Daily Archives: October 23, 2023

The House Freedom Caucus is urging Republican leaders to remain in Washington until a new speaker is elected, adding that it must be someone not part of the swamp.

The House Republican Conference must remain in Washington, D.C. until a new speaker of the House is elected. Republican leadership should have kept Republicans in Washington over [last] weekend, the group said in a statement.

The group said the work is not done, adding that they are starting at ground zero after Rep. Jim Jordan, R- Ohio, removed himself from the race after failing to get enough votes.

Jordan is now the third candidate to unsuccessfully run for the position after Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was pushed out in a historic vote.

Nine candidates have since joined the race - Reps. Jack Bergman, Byron Donalds , Tom Emmer, Kevin Hern, Mike Johnson, Dan Meuser, Gary Palmer, Austin Scott, and Pete Sessions.

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Freedom Caucus Urges GOP Leaders To Remain in Washington ... - The Messenger

If youve been to a Georgia Southern Eagles home football game, there has been one constant before the games, and thats Freedom the Eagle taking flight.Now, hes being immortalized with his own merchandising line.It is a site thats been seen for the last 17 years at Paulson Stadium and other venues where the Georgia Southern Eagles have played a football game.Freedom the eagle flying in the air for all to see.Now the iconic 20-year-old bird is being celebrated with his own line of merchandise which can be found at Southern Exchange now and eventually the Georgia Southern University bookstore.We know that Eagle Nation loves Freedom and supports Freedom but we really didnt know how a line would do," said William Martin, owner of Southern Exchange. "But the response has been incredible on social media since we posted it and since Athletics posted it.The merchandise is not only paying tribute to Freedom, but its helping out a good cause as a portion of the proceeds from the sales go to the Universitys Wildlife Center and caring costs for Freedom.I think its a worthy cause and it allows people to become and develop an even more intimate relationship with their mascot and more importantly one could argue our national symbol," said Steve Hein, executive director of the Georgia Southern Wildlife Center for Education and Freedom's handler.Heins truck with the tailgate down and Freedom in the back has been a fixture at Georgia Southern football games for 17 years now, so much of a fixture that its even incorporated into a t-shirt with this new Freedom collection.That was one thing we definitely wanted to do when we first started designing for it," said Martin. And we had Steve come out, we took some photographs of the back of the Scout with Freedom in it and just kind of ran with it from there.Right now, the new Freedom merchandise is available at Southern Exchange in Statesboro and on their website. It will eventually be available at the Georgia Southern campus bookstore.

If youve been to a Georgia Southern Eagles home football game, there has been one constant before the games, and thats Freedom the Eagle taking flight.

Now, hes being immortalized with his own merchandising line.

It is a site thats been seen for the last 17 years at Paulson Stadium and other venues where the Georgia Southern Eagles have played a football game.

Freedom the eagle flying in the air for all to see.

Now the iconic 20-year-old bird is being celebrated with his own line of merchandise which can be found at Southern Exchange now and eventually the Georgia Southern University bookstore.

We know that Eagle Nation loves Freedom and supports Freedom but we really didnt know how a line would do," said William Martin, owner of Southern Exchange. "But the response has been incredible on social media since we posted it and since Athletics posted it.

The merchandise is not only paying tribute to Freedom, but its helping out a good cause as a portion of the proceeds from the sales go to the Universitys Wildlife Center and caring costs for Freedom.

I think its a worthy cause and it allows people to become and develop an even more intimate relationship with their mascot and more importantly one could argue our national symbol," said Steve Hein, executive director of the Georgia Southern Wildlife Center for Education and Freedom's handler.

Heins truck with the tailgate down and Freedom in the back has been a fixture at Georgia Southern football games for 17 years now, so much of a fixture that its even incorporated into a t-shirt with this new Freedom collection.

That was one thing we definitely wanted to do when we first started designing for it," said Martin. And we had Steve come out, we took some photographs of the back of the Scout with Freedom in it and just kind of ran with it from there.

Right now, the new Freedom merchandise is available at Southern Exchange in Statesboro and on their website. It will eventually be available at the Georgia Southern campus bookstore.

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Statesboro: 'Freedom' the Eagle now has his own merchandise - WJCL News Savannah

Beyond Utopia, a new documentary, follows a family who has escaped what some describe as a maximum security prison: North Korea.

