Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Usher in a New Era of Mass Surveillance

Robert Scheer, SCHEER INTELLIGENCE Apr. 24, 2020

Mass surveillance has been growing in our post-9/11 world and taking on breathtaking proportions not even George Orwell could have imagined. One of the most notable examples has been the U.S. National Security Agency’s spying on civilians as well as world leaders. But just when you thought companies and governments couldn’t possibly collect even more private data, nations across the world have been using the coronavirus pandemic to further expand their spying powers. While for years the West has hypocritically criticized China for the country’s use of technology to control citizens, it is now openly looking to the Chinese technological response to the coronavirus as a model.

https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/governments-using-coronavirus-mass-surveillance

Monika Bauerlein: The Future of Journalism

Monika Bauerlein is the groundbreaking CEO and former Co-Editor of "Mother Jones," which since 1976 has stood among the world’s premier progressive investigative journalism news organizations.  We need the press and it is under attach around the world.  The US now ranks between Romania and Senegal in press freedom.

The case for public ownership of the fossil fuel industry

I respect Next System deeply and this is a historic moment to assess such a possibility.

The U.S. fossil fuel industry continues to seek bailouts during the COVID-19 crisis, as global oil demand craters and crude oil floods an already oversupplied market. These twin phenomena have combined to crash the price of oil, threatening the stability of the U.S. oil and gas sector.

The federal government has responded by cutting environmental and public health regulations, prioritizing corporations over frontline workers and communities, and exploring appropriating billions of dollars to purchase oil surpluses to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.1 Most recently, big banks are establishing holding companies to snap up financially shaky oil and gas companies, offering an ostensible private bailout.2

https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/case-public-ownership-fossil-fuel-industry