China’s tech authoritarianism too big to contain

“If the global community doesn’t come together, China will assume economic dominance of Artificial Intelligence applications, be in a position to spy on much of the world, and leverage international organizations to “make the world as a whole safe for authoritarianism,””

“China has successfully shifted focus away from manufacturing — which it now dominates globally — towards higher-value tech sectors via a “Made in China 2025” policy focused on AI, robotics, quantum computing, new materials and high speed transport.
Whether ranked by market capitalization, revenue or employees, China’s large tech companies now outnumber those of all countries except the U.S. Chinese adoption of AI technologies is faster than in all other countries. Faced with a growing number of countries banning Chinese telecom giant Huawei and the acceleration of digital transformation demanded by the Covid-19 pandemic, China increased state investment — from both local and central government — in semiconductors and artificial intelligence by more than $1 trillion in its latest Five-Year Plan.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee worries that “due to its sheer size” China “already has an inherent edge” in new technologies, projected to overtake U.S. research and development spending by 2030.

China is formally creating the sort of military-industrial complex that exists informally in the U.S., — ”mobilizing all aspects of national power for science and technology””

“Chinese companies are adept at delivering convenient tech-enabled services that range from AI-powered traffic management systems to eCommerce software. Companies such as GTCOM enable parts of those services. In GTCOM’s case by offering machine translation of text in 2.500 pairs of languages.
On the surface that may sound simply like a Chinese version of Google Translate. The potential problem is that military grade intelligence can now be created out of the sort of data that feeds GTCOM’s services. Natural language processing tools can identify extreme language or measure public sentiment. Location can be used to map people’s movements: potentially indicating social unrest or pinpointing political opponents. Unlike Google, companies like GTCOM exist to provide that sort of information to the Chinese state.”

“China’s cyber espionage is increasingly spilling out into the open. In 2018, Le Monde reported that Chinese firms had not only built but systematically bugged the new headquarters of the African Union. U.S. intelligence agencies have identified Chinese hackers as responsible for data breaches involving the majority of Americans: from 22 million government records held by the Office of Personnel Management to Equifax credit reports for 147 million Americans. Canada’s 2020 Cyber Threat Assessment published Wednesday put China at the head of a short list of “greatest strategic threat” countries engaging in state-sponsored cyberattacks on Canada’s critical infrastructure and citizens.
The U.S Department of Justice charges that Huawei is so brazen in its pursuit of stolen intellectual property that it offered “bonuses to employees who succeeded in stealing confidential information from other companies.” U.S. agencies estimate the economic damage may range anywhere from $225 to $600 billion a year.”

“Key to China’s success is heavy technology investment — signaling that any attempt to outpace China will require industrial policy investments. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire Wednesday urged the EU executive to make funding cloud technology a priority.
Another solution: Bans and sanctions that limit the ability of Chinese companies to grow and improve their technology. India took that approach in June, banning TikTok, WeChat and dozens of other Chinese-owned app, saying China stole user data in a way that “ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India.”

Others options include directly enhancing defense capabilities: Boris Johnson this week announced the establishment of a U.K. national cyberforce to protect the UK against cyber attacks, and a new AI agency to develop autonomous weapons systems. Russell Haworth, CEO of Nominet — which manages the U.K.’s internet domain system — backed Johnson’s moves. “China’s role has been well documented. The variety of attacks against an ever growing list of targets necessitates investment,” he said.”

Why Trump just sanctioned NATO ally Turkey

“The United States is finally punishing Turkey for purchasing a Russian missile defense system, a long-anticipated move that is likely to increase tensions with a NATO ally.”

“the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Turkey for its purchase of the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system. The administration ordered the penalties under a section of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which gives the president the power to sanction people or entities that do business with Russia’s intelligence or defense sectors. The sanctions specifically target Turkey’s defense procurement agency, known as the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB), and its senior officials.”

“Turkey acquired the defense system last year, after repeated warnings by the Trump administration not to do so because they do not want a NATO ally relying on Russian systems. US officials also said Turkey’s use of the S-400 jeopardized America’s F-35 fighter jet program, over fears the Russian system’s radars could collect intelligence on the F-35s.

