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Drones equipped with facial recognition are coming, whether the world is ready for them or not. (Photo by Sunil Ghosh/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

Some of the first drones with advanced facial recognition capabilities are being developed by Israeli surveillance companies, as American police consider whether they will soon be adding the controversial technology to their unmanned flying machines.

As a sign of the imminent arrival of biometric identification from the air, an Israeli startup, one previously-funded by Microsoft, has patented technologies for drone-based facial recognition. A patent application, published earlier this month, was filed by Tel Aviv-based AnyVision back in August 2019 in the U.S., detailing tech to help a drone find the best angles for a facial recognition shot, before trying to find a match for the target by referring to faces stored in a database. It was titled, Adaptive positioning of drones for enhanced facial recognition, and filed by current and former AnyVision employees, including three from Belfast, U.K.

The patent aims to iron out some of the complexities of identifying faces from a flying machine. Various obvious issues arise when trying to recognize someone from a drone: acquiring an angle at which a face can be properly captured and being able to get good-quality visuals whilst moving or hovering. Both are considerably harder than getting a match from static footage.

The AnyVision patent details how facial recognition from a drone would work.

U.S. military agencies have been trying to come up with solutions, including the Advanced Tactical Facial Recognition at a Distance Technology project at U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) Biometric Recognition and Identification at Altitude and Range initiative.

But private industry may get there first. This December, it was revealed AnyVision executives had partnered with Israeli defense supplier Rafael for a new joint venture called SightX. In demos provided to Israeli media in late 2020, SightXs small drones didnt have any facial recognition capabilities, though executives said that feature was coming soon. Its unclear if the tech is for the military only or if it will be sold to police agencies. Neither SightX nor Rafael responded to requests for comment.

What is clear is that the technology is ready for launch. AnyVision CEO Avi Golan told Forbes that whilst AnyVision didnt have any in-production drones with facial recognition, they would be a reality soon. I'm actually very glad to have a patent on that, he said, suggesting it would work well in smart cities, where drones could provide functions beyond surveillance. He pointed to delivery drones as potentially requiring facial recognition to determine whether theyve reached the correct buyer. Amazon has already patented similar tech, pointing to its potential plans for its experimental drone delivery fleet.

But, Golan added, though the tech exists, AnyVision is waiting on wider acceptance of both drones and facial recognition before any product is released. I think it's more futuristic technology, but I want to have it in the back of my pocket once its more accepted by humanity. He noted that the company doesnt currently work with U.S. law enforcement, instead choosing to work with private companies like casinos and retailers.

AnyVision has already had to fend off questions over the use of its technology. Microsoft bought a stake in the startup during a $74 million round in 2019, but last year pulled out after reports that AnyVisions tool had been used at Israel-West Bank border crossings. Golan said Microsofts main reason for exiting was its inability to exert control over AnyVision. Microsoft said much the same after an audit led by former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder found it was used at the border, but discounted claims that AnyVision software had been used to surveil Palestinians across the West Bank.

As for when Americans can expect police drones with facial recognition, even if police agencies arent immediately planning to send them to the skies, theres an expectation they will arrive in one form or another. I think at some point in the future, we will likely see that, said Mike Hutchins, lieutenant and drones lead at Sacramento Police Department. We're trying to balance technology with people's right to privacy. And obviously, if you walk into a grocery store, into a retail store, into a bank, they're capturing your face as you walk in. Pretty much anywhere you go in public now your face is being captured by cameras that are clearly capable of running facial recognition software. But we don't have any plans at all to merge those two anytime in the future. Not to say that at some point, it may not happen.

Original post:
Drones With Facial Recognition Are Primed To FlyBut The World Isnt Ready Yet - Forbes

Donald Trumps second impeachment trial was an artifact of his Presidency. It was a battle of meaning against noise, against nothing-means-anything-and-everything-is-the-same nihilismand nihilism won.

Over the course of three days, the House impeachment managers meticulously lined up facts, images, and arguments. What had been a fragmented understanding of the events of January 6th became an ordered narrative. President Trump had incited a violent insurrection. For months, he had acted consistently on his belief that he deserved to be reinstalled as the President. His actions on January 6th mirrored his earlier statements, such as his praise of a militia plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, of Michigan, and his method of communicating with his supporters through sequences of provocations, promises, and praise. In his opening statement, the House impeachment manager, Jamie Raskin, promised to be brief and specific, offering a case based on cold, hard facts. Its all about the facts. Among the facts was a graphic video of the insurrection, beginning with a fragment of the Trump speech that sent the mob on its way. Later in the day, Raskin described the facts of his own familys harrowing experience inside the besieged Capitol, and then more facts. People died that day, he said. Officers ended up with head damage and brain damage. Peoples eyes were gouged. An officer had a heart attack. An officer lost three fingers that day. Two officers have taken their own lives. Senators, this cannot be our future.

