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With the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is again in the national spotlight, as she looks like she just might vote to hear witnesses at the Senate trial. That impending Collins votebecame especially crucial this morning, when new allegations against Trumps involvement in the Ukraine pressure scheme surfaced in the unpublished manuscript of ex-National Security Adviser John Boltons new book. Collins indicated on Twitter the news may sway her vote, arguing the accusations strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversation among my colleagues. If Collins votes to allow additional documents and witnesses, shed be one of the few Republicans to do so. If it happens, its likely shell be lauded for her independence, and headlines in Maine will likely make this their focus.

National and local reporters typically frame Collins sometimes departure from the Republican fold in terms of a tension between two constituencies. The basic narrative: Collins has to keep Republicans happy, lest she face a primary challenge, but she also has to appeal to the broader electorate. A more historically grounded variant points to the decline of Republicanism in New England, at least when it comes to Congress and presidential votes. This is a shift that has gotten far less attention than party shifts in the South. The upshot is that Trump won just one electoral vote in New England, in Maines second congressional district, and Collins is now the only Republican office-holder from New England in Congress.

But what both of those perspectives on Collins leave out is something central to Maine political culture, a model against which Collins often is judged. Theres a vision of leadership Mainers have long touted and from which Collins previously benefited politically. In that vision, the best political leaders are respected nationally, civil, not politically extreme, involved in working across the aisle, committed to principle and independent.

Theres a political pantheon of Maine, made up of elected officials who fit that model. Margaret Chase Smith is among the purest exemplars. Smith was the Republican senator who stood up to Joe McCarthy in inveighing against character assassinations, while defending the right of independent thought, and proclaiming that she didnt want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear. Smith is regularly cited in Maine and Collins has identified Smith as a role model.

Others in the pantheon include Republicans Bill Cohen and Olympia Snowe, as well as Democrats Ed Muskie and George Mitchell and independent Angus King.

Collins has sometimes been included in the pantheon. Her vote against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act gave her place there great credibility, as did her announcement in the summer of 2016 that she would not back Trump for the presidency.

Over time, two key pillars of Collins reputation for independence were her support for legal and safe abortion and her environmentalism. And in the past, Collins was able to tout endorsements from pro-choice and environmental groups. But now, after voting for anti-choice judges, most importantly Justice Kavanaugh, and earning just 21% in the League of Conservation Voters 2018 scorecard, those endorsements have gone to a top challenger, Democrat Sara Gideon.

Her comments and actions on impeachment pose another threat to Collins reputation as an independent. Here, Collins most pertinent Maine comparison is to Republican Bill Cohen, who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation and on the Select Committee that probed the Iran-Contra affair. In both cases, Cohen stood up to presidents of his own party.

Like Margaret Chase Smith, Bill Cohens political courage and independence is still remembered in Maine.

Comparisons between Cohen and Collins were sure to be inevitable. Both have been viewed as independent and both are Republicans who have been confronted with presidential abuses. Collins was an intern for Cohen during the summer of 1974 when Cohen helped craft and pass articles of impeachment. Facing considerable political pressure from Nixon backers, Cohen made the articles more specific and thus stronger. Cohen characterized his position as on a high wire that was strung between disloyalty to party and disloyalty to principle and cited the exemplar of Maine independence Margaret Chase Smith.

But Cohens impact is not just as an historical example.

Cohen comes to the state frequently and hasnt held his tongue on Trumps wrongdoing. This fall Cohen said he believed Trump pursued a quid pro quo with Ukraine and this warranted impeachment, and warned there will be no rules that will be unbroken if Trump wins a second term. Just last week he said that Trumps actions in Ukraine were done for a corrupt purpose. Cohen also said that further evidence about Trump is going to come out and when it does senators will be called upon by their constituency: Well, why didnt you at least go forward and ask for more evidence so that you could be informed, so that we could be informed?

And it is in this broader context a backdrop of a Maine political vision of independence that Collins is often judged.

Collins waffling on witnesses is nothing new as a style and practice, as she often takes considerable time to announce her decisions. Reporters and pundits have often explained her purported indecision as her grappling with political pressures from multiple sides, and her defenders contend it shows her seriousness in assessing arguments.

