#Police Are Getting DNA Data From People Who Think They Opted Out

[ausetkmt]

CeCe Moore, an actress and director-turned-genetic genealogist, stood behind a lectern at New Jersey’s Ramapo College in late July. Propelled onto the national stage by the popular PBS show “Finding Your Roots,” Moore was delivering the keynote address for the inaugural conference of forensic genetic genealogists at Ramapo, one of only two institutions of higher education in the U.S. that offer instruction in the field. It was a new era, Moore told the audience, a turning point for solving crime, and they were in on the ground floor. “We’ve created this tool that can accomplish so much,” she said.

Genealogists like Moore hunt for relatives and build family trees just as traditional genealogists do, but with a twist: They work with law enforcement agencies and use commercial DNA databases to search for people who can help them identify unknown human remains or perpetrators who left DNA at a crime scene.

The field exploded in 2018 after the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo as the notorious Golden State Killer, responsible for more than a dozen murders across California. DNA evidence collected from a 1980 double murder was analyzed and uploaded to a commercial database; a hit to a distant relative helped a genetic genealogist build an elaborate family tree that ultimately coalesced on DeAngelo. Since then, hundreds of cold cases have been solved using the technique. Moore, among the field’s biggest evangelists, boasts of having personally helped close more than 200 cases.

The practice is not without controversy. It involves combing through the genetic information of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in search of a perpetrator. And its practitioners operate without meaningful guardrails, save for “interim” guidance published by the Department of Justice in 2019.

The last five years have been like the “Wild West,” Moore acknowledged, but she was proud to be among the founding members of the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Accreditation Board, which is developing professional standards for practitioners. “With this incredibly powerful tool comes immense responsibility,” she solemnly told the audience. The practice relies on public trust to convince people not only to upload their private genetic information to commercial databases, but also to allow police to rifle through that information. If you’re doing something you wouldn’t want blasted on the front page of the New York Times, Moore said, you should probably rethink what you’re doing. “If we lose public trust, we will lose this tool.”

Despite those words of caution, Moore is one of several high-profile genetic genealogists who exploited a loophole in a commercial database called GEDmatch, allowing them to search the DNA of individuals who explicitly opted out of sharing their genetic information with police.

The loophole, which a source demonstrated for The Intercept, allows genealogists working with police to manipulate search fields within a DNA comparison tool to trick the system into showing opted-out profiles. In records of communications reviewed by The Intercept, Moore and two other forensic genetic genealogists discussed the loophole and how to trigger it. In a separate communication, one of the genealogists described hiding the fact that her organization had made an identification using an opted-out profile.

The communications are a disturbing example of how genetic genealogists and their law enforcement partners, in their zeal to close criminal cases, skirt privacy rules put in place by DNA database companies to protect their customers. How common these practices are remains unknown, in part because police and prosecutors have fought to keep details of genetic investigations from being turned over to criminal defendants. As commercial DNA databases grow, and the use of forensic genetic genealogy as a crime-fighting tool expands, experts say the genetic privacy of millions of Americans is in jeopardy.

Moore did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

“If we can’t trust these practitioners, we certainly cannot trust law enforcement.”

To Tiffany Roy, a DNA expert and lawyer, the fact that genetic genealogists have accessed private profiles — while simultaneously preaching about ethics — is troubling. “If we can’t trust these practitioners, we certainly cannot trust law enforcement,” she said. “These investigations have serious consequences; they involve people who have never been suspected of a crime.” At the very least, law enforcement actors should have a warrant to conduct a genetic genealogy search, she said. “Anything less is a serious violation of privacy.”

CeCe Moore appears as a guest on “Megyn Kelly Today” on Aug. 14, 2018.

Photo: Zach Pagano/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

The Wild West

Forensic genetic genealogy evolved from the direct-to-consumer DNA testing craze that took hold roughly a decade ago. Companies like 23andMe and Ancestry offered DNA analysis and a database where results could be uploaded and searched against millions of other profiles, offering consumers a powerful new tool to dig into their heritage through genetics.

It wasn’t long before entrepreneurial genealogists realized this information could also be used to solve criminal cases, especially those that had gone cold. While the arrest of the Golden State Killer captured national attention, it was not the first case solved by forensic genetic genealogy. Two weeks earlier, genetic genealogists Margaret Press and Colleen Fitzpatrick joined officials in Ohio to announce that “groundbreaking work” had allowed authorities to identify a young woman whose body was found by the side of a road back in 1981. Formerly known as “Buckskin Girl” for the handmade pullover she wore, Marcia King was given her name back through genetic genealogy. “Everyone said it couldn’t be done,” Press said.

The type of consumer DNA information used in forensic genetic genealogy is far different from that uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, a decades-old network administered by the FBI. The DNA entered in CODIS comes from individuals convicted of or arrested for serious crimes and is often referred to as “junk” DNA: short pieces of unique genetic code that don’t carry any individual health or trait information. “It’s not telling us how the person looks. It’s not telling us about their heritage or their phenotypic traits,” Roy said. “It’s a string of numbers, like a telephone number.”

In contrast, the DNA testing offered by direct-to-consumer companies is “as sensitive as it gets,” Roy said. “It tells you about your origins. It tells you about your relatives and your parentage, and it tells you about your disease propensity.” And it has serious reach: While CODIS searches the DNA of people already identified by the criminal justice system, the commercial databases have the potential to search through the DNA of everyone else.

Individuals can upload their test results to any number of databases; at present, there are five main commercial portals. Ancestry and 23andMe are the biggest players in the field, with databases containing roughly 23 million and 14 million profiles. Individuals must test with the companies to gain access to their databases; neither allow DNA results obtained from a different testing service. Both Ancestry and 23andMe forbid police, and the genetic genealogists who work with them, from accessing their data for crime-fighting purposes. “We do not allow law enforcement to use Ancestry’s service to investigate crimes or to identify human remains” absent a valid court order, Ancestry’s privacy policy notes. The two companies provide regular transparency reports documenting law enforcement requests for user information.

MyHeritage, home to some 7 million DNA profiles, similarly bars law enforcement searches, but it does allow individuals to upload DNA results obtained from other sources.

And then there are FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch, which grant police access but give users the choice of opting in or out. Both allow anyone to upload their DNA results and have upward of 1.8 million profiles. But neither company routinely publicizes the number of customers who have opted in, said Leah Larkin, a veteran genetic genealogist and privacy advocate from California. Larkin writes about issues in the field — including forensic genetic genealogy, which she does not practice — on her website the DNA Geek. Larkin estimates that roughly 700,000 GEDmatch profiles are opted in. She suspects that even more are opted in on FamilyTreeDNA; opting in is the default for the company’s U.S. customers and “it’s not obvious how to opt out.”

But even opting out of law enforcement searches doesn’t guarantee that a profile won’t be accessed: A loophole in GEDmatch offers users working with law enforcement agencies a back door to accessing protected profiles. A source showed The Intercept how to exploit the loophole; it was not an obvious weakness or one that could be triggered mistakenly. Rather, it was a back door that required experience with the platform’s various tools to open.

GEDmatch’s parent company, Verogen, did not respond to a request for comment.

Law enforcement officials leave the home of accused serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo in Citrus Heights, Calif., on April 24, 2018.

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

An Open Secret

In forensic genetic genealogy circles, the GEDmatch loophole had long been an open secret, sources told The Intercept, one that finally surfaced publicly during the Ramapo College conference in late July.

Roy, the DNA expert, was giving a presentation titled “In the Hot Seat,” a primer for genealogists on what to expect if called to testify in a criminal case. There was a clear and simple theme: “Do not lie,” Roy said. “The minute you’re caught in a lie is the minute that it’s going to be difficult for people to use your work.”

As part of the session, David Gurney, a professor of law and society at Ramapo and director of the college’s nascent Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center, joined Roy for a mock questioning of Cairenn Binder, a genealogist who heads up the center’s certificate program.

Gurney, simulating direct examination, walked Binder through a series of friendly questions. Did she have access to DNA evidence or genetic code during her investigations? No, she replied. Could she see everyone who’d uploaded DNA to the databases? No, she said, only those who’d opted in to law enforcement searches.

Roy, playing the part of opposing counsel, was pointed in her cross-examination: Was Binder aware of the GEDmatch loophole? And had she used it? Yes, Binder said. “How many times?” Roy asked.

“A handful,” Binder replied. “Maybe up to a dozen.”

Binder’s answers quickly made their way into a private Facebook group for genetic genealogy enthusiasts, prompting a response from the DNA Doe Project, a volunteer-driven organization led by Press, one of the women who identified the Buckskin Girl. Before joining Ramapo College, Binder had worked for the DNA Doe Project.

In a statement posted to the Facebook group, Pam Lauritzen, the project’s communications director, said the loophole was an artifact of changes GEDmatch implemented in 2019, when it made opting out the default for all profiles. “While we knew that the intent of the change was to make opted-out users unavailable, some volunteers with the DNA Doe Project continued to use the reports that allowed access to profiles that were opted out,” she wrote. That use was neither “encouraged nor discouraged,” she continued. Still, she claimed the access was somehow “in compliance” with GEDmatch’s terms of service — which at the time promised that DNA uploaded for law enforcement purposes would only be matched with customers who’d opted in — and that the loophole was closed “years ago.”

It was a curious statement, particularly given that Press, the group’s co-founder, was among the genealogists who discussed the GEDmatch loophole in communications reviewed by The Intercept. In 2020, she described the DNA Doe Project using an opted-out profile to make an identification — and devising a way to keep that quiet.

Press referred The Intercept’s questions to the DNA Doe Project, which declined to comment.

In July 2020, GEDmatch was hacked, which resulted in all 1.45 million profiles then contained in the database to be briefly opted in to law enforcement matching; at the time, BuzzFeed News reported, just 280,000 profiles had opted in. GEDmatch was taken offline “until such time that we can be absolutely sure that user data is protected against potential attacks,” Verogen wrote on Facebook.

In the wake of the hack, a genetic genealogist named Joan Hanlon was asked by Verogen to beta test a new version of the site. According to records of a conversation reviewed by The Intercept, Press and Moore, the featured speaker at the Ramapo conference, discussed with Hanlon their tricks to access opted-out profiles and whether the new website had plugged all backdoor access. It hadn’t. It’s unclear if anyone told Verogen; as of this month, the back door was still open.