In response, the US removed Turkey from its F-35 fighter jet program, which barred the country from getting the jets and restricted any Turkish personnel from working with the planes. Still, bipartisan members of Congress continued to push for harsher punishment of Turkey, including sanctions.

Turkey’s decision to purchase the Russian system further strained relations between Washington and Ankara. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has consolidated power in recent years, becoming more explicitly authoritarian and cracking down on dissent, including by jailing journalists and others he perceives as his political enemies.

Erdoğan was angered by the US’s decision to ally with the Kurds in the fight against ISIS in Syria, as Erdoğan associates them with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a terrorist group that’s waged attacks in Turkey. He has also bristled at the US’s refusal to extradite a US-based cleric whom Erdoğan blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

Beyond Turkey’s flirtation with Russia, Turkey has also tried to exert its regional influence in places like Syria and Libya and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where its gas exploration efforts have increased tensions with Greece and other NATO allies in the European Union, too. (The EU is also considering sanctions against Turkey.)

But despite issuing lots of admonitions, the Trump administration didn’t move forward with the CAATSA sanctions. Some attributed Trump’s refusal to do so to his personal affinity for Erdoğan.

Then in October, Turkey tested the S-400 system in defiance of US warnings, making it much harder for the US to ignore.

And this month, Congress, in its annual defense authorization bill, included mandatory sanctions against Turkey for its Russian defense shopping spree. Though Trump has threatened to veto the bill for lots of reasons, the administration’s move to sanction Turkey on Monday may have been an attempt to get ahead of that requirement.”

Everyone failed on Covid-19

“In June, just three states reported daily new coronavirus cases higher than 12 per 100,000 people. Today, every state except Hawaii exceeds that threshold. Some of that is due to greater testing capacity, but the climbing toll of hospitalizations and deaths, which have reached record highs nationally in the last month, show this is not merely a “casedemic” of sick people who might have gone undetected earlier in the year, but a rising tide of Covid-19 across the US.

So how did America get here?

The primary answer lies in President Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress, who have collectively abdicated the federal government’s role in addressing the outbreak or even acknowledging its severity. From Trump’s borderline denialist messaging on Covid-19 to Congress’s inability to pass more economic relief, the country has been left in a place where states, local governments, and the public have to fend for themselves — and none of them have the resources to deal with the coronavirus on their own.

Trump and his allies have also actively worked to sideline the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, crippling the agency’s ability to provide guidance to states and others that have now been left out on their own.

At the same time, there are serious structural issues that hindered states’ and the public’s ability to act. Experts have long argued that the US’s public health infrastructure is underresourced and ill prepared for a serious crisis, and the pandemic has exposed this many times over: Nearly a year into the pandemic, no state has capacities for testing and contact tracing that most experts would consider adequate.

And the lack of economic relief has made it much harder for people to stay home and business owners to close down, faced with the decision of mitigating the coronavirus’s spread or failing to pay their mortgage and other bills.”

“over time, as fatigue around the pandemic set in, governors became less proactive toward the coronavirus and more reactive — and they increasingly pushed short-term economic interests over public health concerns.
That was clear as the entire country, over the summer and fall, reopened schools, indoor dining, bars, and other risky indoor spaces, even as experts warned that the consequences could be dire. Now we’re seeing the effects.

That includes states led by Democrats and ones led by Republicans”

“The public has eased up too. The US has generally gotten better at masking, based on public opinion surveys, but has also gotten much worse at social and physical distancing than in the spring. We’ve patronized the restaurants, bars, and other risky indoor areas that have reopened. We’ve gathered with friends and family over Labor Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, even as public health officials and experts have pleaded that we don’t.

As a result, the US is now among the worst performers on Covid-19 in the world. Despite recent surges in Europe and elsewhere — which were largely the result of similar failures — America remains within the top 20 percent for most coronavirus deaths per person among developed nations, with more than twice the death rate as the median developed country. If the US managed the same Covid-19 death rate as Canada, nearly 190,000 Americans would likely be alive today.