But what might be seen as concern for a careful decision currently appears to many as some mix of tortured indecision, studied ignorance and political cravenness.

Under greater scrutiny now, Collins hasnt seemed as politically deft as in the past and certainly is not secure politically. When she won 69% of the vote in 2014, she had the support of 39% of Democrats and 69% of Independents, including 41% of Democratic women and 67% of Independent women. That is highly unlikely to happen in 2020. Collins Kavanaugh vote hurt her and her approval numbers have dropped considerably. The most recent Morning Consult poll found her underwater in approvals. Even as Collins would want to continue to hold a place in the Maine pantheon, the state itself has changed and that includes the Republican party. The current Vice-Chair of the Maine Republican Party promotes alt-right ideas, claiming that immigrants are the vector of disease and crime. Its successful gubernatorial candidate in 2010 and 2014 was Paul LePage, who declared himself Trump before Trump. Yet, while an independent candidate strongly supportive of Trump has emerged, LePage backs Collins and purportedly pressured a primary challenger to drop out of the race.

Intensive organizing and stakeholder pressure pushed Collins to vote against repealing Obamacare but mobilizing to try to get Collins to oppose Kavanaugh did not work. After working hard to flip the second congressional district from red to blue in 2018 and achieve a Democratic trifecta in the state with the governorship and both houses of the Maine Legislature, activists are already working on defeating Collins. They have asked her to hold town meetings but Collins has not done so for decades and there is no prospect she will do so. Instead Collins appears before invited audiences and gives media interviews.

Collinss overall campaign strategy has been to run ads saying shes independent, to criticize Democrat Sara Gideon and to try to use incumbency advantages. Collins engages in credit-claiming, touting grants and other help to Maine. Her offices carry out effective constituency service. Its a strategy thats worked for Collins in the past and it may work again. Beating a senatorial incumbent who has been as popular as Collins is tough. Its possible but will be no slam-dunk.

One new aspect of the Maine Senate race that might matter is the use of ranked-choice voting. Under this system, its not enough to gain a plurality the most votes. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the instant runoff process kicks in until one candidate has a majority. Collins may face a ballot with a Democrat, a Green party candidate, at least one independent to her left and an independent who strongly backs Trump. Those may bring Collins initial vote to under 50% and, if this happens, its quite possible that supporters of candidates to Collins left will rank the Democratic candidate after theirs and supporters of the strongly pro-Trump candidate wont rank anyone else. That pattern of ranking seems likely, given that Maine Democrats and independents like the ranked choice system much more than Republicans and ranked candidates more.

What does all this mean for what Collins will do on impeachment? One incentive she faces is that of appearing independent, given Maines political culture and its political pantheon.

However, casting a vote for witnesses after voting not to wont necessarily help Collins, for this sort of sequence is now often seen as too clever by many Mainers. In 2016 Collins said she wouldnt back Trump when it looked like he wouldnt win. She may vote for impeachment witnesses when shes not the deciding vote for passage. And, now under greater scrutiny, Collins could get the headlines saying shes independent while facing an electorate that includes Trump backers who wont like it and Democrats and independents who backed her before but are skeptical about whether that label is really deserved.

Amy Fried is the chair of University of Maines political science department and she oversees the schools Maine Policy Scholar Program.

Excerpt from:
Mainers Care About Collins' Impeachment Vote. But Her Reelection Is About More Than That - TPM

What exciting trends are happening in the matrimonial sector?Kara, by email

A thrilling new trend has emerged, and its as seismic as the New Look was in 40s fashion, or the emergence of Mediterranean cooking in 90s Britain: its called being a housewife.

Now you might think: Ummm, that doesnt sound THAT new to me. But all fashion trends are rehashes, and tradwife, as this one is dubbed, is housewife with a social media spin. Its like bringing back 90s style, but swapping that brown eyeliner for contouring makeup. Its just so much more zeitgeist, you see?

So a tradwife is a woman who doesnt work so as to look after their children, their husband, their home and then talk non-stop about how great this is on social media. Who knew being so traditional was also so modern? And so busy! Last week alone, there were interviews with tradwives in the Daily Mail, the Times and on the BBC, This Morning, Victoria Derbyshire and, for all I know, piped 24/7 across all channels. Im afraid that being both non-trad and a non-wife I am less plugged in than these women.