They get help from an underground railroad funded by a South Korean church. Its pastor,Seungeun Kim, travels to Vietnam and Laos to personally aid refugees, even though hes been warned that he could be kidnapped and turned over to North Korea. He has liberated over 1,000 North Koreans since 2000. The movie, available in special screenings on Oct. 23 and 24, ahead of its official release on Nov. 3, examines the lengths people will go to in order to attain freedom.

Most Westerners know little about North Korea or what its like to live in or leave the rigid country. Beyond Utopia shows the lengths defectors are willing to go to experience freedom.

Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who appears in the documentary, says its difficult for Westerners to understand the most isolated country on the planet. The dynastic regime tries to prevent information from getting in or out. The movie doesnt linger on brutalities such as the torture of dissidents, but it doesnt shy away from them, either. As a counterweight to the grim scenes, the films center features the humanity of Mr. Kim and the family.

He is one person. They are one family, says director Madeleine Gavin. But in that, there is the hope of what can come.

Beyond Utopia follows a family who has escaped what some describe as a maximum security prison: North Korea.

After the Ro family crosses a river into China, they furtively travel to Thailand via Vietnam and Laos. If caught, theyll be sent back. At one point, the six refugees enter a Vietnamese rainforest at night. To avoid being spotted, theyre careful not to shine their flashlights upward. The group includes two young girls, who take turns piggybacking on their father. The childrens 80-year-old grandmother stoically staggers up a slick mountainside.

When people see Grandma going through the jungle, they cant believe [it], says the documentarys director, Madeleine Gavin, in a video call. Her life has been one of endurance.

Most Westerners know little about North Korea or what its like to live in or leave the rigid country. Beyond Utopia shows the lengths defectors are willing to go to experience freedom.

Beyond Utopia focuses on an underground railroad funded by a South Korean church. Its pastor, Seungeun Kim, travels to Vietnam and Laos to personally aid refugees, even though hes been warned that he could be kidnapped and turned over to North Korea. He has liberated over 1,000 North Koreans since 2000. The movie, appearing on 700 screens in special Fathom Events screenings on Oct. 23 and 24, followed by a regular release on Nov. 3, examines the lengths people will go to in order to attain freedom.

This film definitely stopped me in my tracks when I watched it, says Meira Blaustein, documentary programmer and co-founder of the Woodstock Film Festival in New York, where the movie unanimously won the jury award for best documentary. Its heartbreaking but also inspiring. ... The people in it are all in pursuit of liberty and democracy. I am so impressed by this filmmaker and what she has taken upon herself with this film. It could not have been easy to make.

A few years ago, Ms. Gavin was offered an opportunity to adapt Hyeonseo Lees bestselling memoir, The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defectors Story, into a movie. When the director began research about North Korea, she came across videos that brokers in Mr. Kims underground railroad had filmed inside the secretive country. They compelled Ms. Gavin to broaden the scope of her movie, which also includes Ms. Lee.

When I found this hidden camera footage that was being smuggled out of the country, I realized how much we didnt know, she says. There were 26 million people who we had never had an opportunity to hear from.

Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Seungeun Kim (left) and Hyukchang Wu, a relative of the Ro family, talk together in the documentary Beyond Utopia.

Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who appears in the documentary, tells the Monitor that its difficult for Westerners to understand the most isolated country on the planet. The dynastic regime tries to prevent information from getting in or out. The movie doesnt linger on brutalities such as the torture of dissidents, but it doesnt shy away from them either. As a counterweight to the grim scenes, the films center features the humanity of Mr. Kim and the family.

He is one person. They are one family. But in that, there is the hope of what can come, says Ms. Gavin.

Years ago, Mr. Kim was working as a missionary in China when he fell in love with a defector from North Korea. The snag? He had to figure out how to smuggle his now-wife into South Korea. He parlayed the knowledge he gained into founding the underground railroad with a route that goes through China.

The Bible [tells us] we need to help the people in the lowest place and hungry and the poor, he says via a translator on a video call. As I pray, I actually go rescue those people in need.

The documentary tells another story in parallel to the Ro familys odyssey. Defector Soyeon Lee, now living in South Korea, is trying to extract her teenage son from the communist country in the north.

Beyond Utopia shows the reality of human rights violence that is happening in the 21st century, she says via a translator on a video call. She adds that Kim Jong Uns regime is very conscious of how the world perceives it. There was a video that Pastor Kim actually smuggled out from North Korea of a public execution. So when this video was getting widely [seen] in the world, actually North Korea stopped public execution.

The regime is more careful now to conceal its brutal punishments, she says. Beyond Utopia also illustrates how the government controls its populace through brainwashing. For example, children are taught that Americans are cold-blooded killers. When the grandmother in the Ro family met Ms. Gavin and her film crew at a safe house, she was confounded that they were so nice to her.

