As many of us may be familiar with, many large corporations were faced with the
challenges of vaccination mandates and requirements of their employees over the course of
the pandemic. Amongst these businesses was United Airlines. During the peak of the
pandemic, United Airlines made the decision to require vaccinations of all of their
employees and those who could provide medical or religious exemptions would be
temporarily released from duty without pay and those who could not provide the
exemptions by the assigned deadline would be terminated from employment.Because
United Airlines is a private company, they are legally permitted to require proof of
vaccination. When faced with discrimination laws, they are required to provide reasonable
accommodations such as job positions that do not require contact with the public or taking
a financial loss of leave without pay (Gross, 2021).To current date, those employees who
had medical and religious exemptions were given the opportunity to return back to full
duty. However, lawsuits from affected individuals have been filed claiming that vaccine
mandates have infringed on their constitutional, religious, and medical rights. Refusal of
vaccines due to medical and or religious reasons forced them to take unpaid leave which is
in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
(Canfield, 2022).Although not completely resolved, both the law and constitution were
applied in the current attempts of resolution of this issue by shining light on the violation of
rights each individual were entitled to. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits
discrimination against people with disabilities and guarantees equal opportunities for
individuals with disabilities in employment while Title VII of the Civil Rights Act,
prohibits that employment discrimination be based on race, color, religion, sex, and national
origin. On January 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision to block the Biden
administration's proposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
regulations that would have required employers of 100 or more employees to have their
employees receive the vaccines for covid or else take weekly tests. The Court ruled that
OSHA lacked authority for such rules because the statute that created it gave it authority "to
set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures."
But in another decision released the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court "ruled that Health
and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra did have the authority to require all health
care workers at institutions that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding to get the jab,
unless they get medical or religious exemptions." (Blitzer & O'Neil, 2022). Discussion and
controversy over gun laws and regulation have again heightened regarding many different
aspects of laws and regulations that are and are not in place. One of the areas of discussion
or controversy is regarding untraceable firearms. A major "ghost gun" manufacturer and
distributor of gun parts that come in a kit with 80% of the gun is recently coming under
heavy scrutiny in some states . These kits come in pieces that need to be put together and
then the receiver still needs to be purchased. The problem with this product is that there are
no serial numbers on the gun parts so they are unregulated firearms as they are unable to be
traced. The use of these guns have increased specifically in Baltimore, Maryland where
they have recently enacted state laws prohibiting the sell or purchase of these guns. Some
would say that the 2nd amendment of the Constitution would assist in protecting the right
of people to have these firearms without restriction. This does not speak to firearm
regulations that are in place regarding firearms, legal use of them, and any background
checks that are required to obtain them which this company does not follow.
Currently the lawsuit has been filed with the Baltimore Circuit Court against this Nevada
based business while they have also specifically detailed the definition of firearms to
include these buy and build guns. A current event that has been covered by the news is the
financial losses big-time business Game Stop in the United States reports. Game Stop has
reported “reported a $157.9 million net loss, which is worse than the $66 million net loss in
the year-ago quarter” . Game Stop answer to net losses is NFTs.
In order to offset the huge loss, it is assessed that Game Stop is making a transition “into
non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which have become a new type of digital souvenir that users
can collect and resell. NFTs are digital items or artwork that are tied to the blockchain so
the original version can be authenticated” . As other Bitcoin, Crypto, and other digital
currencies on the blockchain have made a successful lucrative asset flow it is possible for
Game Stop to make a profitable return. The NFT will only be able to be accessed through a
wallet on the web browser. Game Stop putting all their eggs in one basket is not the best
business plan. Another huge potential setback is with so many established currencies
already it might be tough to break in. When Blockbuster didn’t transition well with
competitor Netflix.com all but one now remains of Blockbuster. The good news is Game
Stop is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and is protected
under US Copyright Law. “NFTs under the US Copyright law are considered creative
works and/or maybe unoriginal works based on pre-existing copyright-protected works” . a
NFTs also may embody or use trademarks. NFTs could end up being more costly than
current technology. Microsoft already has coins to purchase to be able to buy digital
merchandise such as games and/or accessories. I would like to talk about the oil industry. I
have lived in Bakersfield California for most of my life and still to this day. Oil is a big
part of Kern County. The reason I bring it up is, because on Tuesday, May 31, 2022, 14
wells were found leaking methane into our air, by a Oil Company by the name of Griffin
Resources LLC.This is a concern for the residents whom live here and are concerned, and
fear for there health. This company is home base is located in Ventura, California, 3 hours
south of Bakersfield.