But I was especially taken with one trad wife. Her name is Alena Kate Pettitt, and in between showing TV crews how she lovingly irons her husbands shirt and shops for onions, Pettitt runs something called the Darling Academy, which is a newsletter and YouTube channel that celebrates British etiquette. Initially, I assumed this meant reviving all that mad Nancy Mitford U and non-U stuff, and, let me tell you, as an American wannabe snob, I am VERY down with that. But no, Pettitt is harnessing the best of what made Britain great, during that time when you could leave your front door open and know that you were safe, and you knew your strangers in the street.

Mmm, isnt it funny how whenever people evoke a specific time when Britain was great, the time they invariably evoke is their own childhood before they were aware of the pressures and anxieties of adulthood? And Ill be honest, every times Pettitt talks about her husband taking care of her, and that is pretty much her No 1 subject, she sounds more like shes talking about her father than her husband.

The tradwives have been keenly giving interviews about how they are the true feminists in choosing not to work, to which anyone with a modicum of knowledge about feminism would say: We gave women the choice thats the point! Bake banana bread until the sun comes up, if it makes you happy! Whether they are still the true feminists in suggesting that husbands must always come first if you want a happy marriage, as Pettitt has tweeted, feels more debatable. Also unacknowledged is that, as much as the tradwives think they are being renegade rebels by not working, their rebellion is based on their husband earning enough to support a whole household. Whoa there, little rebels!

But this isnt actually about fighting the system: this is about women fighting against their own insecurities about their lives. And because of these insecurities, they then insist they are the oppressed ones, the brave speakers of truth. In other words, its another pointless culture war to chuck on the teetering pile in between Spiked Online and Laurence Fox.

And its also about something else. Rather awkwardly for the British tradwives who like to suggest their movement is just about dressing in Cath Kidston and letting their husband choose where they are going on holiday in the US and elsewhere it is very much part of the alt-right movement. It is especially popular among white supremacists, who are extremely down with the message that white women should submit to their husband and focus on making as many white babies as possible. British tradwives insist this has nothing to do with them: Someone even said, this type of housewife was promoted by the Third Reich. And its like: Really?! I didnt even know that! Pettitt told the BBC, sitting underneath her union jack bunting, musing about how we dont even know the identity of our country right now.

Now look, clearly being a happy housewife does not mean you are a Nazi. But also, maybe its time to dial down a notch, tradwives, for your own sake? After all, if youre constantly posting videos to YouTube about how to press your husbands clothes, and talking to Phillip and Holly about how you love to flirt with your husband, how do you have time to do any tradwife-ing?

Read the original here:
Tradwives: the new trend for submissive women has a dark heart and history - The Guardian

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

When a real-life killer finds fame on a forum or a social network a trend thats become depressingly frequent in recent years there are two common conclusions. The first is that social media is some kind of new, unprecedented evil, as if the Zodiac killer never crafted an elaborate brand strategy through local newspapers, or TV news never helped turn mass shooters into celebrities. The second is that modern web platforms simply produce their own distinct kinds of nightmares, ones that twist their wholesome promises of openness and trust.

Spree, a horror-comedy directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko, captures the latter with remarkable style. It uses an experimental blend of naturalistic filmmaking and footage from phone apps, following a man who wants desperately and pathetically to be noticed even if that involves a mass murder campaign with a viral hashtag.

Sprees plot is basically a Black Mirror episode, and its aesthetic blends found-footage techniques with the screen film style of movies like Searching and Unfriended. Most action is shot diegetically through GoPro and phone cameras, including a lot of Periscope-esque vertical video overlaid with audience reactions.

Tonally, its a sometimes queasy mix of satire and slasher film, carried by an over-the-top performance from Stranger Things star Joe Keery. The plot isnt based on true events, but its tied fairly realistically into the world of tech and social media, fictionalizing some controversies and referencing an actual mass murder by an Uber driver in 2016.

A failed pseudo-Uber driver and internet content creator (Keery) decides to go viral by embarking on a livestreamed murder spree called #TheLesson. This is unbearably and intentionally cringeworthy.