She was grappling with her feelings in meeting us and getting to know us versus what shes believed and known for 80-plus years, says the director.

During layovers at safe houses in Vietnam and Laos, the Ro family gapes at a running shower inside a bathroom. In their North Korean village, theyd always hauled water from a river and poured it into a caldron at home. When the two young girls taste chocolate and popcorn for the first time, their eyes dance with delight. Defectors who make it across the Thai border spend months living in a facility where they unlearn North Korean propaganda and are taught how to live in the West.

Its not just an easy thing to suddenly feel free, says Ms. Gavin. Freedom allows you to get to know yourself and others and connect. That is a process for a lot of North Korean defectors.

The director and the participants in the documentary believe that the increased flow of information from outside North Koreas borders will ultimately be the regimes undoing.

Thats why there is edict out right now saying ... You have to be careful of the southern wind, says Dr. Terry, the former CIA analyst. Im not saying this is something thats going to happen in a decade, but I remain hopeful that one day we can free North Koreans and there will be a unified Korea.

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Escaping North Korea: 'Beyond Utopia' documents one path to ... - The Christian Science Monitor

Penguin Random House and We Need Diverse Books are currently accepting applications for their annual Creative Writing Awards. Amid the nationwide rise in book banning, the 2024 program will also include the inaugural Freedom of Expression Award, which offers college scholarships of up to $10,000 each to five public U.S. high school seniors who are taking a stand against censorship. Applicants for the new award are asked to write about one banned book that changed their life and why.

In addition to receiving scholarships, winners will participate in a development week hosted by Penguin Random House, featuring virtual meetings with editors, networking opportunities, career panels, and fireside chats with authors, capped off by a virtual awards ceremony.

PRHs Creative Writing Awards were founded in 1993 and are administered by Scholarship America; WNDB entered the partnership in 2019. Over the years, the program has awarded more than $2.9 million to public high school students for original compositions across genres and formats. Categories include the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir, the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry, the Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word, and the Fiction/Drama Award.

The cut-off for applications is January 16, 2024, or when 1,000 submissions have been received. Winners will be announced next June. For more information, click here.

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PRH, WNDB Launch Freedom of Expression Award - Publishers Weekly

CARBONDALE Dr. Jeffrey Burgin, SIU vice chancellor for student affairs, told those at the Carbondale Branch of the NAACPs 46th annual Freedom Fund Banquet that we must make some collective changes or suffer the consequences.

The Carbondale Branch NAACP hosted the 46th Freedom Fund Banquet on Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Civic Center in Carbondale.

The founders of the NAACP had an altruistic idea of eradicating inequality, Burgin said.

The theme of the banquet was Thriving Together: In Movement. In Culture. In Community.

Burgin told the crowd they need to challenge themselves to change their way of thinking.

Dr. Linda Flowers addresses the Carbondale community at the 46th Freedom Fund Banquet hosted by the Carbondale NAACP on Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Carbondale Civic Center.

He asked the crowd, Who was the greatest basketball player of all time, the GOAT?

The crowd shouted several answers: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, LeBron James.

Burgin then asked why every name was of a player from the NBA. He named some basketball players who never went to the NBA.

Volunteers and members of the Carbondale NAACP prepare to serve food to those attending the 46th Freedom Fund Banquet on Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Carbondale Civic Center.

We must be more vigilant and pour into our young people, Burgin said. We cant wait on other people to make Carbondale better, we have to do it for ourselves.

He used the story of Stone Soup to show how a community often has what it needs to meet challenges to improve.

Carbondale community leaders attend the Carbondale Branch NAACP 46th Freedom Fund Banquet on Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Carbondale Civic Center.

In the story, a group of travelers become stranded in a town and need food. The townspeople say they do not have enough food to help. One of the travelers asks for a pot to make soup. He adds a magic stone to the pot, but says the soup would be better if someone added potatoes. One by one, the residents of the town add to the pot to create wonderful soup.

Burgin said we have more resources than at any other time, adding we should support Carbondale Warming Center, Jackson CEO and other local groups.

Members of the Carbondale community attend the Carbondale Branch NAACP 46th Freedom Fund Banquet on Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Carbondale Civic Center.

We must be willing to offer all we are to change our community and better our world, Burgin said.