Hanlon did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

In January 2021, GEDmatch changed its terms of service to opt everyone in for searches involving unidentified human remains, making the back door irrelevant for genealogists who only worked on Doe cases, but not those working with authorities to identify perpetrators of violent crimes.

Undisclosed Methods

Exploitation of the GEDmatch loophole isn’t the only example of genetic genealogists and their law enforcement partners playing fast and loose with the rules.

Law enforcement officers have used genetic genealogy to solve crimes that aren’t eligible for genetic investigation per company terms of service and Justice Department guidelines, which say the practice should be reserved for violent crimes like rape and murder only when all other “reasonable” avenues of investigation have failed. In May, CNN reported on a U.S. marshal who used genetic genealogy to solve a decades-old prison break in Nebraska. There is no prison break exception to the eligibility rules, Larkin noted in a post on her website. “This case should never have used forensic genetic genealogy in the first place.”

“This case should never have used forensic genetic genealogy in the first place.”

A month later, Larkin wrote about another violation, this time in a California case. The FBI and the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team had identified the victim of a 1996 homicide using the MyHeritage database — an explicit violation of the company’s terms of service, which make clear that using the database for law enforcement purposes is “strictly prohibited” absent a court order.

“The case presents an example of ‘noble cause bias,’” Larkin wrote, “in which the investigators seem to feel that their objective is so worthy that they can break the rules in place to protect others.”

MyHeritage did not respond to a request for comment. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office referred questions to the Riverside district attorney’s office, which declined to comment on an ongoing investigation. The FBI also declined to comment.

Violations have even come from inside the DNA testing companies. Back in 2019, GEDmatch co-founder Curtis Rogers unilaterally made an exception to the terms of service, without notifying the site’s users, to allow police to search for someone suspected of assault in Utah. It was a tough call, Rogers told BuzzFeed News, but the case in question “was as close to a homicide as you can get.”

It appears that violations have also spread to Ancestry, which prohibits the use of its DNA data for law enforcement purposes unless the company is legally compelled to provide access. Genetic genealogists told The Intercept that they are aware of examples in which genealogists working with police have provided AncestryDNA testing kits to the possible relatives of suspects — what’s known as “target testing” — or asked customers for access to preexisting accounts as a way to unlock the off-limits data.

A spokesperson for Ancestry did not answer The Intercept’s questions about efforts to unlock DNA data for law enforcement purposes via a third party. Instead, in a statement, the company reiterated its commitment to maintaining the privacy of its users. “Protecting our customers’ privacy and being good stewards of their data is Ancestry’s highest priority,” it read. The company did not respond to follow-up questions.

As it turns out, the genetic genealogy work in the Golden State Killer case was also questionable: The break that led to DeAngelo came after genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter uploaded DNA from the double murder to MyHeritage, according to the Los Angeles Times. Rae-Venter told the Times that she didn’t notify the company about what she was doing but that her actions were approved by Steve Kramer, the FBI’s Los Angeles division counsel at the time. “In his opinion, law enforcement is entitled to go where the public goes,” Rae-Venter told the paper.

Just how prevalent these practices are may never fully be known, in part because police and prosecutors regularly seek to shield genetic investigations from being vetted in court. They argue that what they obtain from forensic genetic genealogy is merely a tip, like information provided by an informant, and is exempt from disclosure to criminal defendants.

That’s exactly what’s happening in Idaho, where Bryan Kohberger is awaiting trial for the 2022 murder of four university students. For months, the state failed to disclose that it had used forensic genetic genealogy to identify Kohberger as a suspect. A probable cause statement methodically laying out the evidence that led cops to his door conspicuously omitted any mention of genetic genealogy. Kohberger’s defense team has asked to see documents related to the genealogy work as it prepares for an October trial, but the state has refused, saying the defense has no right to any information about the genetic genealogy it used to crack the case.

Prosecutors said it was the FBI that did the genetic genealogy work, and few records were created in the process, leaving little to turn over. But the state also argued that it couldn’t turn over information because the family tree the FBI created was extensive — including “the names and personal information of … hundreds of innocent relatives” — and the privacy of those individuals needed to be maintained. According to the state, it shouldn’t even have to say which genetic database — or databases — it used.

Kohberger’s attorneys argue that the state’s position is preposterous and keeps them from ensuring that the work undertaken to find Kohberger was above board. “It would appear that the state is acknowledging that the companies are providing personal information to the state and that those companies and the government would suffer if the public were to realize it,” one of Kohberger’s attorneys wrote. “The statement by the government implies that the databases searched may be ones that law enforcement is specifically barred from, which explains why they do not want to disclose their methods.”

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for August 18.

An AncestryDNA user points to his family tree on Ancestry.com on June 24, 2016.

Photo: RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images

“A Search of All of Us”

Natalie Ram, a law professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and an expert in genetic privacy, believes forensic genetic genealogy is a giant fishing expedition that fails the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment: that law enforcement searches be targeted and based on individualized suspicion. Finding a match to crime scene DNA by searching through millions of genetic profiles is the opposite of targeted. Forensic genetic genealogy, according to Ram, “is fundamentally a search of all of us every time they do it.”

While proponents of forensic genetic genealogy say the individuals they’re searching have willingly uploaded their genetic information and opted in to law enforcement access, Ram and others aren’t so sure that’s the case, even when practitioners adhere to terms of service. If the consent is truly informed and voluntary, “then I think that it would be ethical, lawful, permissible for law enforcement to use that DNA … to identify those individuals who did the volunteering,” Ram said. But that’s not who is being identified in these cases. Instead, it’s relatives — and sometimes very distant relatives. “Our genetic associations are involuntary. They’re profoundly involuntary. They’re involuntary in a way that almost nothing else is. And they’re also immutable,” she said. “I can estrange myself from my family and my siblings and deprive them of information about what I’m doing in my life. And yet their DNA is informative on me.”

Jennifer Lynch, general counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, agrees. “We’re putting other people’s privacy on the line when we’re trying to upload our own genetic information,” she said. “You can’t consent for another person. And there’s just not an argument that you have consented for your genetic information to be in a database when it’s your brother who’s uploaded the information, or when it’s somebody you don’t even know who is related to you.”

To date, efforts to rein in the practice as a violation of the Fourth Amendment have presented some problems. A person whose arrest was built on a foundation of genetic genealogy, for example, might have been harmed by the genealogical fishing expedition but lack standing to bring a case; in the strictest sense, it wasn’t their DNA that was searched. In contrast, a third cousin whose DNA was used to identify a suspect could have standing to bring a suit, but they might be hard-pressed to prove they were harmed by the search.

If police are getting hits to suspects by violating companies’ terms of service — using databases that bar police searching — that “raises some serious Fourth Amendment questions” because no expectation of privacy has been waived, Ram said. Of course, ferreting out such violations would require that the information be disclosed in court, which isn’t happening.

At present, the only real regulators of the practice are the database owners: private companies that can change hands or terms of service with little notice. GEDmatch, which has at least once bent its terms to accommodate police, was started by two genealogy hobbyists and then sold to the biotech company Verogen, which in turn was acquired last winter by another biotech company, Qiagen. Experts like Ram and Lynch worry about the implications of so much sensitive information held in for-profit hands — and readily exploited by police. The “platforms right now are the most powerful regulators we have for most Americans,” Ram said. Police regulate “after a fashion, in a fashion, by what they do. They tell us what they’re willing to do by what they actually do,” she added. “But by the way, that’s like law enforcement making rules for itself, so not exactly a diverse group of stakeholders.”

For now, Ram said, the best way to regulate forensic genetic genealogy is by statute. In 2021, Maryland lawmakers passed a comprehensive law to restrain the practice. It requires police to obtain a warrant before conducting a genetic genealogy search — certifying that the case is an eligible violent felony and that all other reasonable avenues of investigation have failed — and notify the court before gathering DNA evidence to confirm the suspect identified via genetic genealogy is, in fact, the likely perpetrator. Currently, police use surreptitious methods to collect DNA without judicial oversight: mining a person’s garbage, for example, for items expected to contain biological evidence. In the Golden State Killer case, DeAngelo was implicated by DNA on a discarded tissue.

The Maryland law also requires police to obtain consent from any third party whose DNA might help solve a crime. In the Kohberger case, police searched his parents’ garbage, collecting trash with DNA on it that the lab believed belonged to Kohberger’s father. In a notorious Florida case, police lied to a suspect’s parents to get a DNA sample from the mother, telling her they were trying to identify a person found dead whom they believed was her relative. Those methods are barred under the Maryland law.

Montana and Utah have also passed laws governing forensic genetic genealogy, though neither is as strict as Maryland’s.

MyHeritage DNA kits are displayed at the RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City on Feb. 9, 2017.

Photo: George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Solving Crime Before It Happens

The rise of direct-to-consumer DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy raises another issue: the looming reality of a de facto national DNA database that can identify large swaths of the U.S. population, regardless of whether those individuals have uploaded their genetic information. In 2018, researchers led by the former chief science officer at MyHeritage predicted that a database of roughly 3 million people could identify nearly 100 percent of U.S. citizens of European descent. “Such a database scale is foreseeable for some third-party websites in the near future,” they concluded.

“All of a sudden, we have a national DNA database, and we didn’t ever have any kind of debate about whether we wanted that in our society.”

“All of a sudden, we have a national DNA database,” said Lynch, “and we didn’t ever have any kind of debate about whether we wanted that in our society.” A national database in “private hands,” she added.

By the time people started worrying about this as a policy issue, it was “too late,” Moore said during her address at the Ramapo conference. “By the time the vast majority of the public learned about genetic genealogy, we’d been quietly building this incredibly powerful tool for human identification behind the scenes,” she said. “People sort of laughed, like, ‘Oh, hobbyists … you do your genealogy, you do your adoption,’ and we were allowed to build this tool without interference.”

Moore advocated for involving forensic genetic genealogy earlier in the investigative process. Doing so, she argued, could focus police on guilty parties more quickly and save innocent people from needless law enforcement scrutiny. In fact, she told the audience, she believes that forensic genetic genealogy can help to eradicate crime. “We can stop criminals in their tracks,” she said. “I really believe we can stop serial killers from existing, stop serial rapists from existing.”

