proliferated, Insider reported in early September.

Companies also began cracking down on former President Donald Trump's false statements in 2020, thrusting the topic of social media platforms' content moderation into an ongoing political war.

Read the original article on Business Insider

JUNG AND CROWLEY

 

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CHATTEL SLAVERY

More than 40% of interns are still unpaid—here’s the history of why that’s legal

Why unpaid internships continue to exist in corporate America

For many young workers, an internship offers their first taste of the “real world,” and many interns take home a very real paycheck of $0.

According to a recent survey of 267 employers (including big-name companies such as Adidas, Dell and Wells Fargo) by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the average hourly wage for paid interns in the summer of 2020 was $20.76 — an increase of $1.22 from the previous year and the highest rate ever measured.

But while competition at top employers may have led to good pay for some, a recent NACE survey of college students found more than 40% of interns surveyed said they were not paid.

Unpaid internships can be a controversial topic. Some argue they provide valuable exposure for young people trying to learn about an industry, while others critique the practice as an excuse to exploit free labor from young workers eager to get a foot in the door.

CNBC Make It spoke with experts to learn why unpaid internships exist — and why many feel these roles blur the line between opportunity and exploitation.
Legal precedence

The Fair Labor Standards Act, originally passed in 1938, requires for-profit employers and non-profit employers that generate $500,000 or more in business annually, to pay employees for their work.

This act was soon impacted by the 1947 Supreme Court case Walling v. Portland Terminal Company. At the time, the Portland Terminal Company offered an unpaid program for aspiring railroad brakemen that lasted for seven or eight days. When trainees sued the company, hoping to get paid, the case made it to the Supreme Court, which ultimately found participants did not need to be paid because they were “trainees” rather than employees, based on the court’s finding that “the trainee’s work does not expedite the railroad’s business, but may, and sometimes does, actually impede and retard it.”

This decision created a long-lasting precedent for the conditions under which it is legal for employers to not pay trainees and interns. Essentially, an organization does not need to pay an intern under the argument that the intern is receiving more benefit from the relationship than the organization.

View of the main entrance to the US Supreme Court Building at the intersection of First Street NE and Maryland Avenue, Washington DC, circa 1944.
PhotoQuest | Archive Photos | Getty Images

As work has changed, so did the role that interns provide organizations.

“In the 1970s, internships became more common across various industries as the college population grew due to the inclusion of women and other groups,” says Joshua Kahn, NACE assistant director of research. “This expansion of the college population occurred during a tight job market, so unpaid internships became seen as a way to help get these folks some experience in lieu of a full-time, paying job.”

Over the next several decades, internships expanded among both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

“By 1992, about 17% of college students had participated in an internship, with that number increasing to about 50% by 2008. This year, in our most recent data, 75% of graduating seniors said they participated in some type of internship experience,” says Kahn.

Interns speak out

As internship programs grew in popularity, many interns began calling attention to pay issues.

In 2011, Eric Glatt and Alex Footman who worked on the award-winning film “Black Swan” as interns, filed a lawsuit against Fox Searchlight alleging the production company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not paying them for their work.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge William Pauley found the interns should have been paid. In a summary judgment Pauley wrote, “Searchlight received the benefits of [the interns’] unpaid work, which otherwise would have required paid employees.”

Fox appealed the decision and in 2015, Second Circuit Judge John Walker found that rather than consider if the organization received a benefit from the work of an intern, “the proper question is whether the intern or the employer is the primary beneficiary of the relationship.”

In 2016, Glatt and Footman settled their case with 21st Century Fox. Those who interned on the movie were awarded various amounts ranging from $495 to $7,500, depending on their circumstances.

Following the suit, similar cases were brought against companies such as Condé Nast, NBCUniversal, Sony and Columbia Records, Viacom and Warner Music Group. Each company negotiated multimillion-dollar settlements with their former unpaid workers and now pay interns for their time.

CNBC Make It reached out to those companies but did not receive a response.

High-profile lawsuits have led to a steady decrease in the number of unpaid internships, says Kahn.

“I know there’s a big push on Capitol Hill to end unpaid internships for staffers in legislative offices, and that does seem to be moving the needle,” he adds.

One of those leading this push is Carlos Vera.

As a student at American University, Vera was an unpaid intern at the White House, the European Parliament and the House of Representatives. He took side jobs as a waiter and a barista to financially support himself.

“Coming from a working-class background, I couldn’t ask my parents for money. So what I did was I interned about 30 hours a week. I was taking a side job, working at 20 hours, and then taking six courses as a 17-year-old,” he tells CNBC Make It. “I started seeing that a lot of the people in my cohorts were very well off. These are the people that are going to be the future judges, lawyers, professors, elected officials, journalists”

Frustrated by what he felt was a system that held poor workers and workers of color back, Vera co-founded a nonprofit called Pay Our Interns in 2016 with the goal of bringing attention to unpaid internships at non-profit and government organizations such as Congress.

In 2017, the organization published a report called “Experience Doesn’t Pay the Bills,” which found 43 out of 100 offices in the Senate offered paid internships, and in the House, only 26 out of 435 representatives paid interns.