The master of ceremonies was Abigail Cook, Miss Juneteenth of Southern Illinois 2023. Cook is a senior at Murphysboro High School. She was invited to speak by Anna Jackson, chairperson of the Freedom Fund Banquet.

Angela Travis said the banquet means a lot to her.

Its just people coming together, all ranges of people, Travis said.

She said its important to come together and remember those who fought for justice, including the people who lost their lives.

Elva Painer said it is important to come together with people of different backgrounds, different politics and aspirations.

Madlynn Walker was at the banquet with her son and parents, Mr. and Mrs. Khalliq.

Carbondale Mayor Carolin Harvey speaks at the Carbondale Branch NAACP 46th Freedom Fund Banquet on Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Carbondale Civic Center.

I come every year. I started coming as a small child, Walker said. Its a family tradition.

She added that this gives her young son exposure to a group singing Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Melissa McCutchen, NAACP second vice president, recognized the recipients of the Dr. Seymour Bryson Scholarship: Christopher Burnside, a student at Missouri Baptist University, and Leah Radney, a student at Ball State University.

The Carbondale NAACP banner.

Linda Flowers, Carbondale Branch of the NAACP president, recognized new life members of the organization and invited those who were not NAACP members to join.

During the event, Alexis Estes, owner of Lexys Art Room, painted a large picture to represent the banquet. The picture, featuring different-colored flowers representing the people at the banquet, was auctioned.

Jackson County States Attorney Joe Cervantes bought the painting. He plans to hang it in the lobby of his office with a plaque recognizing Estes.

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Carbondale branch of NAACP hosts 46th Freedom Fund Banquet - The Southern

I am writing in response to a letter from Oct. 15, 2023, with the headline Herald has liberal/progressive bias.

I appreciate the time the letter writer took to write. I appreciate that we would not likely agree on most issues in the public realm. But I value his opinion. I want to be informed by his opinion. I want to hear voices of those who do not think like I do.

All I ask this letter writer is that he offers my opinion the same respect with which I try to treat his opinion. This the foundation of our American experiment: The marketplace of ideas expressed freely and without fear of retribution. The best ideas rise to the top.

As to the Heralds perceived bias, I offer the following perspective. Many years ago, when we had just moved to Durango, a group held a protest of 40 days of prayer to end abortion. They had yard signs and someone in the city government was offended by the signs. The city staff tried to use the sign code to get the signs removed.

It was the Herald that pointed out that, while it disagreed with the sentiment of the signs, it favored our freedom of speech even more. The city was forced to find a workaround that allowed the signs to stay up.

The Herald took a stand for a position it did not agree with for a larger and more important principle: freedom.

Rob Kolter

Durango

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'Herald favored our freedom of speech' The Durango Herald - The Durango Herald

Once again sporting an iconic winged funnel, the Carnival Freedom marked its return to service by welcoming guests onboard in Barcelona, Spain, for a 14-day transatlantic voyage to its homeport of Port Canaveral, Fla.

The ship underwent an extensive refurbishment that included the installation of the new funnel, the addition of the signature Carnival red, white and blue hull livery and other enhancements, the company said in a press release.

Earlier this month, the 2,980-guest ship entered its 16-day dry dock at the Navantia shipyard in Cadiz, Spain. The ships transformation is a milestone for the shipyard. While the yards team members have worked on other projects across the fleet, this is the first time they have designed and manufactured a Carnival funnel.

Among the other enhancements is a newly installed Heroes Tribute Bar, which is an expanding venue across the Carnival fleet and honors military veterans and active-duty service members. Carnival Freedom now also features a Dreams Studio, where guests can capture memories that become keepsakes from their cruise with the help of Carnivals photography staff. Some of the other work includes an expansion to the ships casino, and renovations and upgrades across the ships staterooms and public areas.

Carnival Freedoms two-week-long transatlantic Carnival Journeys cruise from Spain is offering guests an unforgettable journey that includes visits to Valencia, Malaga and Las Palmas, Spain as well as Bermuda. From Port Canaveral, the ship offers four- and five-day sailings to destinations in The Bahamas, such as Nassau and Princess Cays, as well as other Caribbean destinations, including Grand Turk. Many new itineraries were recently opened for the ship, and among them are sailings that feature Carnivals upcoming exclusive destination, Celebration Key, as a port of call beginning in 2025.

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Carnival Freedom Returns To Service With New Look - Cruise Industry News

It began with a sudden, breathtaking emergence over the trees to the south a thousand points of blue light that expanded and dispersed into the sky. They organized into a kind of butterfly formation and set off in a northerly direction and then the flotilla vanished, as if at the flip of a switch. Several beats later, it reappeared, to loud oohs and aahs from the crowd, as a stunning grid of white, pink and ruby luminosity.