“We are an army. We can do this! So repeat after me,” Moore said, before leading the audience in a chant. “No more serial killers!”

Update: August 18, 2023, 3:55 p.m. ET

After this article was published, Margaret Press, founder of the DNA Doe Project, released a statement in response to The Intercept’s findings. Press acknowledged that between May 2019 and January 2021, the organization’s leadership and volunteers made use of GEDmatch tools that provided access to DNA profiles that were opted out of law enforcement searches, which she described as “a bug in the software.” Press stated:

We have always been committed to abide by the Terms of Service for the databases we used, and take our responsibility to our law enforcement and medical examiner partner agencies extremely seriously. In hindsight, it’s clear we failed to consider the critically important need for the public to be able to trust that their DNA data will only be shared and used with their permission and under the restrictions they choose. We should have reported these bugs to GEDmatch and stopped using the affected reports until the bugs were fixed. Instead, on that first day when we found that all of the profiles were set to opt-out, I discouraged our team from reporting them at all. I now know I was wrong and I regret my words and actions.

[jwood718]

Jordan Smith writing for The Intercept: "POLICE ARE GETTING DNA DATA FROM PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY OPTED OUT"

Searching for criminals has been utilizing DNA databases even if people whose information was specifically marked as "don't share with law enforcement."

"[Forensic] genealogists...hunt for relatives and build family trees just as traditional genealogists do, but with a twist: They work with law enforcement agencies and use commercial DNA databases to search for people who can help them identify unknown human remains or perpetrators who left DNA at a crime scene. ..

The practice is not without controversy. It involves combing through the genetic information of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in search of a perpetrator. And its practitioners operate without meaningful guardrails, save for 'interim' guidance published by the Department of Justice in 2019."

But loopholes in opt-out enforcement exist, and are used by law enforcement to comb through records they can troll in search of evidence. It's even possible to spook the two big DNA genealogy companies (23andMe and Ancestry) by not telling them about the activity.

Questions about Constitutional violation are difficult to address because it's hard to say who has been harmed by the search. But in effect, even if you haven't uploaded any DNA, if someone in your family has done so, you might be searchable by extension.

"Jennifer Lynch, general counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation [says] 'We’re putting other people’s privacy on the line when we’re trying to upload our own genetic information,'...'You can’t consent for another person. And there’s just not an argument that you have consented for your genetic information to be in a database when it’s your brother who’s uploaded the information, or when it’s somebody you don’t even know who is related to you.'”

And, shades of Minority Report (which was a Philip K. Dick novel with all that implies) there is the notion of stopping crime before it happens.

"[Cece] Moore advocated for involving forensic genetic genealogy earlier in the investigative process. Doing so, she argued, could focus police on guilty parties more quickly and save innocent people from needless law enforcement scrutiny. In fact, she told the audience, she believes that forensic genetic genealogy can help to eradicate crime. 'We can stop criminals in their tracks,' she said. 'I really believe we can stop serial killers from existing, stop serial rapists from existing.'"

Full story

[selwyngrimm]

shockedpikachu.jpeg

Just kidding, obviously this was going to happen.

[hackernewsrobot]

Police Are Getting DNA Data from People Who Think They Opted Out

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/18/gedmatch-dna-police-forensic-genetic-genealogy/

[ecto-american]

Humanity

Upon their arrest by the GIW together, Valerie learns something interesting about Phantom and herself that make her question just how human both herself and Phantom are.

note that this isn’t a phic phight thing, just something i wrote literally months ago for Lexx but forgot that i wrote

on FFN and AO3

----------------

They didn't even have the decency to arrest her before Mr. Lancer's class. Being arrested for...well, the Guys in White were never really clear as to why they showed up to Casper High to arrest her. But whatever the reason, that would have been one hell of an excuse as to why she was not just missing, but why she couldn't turn in that book report that she not only didn't do, but hadn't even read a single page of yet. Valerie had an inkling she knew why, but she remained completely silent the entire march out the front doors of the school. She wasn't an idiot after all.

The agent to her left opened the door, and the agent to her right put his hand on her head to duck her into the white SUV. The door closed, and Valerie glanced to see just how tinted the windows were, as well as the police-style framing of the windows and the separation between the driver and passenger as well as the backseat dwellers.

"Oh, I was wondering why we stopped here."

That familiar voice made her jump, and she turned to see Phantom. He was in the exact same predicament. Hands behind his back, leaning against the seat, though she could immediately tell that his handcuffs were much clunkier and glowed. Obviously anti-ghost.

"You!" Valerie hissed. She immediately leaned into the window, lifting her leg up, and she began to kick him repeatedly. "What the hell are you doing here!?"

"Ow!" Phantom hissed as she got him in the shoulder, and then his rib. She didn't stop, and she didn't miss. "AH! Fuck, stop it! OW!"

"Knock it off!" one of the agents boomed. The sudden, strict tone made Valerie pause. She kicked him one more time, square in the face, before finally stopping.

Phantom made a weird wheezing noise, and she saw him shift to rub his nose on his upper arm and shoulder. He frowned.

"My nose is bleeding," he complained.

"I hope your nose is broken!" Valerie snapped back at him.

Phantom glared at her. He made a weird noise in his throat, and it took Valerie a moment to realize what he was doing. Preparing spit. And indeed, the ghost teen stuck his tongue out, drool instantly dripping, and he leaned in. Valerie instantly leaned away from him.

"Ew! Gross! Get away from me!" she complained.

"Nu-uh!" Phantom replied, his tongue still out as he continued to scoot. He got close enough to open his mouth, and some of his saliva dripped onto her knee.

"Gross, gross, gross!" she shrieked. Valerie kicked him in the side, and Phantom let out a pained wheeze.

"Knock. It. Off," the other agent snapped at them. They had gotten into the driver and passenger's seat, and both were glaring at them.

"She started it!" Phantom accused. The driver frowned at him, obviously not amused. Phantom scooted back to his side of the backseat. Valerie stayed pressed against the window and door. She could hear the drive mutter something about hating kids before turning the vehicle on, and they drove off.

--------------------------

They made the duo sit in the interrogation room for three hours, according to the clock. They had, thankfully, just connected the teenagers to the table via a long chain and handcuffs, so that they could at least be a bit more comfortable, even though Phantom, and for some reason her, were both given anti-ghost bracelets to wear. A box of tissues were also tossed onto the table, and Phantom had spent the first half hour tending to his bloodied nose. He stuffed all the used tissues, grossly, into his pocket, though she suspected why he did that. It had his DNA on it.

Phantom nor her attempted conversation. Neither were stupid. They essentially stared at each other and the walls, their only words were occasional out-loud wondering of when somebody was going to show up to question them already.

Obviously her more pressing question was why the hell they were still together. For some reason, Phantom was with her every step of the way of their weird little field trip. They got escorted in together, processed together, and now were sat at the exact same interrogation table. Why? She had absolutely no idea. Didn't they normally separate people they arrested?

At exactly 6:38 PM, somebody finally opened the door, and she and Phantom sat straight up.

The agent that sat before them was a large man, muscular and tall with big hands and sunglasses that fully blocked any chance of the teens from seeing what he was looking at.

"We know you're both half-ghost."

Valerie's mind instantly went to Vlad. That must have been what he was...she had been debating with herself for weeks now as to what he was. A ghost disguised as a human? A human who had ghost powers?

She pushed those aside to look at Phantom. To her surprise, he was pale. Nearly as white as his hair, with anxiety sweat drops beginning to form. Her interest peaked instantly. Silence hung in the air. The man said nothing, simply keeping his attention intensely on them. Valerie

"That's ridiculous," Valerie finally said something. She nearly added that the entire idea itself was ridiculous too. Well, it kind of was. It was so weird to grasp, but it wasn't really something that she wanted to think too hard about these days, and especially now. There was nothing more that she'd love to do than to throw that manipulative old bastard under the weird half-ghost freak bus. However, not only was it probably not a good idea to start beef with a literal superpowered-villain billionaire...but Dani was still out there.

"Don't lie to me." The man sounded agitated. "Both of your ectoplasmic readings are abnormal."

Ectoplasmic reading? Her? Valerie stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

"I shouldn't have any ectoplasmic reading," she pointed out. "I'm alive. Alive people don't have ectoplasmic readings."

The man opened up his folder, pulling out a few choice pieces of papers to slide her way. Phantom silently watched them, his eyes wide and his face looking utterly blank yet...so fearful. Valerie opted to ignore him for a while, accepting the papers to hold as she read through them.

She was familiar with how to read ectoplasmic readings, charts and monitors by now. Green eyes scanned the data, frowning in confusion as she checked the details, and she could see out of the corner of her eye Phantom leaning in to read too. She adjusted her position so that he couldn't.

This description was definitely her, and...she was giving off ectoplasmic readings. Not really in the same way as a normal ghost; there was something distinctively different about hers that any set of trained eyes could pick up on. But how?

"I don't understand," Valerie spoke slowly. "I'm alive." She put the documents back down on the table. "You can take a swap or slap some ghost goop stuff on me. Hell, prick my finger." Valerie held her palm out to the man. Her anti-ghost bracelet sparkled a bit in the light of the room. At least she now knew why they made her wear the bracelets too. "I'm not dead."

The interviewer stared intently at her hand. He gave a neutral hum of acknowledgement, swooping the papers back up.

"Testing and experiments will be reserved for a later time," he replied. Valerie got instant goosebumps. Testing and experiments? "Maybe a few hours in holding will help you realize why you should just come clean to us."

"Can I get some water first?" Valerie asked. The agent snorted in amusement as he stood up.

"Ghosts don't eat or drink."

She felt numb, and she had no idea how to respond to that. Two more agents came into the room, and they silently took the teenagers further into the building until they reached a door. The third agent opened it, and Phantom and Valerie were ushered inside.

The room almost immediately led into bars, and the first thing Valerie could think of was just how much it looked like jail. Two uncomfortable looking bunk beds on either side, a toilet in the middle, a small sink, and no windows. The light was dim, and the room was cold.