While the story behind those numbers lies mostly in what Trump and much of the federal government have wrought, it’s also on the rest of the US. From the president to governors to mayors to the public, America has failed on Covid-19 — and only by learning from those mistakes can we ensure they don’t happen again.”

Corporate America would like the vaccine now

“Companies and industry groups from across the economy are undertaking efforts at the federal and state level to make the case that when it comes to the limited-supply Covid-19 vaccine, their employees should get priority. The meat industry, airlines, banks, retail, exterminators, restaurants, and zoos are among the myriad groups lobbying decision-makers. So are specific companies such as Amazon, Lyft, DoorDash, and Perdue. Unions are trying to get their members vaccines. Even professional sports leagues, like the NHL, are making a play.”

“Ultimately, it is up to states to decide what to do with federal recommendations and decipher which people, including workers, go where. States could deviate from those guidelines — theoretically, a place like California could say entertainers should be higher up on the list, or in New York, bankers. Companies may have an easier time influencing decisions at the state and local level. But in general, states take the guidelines seriously and could face enormous backlash if they ignore them.”

Congress has finally reached a deal on coronavirus stimulus

“After eight months of back and forth, Democratic and Republican leaders announced on Sunday that they’ve arrived at an agreement on a roughly $900 billion plan. The House of Representatives will vote on the bill Monday, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.”

“The legislation contains much-needed coronavirus relief including a weekly $300 enhancement in unemployment insurance, a new round of $600 stimulus checks, and renewed support for small businesses.
Lawmakers in both chambers will have a chance to review the bill — which is being attached to the annual government spending package — before they take a vote.”

“The $900 billion legislation ultimately offers far less aid than a prior $2.2 trillion proposal House Democrats had put forth, and significantly more than the narrow $550 billion bill that Senate Republicans have favored. Democrats signaled Sunday that this wasn’t the last of the relief they planned to send out.”

“$325 billion is dedicated to small-business aid including repurposed funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, a forgivable loan program that business owners can apply for to cover payroll and operational costs. These loans are aimed at businesses that have seen revenue declines this year. For many, however, this aid comes too late — according to a Fortune report, almost 100,000 small businesses have already closed permanently during the pandemic.”

“$25 billion in rental assistance is included as well as the establishment of a federal eviction moratorium.”

“$13 billion for food aid to help fund a monthly 15 percent increase in individual SNAP benefits, aid for children who received food support at school, and money for other programs including Meals on Wheels and WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children). Demand for such aid has spiked dramatically during the pandemic”

“There is an extension of paid leave tax credits for businesses, which continues a policy established in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act”

“other provisions as well, including $82 billion to help schools reopen; $15 billion in aid for airlines — which would be required to bring furloughed employees back — according to Reuters; and language that bans surprise medical bills for emergency care.
It also has new guidelines for the Federal Reserve after Republicans — led by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) — demanded emergency lending programs at the Fed be canceled in any final version of the bill.

As Vox’s Emily Stewart has explained, the Fed will be forced to eliminate several emergency lending programs created with CARES Act funding in the spring, and will be barred from restarting them without congressional approval. It will also return the unused portion of the $454 billion Congress allotted it under the CARES Act to the Treasury Department, something the Fed had agreed to do in November.”

Why America can’t rely solely on individuals to stop Covid-19

“Americans have spent much of the Covid-19 pandemic blaming one another for the coronavirus’s spread.

Don’t go to that beach or park. Don’t go to that bar or restaurant. Don’t do anything for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Wear a mask! You don’t want to kill Grandma, do you?

Public officials have joined in. Increasingly, they are blaming private gatherings, not the restaurants and bars they insist on keeping open, for the spread of the disease. In some places, such as the Dakotas, framing Covid-19 prevention as an individual responsibility became the core of the strategy to fight Covid-19. As cases and deaths climbed to among the highest rates in the world, South Dakota’s leaders preached “personal responsibility” and refused to require masks, much less stricter measures. Ian Fury, a spokesperson for Gov. Kristi Noem (R), told me his boss gave citizens “up-to-date science, facts, and data, and then trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves and their loved ones.”

