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United States Government Republicans

Trump Scrambles To Loosen America's Biometric Data and Gig Worker Regulations (msn.com) 184

Posted by EditorDavid from the lame-ducks dept.
"Facing the prospect that President Trump could lose his re-election bid, his cabinet is scrambling to enact regulatory changes affecting millions of Americans in a blitz so rushed it may leave some changes vulnerable to court challenges," reports the New York Times: The effort is evident in a broad range of federal agencies and encompasses proposals like easing limits on how many hours some truckers can spend behind the wheel, giving the government more freedom to collect biometric data and setting federal standards for when workers can be classified as independent contractors rather than employees. In the bid to lock in new rules before Jan. 20, Mr. Trump's team is limiting or sidestepping requirements for public comment on some of the changes and swatting aside critics who say the administration has failed to carry out sufficiently rigorous analysis. Some cases, like a new rule to allow railroads to move highly flammable liquefied natural gas on freight trains, have led to warnings of public safety threats...

If Democrats take control of Congress, they will have the power to reconsider some of these last-minute regulations, through a law last used at the start of Mr. Trump's tenure by Republicans to repeal certain rules enacted at the end of the Obama administration. But the Trump administration is also working to fill key vacancies on scientific advisory boards with members who will hold their seats far into the next presidential term, committees that play an important role in shaping federal rule making...

The Homeland Security Department is also moving, again with an unusually short 30-day comment period, to adopt a rule that will allow it to collect much more extensive biometric data from individuals applying for citizenship, including voice, iris and facial recognition scans, instead of just the traditional fingerprint scan. The measure, which the agency said was needed to curb fraud, would also allow it for the first time to collect DNA or DNA test results to verify a relationship between an application for citizenship and someone already in the United States.
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Trump Scrambles To Loosen America's Biometric Data and Gig Worker Regulations More

Trump Scrambles To Loosen America's Biometric Data and Gig Worker Regulations

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  • One thing Trump has taught us to is overturn rule making and laws of previous administration. Much of what is done now may be invalid, even illegal, in a few months. This is under US law

    • Much of what is done now may be invalid, even illegal, in a few months

      Uh, you assume he will lose the election. Not so fast, grasshopper!

      • Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:4, Informative)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:11AM (#60618652)

        Uh, you assume he will lose the election.

        In 2016, Clinton was ahead in the polls by 3 to 4% and she lost in a squeaker.

        In 2020, Biden is up by 8-12% and there are very few undecided voters.

        The election is two weeks away.

        It is reasonable to assume that Trump is going to lose.

        • Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:4, Insightful)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:14AM (#60618662) Homepage Journal

          It is reasonable to assume that Trump is going to lose.

          It is reasonable to assume that significantly more people will [want to] vote for Biden than for Trump. But it's also reasonable to assume that Trump will continue to attempt to tamper with the election through vote[r] suppression, and probably also through the stacked courts if necessary.

          • With an average 10 point lead, it's hard to imagine how even a concerted attempt to interfere with the election would work. This is the Democrat version of the Republican "they're busing in illegals to vote".

            The GOP is already behaving as if Trump lost. You're watching Republican Senators turning on the President. They'll get their Supreme Court pick out of him, and then so far as they're concerned, his Administration is toast.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

              With an average 10 point lead, it's hard to imagine how even a concerted attempt to interfere with the election would work.

              10-point lead where, though? You'd think after 2016 people would remember that the US doesn't have a popular vote (no, you can't just add up the votes in all the states, that's not how it works), it has an Electoral College. And if you look at the states that Biden has to win, the race is a lot closer than a 10 point lead. Yes, he's up by more than Hillary was in 2016, but not much more. If we assume the same polling error that happened in 2016 then Biden would win, but that's a really dumb assumption to ma

              • I agree that it's a dumb assumption that the polling error will be similar. In 2016 there were about 14% undecided and they shifted almost 80/20 toward trump at the end which was just enough to make up the difference. In 2020 the undecided is closer to 3 or 4%, Nowhere near enough.

                This has been a surprisingly stable race dating back to April, voters are essentially locked into their echo chambers and simply aren't going to change their minds (unless something dramatic happens like Biden dies of Covid o

                • In 2016 there were about 14% undecided and they shifted almost 80/20 toward trump at the end which was just enough to make up the difference. In 2020 the undecided is closer to 3 or 4%, Nowhere near enough.