Phantom was pushed in first, and then Valerie, and the bars clunked as they closed. She turned to see the bars begin to glow as the bars were locked.

And there was no goodbyes. The agents were eerily silent as they filed out, and the door was shut behind them. She could hear the faint click as it also locked.

Valerie turned to see Phantom's reaction, and he still looked shaken and pale. She already suspected the answer, but she needed to hear it.

"So...are you?" Valerie asked.

"No!" Phantom's answer was way too quick. "What about you? Don't you hate ghosts?"

"I'm not half ghost!" she snapped back. "I have no clue why they'd think that."

Phantom studied her for a moment. His eyes lit up.

"Your suit!" he declared. "The one Technus gave you. It must make your reading wonky."

The second he reminded her, she felt a cold shiver. Suddenly her heartbeat felt off, and she assumed she was colder than usual because of...ya know. That couldn't be true. It had to be wonky readings. The suit was so nice...so much nicer than the suit that she had made herself. It was so much more powerful, so much nicer, just flat out cooler.

She put her heart over her chest. She still had a heartbeat, right?

"What's your excuse?" she asked. Phantom didn't say anything. He turned his attention to the wall, staring blankly at it.

"...Why would they let us stay trapped in here together?" Phantom changed the subject. Valerie narrowed her eyes at him, but she had to admit. It was a good point. "Especially knowing that we'd just plot our escape together."

"Pump the breaks, Phantom. I'm not escaping," Valerie scoffed. "They'll realize their mistake and just let me go."

"Well, they're not gonna let me go," Phantom frowned. "The Guys in White don't exactly play nice with ghosts. And I'm not leaving without you."

"Not my problem," Valerie replied. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Unless...of course there's a reason for it to be my problem."

"You can't just do it out of the kindness of your heart?" Phantom sounded sarcastic, despite staring at her desperately. Valerie crossed her arms. "Please?"

"Give me one good reason to escape with you."

And thus began a staring contest. Phantom shifted from foot to foot, and he glanced at the floor. A lightbulb made the realization click. The GIW knew her identity. They arrested her at school. But they didn't know Phantom's. Nobody probably did. This was likely a ploy to get them to reveal themselves to each other. How or why, Valerie wasn't sure. But now it was glaringly obvious to her.

Phantom was half-ghost. Just like Dani. Just like Vlad. The Guys in White don't play nice with ghosts, and she had a strong feeling that they didn't care much about playing nice with humans either. Especially if they suspected that there was ghost within them.

"Nevermind," Valerie sighed. Phantom stared at her, and he...looked scared. "I can destroy ghosts…" But I really can't take part in destroying a human.

Phantom grew a bit pale again, as they both knew the unspoken words. He took a deep, shaky breath. His reaction was all she needed to know, that this wasn't some weird lie or ploy.

"So. What's our game plan?" he asked.

Valerie studied their surroundings. She reached out to touch the bars of their shared cell, taking immediate note that she wasn't shocked.

"Well, obviously there's that big shield outside," Valerie lightly mused.

"I can get past that shield," Phantom spoke up. "Under the...right circumstances."

Valerie nodded. If Phantom was able to turn human away from the prying eyes of cameras and more, they could both obviously escape right out the front door. Hell, they could likely utilize both Phantom and his? Human? Side? Whatever he was called.

"This facility was designed for ghosts, not humans," Phantom continued. "If we worked together, we can probably make a quick exit." Valerie hummed in agreement.

"That's not just enough," Valerie replied. "I'll just get arrested again. They know who I am. Like, they know Valerie Gray is the huntress." Phantom frowned, and he thought for a moment.

"We could maybe delete their evidence files or something?" he suggested. Valerie paced their cell for a moment.

"There has to be some kind of computer security room somewhere," Valerie spoke aloud to herself. "If we can find it, we can probably wipe evidence and also fully take down the shield."

Phantom leaned against the back wall of the cell.

"I don't think that's enough," he replied. Valerie stopped pacing to stare at him. "We need to make sure the Guys in White don't do this again. Ever. Never even have the chance to get to this point again." Valerie scowled.

"They help hunt ghosts!" she protested.

"And they'd consider Danielle a ghost and rip her to shreds," Phantom countered. The reminder of that little girl hit her straight in the gut. She sighed.

"I don't know," she said slowly.

"They're a government organization, they'll rebuild," Phantom pushed. "We just need to stall them long enough to buy time for us to figure out how to keep you, Danielle and I safe."

She hated it, but...yeah. She wasn't really in the best position either. Valerie had no clue what was going on with her, but the Guys in White were incredibly persistent...and she knew her dad wouldn't be able to afford a lawyer for her anymore.

Valerie held her wrist up. Her suit's bracelet was basically hidden underneath the anti-ghost one, but she could still feel it there. Her suit wasn't gone. She could still access it, and that made her feel more confident in that she was still human. Which she had to be. Right?

Valerie activated her suit, and she held her wrist up to read the screen. She pressed a few buttons.

"I think I can figure out a map of this place," she said. "And from there we can see where's what."

Her forearm glowed brightly as it gathered data. It took a few moments of calculating, but soon, she had her results. Phantom was soon peering over her shoulder, both of them studying the map.

"How accurate is this?" Phantom questioned.

"It tends to be fairly decent. Sometimes it's hit or miss with collapsed buildings, but overall it's spot on," she replied. She adjusted the screen, zooming it out. "I can only get the floor we're on though."

"That looks like it could be some kind of utility room," Phantom pointed to a specific room. Valerie zoomed in on it, studying it.

"Yeah," she said slowly. "Yeah. Gotta be. It's got a lot of power coming to or from there. Has to be a source, or at the very least some kind of major technology area."

"Either way, we should destroy it," Phantom said. Valerie frowned.

"I don't know," she hesitated.

"I mean, you can't even summon your powers."

Phantom glanced down at his wrists, glancing curiously at them before setting his sights on Valerie's arms.

"Can you shoot them off?" he asked.

Valerie tried to summon one of her weapons. She waited. And she waited. Nothing came, and her gut became queasy. She couldn't get her ghost weapon. None of them would summon. This had to be a bad sign. Or was it just the GIW prepared against humans too? That was the most logical explanation. She couldn't be…But also she could be...after all the ectoplasmic readings...

"Um, actually, I think I can…" Phantom's voice caused her to truly look at him again. The ghost was fiddling with his wristbands, using his knees to lock it in place as he attempted to slip his wrist through the band with no success.

"Here, let me try," Valerie interrupted him. Phantom glanced up at her.

"Can you shoot them?" he asked. Valerie forced a weak smile, but she held up a screwdriver.

"Got something even better. My travel tool kit," she replied. After too many breakdowns in the field, she had replaced a small pouch that previously held smoke bombs, something she rarely used, with a few small tools. It was easily one of the best choices she made.

Phantom held his wrist out to her, and she turned the bracelet around. Eventually she managed to pry a piece of the metallic covering off, exposing screws and a few wires. Valerie didn't undo or cut anything right away, both her and Phantom silently trying to make sense of the connection and mechanics behind it. Would really suck to find out the hard way that disconnecting a certain wire would trigger an alarm, after all.

"I think you shouldn't touch the red wire," Phantom lightly mused. "Pretty sure that's a power, and if you turn it off it'll be bad news."

"Mmm, yeah," Valerie agreed. "I think I can just unscrew this though, and we should just be careful to not slip the wires off."

Phantom nodded, and he waited patiently as she did just so. After twenty minutes of careful disconnecting, Phantom had two hands free, and he flexed his hands with a happy sigh.

"God, that just feels so much better," he told her. He motioned for her to hand him the screwdriver. "Here, I'll do yours." Valerie shook her head.

"I can't leave. I won't say anything if you escape, but they know my identity."

Phantom frowned.

"I'm not leaving you here. Come on, you saw your map. We can destroy their power. We can destroy this entire building," he began, only for Valerie to cut him off.

"And do more destruction? Is that all you think about?" she snapped. "You're safe. They know my identity. You want me to get more charges or something? I can't risk it. I'll just stay here. They'll figure out soon enough that I'm fully human." A full human who apparently had mixed logic as to whether or not they could use their ghost hunting suit. If she was fully human, she could summon those weapons, right? Unless it was specifically preventing any ghost weapon, regardless of the user, use it.

"Red, I don't think you understand," Phantom told her. "They're not going to go easy on you. Even if you prove you're human, they're not going to believe you. You heard them. They already denied you contact to the outside world."

That reminder sent a chill down her spine.

"Then tell my dad," she told him. Phantom stared at her. He began to unzip his suit, and she instantly began to look away. "Dude, what the hell?"

"Valerie, look at me," he demanded.

"You're naked!" she protested.

"I'm not naked, just look."

She decided to humor him with the intention of taking a quick peek. But when she saw him, she felt a cold sweat hit her. Phantom had only zipped enough to expose his chest, and there was a distinctive Y-patterned scar on his chest that stood out against the other scars.

"This is what happened last time I was trapped here. I'm not going to leave you alone here," he stated. He suddenly looked away, and he quickly zipped his suit back up. "There's no way in hell I'm going to risk this happening to you. Red, you need to come with me."

That urgent gut feeling of needing to go finally crashed into her. The GIW would never believe her. Not just because of stubbornness, but...Valerie herself wasn't even sure anymore.

She swallowed dryly, and she nodded. Her right wrist was offered to him.

"Do you know what to do?" she asked. Phantom scowled.

"I just watched you do it," he reminded her. She rolled her eyes, but held her wrist up for him, and a half hour later, she too, was free.

She wasn't sure if she was more concerned or relieved to instantly feel that distinctive rush of power back. The second Phantom removed her bracelet, she knew that she could summon any of her ghost weapons now at her fingertips. But she could still summon her suit regardless, and activate her GPS abilities. Was this normal? Valerie had no clue what this meant anymore.

"So, next step, I think we can escape through here."

Valerie looked up to see Phantom was now floating by the vent at the top of their cell. He was already using her screwdriver to undo the vent cover. She pulled her map back up on her forearm, glancing at it and studying it.

"I'm pretty sure the vent will go straight to that electric room," she told him.

"Oh, now you're finally seeing the big picture?" Phantom lightly teased, glancing over his shoulder as he popped the vent cover off. She nodded at him, but didn't crack a smile.

