Ban Facial Recognition helps you tell universities across America to (naturally) ban the use of facial recognition technology on campus. Proponents of facial recognition like to tell you that it'll reduce crime, but there are a number of problems with that, and the fact that crime rates are falling faster than we're reducing our own fear of crime is only one of them. Another problem is that facial recognition, like your Tea Party uncle, can't hardly tell black folks apart. Another problem is that you did not consent to be spied upon when someone uses facial recognition technology on you; make consent easy and transparent and you can make that particular problem go away, but of course you can see why law-and-order types don't think very much about consent. Another big part? You know law enforcement will use facial recognition on folks who agitate for peace, for racial equality, for voting rights, for health care, for all manner of good policies -- in other words, liberals! Yes, liberals! And, really, who's more liberal than a college student? Besides me, I mean.
Meanwhile, you've no doubt heard that our Administration wants to roll back the school lunch nutrition standards which are literally the only positive achievement of the Obama USDA. But you may not have heard that our Administration's proposed rule would, get this, count french fries as a fruit and pasta as a vegetable. Because what keeps you more regular than french fries? In other words, our Administration wants to count junk food as a fruit. Think maybe one of the many acting department heads in our Administration decided to curry favor with our President by telling him he's really been eating fruit all this time? Seriously, politicians who think we should count junk food as fruit are objectively pro-childhood obesity. And don't believe the hype that kids don't want to eat healthy -- if we subsidized fruit the way we subsidize high fructose corn syrup, kids would never want anything other than apples. The Union of Concerned Scientists helps you tell our USDA to scuttle its own plans to destroy school lunch nutrition standards.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Amtrak to stop forcing arbitration on its customers, then Public Citizen still helps you do that. You already know that forced arbitration clauses keep you from exercising your right to redress grievances in court, and force you into an arbitration hearing that you're not likely to win (meaning whatever you've heard about "average awards being bigger than in class action suits" is rubbish, since the average award to arbitration losers is, well, zero). But you know what stinks even worse about Amtrak forcing you to go to arbitration to punish them for their wrongdoing? Your taxes pay for most of Amtrak's operations! Which means that, in a very real sense, you are Amtrak's boss! And if anything belongs in our courts, it's cases brought against our government by its owners, the American people. Word on the street is that Rep. Lamb (D-PA) and Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT) will introduce a bill on this matter very soon, but you can still let your Congressfolk know how you feel now.
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