                  It's my belief that the "undecided" voter is a myth. In recent presidential elections, the biggest cohort of people (45% to 50%) is people who didn't vote.

                  This is the biggest pool from which to get votes. This is also the pool of people that the polls tend to ignore ("did you vote in the last election?").

                  • Trump's upset win was, I think because he was able to get a bunch of people who would not normally vote to vote for him.

                    Also, Hillary was able to get a bunch of people who would normally vote for her to stay home.

                    Joe Biden has much lower negatives than Hillary Clinton, so he should do better on turnout.

                    Nobody loves Joe, but nobody hates him either.

              • You need to remember that with gop gerrymandering, the Dems need 8% more votes than reps to break even. Gop corruption makes it more even than it looks.

                • You need to remember that with gop gerrymandering, the Dems need 8% more votes than reps to break even.

                  Gerrymandering does not affect presidential elections.

            • You're watching Republican Senators turning on the President.

              Yup. Several senators up for reelection have made the point that a Republican Senate is needed to restrain a Democrat in the White House.

              They'll get their Supreme Court pick out of him

              Indeed. ACB's nomination takes the Supreme Court off the table as an issue. All the other justices are healthy and there will most likely be no new nominations in the next four years. It gives institutional conservatives one less reason to vote for Trump.

          • But it's also reasonable to assume that Trump will continue to attempt to tamper with the election through vote[r] suppression, and probably also through the stacked courts if necessary.

            Exactly.

            It doesn't matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes, and how big an army of lawyers you can muster to try and sow confusion, so they can claim they need to replace a state's Electors, "so that they more accurately represent the state's voting intent".

            This is just one thing they're planning on doing- swooping in and 'invalidating' the Electors so they can be replaced with shills for Trump.

        • October. Surprise surprise...

        • counterpoint (Score:2, Interesting)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
          Trump & the GOP are cheating their ass off.

          There's the post office shenanigans. There's Texas with it's one drop off box per county. There's Florida that found a loop hole to block ex-cons from getting their voting rights back even though voters passed a law. There's a ton of shenanigans to invalidate mail in ballots. And there's the very obvious plan by the GOP to declare victory on election night while they're slightly ahead and then get their packed Supreme Court to stop the counting.

          This el

          • Trump & the GOP are cheating their ass off.

            That's putting it mildly.

            What they're doing is subverting the election, and the laws be damned.

            Fake ballot boxes, reduced voting times and places, intimidation, ballot dumping, etc etc etc.

            Without gerrymandering and voter suppression the Republicans would never get another candidate elected to any office.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          The pollsters this year correct for whites without a college degree, so the polls are likely not to be wrong in that demographic this time around.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        Learn to read what you quote grasshopper, it says may

      • Going by the Herman Cain timeline of dying from Covid, Trump will die on Nov 1st.

        • He is probably and secretly being injected with antibodies daily. He might die from many things, but that won't be covid-19.

      • Uh, you assume he will lose the election. Not so fast, grasshopper!

        He's sure as hell acting like he knows he's about to lose.

      • Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:4, Interesting)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @11:28AM (#60618922)

        Uh, you assume he will lose the election. Not so fast, grasshopper!

        There's a couple of very good analyses in polling and the changes to them. A few things have stood out:
        a) Polling now is not the same as polling in 2016. Efforts have been made to correct the "Trump" effect where his count was underrepresented in the polls.
        b) Even if you take the current polling figures and just offset them based on the differences from the last election there's still a wide margin for a Biden win.

        Honestly at this point it's more of a question of will Biden win, or will Biden win in a landslide.

        When even Texas, ... TEXAS is in an error margin of turning Democrat you know the republicans have fucked up.

    • Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:01AM (#60618630)

      One thing Trump has taught us to is overturn rule making and laws of previous administration. Much of what is done now may be invalid, even illegal, in a few months. This is under US law

      In most democracies, when there is a new administration, they just tweak some of the laws in their preferred ideological direction. In the US these days, every time a new administration comes in they tear down absolutely everything the last set of guys did. Now cue a whole legion of US American political party-soldiers to tell us why a launching a systematic legislative scorched earth campaign every time there is an administration change is the best way to run a a civilisation. America needs to swap its entire political leadership out for a new set of people although they might want to pick a more elegant way to do it than the French did in 1793.

      • every time a new administration comes in they tear down absolutely everything

        The media portrays a world of chaos and conflict because that is what generates clicks.