"...You and Dani may look just alike, but I never want you two to have matching scars," she said. Phantom's smile dropped, and he nodded in agreement.

He placed the vent covering on the top bunk, handing Valerie back her screwdriver. She slipped it back in it's pouch.

"Here, I'll give you a boost up," Phantom offered, pressing his hands together. She nodded, stepping a foot onto his hand. With ease, Phantom pushed her up, and she grabbed onto the vent, pulling herself in. It was surprisingly fairly roomy yet not, and she managed to get comfortable on her stomach, pulling her map back up.

"Ready to commit several federal crimes?" Phantom's voice half joked. She looked behind her the best she could to see the ghost right behind her. She snorted in amusement.

"Ready as I'll ever be," she replied. "Just follow me. It's time to give these idiots hell."

And hell they did. Who knew that the Guys in Whites headquarters could cause such a colorful explosion.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Genetic genealogy company Gedmatch acquired by company with ties to FBI & law enforcement—why you should be worried

[If you thought your relatives' gift of a "smart speaker" was the worst way that a family member could compromise your privacy, think again: home genetic tests can opt your whole bloodline into mass-scale state genetic surveillance, and while there has been some progress into bringing the rule of law into the stuff of life, it's been halting -- and that's bad news, especially as companies that do genetics for spies and cops merge with consumer genomics companies, something that's just happened, as my EFF colleague Jennifer Lynch discusses below, in this crosspost from EFF's Deeplinks blog -Cory]

This week, GEDmatch, a genetic genealogy company that gained notoriety for giving law enforcement access to its customers’ DNA data, quietly informed its users it is now operated by Verogen, Inc., a company expressly formed two years ago to market “next-generation [DNA] sequencing” technology to crime labs.  

What this means for GEDmatch’s 1.3 million users—and for the 60% of white Americans who share DNA with those users—remains to be seen. 

GEDmatch allows users to upload an electronic file containing their raw genotyped DNA data so that they can compare it to other users’ data to find biological family relationships. It estimates how close or distant those relationships may be (e.g., a direct connection, like a parent, or a distant connection, like a third cousin), and it enables users to determine where, along each chromosome, their DNA may be similar to another user. It also predicts characteristics like ethnicity. 

An estimated 30 million people have used genetic genealogy databases like GEDmatch to identify biological relatives and build a family tree, and law enforcement officers have been capitalizing on all that freely available data in criminal investigations. Estimates are that genetic genealogy sites were used in around 200 cases just last year. For many of those cases, officers never sought a warrant or any legal process at all. 

Earlier this year, after public outcry, GEDmatch changed its previous position allowing for warrantless law enforcement searches, opted out all its users from those searches, and required all users to expressly opt in if they wanted to allow access to their genetic data. Only a small percentage did. But opting out has not prevented law enforcement from accessing consumers’ genetic data, as long as they can get a warrant, which one Orlando, Florida officer did last summer.  

Law enforcement has argued that people using genetic genealogy services have no expectation of privacy in their genetic data because users have willingly shared their data with the genetics company and with other users and have “consented” to a company’s terms of service. But the Supreme Court rejected a similar argument in Carpenter v. United States. 

In Carpenter, the Court ruled that even though our cell phone location data is shared with or stored by a phone company, we still have a reasonable expectation of privacy in it because of all the sensitive and private information it can reveal about our lives. Similarly, genetic data can reveal a whole host of extremely private and sensitive information about people, from their likelihood to inherit specific diseases to where their ancestors are from to whether they have a sister or brother they never knew about. Researchers have even theorized at one time or another that DNA may predict race, intelligence, criminality, sexual orientation, and political ideology. Even if later disproved, officials may rely on outdated research like this to make judgements about and discriminate against people. Because genetic data is so sensitive, we have an expectation of privacy in it, even if other people can access it.

However, whether individual users of genetic genealogy databases have consented to law enforcement searches is somewhat beside the point. In all cases that we know of so far, law enforcement isn’t looking for the person who uploaded their DNA to a consumer site, they are looking for that person’s distant relatives—people who never could have consented to this kind of use of their genetic data because they don’t have any control over the DNA they happen to share with the site’s users.  

These are also dragnet searches, conducted under “general warrants,” and no different from officers searching every house in a town with a population of 1.3 million on the off chance that one of those houses could contain evidence useful to finding the perpetrator of a crime. With or without a warrant, the Fourth Amendment prohibits searches like this in the physical world, and it should prohibit genetic dragnets like this one as well.  That means these searches are nothing more than fishing expeditions through millions of innocent people’s DNA. They are not targeted at finding specific users or based on individualized suspicion—a fact the police admit because they don’t know who their suspect is. They are supported only by the hope that a crime scene sample might somehow be genetically linked to DNA submitted to a genetic genealogy database by a distant relative, which might give officers a lead in a case. There's a real question whether a warrant that allows this kind of search could ever meet the particularity requirements of the Fourth Amendment. 

We need to think long and hard as a society about whether law enforcement should be allowed to access genetic genealogy databases at all—even with a warrant. These searches impact millions of Americans. Although GEDmatch likely only encompasses about 0.5% of the U.S. adult population, research shows 60% of white Americans can already be identified from its 1.3 million users. This same research shows that once GEDmatch’s users encompass just 2% of the U.S. population, 90% of white Americans will be identifiable.

Although many authorities once argued these kinds of searches would only be used as a way to solve cold cases involving the most terrible and serious crimes, that is changing; this year, police used genetic genealogy to implicate a teenager for a sexual assault. Next year it could be used to identify political or environmental protestors. Unlike established criminal DNA databases like the FBI’s CODIS database, there are currently few rules governing how and when genetic genealogy searching may be used.

We should worry about these searches for another reason: they can implicate people for crimes they didn’t commit. Although police used genetic searching to finally identify the man they believe is the “Golden State Killer,” an earlier search in the same case identified a different person. In 2015, a similar search in a different case led police to suspect an innocent man. Even without genetic genealogy searches, DNA matches may lead officers to suspect—and jail—the wrong person, as happened in a California case in 2012. That can happen because we shed DNA constantly and because our DNA may be transferred from one location to another, possibly ending up at the scene of a crime, even if we were never there. 

All of this is made even more concerning by the recent acquisition of GEDmatch by a company whose main purpose is to help the police solve crimes. The ability to research family history and disease risk shouldn’t carry the threat that our data will be accessible to police or others and used in ways we never could have foreseen. Genetic genealogy searches by law enforcement invade our privacy in unique ways—they allow law enforcement to access information about us that we may not even know ourselves, that we have no ability to hide, and that could reveal more about us in the future than scientists know now. These searches should never be allowed—even with a warrant.

https://boingboing.net/2019/12/10/23-and-you.html

[fanficwriter013]

The Tower - Chapter 27

The Tower: An Avengers Fanfic

Chapter 27

Chapters: one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight / nine / ten / eleven / twelve / thirteen / fourteen / fifteen / sixteen / seventeen / eighteen / nineteen / twenty / twenty-one / twenty-two / twenty-three / twenty-four / twenty-five / twenty-six / twenty-seven / twenty-eight

Word Count: 2179

Warnings:   Drama, mentions of human experimentation, and child abuse, mentions of injuries, emotional conversations (sappy y’all)

Synopsis:   Elly starts her work for HYDRA, until things get a little out of hand.

Author’s Note: Written with @emilyevanston because I’m with you till the end of the line.

Chapter 27 - The Rescue Mission

The others didn’t come at all that night.  I started to panic and I noticed that Clint started pacing in the middle of the night.  The cells were too dark to see each other to be able to sign to each other.  Thankfully, at some point, Scott showed up and whispered to me that it had taken longer than he’d expected to backup their data.   It had meant by the time it was done most of the people in the building had gone home for the night.  So they were waiting until morning to raid the building with other federal backup.

After that, I slept.  Not well, I woke up panicked a few times but I did sleep.  I was woken early by a male guard.  He was polite but made it clear I had no choice about going with him.  I looked back at Clint who signed to me that I’d be okay.  

The guard took me to some showers and gave me toiletries and a change of clothes.  Thankfully he left me alone to shower, choosing to stand guard on the door outside.  While I was in the bathroom I drank as much water as I could.  I had not touched any food or drink since I got there and I was very, very dehydrated.  After I washed I was taken to a cafeteria to eat.  I was really hungry so I watched what the handful of other people that were there were getting and copied them.  I went extra safe, opting for prepackaged yogurt, a banana, a sealed bottle of orange juice and a bottle of water in case I needed it later.

I was then taken up to the lab where Alexa was waiting for me.  “Elise,”  She said greeting me with a kiss on the cheek.  Like we were friends despite the fact she’d locked me in a prison cell overnight.  “You look terrible.  Didn’t you sleep?”

“You locked me in a cell opposite Clint,”  I said, my voice monotone.

“Mmm…”  She hummed looking quite pleased with herself.  “I heard you two were fighting.  I’m sorry, sweetie.  It’s best to have a clean break.”  She took me into a lab that had a biometric scanner on the door.  “This is where you’ll be working.  Your data is uploaded onto the system.  Right now your project is fixing my genome but whatever other side projects you want to run is up to you.”

There were three people in the room, two women, and one man.  “This is Claire, Rachel, and Ben.  They will be working directly for you.  Whatever you want them to do they will do it.”

The three scientists nodded to me.  “The door will be locked to you.  There’s a bathroom over there and lunch will be brought in.”

I nodded to her without making eye contact.  She put her hand on my shoulder.  “Just show us we can trust you and you can have your life back.  That’s all.”

I nodded again and she left.  The other three looked at me awaiting instruction.  I looked around not really sure what to do.  I didn’t actually want to do any work.  “I’ll uhh… need blood samples from… from the… the assets put through the centrifuge.”  I stuttered.  “I’m going to need a full DNA analysis.”

They nodded and turned to start work.  I went and sat at a bench and just started opening up files on what Alexa had done to herself.  It was quite horrific really.  Justin had gotten it into his head that along with the manned flight suits he wanted to try getting into the Super Soldier arena too.  He’d started experimenting on Alexa.  I’d thought my dad was bad.  He was a positive saint compared to Justin Hammer.  Alexa had basically joined HYDRA bringing all the money from Hammer Industries just to fix her father's mistakes because all he’d left her with was terminal cancer.