It’s true that individuals have an important role in fighting Covid-19. Everyone should wear a mask, and, unfortunately, everyone should reconsider big family gatherings this holiday season. But relying on individual action to fight a deadly virus — an approach that the US has leveraged for problems ranging from the opioid crisis to global warming — simply hasn’t worked.

Today, America is among the worst performers at fighting Covid-19. Despite recent surges in Europe and Israel, the US remains within the top 20 percent for most coronavirus deaths per person among developed nations, with more than twice the death rate as the median developed country. If the US managed the same Covid-19 death rate as Canada, more than 190,000 Americans would likely be alive today.”

“But it’s not just Trump and friends. Every state in the country, Democratic or Republican, has at some point reopened restaurants or bars, allowing people to congregate in indoor areas that experts widely agree are breeding grounds for Covid-19. While resisting shutting down such places, local and state officials have argued that it’s on people to wear masks, cancel private gatherings for the holidays, and avoid nonessential activities — while leaving room for people to not follow at least some of those guidelines. Every state in the country has also, subsequently, seen surges in the coronavirus this fall.”

“Meanwhile, much less attention has gone to addressing Covid-19 from a truly structural perspective. The coronavirus has revealed America’s pathetic public health infrastructure — there’s still no national testing-and-tracing program, and no state has an adequate contact tracing program, if they have such a program at all. Businesses and workers have been left to fend for themselves, as Congress failed to pass an economic relief bill before the last one started to expire. For all the talk about outdoor activities being safer during the coronavirus pandemic, there’s been next to no action in most of the country on getting people outside — at times, governments have even eliminated outdoor venues by closing parks or beaches.”

“It’s easy to yell at people over their Covid-19 failures — simply log on to Twitter and blast away. It’s costless for a governor to tell people that it’s on them to stop the spread of the coronavirus by voluntarily giving up things they love, especially if the same governor doesn’t even plan on following his own advice.

So rather than do anything about it, Americans are stuck blaming each other for Covid-19. But until we truly realize this is a collective failure, not an individual one, the problems will linger.”

“Since the start of America’s epidemic, experts have warned that indoor dining and bars are among the worst places for the spread of Covid-19: People are in poorly ventilated indoor areas where the virus spreads more easily sit close for possibly hours, can’t wear masks as they eat or drink, and spew germs at each other as they shout, sing, and laugh.

So many experts have called on governments to close bars and restaurants. Acknowledging the economic toll of this, economists and public health experts have also asked for a bailout of the industry to make employers and their workers whole until the pandemic resides.

None of that happened. Instead, America started to reopen before Covid-19 cases were under control — at the US’s best point in the spring and summer, it still had more than 60 times the daily new cases of Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea — with bars and restaurants reopening in every state by the fall. Public officials acknowledged the risks but merely moved to limit capacity and called on everyone to be responsible by physical distancing, wearing a mask, and limiting contact with people from other households.

This has not gone well. Coronavirus cases have shot up across much of the country, with the US in the middle of its third and biggest surge of Covid-19 yet. At the same time, we’ve gotten more data showing how dangerous bars and restaurants can be for the spread of Covid-19: A study published in the Journal of Korean Medical Science found that a person in South Korea may have been infected with Covid-19 in a restaurant in as little as five minutes. Another study in Nature found, “Reopening full-service restaurants was associated with a particularly high risk.

Despite that, officials across the country have by and large resisted shutting down again. Many of them, instead, have cited another culprit for Covid-19 spread: private gatherings. New York, for example, put out a PSA to stop “living room spread,” and the state published data suggesting households and private gatherings are driving 74 percent of coronavirus spread.

It’s true private gatherings and households are driving some transmission. Most experts agree Thanksgiving dinners likely led to a surge on top of a surge, and similar Christmas and New Year’s events likely will too.

But that’s why at least some experts believe there’s a need for more focus on systemic action, not the individualistic approach. “People, in general, are horrendous risk assessors — we’re awful at assessing risk,” Daniel Goldberg, a medical historian and public health ethicist at the University of Colorado, told me. “I hate to say people can’t be trusted, but.”