Kurt (who introduces himself as KurtsWorld96) is a social media strategy guide made flesh. Hes a self-described content creator who produces hours of bad electronic music and introspective videos that nobody watches. His idea of a conversation-starter is how did you grow your following?, and his face is set permanently in a manic grin. As a driver for the ride-hailing app Spree, he obsessively asks riders to tag him on Instagram and swears that he always follows back.

#TheLesson, an elaborate scheme to kill Spree users, is Kurts final attempt to grow his audience. But a depressingly mediocre streamer who murders people... is still just a depressingly mediocre streamer. So to his horror, nobody really cares or even believes the deaths are real. As Kurt goes to greater and greater lengths to impress viewers, he becomes fixated on a successful social media star named Jessie Adams (Sasheer Zamata), who has started to have her own misgivings about being famous online.

Spree is a savage dissection of digital social climbing. Kurt is at the bottom of the ladder, obviously. But as the film expands its focus to Jessie, we see the same dynamics play out at other levels of internet stardom. Characters engage with each other by carefully identifying their relative status, then trying to film or be filmed by the biggest star in the room conveyed through some effective editing tricks, like scenes playing out across footage from several peoples phones at once.

This behavior looks a lot like old-fashioned power jockeying. But Spree emphasizes the specific pressure of social medias instant feedback loop and hyper-quantification. Comments from fans pop up at the bottom of the screen, sometimes mocking the characters and sometimes egging them on. Instead of subjectively judging somebodys influence, people rely on the merciless metrics of views and follower counts.

Spree also puts forward a bleakly amoral vision of the internet economy. Kurts politics are all monetization strategies hell call out a white supremacist on his live murder stream because platforms dont like racism, and he despises homeless people because they arent online enough. His hashtag, #TheLesson, evokes an aggrieved alt-right troll or an overzealous social justice crusade. But its actually a literal guide for getting famous, including an instructional video for a deadly craft project.

Jessie, meanwhile, is a black woman whose comedy calls out racism and misogyny. But in Spree, shes stuck playing the same game as Kurt any genuine idealism is quickly captured, repackaged, and posted online. The real-world internet culture wars still exist here, but theyre just opposing corners of one big content farm.

Keery pulls off the trick of being creepy, sad, and fun to watch even as hes descending deeper and deeper into monstrosity. And the film leans hard into dark comedy rather than outright horror, which saves it from seeming like technophobic scaremongering or a kids these days moral panic. If youre the kind of person who can laugh at slapstick murder vignettes, a lot of Spree works very well.

On the other hand, those vignettes eventually start feeling repetitive. Spree stalls out in the middle with some scenes that are fun on their own, but dont add enough to the films central joke that social media fans are shallow and think everything is a prank. Kurts victims are usually as unpleasantly self-obsessed as he is, so with the exception of Jessie, its hard to get invested in their fates. And when Spree fully commits to the idea that Kurts murders are a microcosm of... *film gesticulates wildly at social media*, it doesnt have enough time to make its case.

Spree is currently seeking distribution.

More:
Spree review: in search of an audience - The Verge

Theres a flip side to N.J.s federal tax story

Your front-page article New Jersey last in rate of return on federal taxes raised a lot of questions. When was the last year New Jersey got more in return than what it sent to Washington in federal taxes? Since we have not had a Republican senator representing us since 1972, you would think that might be something important to include in your article.

The article quotes New Jersey lawmakers as knowing what the problem is, citing the presidents tax law and its $10,000 cap on state and local taxes that can be deducted.

Is the average New Jerseyan paying less in federal taxes under the new tax law in spite of the $10,000 cap? If so, then perhaps the three years Trump has been president is not the problem. However, to raise these issues in your article might make some readers wonder just what have these Democratic congressmen and senators been doing for New Jersey all these years.

Armand Rose, North Arlington

Some crimes are worse than others

Paul Mulshine misses some important points in his column, Bridgegate case may take a toll on feds power.

First, although Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly may not have technically committed a federal crime (yet to be decided by the Supreme Court), they certainly abused their power by inconveniencing thousands of people who were just trying to get to work. And they should be punished for doing so.