I’d be sympathetic if she wasn’t torturing my family.

I was starting to get an idea of what she’d done to herself.  She’d created a serum, made from her own genetically modified cells and then used Bruce’s gamma radiation technique hoping they’d take over from her cells.  It had worked except her modifications weren’t enough.  I was just wondering if I could modify her technique to actually create these mutations in people when an alarm went off and the three other scientists all stood suddenly.

“What’s going on?”  I asked, jumping to my feet.

“It’s a code zero.  There’s going to be a raid.”  Ben said as the three started moving to different stations.  “We have to start destroying everything.”

I grabbed a heavy piece of equipment and just slammed it down on the door lock.  It fizzed and went out.  The other three turned and looked at me shocked.  “I’m going to need you to move to the wall and not move,”  I said, cracking my knuckles and hoping they didn’t call my bluff.

The women moved to the wall while Ben stood and looked me up and down.  “Knew it was a mistake trusting you.”  He hissed.

“That was smart, now go stand by the wall or I’ll show you how the Avengers train their scientists,”  I said taking a step toward him.

He backed off quickly going to stand with the two women.

“Sit down, push your phones to me and then hands where I can see them.”  I barked at them.

The women complied quickly but once again Ben seemed to think twice about it.  He stared at me for a few beats trying to work out if he could take me or not.  His shoulders sagged and he slumped to the ground tossing the phones over to me.

“Thank you for your co-operation,”  I said looking down at them.

“You might still have the specimens but the data is getting destroyed as we speak.  You’ve got nothing.”  Ben snarled at me.

“Shut up,”  Claire whispered.

I laughed.  “Thank you for worrying about me.  Don’t worry.  I’ve been here a full day now.  It’s already been backed up.”

“Alexa is not going to be happy about this,”  Ben said, scowling.

I shrugged.  “I’d say you’re right about that.  Now, keep your fingers crossed it’s not the Hulk that finds us.  I can convince the others to go easy on you.  He might be harder.”

We waited for a while.  Someone tried the door before moving on.  It sounded like chaos outside.  Gunfire and people running around.  My head was suddenly filled with Wanda.  ‘Elly, where are you?’  Even in my head, she sounded sick.  I was relieved to feel her though.

‘Floor 45.  There’s a lab.  I broke the door so they couldn’t get in.’ I sent back.  I guess I was a little emotional too because it was also sent with a random mixture of relief and love.  ‘Oh god, are you okay?’ ‘Wanda, I was so scared.’ ‘I love you.’  Among a lot of other things.

‘Calm down, El.  I can’t keep up.’  She sent me.  I think it must have made her laugh or something though because I felt happier too.  ‘45?’

I sent back ‘Yes.’

There was a brief wait where there was nothing and then Wanda sent me, ‘Take cover.’

“Take cover,”  I yelled and dropped to the ground covering my head with my hands.

There was an almighty crash and Hulk burst through the door, sending it flying along with part of the wall.  He stepped into the room with a roar.  Ben started crying.  I jumped to my feet and ran to the Hulk.  His face softened when he saw me and when I slammed into his leg and started hugging him one giant hand gently stroked my back.  “Elly okay.  Hulk here.”  He said in a gentle rumble.

“Thank you, big guy,”  I said.  A bunch of police in SWAT gear came through the door arking wide around Hulk and giving me a strange look. I looked up to see Steve standing behind them.  I wanted to run to him too but given I’d just hugged the Hulk I was worried about the whole public image thing.

Steve smiled and made a ‘come here’ gesture with his hand.  I rushed over and crashed into him.  He closed his arms around me.  “You did great, El.”  He whispered in my ear.

“Bucky and Wanda…  She was… they were…”  I felt myself close to tears and he rubbed his hands in soothing circles on my back.

“I know.  Do you know where they’re keeping him?  We still haven’t found him.”  Steve said.

“He was down in the basement with Wanda and Clint,”  I said, my stomach sinking.  Steve let me go and stepped into the Lab.

“We still need to find Searant Barnes.  Three of you go with the Hulk.  Two of you get these three out of here.  The rest start bagging up this stuff as evidence.”   He said.  Everyone took action.  Hulk and three of the braver officers took off towards the stairs.

“I’ll take you to the Jet.  Wanda and Clint are there with Hill and Coulson.”  Steve said.  I followed him to the stairwell.  We started walking down, but I had trouble keeping up with him.

He turned to me.  “Come on, El.  Get on.”  He said.  I jumped on his back and he started carrying me down much, much faster.  On floor thirteen he stopped dead, his head tilted to the side.  He lifted his hand to his ear.  “Is anyone on 13?”  He said into comms.

I don’t know what the reply was but he patted my legs and I climbed off.  “Stay here.  There’s someone in there and there shouldn’t be.”

He went through the door silently and I waited in the stairs.  It was still noisy but mostly much higher up as the police and the Avengers cleared the building.   Police kept running up and down the stairs and I moved up a little to get out of the way more.

The door opened again and I turned expecting to see Steve coming through the door.  It was not Steve.  Bucky moved silently, seeming to almost be made of the shadows himself.  He turned to look at me and for one brief second my heart stopped.  I was sure they had gotten through to him.

“El?”  He said, and his face broke out into a huge smile.

I rushed to him wrapping my arms around his waist and that was when I started crying.  “Oh god.  What they did to you.”

He pressed his lips to the top of my head.  “It’s over.  It’s… it’s gonna take some therapy, not gonna lie.  But it’s over.”  He whispered.  “I love you, Elly.  I’m so sorry I never said it before.  I do though.  I love you.  I was scared because I thought I’d just end up losing you.”

“It’s okay, Buck.  I knew.  I love you too.”  I said, my tears flowing.

He tilted my chin up to face him and kissed me.  It wasn’t long, but I needed it so badly.  “Why are you standing out in the stairwell by yourself?”  He asked when he pulled apart.

“Steve was…”  I didn’t get to say what Steve was doing because he stepped through the door, said my name and then just slammed into my back wrapping his arms around Bucky and burying his face into his neck.

“Oh god, Buck, I thought they’d triggered you.”  He murmured.

“They tried,”  Bucky replied.

I wriggled in between them.  “You’re crushing me.”

Steve laughed and stepped back.  “Sorry, El.”  He said, ruffling my hair.  “Come on you two, we’re getting you to the jet.”

Steve carried me the rest of the way downstairs with Bucky next to him.  In the lobby, he let me to my feet again and we followed him to the Quinjet.  When I saw Wanda in the stretcher I started crying again.  Wanda held her hands out to me and I crouched on the floor beside her and rested my head on her chest as she ran her hands along my hair.

“You shouldn’t be comforting me, I should be comforting you.”  I sobbed, as I held onto her.

“You are El.  Don’t worry.”  Wanda said, resting her cheek on the top of my head.

Slowly the rest of the group returned.  Scott was first, followed by Tony and Rhodey.  Sam came next with Bruce.  Bruce was back to himself, small, pale and wrapped in a blanket as he often was after the Hulk had taken over for a while.  Coulson left to join the rest of the SHIELD members in their jet.  Finally, Natasha and Steve climbed in.  “Shall we go back to the tower then?”  Natasha asked surveying the group.

“Please, can we?”  Clint said.  I think he was trying to make it sound like a joke but he mostly just sounded relieved.

Natasha smiled and got into the cockpit.  “Buckle in, moya semya.”  She said. “I’m taking us home.”

[honeysweeeet-blog]

Where to Find Acinetobacter Baumannii

The Unusual Puzzle Into Acinetobacter Baumannii Revealed

The Argument About Acinetobacter Baumannii

Likewise the human nervous system contains the electricity and chemical data in the shape of electrical signals. This caused self-policing, usually considered the best way for achieving compliance. The new battery powered detection process is small and easy. There it's possible to observe a number of the published studies that were done utilizing this supplement and its influence on the human immune system. HD meropenem two gm three times each day. www.wdrugs.com/?s=regapen

Genotyping results show the significance of cross-transmission in these types of units. Using DNA-DNA hybridization and sequence analysis is regarded as the gold standard, but the process is time intensive and impractical in the majority of clinical laboratories. Second, we didn't apply sequencing strategies. Needless to say, this technique of detection must be standardised and, at the identical time, practical, for its clinical use.

It is very important that the health professional confirms this is a typical problem that's genuine, not imagined and not a diagnosis of exclusion. The employee who contacted the authorities asked for information on how best to take care of a few instances of C. difficile, as stated by the report, but stated it wasn't an outbreak. These agents are typically used in combination with another active antimicrobial agent.

Significant advances are made in our comprehension of this fascinating organism because it was last reviewed within this journal in 1996 (28). Extensive environmental contamination and hand colonization are most likely to be important aspects in the persistence of this issue. Thus, the clinical significance of several non-A. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/bacterial-vs-viral-infection

Research is being done to attempt to find better antibiotic choices for these infections. These data emphasize the chance of the spread of this gene in the nation. So, the very first piece of terrible news.

New Questions About Acinetobacter Baumannii

The end result is obtained in under 2 hours, although other techniques currently available require no less than 24 hours, most frequently 72 hours. Among the most striking facets of the study is the extremely higher heights of CRAB on the unit. Turns out nature has offered the capacity to resist harmful bacteria the entire time.

Consequently, isolation measures ought to be integral portion of any MDRO control program, regardless of the simple fact that they're often not applied consistently and rigorously. The chance of spreading and contamination is high as it can survive on environmental surfaces for lengthy amounts of time a mean of 27 days in healthcare settings with the capacity to survive up to three decades! The clinical syndrome and the quantity of days since the preceding MDR A. baumannii isolation proved not significantly related to surveillance culture outcomes.

What Is So Fascinating About Acinetobacter Baumannii?

This is among the explanations for why species identification of isolates belonging to the A. baumanniigroup needs to be attempted. The Blood Agar base may be utilized as a substitute. We'll confirm the present specifics of the assay.

Bacteremia due to A. baumannii is a standard nosocomial infection in critically ill patients. In reality, OXA-72-producing A. baumanniiisolates continue to be uncommon in Brazil. A. baumannii survives for prolonged periods beneath a wide array of environmental problems.