One year after publishing the report, the number of Senate Democrats who offered paid internships had doubled. Vera argues that organizations need to be regulated to pay their workers.

Unpaid internships are “not going to just magically go away,” he says. “As long as someone or an institution benefits from free labor, it’s going to continue.”

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

Published Tue, Aug 17 2021
Abigail Johnson Hess@ABIGAILJHESS

U.S. Treasury's Yellen seeking October agreement on global minimum corporate tax

David Lawder
Tue., September 28, 2021,

Yellen and Powell testify on the CARES Act at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington

By David Lawder

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday she is looking for G20 countries to reach political agreement on a global minimum corporate tax deal at their summit in October and has not ruled out a rate higher than 15%.

Yellen, speaking to the National Association for Business Economics, said the Senate Finance Committee is looking at a "slightly higher" overseas minimum corporate tax rate than the 16.5% passed by the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee.

"We'll see where it all shakes out, but my hope is that when reconciliation (legislation) passes, we will come into compliance with this regime, and we're looking for political agreement to be achieved at the G20 summit at the end of October, and then countries will quickly put this into place," Yellen said.

Some 134 countries agreed over the summer to support a global minimum tax of at least 15%, but low-tax Ireland has held off on endorsing the deal as it waits to see if the U.S. Congress accepts the Biden administration's proposed tax increases on corporations and wealthy Americans.

Yellen said she was optimistic that Ireland and other European holdout countries would ultimately join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tax deal.

Ireland has for years had a 12.5% corporate tax rate that has attracted investment from large U.S. multinationals such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Apple Inc.

"I think they think of this is an existential question, but I believe in the end that they will come along with this," Yellen said.

"There are a few other holdouts, Estonia and Hungary, and we're really working hard to find ways to bring them on board, so I'm very optimistic that this will get done."

These high school students are fighting for ethical AI

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business 

It's been a busy year for Encode Justice, an international group of grassroots activists pushing for ethical uses of artificial intelligence. There have been legislators to lobby, online seminars to hold, and meetings to attend, all in hopes of educating others about the harms of facial-recognition technology.

© Provided by CNN Kashyap Rajesh (top left), Damilola Awofisayo (top right), Sneha Revanur (bottom left), and Adrian Klaits (bottom right) are on the team of Encode Justice.

It would be a lot for any activist group to fit into the workday; most of the team behind Encode Justice have had to cram it all in around high school.

That's because the group was created and is run almost entirely by high schoolers. Its founder and president, Sneha Revanur, is a 16-year-old high-school senior in San Jose, California and at least one of the members of the leadership team isn't old enough to get a driver's license. It may be the only youth activist group focused squarely on pointing out the dangers — both real and potential — of AI-based applications such as facial-recognition software and deepfakes.

"We're fighting for a future in which technology can be used to uplift, and not to oppress," Revanur told CNN Business.

The everyday use of AI has proliferated over the last few years but it's only recently that the public has taken notice. Facial-recognition systems in particular have been increasingly scrutinized for concerns about their accuracy and underlying racial bias. For example, the technology has been shown to be less accurate when identifying people of color, and several Black men, at least, have been wrongfully arrested due to the use of facial recognition. While there's no national legislation regulating the technology's use, a growing number of states and cities are passing their own rules to limit or ban its use.

In moves ostensibly meant to protect student safety and integrity, schools are increasingly using facial-recognition systems for on-campus surveillance systems and as part of remote testing services. Encode Justice is taking action in hopes of making students and adults aware of its concerns about the creep of such surveillance — and this action can take many forms and be done from nearly anywhere as the pandemic also made online mobilization more common.

On a week in mid-September, for instance, Encode Justice's members were working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and another youth group, the Massachussets-based Student Immigrant Movement, to fight against facial-recognition technology in schools and other public places. This student week of action included encouraging people to contact local officials to push for a state ban on facial-recognition software in schools, and encouraging people to post support for such a ban on social media.

Yet while their time (and experience) is limited, the students behind Encode Justice have gathered young members around the world. And they're making their voices heard by legislators, established civil rights groups like the ACLU, and a growing number of their peers.


How it started

It started with a news story. About two years ago, Revanur came across a 2016 ProPublica investigation into risk-assessment software that uses algorithms to predict whether a person may commit a crime in the future. One statistic stuck out for her: a ProPublica analysis of public data determined that the software's algorithm was labeling Black defendants as likely to commit a future crime at nearly twice the rate of White ones. (Such software in use in the United States is not known to use AI, thus far.)

"That was a very rude awakening for me in which I realized technology is not this absolutely objective, neutral thing as it's reported to be," she said.

In 2020, Revanur decided to take action: That year, one of of her state's ballot measures, Proposition 25, sought to replace California's pretrial cash-bail system with risk-assessment software that judges would use to determine whether to hold or release a person prior to their court dates. She started Encode Justice during the summer of 2020, in hopes of raising opposition to the measure.