Second, although I dont agree that significant financial contributions to a college should provide a persons child admission to that college, it is certainly better than bribing a college employee for the same purpose. Mulshine contends that both cases resulted in an unqualified kid taking the seat of a better student. This is true. But the significant contribution to the college allows the school to subsidize the tuition for many better students who otherwise could not afford to attend that school. A bribe to a college staff member, however, benefits only the staff member and the unqualified student.

The latter case should not be tolerated.

Richard Andersen, Somerset

Murphys been a wreck for a while

Why did it take columnist Tom Moran so long (Murphy stands in way of clearing up campaign controversy,) to realize Gov. Phil Murphy is damaged goods?

Gaither Shaw, Mountainside

Murphys successes are too costly for me

In his State of the State address, Gov. Phil Murphy trumpeted his successes over his first two years. Among his favorites are his new family leave and temporary disability programs. He calls it a win for the middle class. Now comes word in The Star-Ledger (Expansion of family leave, disability hits paychecks,) how much that win will cost us: Middle-class workers will pay up to an extra $480 per year for this benefit. Employers will bear none of the extra cost. Please, governor. No more wins for me. I cant afford it.

Michael Pickert, Livingston

Column wrong on anti-Zionism

David Letwins guest opinion column is riddled with falsehoods. It was not the Trump State Department that adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. In fact, it was the Obama State Department that did so, a fact that will doubtless cast the decision in a different light for some readers.

It is wrong to write that responsibility for resurgent anti-Semitism lies with a white nationalist alt-right just weeks after horrific attacks against Jews in Monsey, New York, and Jersey City. Neither attacks was carried out by white supremacists.

It is disingenuous to portray Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the boycott-divestment-sanctions movement, as a paragon of democracy and acceptance. Heres another Barghouti quote: Definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.

Indeed, the entire column rests on the incorrect assertion that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionists say that, alone among the nations of the world, Jews should not have a state, even while calling for the creation of a Palestinian state.

What should we call national discrimination against Jews if not anti-Semitism?

Seffi Kogen, Fair Lawn; Global director of young leadership, American Jewish Committee

The Star-Ledger/NJ.com encourages submissions of opinion. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters.

Read more from the original source:
Were getting less cash from Washington? So just what has our Congressional delegation been doing for us? | L - NJ.com

Facial recognition is really bad at recognizing faces. As The Denver Post recently reported: A test done by a grassroots campaign to ban facial recognition technology in Denver found it falsely matched Denver City Council members to people in the sex offender registry. The people behind an initiative to ban facial recognition surveillance in Denver, said they believe the technology isnt ready for law enforcement.

A big concern that our group has is the proliferation of false positive responses that this technology puts out there, said committee member Connors Swatling. Swatling ran a test with Amazons Rekognition software. He compared the photos of Denver City Council members to about 2,000 photos from the Denver County Sex Offender Registry. It took him three days to run the data.

The results we got back were pretty astounding, Swatling said. In some cases, as many as four false positives from a pool of 2,000 images, which is a very small pool.

Merlin facial recognition. Image courtesy The New York Times

Swatling said Council member Chris Hinds photo falsely matched with four different registered sex offenders. Their crimes ranged from sexual assault of a child to criminal attempt sexual assault on a child. His test found nine council members had photos that matched with someone in the sex offender registry. In some cases, the software was 92% confident the photos were a match.

There are ways this technology can do a lot of good, but its not ready to be implemented by Denver municipal agencies just yet, Swatling said.

What is even more troubling is that someone has claimed that he and his company have solved these problems. And theyve done it by scraping pictures of people off of social and digital media sites. Scraping is using machine learning programs to go and search for data using a set of parameters and once the data is found it is grabbed and returned to the person who initiated the search.

Scraping imagery from social and digital media sites is also a violation of almost every social and digital media platforms and companies terms of service. What could make this even worse? The guy who now has more than three billion peoples digital pictures just handed them over to law enforcement. Not because warrants were issued, not because a subpoena was issued, but because he can make money from doing it.

From The New York Times:

Until recently, a fellow named Hoan Ton-Thats greatest hits included an obscure iPhone game and an app that let people put Donald Trumps distinctive yellow hair on their own photos.

