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Before we start we should go over what might be news to some of you. I’m here at congress.gov webpage where in so many words it details the legality behind the auctioning of your browser history by internet providers. This comes from the Senate Joint Resolution 34, Public Law 155-22, approved April 3, 2017.
This joint resolution nullifies the rule published on December 2, 2016 which, stick with me here: (1) applies the customer privacy requirements of the Communications Act of 1934 to broadband Internet access service and other telecommunications services, (2) requires telecommunications carriers to inform customers about rights to opt in or opt out of the use or the sharing of their confidential information, (3) adopts data security and breach notification requirements, (4) prohibits broadband service offerings that are contingent on surrendering privacy rights, and (5) requires disclosures and affirmative consent when a broadband provider offers customers financial incentives in exchange for the provider’s right to use a customer’s confidential information.
Let me unpack that just a little. All that legalese translated essentially says previous privacy protections have been rescinded. Since Congress disapproved the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to ‘‘Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services’’ sensitive data-rich information like your internet browser history is up for grabs.
The fact that they’re even collecting this data at all should raise some red flags. Its collection and transmission is likely less about advertising and marketing and more about being used in the background to locate and monitor those who aim to expose the ways in which, not only privacy, but fundamental rights and freedoms are being eroded. I doubt a bill or amendment prevented them from collecting and selling in the first place. Those of you familiar with the mass surveillance apparatus would likely agree. To me, this is just another small adjunct to that apparatus and our next story highlights an additional appendage.
Coming from the Q & A section of the Department of Homeland Security’s webpage; updated as of May 22nd, 2017. When will I need to change how I travel domestically? Answer.
Starting January 22, 2018, travelers who do not have a license from a compliant state or a state that has been granted an extension will be asked to provide alternate acceptable identification. If the traveler cannot provide an acceptable form of identification, they will not be permitted through the security checkpoint.
Starting October 1, 2020, every traveler will need to present a REAL ID-compliant license or another acceptable form of identification for domestic air travel.
I do find it odd that they were either asked enough or figured it was so conspicuous they had to include the answer to the question, is Department of Homeland Security trying to build a national database with all our information? Their answer, no, of course not, this is just a new set of national standards to make identification documents more consistent and secure; completely laudable.
Basically US citizens are being forced to comply with whatever codes are being dreamed up. Now these updates to identify verification aren’t recent, these were drawn up shortly after the attacks of September 11th. All too often when unfavorable policies are implemented they are done so over a period of time so they fade from memory. As a result we keep allowing more nonsensical safety measures under the guise of national security.
How many of you remember back in 2011, when Transport Security Administration agents essentially forced a wheelchair bound, 95-year old, cancer stricken woman to remove her adult diaper? This was because during her pat down a TSA agent thought the diaper felt too firm to simply be soiled. So Jean Weber, daughter of the 95-year old Lena Reppert, was given the choice to either remove her mother’s diaper or not board the plane. Ultimately, after going commando, Jean’s mother got to board. They have all this technology, metal detectors, x-rays, and scanners, yet somehow are still unable determine whether a soiled diaper was explosives or not.
Lastly, from a CDC report, for the first time in decades the US admits its life expectancy has dropped. This report presents 2015 U.S. final mortality data on deaths and death rates by demographic and medical characteristics. These data provide information on mortality patterns among U.S. residents by variables such as sex, race and ethnicity, and cause of death. Life expectancy estimates, age-adjusted death rates by race and ethnicity, 10 leading causes of death, and 10 leading causes of infant death were analyzed by comparing 2015 and 2014 final data.
Now you can determine the welfare of a country in a variety of ways but an elementary method for doing so is to monitor its citizen’s death-rate and their projected length of life. Apparently since about 1993, that’s gone down in the US, predominantly amongst those younger than 65. Just about anyone, even in the peripheral of American health care controversy, can tell you this is no surprise.
While the numbers were small, I wonder if death and disease rates in general have anything to do with the food the younger generations are exposed to. We went from oils, cane sugar, and traditional farming, to artificial flavors, high-fructose corn syrup and genetically modified organisms. How many diseases that exist today existed before the incremental replacement of food for food-like products?
I did the CDC report last because that’s going to segway into the meat and potatoes of this cast, a brief candid look at our health care. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Department of Surgery, medical errors are estimated to be the third leading cause of death in America. In an open letter they urged the CDC to update its listing reporting the top causes of death. I’m going to read an excerpt from the letter listing the standards used to make their determination. “We define death due to medical error as death due to 1) an error in judgment, skill, or coordination of care, 2) a diagnostic error, 3) a system defect resulting in death or a failure to rescue a patient from death, or 4) a preventable adverse event.”
However you don’t need a health care study or master’s degree to determine that American welfare is in trouble. We’re treating symptoms instead of cause, when you’re prescribed medication it’s often followed by another prescription combating the side effects of the first.
And the same people who have to take these drugs to stay alive, the very definition of a drug addict, stigmatize those who consume relatively inconsequential substances such as marijuana, which is actually a medicinal herb, or psilocybin mushrooms, which can aid in the alleviation of cluster headaches. In fact, nearly 60% of Americans—the highest ever—are taking prescription drugs according to a study published by the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association. Not accounting for children on A.D.D medication, recreational drug users, or substance abusers, 60% is a very modest number.