Then Bruce Castor, the co-leader of Trumps defense team, opened for his side. He spoke for more than half an hour, mentioning the Federalist Papers; three of the Founding Fathers; the Bill of Rights; having worked in the Capitol building forty years ago; having visited the Capitol earlier in the week; the importance of the Senate; the fall of Rome; the inherent fragility of democracy; Benjamin Franklin; Philadelphia; independence from Great Britain; an unnamed member of Congress; the First Amendment; the absence of criminal conspiracy charges against Trump; the exceptional nature of impeachments; Bill Clinton; former Attorney General Eric Holder; Operation Fast and Furious; the late senator Everett Dirksen, of Illinois, Dirksens speeches, and the old technology of record players; the state of Nebraska, its judicial thought, and its senator Ben Sasse; all the other senators and how great they are; floodgates, whirlwinds, and the Bible; the Fourteenth Amendment; the concept of hearsay as illustrated by an apparently clairvoyant driver speaking to his wife in a hypothetical car; a supposed Senate rule that says, Hey, you cant do that (not at all clear what); the ostensible real reason for the impeachment, that is, Trumps political rivals fear of facing him in an election; some examples of one-term Presidents; the wisdom of voters; the fear that voters inspire in members of Congress; and the filibuster; then finally concluded, President Trump no longer is in office. The object of the Constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters. Journalists described the speech as meandering, rambling, and incoherent, and it was all that. It was also an insult to the proceedings and an assault on reason.

The defense also had their own videos, including an eleven-minute montage of Democratic politicians and othersmany of them Black womenspeaking out against Trump. The video began with a clip of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying, I just dont know even why there arent uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be; transitioned to a series of fighting-words clips from a range of people, including the singer Madonna; and ended with a mashup of Democratic politicians using the word fight. One of the videos used a clip of Vice-President Kamala Harris, then a senator, speaking on Ellen DeGeneress television show, in 2018. Another juxtaposed Trumps pronouncements about law and order with footage of Black Lives Matter protests. To call these examples false equivalences would be to elevate them. A false equivalence is the act of erroneously equating two things by using flawed reasoning or incorrect information. Equating incitement to insurrection by a sitting President with passionate political rhetoric, talk-show quips, and just about everything elsewithout acknowledging an actual insurrectionis an attack on the very concept of reason and the very idea of information. These videos, like Castors bizarre opening speech, countered the clear, factual case presented by the House managers with noise. They flooded the zone.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt identifies a paradoxical pair of qualities that characterize the audiences of totalitarian leaders: gullibility and cynicism.

Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

Another quality of totalitarian leaders and their followers alike is the belief that the end justifies the means; this makes it easier to accept the lie as a tactical move, even to support itand to accept the next lie, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Trumps defense team assumed that its audience was both gullible and cynical. That their audience was willing to believe, contrary to prevalent legal opinion, that Trump, as a former President, shouldnt be subject to impeachment proceedings; that he hadnt intended to incite violence; that he didnt realize that his supporters had invaded the Capitol; or simply that none of this meant anythingthat he didnt incite and yet he did, that he lost the election but won it, that Antifa members were in the building, as Trump apparently told the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, over the phone. That Trumps words were as devoid of meaning as those of his lawyers, and that impeaching the former President for just words was the beginning of a slippery slope to gratuitous impeachments and the repression of free speech. Arendt wrote that the qualities of gullibility and cynicism were present in different proportions depending on a persons place in the totalitarian movements hierarchy. A senator may be more cynical, for example, and a rank-and-file conspiracy theorist more gullible. I suspect that the proportion of gullibility to cynicism can fluctuate over time, depending on ones mood or circumstancesbecause everything is possible and nothing has meaning.

Link:
Trumps Defense Was an Insult to the Impeachment Proceedings and an Assault on Reason - The New Yorker

Am I alone or did it strike you as ironic that our State Board of Education met during Black History Month to determine how to characterize slavery and racism in social studies classes? Some charged the board was trying to rewrite history, but the truth is weve been rewriting history almost since the first settlers arrived on our Outer Banks in 1584.