There are other problems with this framing. For one, the New York data doesn’t separate within-household transmissions from social gatherings — so the 74 percent figure includes someone spreading Covid-19 to the husband he lives with (not as avoidable) and someone spreading the virus to someone he invited over for drinks one night (very avoidable). This also only includes the cases that New York could actually contact trace, and it’s much easier to trace transmission between family and friends in a household than strangers in a bar.”

“there’s nothing unusual about Covid-19 spreading among people who live together. It’s typical for the bulk, even the majority, of the transmission of any disease to happen within households. If you’re infected, the people you live with or come into close contact with at home are simply likely to get it too. That’s how pathogens work. What matters most, though, is where that virus originated from in the first place.

To put it another way: People couldn’t infect others in their homes if they hadn’t picked up the coronavirus in bars, restaurants, or other public spaces. So if these places weren’t open, individual choices to gather — including over Thanksgiving and Christmas — would be of far less concern. There would simply be much less virus out there jumping from person to person.”

“If officials want people to wear masks, they can mandate masks and actually enforce those mandates. If they want more adults to stay home, they can replace any income individuals might lose by not going into work, or take steps to make work-from-home life more bearable, like deeming schools “essential” or subsidizing day care. If they want people to stay outdoors and not indoors, they can do things that can encourage people to go outside instead of congregating inside — like offering free outdoor activities like ice skating or art installations, or even just places to eat (with some heating during the winter) — rather than shutting down parks.”

“Otherwise, we’re going to be stuck with relying on people to make decisions — almost always against their own social, cultural, and economic interests — to do the right thing. So far, that just isn’t working.”

“The alternative to not taking collective action is more death. The countries that have done the best against Covid-19 — including Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and, to a now lesser degree, Germany — all approached the issue collectively, leveraging government aid and public health systems to let people stay home without losing as much income or health insurance, to test and trace infections, and, when necessary, to close down to stop the spread.”

The Best Thing About a Trump Loss Is Stephen Miller Leaving the White House

“Miller’s record is full of freedom-impinging stains that, in theory, should unite just about everyone—conservatives, progressives, libertarians, and those in-between—in opposition. He is perhaps best known for his role in implementing a “zero tolerance” policy at the Mexican border, in which migrant parents were systematically separated from their children as part of a deterrence strategy. (Hundreds are yet to be reunited.) But while that may be the administration’s most infamous immigration controversy, Miller also worked to orchestrate Trump’s broader restrictionist policy. Some of those attempts came to fruition; others they didn’t. Some attempts were legal; others, perhaps not.
For example: Miller sought to embed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government group charged with safely assimilating migrant refugees into the United States. Miller reportedly hoped to ramp up deportations of the adults who came forward to sponsor migrant children. Unfortunately for Miller, it is against the law for the Department of Homeland Security to use federal funds in service of holding or deporting potential sponsors for unaccompanied alien minors, so they rejected the proposal. But the department did allow ICE to collect biometric data on those adults, potentially giving them the opportunity to track and deport them over minor offenses.

Similarly, Miller attempted to transfer an employee from the Treasury Department to an advisory role at the Social Security Administration in order to more easily track down personally identifiable information for deportations.

As special adviser, Miller pushed for the government shutdown at the end of 2018, which bled into 2019, lasting 35 days and becoming the longest shutdown in U.S. history—all to try to get $5.7 billion for a border wall. (The Republican-controlled Senate and Republican-controlled House did not deliver, and Trump eventually declared a national emergency.)

Unsurprisingly, Miller opposed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era program giving immigrants who came to this country as children temporary protection from deportation. Seventy-four percent of Americans—and 68 percent of Republicans—support the program. In leaked emails between Miller and Breitbart, he railed against DACA and birthright citizenship, and likened immigrants to terrorists. After all, Miller is the man who reportedly said he “would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil.” Though Trump promised during his campaign to protect DACA recipients, he weaponized their precarious status for political capital; when the courts declined to strike down the program, Trump moved to limit who can apply for such protections.”