Then Ton-That an Australian techie and onetime model did something momentous: He invented a tool that could end your ability to walk down the street anonymously. He provided it to hundreds of law enforcement agencies, ranging from local cops in Florida to the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security.

His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

Federal and state law enforcement officers say that while they have only limited knowledge of how Clearview works and who is behind it, they have used its app to help solve shoplifting, identity theft, credit card fraud, murder and child sexual exploitation cases.

Until now, technology that readily identifies everyone based on his or her face has been taboo because of its radical erosion of privacy. Tech companies capable of releasing such a tool have refrained from doing so. In 2011, Googles chairman at the time said it was the one technology the company had held back because it could be used in a very bad way.

Facial recognition technology is not always accurate at correctly identifying faces. Image by Rapid API.

Some large cities, including San Francisco, have barred police from using facial recognition technology. But without public scrutiny, according to the company, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year. It declined to provide a list. The computer code underlying its app, analyzed by The New York Times, includes programming language to pair it with augmented-reality glasses; users would potentially be able to identify every person they saw. The tool could identify activists at a protest or an attractive stranger on the subway, revealing not just their names but where they lived, what they did and whom they knew.

What could possibly go wrong?

Begin with the fact that Ton-That advertised his services as being available for use to influence elections. Add that he sold this technology to white supremacist, anti-Semite Paul Nehlen, who attempted to run for Speaker Paul Ryans seat in Wisconsin, until the Wisconsin state Republican Party rightly kicked him out of the party for his egregious views. Then add that he has cozied up to alt-right, Holocaust denier Chuck Johnson, who was banned from Twitter and with whom the Capitol Police had to intervene because he was stalking Speaker Boehner.

From Buzzfeed: Originally known as Smartcheckr, Clearview was the result of an unlikely partnership between Ton-That, a small-time hacker turned serial app developer, and Richard Schwartz, a former adviser to thenNew York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Ton-That told The Times that they met at a 2016 event at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, after which they decided to build a facial recognition company.

The following February, Smartcheckr LLC was registered in New York, with Ton-That telling The Times that he developed the image-scraping tools while Schwartz covered the operating costs. By August that year, they registered Clearview AI in Delaware, according to incorporation documents.While theres little left online about Smartcheckr, BuzzFeed News obtained and confirmed a document, first reported by the Times, in which the company claimed it could provide voter ad micro-targeting and extreme opposition research to Paul Nehlen, a white nationalist who was running on an extremist platform to fill the Wisconsin congressional seat of the departing speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

A Smartcheckr contractor, Douglass Mackey, pitched the services to Nehlen. Mackey later became known for running the racist and highly influential Trump-boosting Twitter account Ricky Vaughn. Described by the Huffington Post as Trumps most influential white nationalist troll, Mackey built a following of tens of thousands of users with a mix of far-right propaganda, racist tropes, and anti-Semitic cartoons. MITs Media Lab ranked Vaughn, who used multiple accounts to dodge several bans, as one of the top 150 influencers of the 2016 presidential election ahead of NBC News and the Drudge Report.

Right now the only thing standing between significant numbers of U.S. Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers (perhaps under the guise in facial recognition use to identify potential suspects) gaining access to pictures of your face, without any legal justification for getting the pictures is whether or not Mr. Ton-Thats scraping algorithms have collected every picture of you thats ever been posted on line. Current federal and state law and regulations, as well as local ordinances, do not really address this. There is almost no existing protection for any of us, from whatever Mr. Ton-That decides he wants to use our pictures for in pursuit of his personal profit.

The only real deterrent, which does not seem to be doing any actual deterring, is the potential that Facebook or Twitter or YouTube (Google) or Vimeo, etc. might sue Mr. Ton-That for violating their terms of service. Right now Mr. Ton-That, based on pictures of you posted on the Internet, knows if youve been sleeping, he knows if youre awake, he knows if youve been bad or good, so Well you get the idea and it isnt a pleasant one!

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Thinking Security: Facial Recognition - Really Bad at Recognizing Faces, With Odd Links to Bad Guys - by Jan Wondra - The Ark Valley Voice