It took five years to cut through New York City red tape before the Dutch collective Drift could release its synchronized flock of 1,008 small, light-emitting drones above Central Park. But on Saturday night, there they were, making their debut over The Lake, in designated airspace, for nearly seven minutes: a murmuration rising, swooping, blinking and changing color to the delight of thousands of spectators who gathered for performances at 7, 8, and 9 p.m.

Most viewers were concentrated around Bethesda Fountain on the 72nd Street Transverse, and three other recommended viewing areas; others watched the performance, titled Franchise Freedom, in reclining positions, through a canopy of still leafy trees, and claimed it was just as beautiful.

Prominent among the delighted was Drift, a collective formed by the Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta in 2007. They seem to make a good team; Grodijn has long been a close observer of nature, especially bird swarms known as murmurations, and Nauta has allied himself with science-fiction-nourished tech nerds.

Soon, the pair, who graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven where they met in 1999 found themselves collaborating with a growing number of programmers, engineers and choreographers and dreaming of an outdoor performance in New York. Previous sites for performances since 2017 include Miami (adjacent to Art Basel Miami Beach), the Burning Man Festival, the Kennedy Space Center and Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. In New York Drift staged a large exhibition of installations and performances at the Shed in 2021, and Shylight, a kinetic, site-specific installation of silk-draped lights that floated like small parachutes, rising and descending in the lobby of the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center earlier this year.

Their Central Park proposal seems to have captured the imagination of Mayor Eric Adams, who provided crucial support, but not everyone was pleased. The New York chapter of the Audubon Society objected that migrating birds would be endangered This is a VERY BAD IDEA, the group posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. COULD WE MOVE THIS to after fall migration? (The citys Department of Parks & Recreation said the group was in compliance with its rules regarding drones over Central Park.) For a while, things were a little touch and go. The event was not announced until a few weeks ago, although by Saturday, it was apparent that word had gotten out.

As a title, Franchise Freedom has a slightly unappetizing sound; it inadvertently recalls the U.S. governments onetime ambition to promote democracy around the world. The rendering of the work accompanying the press material made it look like the flocks of lights were attacking some of New Yorks newer, taller buildings just south of the park.

But from my vantage point at least, Franchise Freedom was serenely beautiful, like an enormous lava lamp, made with points of lights instead of oozing goop. Comparisons to slow motion or silent fireworks were also overheard. Once the blue lights gave way to the rosier ones, the action began.

When the loosely rectangular grid passed over the Lake, almost immediately the rectangle broke into clusters, large and small, swelling and curling, dividing somewhat according to color into amorphous shapes in constant motion.

Sometimes tiny bunches of lights or even two or three would break off like a little scouting party and then rejoin a larger group. Perhaps most interesting was the way the different configurations flattened out, suggesting bejeweled nets. After several minutes the lights switched off again, to reappear as blue and funnel back over the horizon.

Viewers were invited to log into studiodrift.com and download a fittingly Satie-like soundtrack by the composer Joep Beving. If you didnt, the drones collectively emitted a soft whir that was quite wonderful a sonic, somewhat electronic murmuration.

The New York presentation of Franchise Freedom was sponsored primarily by Therme US, the North American component of a global corporation with plans to build aquatic wellness centers in various cities, including 10 in the United States designed and priced to accommodate large numbers of people.

While Franchise Freedom has been touted as the largest public art work in Central Park since Christo and Jeanne-Claudes The Gates in 2005, it is minuscule in comparison. The Gates, which took 26 years to bring to fruition, lasted 16 days and accented miles of park pathways with 7,500 raised orange banners that formed a billowy show of saffron ribbon.

Franchise Freedom provided a lovely experience, but it was brief and simplistic as a work of performative art and that might have been due to the cramped amount of air space and time allotted. Looking at videos from Drifts Burning Man performance indicates a more expansive, almost symphonic complexity. Here their project is overshadowed even by the annual New Years Eve fireworks display over the park.

Its depth lies primarily in the technological effort and skill required to create the murmuration effect no mean feat. But its not clear if Central Park is their best platform or if it allowed them to live up to their ambition to reconnect humanity with nature through technology. It felt more like a sample, a prelude, which makes me anticipate what Drift will come up with next. It seems certain that neither the artists nor their chosen tools will stand still.