History is written by the victors, Winston Churchill said. Its true. Think how the early settlings of this nation were portrayed in your history classes. I can still picture the image of pilgrims, wearing largely black costumes and funny looking hats as they mingled amongst the friendly natives, who taught them how to exist in this new land. Cant you remember the tale of how colonists sat together at table with the Indians, as they were mis-correctly called, for the first Thanksgiving feast following the fall harvest?

What we werent told was that those settlers brought with them smallpox, measles and influenza viruses that infected those indigenous people and wiped-out large percentages of them. And while we learned about warfare between the colonists and natives it wasnt explained that much of the fighting resulted from white newcomers claiming ever larger amounts of lands, building permanent settlements and villages a concept foreign to those First Peoples of America. If there was any discussion about ultimately driving them off their lands into reservations or The Trail of Tears, it didnt stick in my memory.

It shouldnt surprise us that our history with slavery and racism also wasnt accurately portrayed. My history classes back in the late fifties and early sixties talked about how North Carolina was largely settled by yeomen freemen, granted small amounts of land to eke out a better life than the one left in England. Yes, there were plantations, but not as many as in Virginia and South Carolina. We understood those large estates required labor from slaves but, in the segregated schools I attended, we didnt hear a lot about the horrid conditions, mistreatment or backbreaking work. And you can call it by any name you want but there was then, and is now, systemic racism. Look up the definition of systemic. Just as oxygen is part of the pulmonary system, racism is part of the class system in this state and nation.

It is past time we had a reckoning with history. We understand some dont want to know and some are fearful of what it says, because it might change their own story. But it is time we accurately and fairly report it, warts and all.

Our state, as well as our country, has a deep schism of racial unrest, distrust and prejudice. We cannot and will not ever heal these problems until we start by telling truth. Hopefully, reconciliation and healing can come as a result.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice, Martin Luther King, Jr. said. Former Attorney General Eric Holder added, it only bends toward justice because people pull it towards justice. It doesnt happen on its own.

It is past time we pulled harder in that direction.

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina Broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965. He recently retired from writing, producing and moderating the statewide half-hour TV program NC SPIN that aired 22 years. Contact him at [emailprotected]

Continued here:
Tom Campbell | Re-rewriting the history of slavery - Richmond County Daily Journal

WASHINGTON, DC - A new congressional investigation into the meatpacking industrys COVID-19 response is targeting activity at Tyson's Waterloo plant.

A U.S. House subcommittee is calling on Tyson to release results of its investigation into management wagering on COVID-19 infections in workers.

Several Waterloo plant managers were fired after Tyson launched its investigation led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Tyson has agreed to comply with the House committee, which says the company has not stated what it's doing to prevent worker abuses.

The House subcommittee says it wants the full report and documentation of Tyson's investigation. It says it wants the information by February 15th.

A letter from the subcommittee to Tyson President and CEO Dean Banks says the company has not been transparent with its investigation.

"According to the health department in Black Hawk County, Iowa, more than 1,000 workers at the plant contracted the virus and at least five employees died," the letter says. "After the allegation came to light that Tyson managers were betting on coronavirus infections, you stated that the company was very upset to learn of the behaviors found in the allegations, and Tyson terminated seven managers following an independent investigation the company commissioned. Tyson has not released the findings from this investigation and has not stated what controls it has implemented, if any, to prevent more abuses of worker health and safety or to identify potential similar conduct at other facilities."

The subcommittee says its investigation follows reports that nearly 54,000 workers at 569 meatpacking plants in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus, and at least 270 have died.

The committee, known as the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, is chaired by Democratic Representative James Clyburn. The committee sent letters Monday to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and JBS USA announcing the launch of its investigation into coronavirus outbreaks at meatpacking plants nationwide.

"Public reports indicate that under the Trump Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) failed to adequately carry out its responsibility for enforcing worker safety laws at meatpacking plants across the country, resulting in preventable infections and deaths, Chairman Clyburn wrote to OSHA. It is imperative that the previous Administrations shortcomings are swiftly identified and rectified to save lives in the months before coronavirus vaccinations are available for all Americans.

The letter to Tyson noted the company reported $2.15 billion in profits and strong returns for shareholders in 2020, but said it did not take basic precautions to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks.