The issues people of Kern have is, the leaking wells, that harm humans, and the earths
ozone, and the company just put dirt over the holes thinking gas will slowly leak and not
show signs of methane when taking a reading. According to California Office of
Emergency Services they have been aware of this since early May and now we are in June
and they are just putting dirt over the leaking areas where leaks were found. The company
did follow the rules, and call the Bakersfield Fire department, to review and make sure they
can get back to business. According to BFD, there were no signs of methane to be detected.
California Geologic Energy Management Division had sent Griffin Resources LLC. a notice
to shut down the wells for two weeks. Was it done I do not know according to the news
they just covered with dirt and received a green light from the BFD stating no harm can
come from the leaking wells and OK to continuing to work.
The rules and laws that govern oil company's is way to much to mention, they revise the
new law's and rules every year. For more information regarding rules you can visit.
https://www.loc.gov/collections/united-states-statutes-at-large/about-this-collection/.
According to Griffin Resources LLC. company they complied with all the State, and
Federal and International laws that are required to drill for oil. They had found a way to
cover the holes and pass inspection to continue to work. What they did not do is shut down
like asked by the California Geologic Energy Management Division to plug and abandon
the wells. Did they, do what was asked? According to our local news they were using a
cruisers/tracker to cover hole with dirt well will no longer leak if ground is covered, called
BFD for inspection, passed and were go to get back to work. This issue results back from
2008 but just recently settled against Facebook. I was a resident of Illinois at this time so I
was awarded a settlement check from the class action lawsuit. I was shocked to see this
check mailed to me as I currently reside in Florida now so I had to research what this was
all about.
After looking into why this money was issued I found that there was a privacy law passed
in Illinois around 2008. This law was called the pioneering biometric Information privacy
act. While reading about this settlement it seems this is a state-to-state law and that it
doesn't apply to everyone. This law is set to protect those from using facial recognition to
have the data stored without permission. Some states have this law but don't allow
consumers to take any legal action, However, Illinois allows the consumers to take legal
action.
The scary thing to me is how do we know these things happen to us. How does this affect
my privacy? I still am not sure how I was even awarded the check. I feel that upon
receiving this settlement I should have been advised what was exactly done to me and how
I was violated to the point of being awarded this settlement amount. To me, it's been 14
years and I have never noticed anything different in how Facebook operates besides
allowing more scam artists to advertise on it. A prime example that involves multiple
branches of the judicial system, and is specifically related to the First Amendment, is the
ongoing, highly polarized, argument of Texas House Bill 20 (“HB20”). It’s been all over
the news. “HB20” was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott on September 2,
2021. In a nutshell, the new law was introduced, and backed by Republicans, to prohibit
large social media companies, like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, from censoring or
restricting user content based on “the viewpoint of the user or another person” (Cain, et al.,
2021). It would require a level of public transparency and quarterly reporting of content
management and actively censored content. The law allows Texas citizens to sue large tech
companies for being censored (again, in a nutshell).
This is a hot topic, centrally focused on the First Amendment (U.S. Constitution), and has
been climbing the judicial ladder to different levels of the court system. Texas state court
blocked the law in December 2021, and that ruling was put on hold by the New Orleans-
based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who has not yet issued a ruling on the validity of
the arguments in the case. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the law, siding
with the large tech industry groups. “The industry groups sued to try to block the law,
challenging it as a violation of the free speech rights of companies, including to editorial
discretion on their platforms, under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment” (Chung,
2022). With the world of technology growing so are people's concerns with their privacy.
Facebook is a social media app that most people above 13 have. In 2018, they had a serve
data breach that caused their platforms' users to question their privacy.
In 2018, Facebook was subject to a huge data breach that compromised the personal date of
around 50 million of its users without their consent (sal19.). This information was allegedly
used for political purposes and advertising. Facebook has had several data breaches and
privacy violations that have caused them to be under fire in the past.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Facebook on the basis of Facebook
violating the FTC Act’s prohibition against deceptive practices. The data leak violated
theses and people were able to gain access of other's phone number and information for
advertising purposes. There is an active case against them as well as a 5 billion dollar
settlement (Staff, the P. N. O.). Facebook has new privacy structures such as two factor
identification, and they must encrypt all passwords and scan to be sure
References
Blitzer, R., & O'Neil, T. (2022, January 13). Supreme Court blocks Biden OSHA vaccine
mandate, allows rule for health care workers. Fox Business.
Canfield, S. (2022, January 4). Courthousenews.com. Retrieved June 2, 2022, from
https://www.courthousenews.com/attorneys-spar-over-united-airlines-vaccine-mandate-at-
fifth-circuit/
Gross, J. (2021, June 9). Yes, your employer can require you to be vaccinated. The New
York Times. Retrieved June 2, 2022, from
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/business/covid-vaccine-employer-rules.html