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Flight of the Drones Lights Up Central Park - The New York Times

Following a meeting of Medway Council on Thursday 19 October, the Trust is to be granted the Freedom of the Borough of Medway at a special ceremony in the New Year.

The Trust was represented at the meeting by Chair Jo Palmer, Deputy Chair Mark Spragg and Chief Medical Officer Alison Davis where the proposal was officially approved.

The honorary freedom of the borough is the highest civic distinction that can be conferred upon individuals or collective bodies in recognition of outstanding service or particular civic association, ensuring that their memory is maintained within the community.

The Freedom is being conferred in recognition of the contribution of the staff of Medway Maritime Hospital to the community.

The recommendation also cited the close and longstanding bonds of friendship and mutual respect existing between Medway Maritime Hospital, Medway Council and the people of Medway as well as express admiration at the workforces contribution to the National Health Service.

Jayne Black, Chief Executive said: It is great honour for the Trust to have been recognised in such a unique way, particularly as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NHS this year.

I would like to thank all colleagues working here at the Trust for their continued support in providing the best of care to the people of Medway and Swale.

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Trust awarded Freedom of the Borough of Medway - Medway NHS Foundation Trust

Hello, friends,

As we move further into autumn, and the leaves start to turn and sweaters and scarves come out where I am in New York City, I want to take you back to the last holiday season, when a group of lawyers received a not-so-festive surprise at Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden.

In December 2022, three days before Christmas, New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill, along with her colleague Corey Kilgannon, showed how MSG Entertainment, which owns Radio City, the Garden, and other venues, had created an attorney exclusion list for lawyers and law firms suing the company.

With facial recognition tools, MSG could instantly detect when any of the lawyers on the list visited one of their venues. One attorney was pulled aside while trying to chaperone her 9-year-old daughters Girl Scout troop to the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City, the Times said. Others were turned away from Rangers and Knicks games and a Mariah Carey concert.

The Breakdown

Technically, yes, but it is not always easy

The lawyers had strong words for MSGIts a dystopian, shocking act of repression, one told the Timesbut, as always, the profession did its real talking in court, with suits filed in a state supreme court and in the federal Southern New York district.

Hill, who began covering digital privacy nearly a decade and a half ago, kept reporting on facial recognition as it spread across multiple industries in the U.S. and Britain. She showed how stores, including supermarkets, have used facial recognition to eject and monitor alleged shoplifters, police forces have used it to arrest people based on false face matches, and increasingly wary tech giants have begun pumping the brakes on their use of the tools.

Last month, Hill released a gripping and disturbing book, Your Face Belongs to Us, about Clearview AI, a startup whose aggressive use of facial recognition has made it a key purveyor to law enforcement and other government agencies around the world. For the book, Hill drew on her extensive reporting on the company, starting with her January 2020 expos The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It, which revealed the companys existence, founders, capabilities, and police client base, generating immediate concern among civil and digital rights groups and government watchdogs.

I recently spoke with Hill, who Ive known since 2009, when she was writing about privacy at Forbes and I was covering Silicon Valley scandals as Gawkers Valleywag columnist. We talked about Clearviews messy origin story; how her own thinking on facial recognition evolved in the course of covering the company and writing the book; how Clearview has changed the world, including tech and law enforcement; possible ways to address the problems created by facial recognition; and much more. You can find our conversation below, edited for brevity and clarity.

Ryan Tate: I expected this book to be a book about technology, but instead I was immediately reading about people who were not hugely technically proficient. Did it surprise you that looking into Clearview AI led you to interview the sort of people who might post on 4Chan?

Kashmir Hill: Yeah, definitely. When I first heard about Clearview AI, I just assumed that there was some mastermind involved in the company that allowed them to do what Facebook and Google and even the government hadnt been able to do: build this crazy tool that looks through the whole internet for a face. I was surprised to never quite find the technological mastermind.

Instead, it was a different story, essentially that this technology had become accessible enough for marginal characters to create a very powerful tool. The barrier to entry had lowered so much. Its kind of like my tagline now, that what Clearview did was not a technological breakthrough, it was an ethical one. They were just willing to do what others hadnt been willing to do.

With so much of this technology now, advances in AI that are really widely accessible, it will be what the marginal characters are willing to do that will create the new lines in the sand. Its not just the big tech giants that wield these powers anymore.

Tate: You have this fascinating chapter in the book about where you go into this tactical police center in Miami. I felt like you alternated between showing how invasive this technology could be, and almost lamenting how bad some of the surveillance technology was. At one point in the chapter, its almost like youre marveling at this high-resolution camera on top of a hotel that can really zoom in and see people really closely. Then there are these other cameras they have access to that are totally grainya crime happens and they dont capture anything they could run an algorithm against.