Revanur worked with a team of 15 other teenage volunteers, most of whom she knew through school. They organized town hall events, wrote opinion pieces, and sent phone calls and texts against Prop 25, which opponents contended would perpetuate racial inequality in policing due to the data that risk-assessment tools rely on (which can include a defendant's age and arrest history, for example).

In a November vote, the measure failed to pass, and Revanur felt energized by the result. But she also realized that she was only looking at a piece of a larger problem involving the ways that technology can be used.

"At that point I realized Encode Justice is addressing a challenge that isn't limited to one single ballot measure," she said. "It's a twenty-first-century civil rights challenge we're going to have to grapple with."

Revanur decided Encode Justice should look more deeply at the ethical issues posed by all kinds of algorithm-laden technologies, particularly those that involve AI, such as facial-recognition technology. The group is fighting against its rollout in schools and other public places, lobbying legislators at the federal, state, and local level.

Though statistics are hard to come by, some schools have reportedly been using such software in hopes of increasing student safety through surveillance; others have attempted to roll it out but stopped in the face of opposition. A number of cities have their own rules banning or limiting the technology's use.

Encode Justice quickly grew through social media, Revanur said, and recently merged with another, smaller, student-led group called Data4Humanity. It now has about 250 volunteers, she said, across more than 35 states and 25 countries, including an executive team composed of 15 students (12 of its leaders are in high school; three in college).

Revanur speaks quickly but precisely — she's excited and passionate and has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the dangers, both real and potential, that technology can pose. She's almost in awe of the group she's built, calling its growth "really surreal".

The group's mission resonated with Damilola Awofisayo, a high-school senior from Woodbridge, Virginia, who said she experienced facial-recognition software misidentification while attending a now-defunct summer camp before her sophomore year. Awofisayo said a picture of someone else's face was wrongly matched by facial-recognition software to a video of her, which resulted in her receiving an ID card with another camper's picture on it.

When Awofisayo learned about Encode Justice's work, she said she realized, "Hey, I've actually experienced an algorithmic harm, and these people are doing something to solve that." She's now the group's director of external affairs.

"Looking at history, civil rights were always fought [for] by teenagers, and Encode Justice understands that, and uses the medium we're used to to actually combat it," Awofisayo said.


How it's going

Often, that medium is social media. Encode Justice tries to reach other youth through platforms including Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

The group has spoken out against facial-recognition technology at public hearings, such as one in Minneapolis that resulted in the city banning its police department and other city departments from using such software.

Over the past three months, chapters have been paired up with one another to host town-hall-style events and conduct email and phone-based campaigns, said Kashyap Rajesh, a high-school sophomore in Hawthorn Woods, Illinois, who works as Encode Justice's chapter coordinator. He said chapters are also meeting with guest speakers from data and privacy related groups.

Revanur said the group has reached over 3,000 high school students so far (both in person and virtually) through presentations developed and given by its members. One looks at AI and policing, another AI and climate change, a third AI and healthcare, she said. Encode Justice has also partnered with conferences and hackathons to talk to attendees.

The group has also been reaching out to lawmakers across the political spectrum. This summer, the group's executive board went to Washington, DC, and met with staff at several senators' offices, said Adrian Klaits, the group's co-director of advocacy and a high-school junior in Vienna, Virginia.

Despite being run entirely by volunteers, all this work costs money. Revanur said funding has come from grants, including $5,000 from the We Are Family Foundation.

"Definitely without much financial capital we've been able to accomplish a lot," Revanur said.


Youthful advantage

These accomplishments include partnering with veteran activists, such as the effort with the ACLU of Massachusetts, to amplify the voices of students in its fight for algorithmic fairness and learn from those who have been working on social justice and technology issues for years.

"Those of us who are a little more established and have done more political work can, I think, provide some important guidance about what has worked in the past, what we can try to explore together," said Kade Crockford, the technology for liberty program director at the ACLU of Massachusetts.

Encode Justice is also working on a yet-to-be-launched project with the Algorithmic Justice League, which was founded by activist and computer scientist Joy Buolamwini and raises awareness of the consequences of AI.

Sasha Costanza-Chock, director of research and design at the Algorithmic Justice League, said their group got to know Encode Justice last fall while looking for youth groups to organize with in its work against algorithmic injustice in education. The groups are collaborating on a way for people to share their stories of being harmed by systems that use AI.

"We really believe in and support the work they're doing," Costanza-Chock said. "Movements need to be led by the people who are most directly impacted. So the fight for more accountable and ethical AI in schools is going to have to have a strong leadership component from students in those schools."

While the members of Encode Justice don't have years of experience organizing or fundraising, they do have energy and dedication, Klaits pointed out, which they can use to help spark change. And like young climate activists, they uniquely understand the longer-term stakes for their own lives in pressing for change now.

"There aren't a lot of youth activists in this movement and I think especially when we go into lobbying meetings or a meeting with different representatives, people important to our cause, it's important to understand that we're the ones who are going to be dealing with this technology the longest," said Klaits. "We're the ones who are being most affected throughout our lifetimes."