See the original post here:
Congressional Probe Wants Information on Wagering at Tyson Waterloo Plant | NEWSRADIO 1040 WHO - iHeartRadio

By Jeffrey Lord

Congressman Scott Perry has had the courage to stand up for the Constitution and the integrity of the American election system.

But The New York Times is disturbed https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/us/politics/scott-perry-trump-justice-department-election.html that the congressman had the nerve to introduce then-President Trump to a Justice Department official who believed, as did the president, that there were serious problems with the integrity of the 2020 election.

First, the Justice Department official, acting chief of the civil division Jeffrey Clark, worked for the president - as all executive branch federal employees in Washington do, no matter who the president is. Federal employees - and I have been both a White House aide to President Reagan and a senior staff member to a cabinet secretary - Bush 41 HUD Secretary Jack Kemp - have two choices as they go about their job.

One, follow the directions of their boss. Or two, if they disagree, resign. Mr. Clarks offense was to merely speak a few times with the president. No action was taken.

There was nothing wrong with Clark having conversations about election integrity with the president or with Congressman Perry. It was completely constitutional. To say that this was somehow a seditious scheme is simply untrue. Both the president and Congressman Perry were well within their rights.

Standing up on the floor of the House to oppose certifying electoral votes that the Congressman and many of his Republican colleagues believe were questionable is exactly the job of a congressman or senator. In fact, various Democrats in Congress had done exactly that in 2000, 2004, and 2016.

Never once mentioned by The Times is the hard fact that, sadly, Pennsylvania has a very long, and very bad, reputation for election integrity. Thus a discussion with a Pennsylvania Congressman, Mr. Clark and the president on this topic was clearly merited.

How bad is the Pennsylvania record on this score? A simple stroll through the PennLive archives and various books on Pennsylvania political history and there is story after story on election fraud in Pennsylvania.

From Penn Live is this headline from 2016: Tight election, voter fraud worries, power grab - no, not now, but 175+ years ago

The story recounts a bitterly fought Pennsylvania governors race replete with serious allegations of voter fraud in 1838.

The longtime (and late) Harrisburg Evening News political columnist Paul Beers wrote in his 1980 book on the history of Pennsylvania politics of Philadelphias debased political morals. In 1904, he wrote, a Philadelphia citizens committee estimated the number of fraudulent names on assessors lists of voters between 50,000 and 80,000.

Sixty-one years later in 1965, nothing had changed in Philadelphia elections when Republican Arlen Specter ran for Philadelphia District Attorney. In his memoirs the man who would become a five-term Pennsylvania US Senator discussed his first race for office, making a point of discussing tampering with voting machines, a standard Philadelphia ploy.

Twenty-nine years later in 1994 The New York Times itself was reporting this: Saying Philadelphias election system had collapsed under a massive scheme by Democrats to steal a State Senate election in November, a federal judge today took the rare step of invalidating the vote and ordered the seat filled by the Republican candidate.

Just last year, a Democratic election judge in Philadelphia and a former Democratic congressman from Philadelphia were indicted for voter fraud in three different elections - 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Complaints about the politicization of the Justice Department by President Trump are particularly rich. The DOJ headquarters, itself, is named for the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, famously appointed by his brother, President John F. Kennedy. One Kennedy biography after another has long established that the Kennedys ran a seriously politicized Justice Department. More recently, President Obamas attorney general, Eric Holder, described his role running the Justice Department as being the presidents political wingman.

Congressman Perry, decidedly a mainstream Reagan conservative, has also been attacked for believing a conspiracy theory from fringe groups about attempts by ISIS to infiltrate the US southern border. In fact, it was the Obama-era under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Obama-run Department of Homeland Security who did indeed tell then-Arizona Senator John McCain in a 2014 Senate hearing that there were members of ISIS plotting to do just that. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dhs-confirms-isis-planning-infiltration-of-us-southern-border

Does the literal three centuries-long repeated problem in Pennsylvania mean there was voter fraud in 2020? No. But the pattern is decidedly there - and it should be thoroughly investigated and the Pennsylvania election system be seriously reformed before the next elections in 2022 and 2024.

To sum up? Congressman Perrys constituents have a right to expect the Pennsylvania and larger American election system be run with the utmost integrity and openness. The Congressman - and many of his Republican colleagues in and out of Pennsylvania - has stood up to support just that.

For which he deserves thanks.

Jeffrey Lord is a Republican political analyst and a member of PennLives Editorial Board.

Originally posted here:
There are reasons to stand with Scott Perry | Opinion - pennlive.com