In reporting this book, did you ever feel like the reporting put you in the shoes of the users or advocates of facial recognition and gave you insights into why theyre interested in it?

I remember thinking, I wish I had Clearview. I want to know who these people are who arent willing to stand for a pregnant lady.

Hill: Yeah, talking to officers, especially talking to one officer from the Department of Homeland Security, who works on all these child crime cases and just hearing about those cases where they find these images of abuse, like on an account in another country, where they have no idea who this person is. Sometimes they can tell thats in the U.S. because of the electrical outlets, but they have no idea whos this child, whos this abuser. They could be anyone in the country.

And I relate a case where they run the abusers face and they get a lead to this guy in Las Vegas, and they end up going to his Facebook account, seeing photos of the child. That was the first case that the Department of Homeland Security used Clearview in, and it led them to get a subscription. I see the power of a use case like that.

It was funny, when I was working on the first Clearview story, I was really pregnant, and I would get on the subway to ride from Brooklyn, where I lived at the time, to the office in Manhattan. Sometimes no one would get up for me and let me sit down on the subway. I just remember thinking, I wish I had Clearview. I want to know who these people are who arent willing to stand for a pregnant lady.

I can see the appeal of tools like this. And I think they can be useful. But I also dont want to live in a world with no anonymity, where were subject to this all the time, because I do think it would be very chilling.

Tate: Do you believe that whatever legislation comes along for facial recognition should have an exception that would allow facial recognition on people not yielding their seats to pregnant people on the subway? [laughs]

Hill: Thats going to be the worst. Its going to be like, This guy was manspreading, and its going to have his name attached to it, and theres going to be a whole cycle of abuse on social media.

I also dont think we want perfect enforcement of the law, because people like to jaywalk and they like to speed. And they like to get drunk and be stupid in public sometimes.

When I was working on this book, I thought a lot about this vast web of vengeance story I did. Its about the serial defamer who would go after people she had grudges againstand anyone related to them and their colleagues. She was defaming hundreds of people online for a slight that happened at a firm she worked at in the 90s. I just think about someone like that who carries a grudge, whos kind of got a vicious streak, having a tool like Clearview AI or PimEyes, and you bump into her on the subway and she takes your photo and writes horrible things about you online for years to comeand you have no idea where you even encountered her.

I can imagine those kinds of scenarios where brief slights in the real world carry over, because all of a sudden were not strangers anymore, or it could make the world more accountable. So, you dont slight anyone anymore, because who knows what happens after that.

Tate: Is there a moment in the Clearview story that youre surprised hasnt resonated more?

Hill: The one thing that surprised me was that time that Clearview AI went to the attorneys generals meeting at Gillette Stadium during the Rolling Stones show and was showing all the attorneys general what they had done. They were like, thats creepy or thats weird. There was no more formal reaction to what theyd just been shown. I was surprised that none of those attorneys general launched investigations into the company after seeing it on display, especially because it made them so uncomfortable. [Hill wrote that the event, for Democratic attorneys general, was in a private box at the stadium. It took place six months before Hills expos on Clearview.]

I do feel like thats something thats hard with these kinds of cutting-edge technologies is that sometimes people see them, and I think they think it already existed. They dont realize what theyre looking at, and how new it is or how groundbreaking it is.

I heard the same thing from lawyers when they were getting banned from Madison Square Garden. It was happening for months before the media reported on it. I was like, Why didnt you tell anybody this was happening? They were like, Oh, I just thought this was a thing that happens in the world. They didnt realize that it was such a shocking use of the technology.

I think sometimes people are looking at the future and they dont realize it.

Tate: Would you put that inability to see the future when its in front of you on government employees, and/or attorneys, or do you think thats happening to all of us?

Hill: I think its happening to all of us, this belief that all of technology is so powerful and so good. Just all these kinds of assumptions that smartphones are listening to usthey must be, because the ads Im getting are so targeted. Just the belief that what youve seen in science fiction movies is real. I think so many of these companies are basically trying to make dystopian depictions of the future real, and maybe thats part of it.

But I find theres real cognitive dissonance between how powerful the technology is and the understanding of how poorly it works, and that it can work really well. I really like the Miami chapter for that. You think that law enforcement is so powerfulthat they have these eyes everywhere, they can hear everything that happens. When youre in the control room, you see, actually, how blurry their vision is and how limited. I think its on all of us that we have to try to keep both of those things in our mind.

