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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLawmakers Worry Jared Kushner Is Working on a Privacy Destroying "Surveillance System"
https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/jared-kushner-surveillance/April 10, 2020
Lawmakers Worry Jared Kushner Is Working on a Privacy Destroying Surveillance System
AJ Vincens
As Jared Kushner has set himself a prominent role in the administrations coronavirus response, theres been a growing chorus of questions about what, exactly, hes up to and how much the public will ever find out about it. Today, a trio of lawmakers are demanding answers from Jared Kushner about work his public-private taskforce has reportedly been doing with a range of technology firms to establish a far-reaching public health surveillance system in response to the pandemic.
Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, along with Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, wrote a letter to Kushner on Friday asking about the issue three days after Politico reported that Kushners shadow task force had reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system that would give government a near real-time view of patients seeking treatment. Even though Politico cited interviews with seven tech executives, government officials and other people familiar with its contours, a White House spokesperson denied to the news outlet that Kushner had any knowledge of such plans.
Your offices denial of the existence of this effort, despite ample corroborating reporting, only compounds concerns we have with lack of transparency, the lawmakers wrote in the April 10 letter, which expressed fears that such a system could undermine the confidentiality and security of our health information and become the new status quo.
The lawmakers concerns about transparency echo previous worries that Kushners taskforce is operating outside of normal government procedure, perhaps to the point of breaking the law. (Kushner has said that President Trump instructed him to knock down every barrier needed and make sure that the government is doing things that the government doesnt normally do, where were stretching, where [we] are acting very quickly.)
On March 27, Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone asking him to ensure that Kushners working group fully comply with all laws, specifically citing provisions of the Presidential Records Act and and Federal Advisory Committee Act that bar or limit the use of private email accounts for government business.
On Friday, Anne Weismann, CREWs chief FOIA counsel, told Mother Jones that the organization was still working to get its arms around the full scope of Kushners activities and had yet to receive a response to its letter. But with the federal government spending trillions in response to the coronavirus , she says Kushners secret work with a range of often unnamed private officials was especially troubling, especially if they are conducting business in a way that evades oversight.
Given the amount of money at stake, there is significant possibility that these people are also trying to leverage their position for their own personal profit, or profit for their companies, she said. We should have assurances that people who are given such enormous power and responsibility are acting in the interest of the nation.
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Lawmakers Worry Jared Kushner Is Working on a Privacy Destroying "Surveillance System" (Original Post)
babylonsister
Apr 2020
OP
Wounded Bear
(58,656 posts)1. Stop worrying. Assume it's a certainty...
2naSalit
(86,622 posts)2. I don't know why anyone
has any doubt that a coup is in motion and all our rights are going to be taken away if they succeed.
liberalla
(9,248 posts)3. Writing a letter won't do anything. They won't cooperate. I hope we have
people who are investigating this behind the scenes and can disrupt their plans. Then when we have some power back, expose and prosecute them.
This is scary stuff. Especially in their hands.
dweller
(23,634 posts)4. this guy never passed security clearance, ffs
why is even allowed to operate at that level?
😘