        Trump's executive orders changed a tiny fraction of 1% of federal regulations.

        Can you list a few of Trump's executive orders that actually affected your life in any way?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ratbag ( 65209 )

          Haven't had the time to look through them, plus I'm a UK citizen so they shouldn't affect me.

          Wikipedia list of executive actions [wikipedia.org]

          I say they shouldn't, but since he seems to like destroying environmental controls and since I live 6 months of the year in Canada, there's a good chance this tub of orange lard's toys-out-of-the-pram mental processes have a direct effect on my life.

          • I don't doubt that somewhere, somehow, someone has been affected by Trump's executive orders.

            But the fact that you can't think of anything specific that affects you, other than a general feeling that you don't like the guy, doesn't really support the GPP's contention that Trump has torn down "absolutely everything".

            • Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Insightful)

              by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @12:36PM (#60619130) Journal

              the fact that you can't think of anything specific that affects you, other than a general feeling that you don't like the guy

              I've known people that died from COVID19 due to Trump's total bungling of the pandemic response.

              Is that specific enough, or are you now going to argue that he wasn't really to blame for any of that? Was he responsible, as he says below?

              "Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible."
              Donald J. Trump
              11:01 AM Nov 8, 2013

              • That wasn't specific at all. What bungling led to that? Was it federal bungling or state? Very large difference.

                • What part of "you're responsible" was unclear to you?

                  "Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible."
                  Donald J. Trump - 11:01 AM Nov 8, 2013

                  By his own words he says he's responsible. But he fucked up and everyone knows it. Many people are saying that.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The percentage is irrelevant. How much impact did it have?

          Stacking the Supreme Court in particular could have a huge, long lasting effect unless the next administration also decides to make massive, permanent changes to it.

          • The percentage is irrelevant. How much impact did it have?

            No impact on my life that I can see.

            What about you? You apparently can't think of anything either.

            Stacking the Supreme Court in particular could have a huge, long lasting effect

            The GPP's assertion is that Trump tore down "absolutely everything" and the best you can do is point to a change that hasn't actually happened yet but may make a difference someday.

          • I don't think the supreme court change is that big a deal. 99.9% of what they decide is just normal obtuse legal stuff. the 0.1% is the big political issues. The judges are NOT legislating from the bench, but arbitrating between two sides who firmly believe that the law is on their side. When one side loses a case and that side is deeply invested in the outcome, they may believe that they lost because of politics or chicanery. So far, Gorsuch does not seem like a Trump loyalist, so there's always the su

        • but the world is a pretty fucked up place. Here's some of my highlights:

          1. The sons of soldiers deployed at the start of the Iraq war were just deployed to said war.

          2. Mexico's standing army has at times had to back down from drug cartels to prevent mass deaths in their cities.

          3. The President of the United States is actively interfering with his election and refuses to commit to a peaceful transition of power.

          4. We're heading for a Great Depression and 1/2 of the political system is blocking an

      • You can thank Mitch McConnell for that (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @11:59AM (#60619016)
        and Newt Gingrich, who invented the playbook McConnell is using.

        What they're doing is obstructing anything that would help people during a Democratic Congress and/or presidency.

        This in turn tanks the economy. Then along comes a mid-term with it's lower turnout (high turnout benefits the Dems) and McConnell & company take back the Senate & House.

        Then they pack the courts with partisan appointments who use the Veto Power of our court system to block laws that would help regular folks during the short periods of time the Dems can take the 3 branches.

        And the Dems, being a bunch of wussies, let them do it. As for the left (or what passes for the left in America) we're still using tactics from the 1960s that stopped working when Reagan's buddies adapted to them.

        So you get this steady watching drive towards right wing authoritarianism. That's how you got stuff like this [npr.org] and this [cnbc.com] and this [politico.com] and this [newsweek.com] and this [nytimes.com] and this [cnn.com] and this [vox.com] and this [businessinsider.com]...

        Ok, time to burn some Kharma. At a certain point it's time to call a spade a spade. The GOP is an active threat to the country and Democracy. They have made it very, very clear they will do literally anything to win. We are all expendable.

      • And the nuclear options have been used, so that many of the important legislative decisions only need 50%+1. Which definitely encourages the see-sawing. Having 2/3ds to pass some stuff meant that you had to compromise and had to make sure there was more than a basic partisan desire for the outcome.