Tate: The racial inequity problems with this technology are prominent early in the book, but later you write about how the window of time for that criticism to be effective is closing as top developers have focused on addressing the problems of biased algorithms. Can you say more about that?

Hill: I think theres a racial inequity issue in terms of who it will be used on, particularly in policing. Even as the problems have been addressed in terms of the training data and making sure its trained on more diverse faces and getting rid of what they call differential performance or bias, were still seeingin every single wrongful arrest we know ofthat the person is Black.

So, I think theres clearly still racial problems there. Part of it is just Black people are more subject to policing tools than anyone else. So, theyre suffering the harms of it when it goes wrong.

Tate: Is there momentum behind systemic remedies around facial recognition, like legislation? I was struck by what you wrote about how we could have a world where there are speed cameras everywhere and automatically send speeding tickets to people, and we seem to have chosen not to do that. Is there a world where facial recognition goes into the trash can in a similar way? Or do you think its just too useful?

Hill: Its funny, I was talking to a facial recognition vendor whose company is based in the U.K., and hes like, Why is the U.S. so opposed to real-time facial recognition? It really makes you safer. The U.K. really likes that, and they have been resisting how we use it here, where you use it retroactively to identify criminal suspects. So, there are some cultural differences in how its playing out.

Its so chilling to think that every moment can be recorded and that we could have this time machine where you can trace and track everything weve ever done.

There are a lot of technologies that we have constrained, from speed cameras to recording devices. All of our conversations could be recorded by surveillance cameras or on the wires. It would be very easy to just keep records of everything that happens. We have, as a society, resisted that because its so chilling to think that every moment can be recorded and that we could have this time machine where you can trace and track everything weve ever done.

I dont think we want that. I also dont think we want perfect enforcement of the law, because people like to jaywalk and they like to speed. And they like to get drunk and be stupid in public sometimes. They want to fondle their first date at a Beetlejuice theater. [laughs] I think people want a little bit of anonymity and the freedom to make bad decisions, you know, within reason.

I do think that the appeal of facial recognition technology to solve horrible crimes is very real and is a reason why activists who want it completely banned are probably not going to see that happen.

Tate: Are there other interesting ways we might constrain this technology that have emerged? Are there ideas you think are particularly promising in that area that might get some momentum?

Hill: I think constraining the commercial use of it, like weve seen in Illinoiswhere youre not supposed to be using peoples biometric information, including their face prints without consenthas been a powerful law for facial recognition. Its just not being widely deployed there.

My favorite example is Madison Square Garden, which originally installed it for security threats and then in the past year, used it to keep lawyers out of their New York City venues like MSG and Beacon Theatre and Radio City Music Hall. But they also have a theater in Chicago, and they dont use facial recognition technology there, because the Illinois law prevents them from doing that. Thats a law that works. Its a way to make sure that its only used in a way that benefits youand not in a way of penalizing you.

In terms of police use, Massachusetts passed a law that creates rules for how police are allowed to use facial recognition technology, from getting a warrant to running a search. Detroit is a really interesting place where theyve had three known cases of bad face matches that have led to arrest, so I think the city is really thinking about this. They want to keep using the tool and theyre trying to use it responsibly, but only use it for serious crimes, violent crimes.

Tate: One of Clearviews founders, toward the end of the book, mentions background recognition as a potential new feature, to the point where we see this brick in the wall, we can determine the age of the brick, or know that its used in this particular neighborhood of London. What other new technologies or approaches might lie in Clearviews future?

Hill: I dont know if it would be Clearview, but Ive been thinking a lot about voice search. You could imagine a Clearview AI that started gathering all the audio thats been recorded and link[s] it to individuals, so that you can upload a few seconds of somebodys voice and find anything theyve ever recorded or said.

The one thing that kept coming up with activists is, if we say its okay for Clearview to gather everyones photos and create this database, what stops a company from starting to build a genetic database, whether buying clippings from hairstylists, or going out on garbage collection day and collecting samples? Or what Charles Johnson says hes doinggoing to funeral homes and buying genetic material from corpses that you could create a genetic database that you then sell to access to the police, or sell access to whoever might possibly want that.

Theres so many ways that you could reorganize the internet of information and the real world around these markers for usmany of which are quite dystopian.

Thank you, as always, for reading, and may your fall camera moments be uniformly happy ones.

Yours,

Ryan Tate Editor The Markup

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