Between the years 2011 and 2012, 59% of adults in the US were taking at least one prescription drug, 15% took five or more. And 8 out of ten of those drugs prescribed were for obesity related causes, diabetes, heart disease. Am I describing you? Federal data shows that over a dozen years earlier we weren’t much better with just over 50% of adults filling at least one prescription and just fewer than 10% filling at least five. Even if half of those numbers were somehow moot it’s far too many and indicative of a much bigger problem.
Let me tell you a story. As you may or may not know to supplement my income I drive for rideshare. You really get an array of characters from both sides of the spectrum doing so. From the have to the have not’s you truly do get them all. I’m usually always eager to converse, typically trying to assess what I can learn from my riders. In spring of 2017 I was fortunate enough to pick up one of those rare passengers who actually fell in line with some of the avenues of my research.
She was an army vet coming from a pain clinic. She had been in a bad car wreck a few years back and was recovering, not from the accident but from her fourth back surgery. After her accident she was left partially paralyzed, which the doctors said they might be able to repair to some degree after a series of surgeries. She told me that after her first surgery she regained considerable mobility and was looking forward to the prospects of the second, which depending on the results, was going to be her last. However not long after the second operation she could tell something was wrong because she was in sizeable pain and had lost sensation in a couple of her fingers.
Long story short, she was told she would need a third surgery to fix the issues of the second surgery before they could do what would be the fourth to finish the work of the first. She went on to tell me how difficult it’s been to find a clinic to treat her pain after her first consulting physician had to close down his practice. Now I was really intrigued and after some polite inquiry I got an interesting response.
She told me she had been going to her initial pain management physician for pain treatment since her accident. She was regularly prescribed narcotics as part of her treatment plan. However due to one crackdown on pain medication after the other, her primary care physician ultimately had to close his practice forcing his patients to seek treatment elsewhere. She eventually found the clinic I picked her up from, who happened to be experiencing similar crackdowns. Admittedly, due to lack of availability, she had to start purchasing pain medication on the street, which she said was getting impossible to purchase. Believe it or not, her story mirrors something happening on a national scale.
When insurance companies were first attempting to vend opiates and narcotics to doctors to then be prescribed to their patients, they oversold the safety, and undersold the addictive qualities of the drug. Fast forward years later—incrementally—our government has started to crackdown on these medications tying the hands of pain management specialist and other doctors when it comes to managing the pain, and frankly the joneses, of their patients. Not having anywhere to turn, some resort to street alternatives, notably heroin.
The rise of heroin in the US seems to coincide with the incremental crackdown on the use of opiods. Almost at the same time certain codes have been put into place essentially criminalizing overdosing on heroin as more drugs that increase overdose survivability rates of drugs like heroin have hit the market.
“There have been a lot theories about why heroin use is going up. The biggest theory is that the crackdown on prescription drugs, like Vicodin and OxyContin, were being overprescribed and as prescribers slowed down the prescriptions of these drugs, heroin use went up."
The American health care system is failing in general. Say what you will about the Affordable Care Act but it's playing a part. It was a shot in the dark at universal coverage but also a blow to its citizens. In some cases if you work more than 30 hours, a company has to provide you with medical or benefits, which is great for a company who can meet the expense. Most however are unable to afford the cost of doing so and as a result companies tend to hire more employees but with less hours to avoid the expenditure.
When you’re working fewer hours, you make less money meaning you’re unable to afford the care you have. For some, you really get that catch 22 scenario. The establishment has so many mentally incapacitated it’s hard for them to make those connections. And this has nothing to do with agreeing with Trump.
Too many people are falling for that Trump trap. It’s as if everyone wants to do the opposite of what Trump wants. Resist Trump right? That can be weaponized against you. So as the republicans moved to repeal certain aspects of Obama Care there was this huge backlash. However those who are quick to reject the health care proposal were also quick to forget the fact that nobody seemed to want Obama Care in the first place since they didn’t want to lose their current doctors or plan, which they did.
Before I close I feel I should this, Americas still one of the industrialized nations with relatively great health care compared to other parts of the world. That being said, in many ways health care around the world is becoming less accessible to people who truly need it. There are far too many for profit institutions tied into this. If we aren’t careful we could fall into a scenario where true health care is reserved for the ruling class while everyone else is treated with a subpar standard of care with outrageous cost.
Senate Joint Resolution 34 (Browser History Bill): https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/34
Real-ID Flight Regulations: https://www.dhs.gov/real-id-public-faqs
TSA For Removal Of Adult Diaper: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/27/florida.tsa.incident/index.html
Life Expectancy Falls: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/504667607/life-expectancy-in-u-s-drops-for-first-time-in-decades-report-finds
CDC Life Expectancy Study: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db267.htm
John’s Hopkins Open Letter: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2822345-Hopkins-CDC-letter.html
60% Prescription Drug Use: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2467552
60% Prescription Drug Use: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/11/03/more-americans-than-ever-are-taking-prescription-drugs/?utm_term=.b344ef3a5d56
Link To The Rise In Heroin: http://www.narconon.org/blog/heroin-addiction/rise-heroin-use-may-linked-decline-prescription-drug-abuse/
The connection: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/heroin-use-in-u-s-reaches-alarming-20-year-high/
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