      • every time a new administration comes in

        Every time? You mean once so far, and hopefully one more time soon? Obama's administration tried to get rid of Guantanamo and failed, and got rid of some of Bush's tax cuts. That's about it. Much of the criticism directed at Obama was for Bush policies which he didn't get rid of: the Patriot Act, the drone strikes in Yemen and elsewhere, Fast and Furious, TARP, etc.

        Bush's administration got rid of... some financial regulations and a lot of budget surplus. Anything else?

    • Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:04AM (#60618636) Homepage Journal

      It's not just Trump, the whole GOP is like this. Forget about what's right out proper, just win at all costs. Ram through as much as possible in the dying days of the administration, hope that a stacked court allows it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      The science advisory stuff may take some time to undo; the administration has left many positions unfilled, even in areas it cared about. Appointing anti-science advisors to vacant positions at the last minute denies the next administration science advice from that position for the term of the appointment.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ratbag ( 65209 )

        Why are science roles a political appointment? Also, why are judicial roles a political appointment. Science is science, the law is the law, or is there really conservative science and liberal science?

        Pardon my naivety.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Because somebody has to do the appointment. If the voters choose the people who choose the candidates, then it's "political", whether the choosing process is good or not.

          Who else but people chosen by the voters would do the selection? Well, possibly scientists. That with aligns with a view of society called "corporatism", which does not mean rule by corporations as many young socialists believe. Corporatism views society in analogy to the body (Latin *corpus*) which is composed of distinct and interdepe

    • I now predict that the restrictions on citizens and businesses will be put back again, but the lack of restrictions on the government will somehow manage to stay.

  • independent contractors should be based on IRS rules or an rule saying that if the IRS says there are not an independent contractors then can't be an 1099 worker.

  • Democracy at its finest! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @11:25AM (#60618912)

    We are wildly unpopular and the people don't want us to run the country, and in a few weeks we will no longer be in power. Clearly it's a sign that we need to {insert dumb unpopular thing here}, for the people of course!

    • This is worrisome. Many years ago the small town I lived in had an election and the beloved incumbent somehow lost. There was a recount and the incumbent got the job back but not for some eight months. In that short time, the corporate funded challenger, managed to approved a huge number of projects knowing he wasn't going to stay in power. The court cases and crap that the community had to deal with went on for years. There should be a law that when someone loses an election, they have limited power u

  • "Trump Scrambles To Loosen America's Biometric Data and Gig Worker Regulations"

    Hmmmm, that doesn't sound good. Let's read on, shall we....

    "...giving the government more freedom to collect biometric data ..."

    Ah, and there we have the meat of it. What they want is more info on YOU.

    Fortunately there's no way this kind of power could ever be misused by an authoritarian scumbag-wannabe-dictator like Comrade Trump. Whew!

  • A reminder that they're coming for you too (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @12:13PM (#60619064)
    /. is full of tech workers who've mostly escaped the effects of the gig economy, maybe even benefited from it slightly.

    Once gig work is fully established as legal your employer is going to want to do the same to you. It's only a matter of time. No more hourly pay, salaries and hat not. We'll all be "gig" workers. Sure, we'll only really have the one gig, but kiss your 401k, health benefits and stable incomes goodbye.

    I guarantee you that every single company on earth is watching Uber's attempt to redefine worker rights with rapt attention. They're not going to risk the lawsuits, they'll let Uber fight it out. But if Uber wins they'll be happy to be beneficiaries of their work.

    And you will be on the receiving end of a complete and thorough reaming.

  • How do you frame that? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Saturday October 17, 2020 @03:21PM (#60619690)

    Interesting how the article frames those changes:

    easing limits on how many hours some truckers can spend behind the wheel

    = Reducing road safety measures & putting truck drivers & other road users at greater risk of accidents

    giving the government more freedom to collect biometric data

    = Increasing government mass surveillance & profiling of US citizens (& probably reducing accountability, transparency, & rights to oversight & legal redress)

    setting federal standards for when workers can be classified as independent contractors rather than employees.

    = effectively gutting decades of hard-won* legal protections & workers rights so that corporations can cut labour costs & place even greater burdens on the government to deal with the effects of poverty, stress, & sickness that 'gig workers' typically suffer from

    * i.e. American workers fought & died at the hands of corporate-hired private militias with government collusion & support.

    • * i.e. American workers fought & died at the hands of corporate-hired private militias with government collusion & support.

      How about giving date, location and why that last occurred?

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