There are a fantastic number of symptoms experienced by those who have a functional neurological disorder. Your treatment will be dependent on where the infection is in your physique. You might require surgery to eliminate dead tissue or maybe to treat problems brought on by your infection. He will have to submit a stool or urine sample depending on the type of infection. This patient had not obtained carbapenem. All these patients were neutropenic at the present time of infection and had central venous catheters which were not removed.

UTIs brought on by A. baumannii appear to get connected with continuous catheterization, together with antibiotic therapy. Last, we didn't evaluate the results of A. baumannii infection at various body websites and systems like pneumonia and bacteremia on mortality. The disease might be a complication of pneumonia, or pneumonia could possibly be a complication of pleurisy. However, cases of true infection that does not have any CSF white blood cells are reported. We must understand that which we are treating and in order to de-escalate from broad-spectrum empiric therapy to targeted narrow-spectrum antibiotics which are not as likely to lead to resistance. A number of these infections may respond to older kinds of antibiotics which are rarely used today.

Who Else Wants to Learn About Acinetobacter Baumannii?

Epigallocatechin gallate has also been shown to inhibit cancer cell development. A massive proportion come from antibiotic resistant organisms. Notwithstanding this, there was a crystal clear step-change in the rate of CRAB acquisition connected to the debut of CHG daily bathing, suggesting this intervention should be conducted to lessen the transmission of CRAB. The aim of the treatment is to realize clinical cure with a subsequent decline in mortality. Whenever the exact infection is due to MDR-A the infections are more difficult to treat because the bacteria are extremely resistant to antibiotics. INTRODUCTION The polymyxins comprise another category of antibiotics and feature a lot of different compounds.

In the emergence of XDR microorganism is important to think about the access to old antimicrobials that could add to the treatment of this infections aside from the new betalactamics along with betalactamse inhibitors drugs. Lipids can likewise be utilized to make ethanol and can be located in such raw materials like algae. The prevalence of MDR-A is presently unknown. Obesity is understood to be excess adipose tissue. Unfortunately, the majority of these infections aren't preventable and there are several contributory things.

The Ideal Strategy for Acinetobacter Baumannii

An individual may also be a colonized with Acinetobacter and don't have any indicators. In general, the organic habitats of the majority of Acinetobacter (genomic) species have yet to be well-studied. There were not any clinical isolates expressing more than one carbapenemase simultaneously. The best treatment for A. baumannii nosocomial infections hasn't been established, particularly for MDR strains. The exceptional challenge in opting to study Acinetobacter spp.

Antibiotic choices might be limited in circumstances of infections due to multidrug-resistant isolates. Only the very first isolation was considered. Some strains are isolated from foodstuffs. These hospital-adapted' strains of Acinetobacter baumannii are occasionally resistant to a lot of antibiotics and the infections they cause can therefore be hard to treat.

Ruthless Acinetobacter Baumannii Strategies Exploited

The researchers found it is not as easy to detect the bacteria's signature in a person's breath precisely the same way that they can locate it in a petri dish. There's a capillary space between both membranes that's full of fluid. That downside comes in the shape of a small microbe with a potent punch. Ensure cleanliness and proper disinfection.

The large seeds aren't edible. To increase flavour, a couple drops of lemon juice may be used. Pure pressed coconut oil is particularly great to use. Acinetobacter is a sort of bacteria that may be seen in many sources in the surroundings, including water and soil.

What Does Acinetobacter Baumannii Mean?

In some instances, antibiotic resistance is spreading to Gram-negative bacteria that could infect people away from the hospital. The people most inclined to be infected are people who are already ill and who've been admitted to the hospital. At home, generally, you need simply to use decent hand hygiene.

Though the damage can be minimized it is essential for doctors to stop the spread of infectious diseases. Discuss treatment options with your caregivers to choose what care you wish to get. Caregivers will clean this region of your back. He will also have the urge to go several times, and there may be a fever.

[word-of-sanjana]

CA Propositions 2020

Researchers

Sanjana and her brother Aditya

all opinions are Sanjana’s

Resources Used

Ballotpedia - best for all the details

San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters - just found these people, but I really like their research and perspective!

SF Chronicle Endorsements - solid summaries, but way too centrist for me; even if we agree on a vote, it’ll be for different reasons oftentimes

Progressive Voters Guide - also just found this org; they have a “common misinformation” section that is useful

Short Guide:

14 - NO stem-cell research may be important but this money has better uses

15 - YES corporations shouldn’t be taxed like people, and this is one step in that direction

16 - YEA race/sexuality DO matter and should be considered

17 - YEP parolees get to vote

18 - YEE fairer election process for people who are 18 during the general election but not the primary

19 - NO, I GUESS... it’s a complicated property tax law- one loophole closed and one opened. I also recommend you SKIP this one unless you decide to read through the pros/cons and make your own decision

20 - HARD NO if you believe humanity matters more than the prison system, then please vote no on this effort to put more people behind bars for longer

21 - YES lets local governments pass rent control laws

22 - N.O. ride-share and delivery drivers are supposed to get basic benefits and protections, and Prop 22 wants to cut those protections down

23 - YES is to support healthcare workers who work in kidney dialysis in their efforts to improve the care in dialysis clinics

24 - NAH privacy protection intentions are good, but the law itself is a mess

25 - very begrudging NO honestly, my heart is broken that I’m saying no, which is on the side of, ugh, bail (barf). However the replacement for the bail system is to put more power in probation depts and judges, and as much as I liked the original SB10 bill, these additions pushed it too much into the hands of the criminal justice system for me to feel comfortable with. Sigh... it’s a real loss of a chance to get rid of bail tho. But we deserve stronger criminal justice reform that doesn’t play into the hands of police/court forces, and this wasn’t it.

Long Guide:

Prop 14: State spends money for stem-cell research by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). I’d say NO for this one, just because CA’s funding would be better saved for other things right now. (It also feels like it doesn’t make sense to fund stem-cell research more than any other kind of research, unless there’s something I’m missing?)

Prop 15: Commercial properties are taxed according to current market price. Exceptions: agriculture, property owners worth $3 million or less. It’s a hard YES from me- this law challenges the “corporations are people” mentality by treating corporate holdings as a different situation than ordinary people.

A potential drawback is that if corporations are taxed more, then they would potentially raise rents on small businesses; however, I’m pretty sure they’re raising rents already, and not passing this law won’t suddenly make corporate real estate treat its renters ethically. We can’t refuse a good law out of fear of what corporations will do. If a corporation can’t function when its tax loopholes are closed, then it’s really dumb to say that we as a state need to keep tax loopholes to protect them.

Prop 16: Restore considering race/sexuality in gov/public institutions, aka restore Affirmative Action for disadvantaged groups. There is a federal standard for this, but CA banned looking at these qualities in 1996 (while still looking at qualities like class, disability, etc). For those of you who feel uncomfortable with Affirmative Action, I suggest you watch CA Assembly Member Evan Low talk about this amendment. While you watch, try to think about whether denying equitable treatment to others for the sake of your group’s power is the way you want the world to run.

Basically, a YES would let the state acknowledge that race/sexuality matters to someone’s experience. Only a coward or a selfish bastard would not be able to admit this is true. I hope CA voters will act on conscience and not on their base fears. Do the right thing and vote yes.

Prop 17: People on parole can vote. YES. Fun fact: the one dude on the opposition side was like, now sodomites will be able to vote!! which I thought was hilarious. Like, sodomites are already voting in droves, this would just let the ones on parole vote too :)

Prop 18: 17 year olds that will be 18 for a general election can vote in the primary elections. YES because it’s more fair. Major elections are a two part process- primary and general- and it’s not fair for someone who can vote in the general to not be allowed a say in the primary.

Prop 19: Ok, this one is really complicated. Essentially, it’s a mixed bag of pros and cons, and how you vote will depend on which side you think weighs more. (For a more complete explanation, here’s the League’s explanation or this CalMatters overview.) 

1. PRO- It makes it so so that multiple houses can’t be inherited with a tax break, just the primary residence- this closes a loophole exploited by landowners and developers. The law would push rich house hoarders to sell. The League (see sources above) explains that this will encourage people to move and free up housing, but the SF Chronicle points out that it will only reshuffle the deck of existing housing, which does not give a break to new homebuyers who can’t afford current prices. However, this is a pretty big loophole to close and potentially open up more housing, especially in urban areas that need existing housing opened up for use, even if they also need more than just that.

2. CON- It allows qualifying homebuyers (mainly over 55s) to move three times, even across county lines, while still keeping the tax rate from their initial property. This is a bit excessive, and has two concerns that I can see: 1. counties would not make enough property tax and 2. under 55 homeowners would be responsible for the bulk of property tax. I don’t think giving a broad tax break to over 55s is the best plan, because while it would be great for low-income seniors, it gives an unnecessary break to wealthy seniors, who should be contributing to the community in property tax the way the rest of people do.

In the end, is it worth it to close one tax break (for inheritance of multiple properties) just to open another (certain groups can keep tax breaks after multiple moves)? After a lot of consideration, I’m going to say NO simply because I don’t think the revenue from the first will make up for the loss to counties from the second. Neither or a Yes nor a No vote will fix problems for low-income seniors, for problems with California housing, or for counties most in need of funding; a No vote seems, to my layperson’s eyes, at least a bit more fiscally sound.

Prop 20: This HEINOUS prop wants to turn certain misdemeanors into felonies, require DNA samples collected for certain crimes before 2014, and reduce parole. It basically wants to beef up the prison system, treat people like chattel to be shunted into cells, and make it harder for them to get out. If you have a heart, it has to be a NO for this one.

Prop 21: If you believe in rent control (which I do) and/or in local governments having some self-determination in housing laws (which I think is reasonable) then it’s gotta be a YES. (Bonus: there’s a lot of history behind rent control in CA that is interesting, but I don’t have the time to explain it now, sorry!)

Prop 22: Would make app-based drivers into independent contractors, not employees. Labor protections would not apply to these drivers (e.g. minimum wage, overtime, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation). Uhh, it’s a definite NO. (Fun fact: Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and others have spent $184M on getting this passed, to allow them to continue to benefit off of under-compensated labor. Imagine if they put that money towards drivers’ benefits and protections instead, hmm.)

Prop 23: Ok, so on the surface this prop is about better care for dialysis patients, including requiring a physician on-site and reporting data on clinics to state groups, which is enough for a YES. However, there’s a larger backstory here about the fight between Big Dialysis companies and the healthcare worker union SEIU-UHW West. You may remember a similar bill about dialysis from a few years ago, which was also a fight between these two groups. Essentially, the dialysis industry wants to keep costs low, even at the expense of patient care. The union wants better patient care and better treatment for dialysis nurses and doctors. They haven’t been able to come to an agreement privately, so the union has been bringing some issues to the public vote. The League writes “Some critics see the ballot box as off-limits to unions, while they turn a blind eye to corporate lobbyists who fund state lawmakers by the millions. This seems myopic to us” and I agree. Since I don’t have piles of money to lobby with, I want chances to share my support for workers through my vote. I just hope other people will see it the same way...

Prop 24: On the surface, this prop means to create better online privacy for users, but in its details... well, it’s honestly very murky. This is gonna be a NO because there are several loopholes and exceptions that make it the wrong next step in data privacy protection. From what my research (the League, SF Chronicle) is saying, it would allow for “pay-for-privacy” schemes where companies can charge extra for consumers wanting to opt out, among other details. There’s a lot in this prop and I’m not equipped to go through all of it, but it looks like it doesn’t have the teeth to do much, while also introducing some potentially unwanted variables into privacy protection.

Prop 25: Ok, so California has had an abysmal record with criminal “justice” in the past several decades, but in the past couple of years, there have been some advancements in putting people before prisons under the law. One was the recent Senate Bill 10 which removed the bail system in favor of a risk assessment program. Prop 25 wants to repeal SB10 and bring bail back.

Returning to a bail system would put undue emotional and financial strain on low-income folks, so it seems like an automatic Yes. However, what does a risk-assessment system entail?

Here’s my brother’s statement: “This referendum on Senate Bill 10 would put into place a “risk algorithm” that depends on systemic racism-impacted metrics like arrest history, employment history, residential stability, and education levels to determine whether someone should be incarcerated pre-trial. Hard NO. This algorithm does not have full transparency or accountability, and cannot be appealed. Statistical B.S. that reinforces the biases of the police/judges/system, but under the guise of science. Last minute amendments to the bill also found ways to increase funding for law enforcement. Human Rights Watch opposes Prop 25. Reject this prop and get the state government to try again with better bail reform.“

However, I’m also worried that a return to bail is, well, real bad. I’ve been mulling over this one pretty hard, especially since I’m attached to what SB10 had originally promised to be. But as said in this opinion piece on Knock LA, “While the cash bail industry does exploit the hellscape that is mass-incarceration, it does not drive mass-incarceration.” You know who does drive mass-incarceration? The criminal justice system. Bail bond companies suck, big time. But putting more power in the hands of the criminal justice system doesn’t bode well for the future. The new system will be run by probation departments, and from what I know about probation departments, I DO NOT trust them. This “risk-algorithm” has no incentive to not be racist/classist, and as far as I can tell, there is only a mandated “review process” of the data, not actual protections in place. 

I wanted SB10 to make great changes, but that’s not what it turned into in the end. And though I hate to side with bail, because again, bail is a horrible horrible practice that needs to go away right now- I’m gonna say NO on Prop 25. We need a different solution instead of going from the frying pan into the fire. (UGGGHHHH I HATE THAT I HAVE TO SAY NO. I DON’T WANT BAIL AROUND. BUT THIS REPLACEMENT IS TOO SHADY TO BACK.)

Conclusion

This years crop of props was mostly straightforward, with a couple of doozies on there. I hope I made the right decisions... honestly, with voting, you do your best but don’t always know. If in the next few weeks I hear something game-changing, I’ll change my recommendation here, but as of now [Oct. 10, 2020], this section is done!

[sueboohscorner]

#Arrow Season 5 recap

Season 6 premieres tomorrow, so here’s a little run of the last season in case you’ve forgotten.

Legacy: Team Arrow is a little short staffed without Laurel and Diggle and Thea, and Oliver, being Oliver, tries to take it on himself (with Felicity of course).  Since Oliver can’t feasibly be the mayor, protect the city and sleep, Felicity recommends that he recruit some of the new vigilantes running around. Oliver resists until a new bad guy, Tobias Church, comes on the scene. Flashbacks are of Oliver and introduction into the Bratva. Introduction of Billy Malone. Laurel’s memorial service and statue unveiling.

The Recruits: Oliver trains the Wild Dog, Curtis, and Evelyn, hereafter referred to as the B team, as the Green Arrow and trains them the same way the Bratva trained him. It doesn’t go well and he reveals himself to them so they unquit. Introduction of Rag Man and Prometheus. Diggle gets screwed. Lance becomes Deputy Mayor.

A Matter of Trust: The unkillable drug dealer Derek Sampson. Introduction of Adrian as the DA and Susan Williams. Diggle hallucinates Deadshot and Lyla asks Oliver to break him out of prison. I’m never going to get over the fact that they killed Deadshot just so they could make a mediocre movie.

Penance: Lyla and Oliver team up to break Diggle out of prison without Felicity’s approval. Flashback of Oliver killing a guy to get Kovar’s location and officially becomes Bratva. The B team tries to take on church and Rene, Wild Dog, gets captured.

Human Target: They find Rene, but not before he breaks. Human Target gets shot so people think Oliver’s dead. He later apologizes. Oliver finds out that Felicity is dating Billy and Billy becomes part of the ACU. Oliver tries to get Susan Williams to back off and she get photos of him in Russia. Prometheus kills Tobias Church.

So It Begins: The A team tells the B team about the Throwing Star Killer, aka Prometheus. The B team learns about Oliver’s list because Prometheus is using it. Evelyn is especially peeved, and continues to be until Oliver saves her life from Prometheus. Prometheus is using Oliver’s melted down arrows in his throwing stars. Felicity tells Billy that she works for the Green Arrow and he’s cool with it. Lance is framed as Prometheus. Flashback Oliver learns to build bombs. Introduction of Dolph Lundgren as Kovar.

Vigilante: Obviously the introduction of vigilante. Thea takes Lance to rehab. Evelyn is a traitor. Diggle tires of life on the run and gets to see his baby boy.

Invasion!: This is the crossover and would honestly take another whole article to explain, so I’m going to go really bare bones here. The Arrow portion of the crossover involves Oliver being stuck in a past where he never got on the Queen’s Gambit. It’s the 100th episode and it’s wonderful.

What We Leave Behind: Prometheus attacks Curtis and in turn breaks up his relationship. The drug Prometheus used on Curtis is connected to Justin Claybourne, a man on the list that Oliver killed. They find a baby picture, which is his son. Evelyn reveals herself as a traitor.  Prometheus disguises Billy as himself and taunts Oliver into shooting him. Diggle gets caught. Oliver goes to Susan for comfort, ugh. Laurel comes back. Prometheus was trained by the same woman who trained Oliver in Russia.

Who Are You?: Adrian is going to represent Diggle. Laurel is Black Siren. Prometheus broke her out of S.T.A.R. Labs to mess with Oliver’s head. When they try to take her to the Arrowcave, she sonics the Laurel statue. Felicity punches Black Siren in the face. Introduction of Talia Al Ghul and Dinah Drake.

Second Chances: Felicity tries to take down the general framing Diggle and meets a hacktivist who gives her an NSA data cache. She leaks the General’s information and Adrian tries to get the case dismissed. The rest of the team recruit Dinah Drake. Oliver becomes the hood with Talia Al Ghul.

Bratva: Flashback Oliver and Anatoly plan to kill Gregor, the Bratva boss. Lance is back from rehab. Everyone except Rene, Lance, and Thea go to Russia to track down the general. Anatoly doesn’t want to help, but Oliver eventually makes a deal. Felicity gets Walker’s location by being extremely ba. Rory warns her about giving into her dark side and Diggle gives into his. Rory’s rags absorb a nuclear bomb and then go hinky, so he leaves. Rene and Lance prepare for Lance’s interview with Susan Williams. It turns out that Rene and Quentin met before when Lance didn’t arrest him.  Oliver sleeps with Susan Williams, who is still investigating him.

Spectre of the Gun: A little heavy handed, but good Rene character episode. He had a wife and kid. His wife used drugs and was killed by her dealer. His daughter, Zoe, was taken away from him and Curtis would like to help him get her back. Also, Curtis and Felicity have a great conversation about how no one can disagree respectfully anymore.

The Sin-Eater: China White, Cupid, and Liza Warner break out of Iron Heights. Oliver and Diggle go to talk to Prometheus’s mom. She doesn’t help them. Susan Williams asks Oliver if he’s the Green Arrow. After “joking” that he is, he tells her he isn’t. Dinah gets sworn in to the SCPD. The cops go after the Green Arrow. Thea and Felicity ruin Susan Williams. Oliver’s getting impeached.

Fighting Fire With Fire: Adrian offers to take to the fall for Oliver, but Oliver asks him to be his lawyer instead. Susan Williams has a new blog. Oliver asks Thea and Felicity to make things better. Oliver gets attacked by Vigilante and calls Susan Williams in the hospital. Prometheus is Adrian Chase and he throws Vigilante off a roof. Oliver gives a press conference throwing the Green Arrow under the bus and the team makes sure Vigilante doesn’t kill him. Oliver doesn’t get impeached and gets back with Susan Williams. Curtis is getting divorced. Felicity joins Helix. Adrian approaches Susan Williams.

Checkmate: Oliver goes to find Talia Al Ghul and finds out that she is Talia Al Ghul. Oliver threatens to expose Adrian and Adrian tells him that he’s kidnapped Susan Williams. Oliver and Diggle try to talk to Adrian’s wife, but barely escape the police. Felicity’s MIA because she’s at Helix and Oliver’s worried. After he agrees to trust her, she tells him that Adrian’s birth name is Simon Morrison. Oliver announces that the Green Arrow has 24 hours to turn himself in before the SCPD can shoot him on sight. Oliver tries to tell Pike about Adrian, but Adrian shoots him and is then by his hospital bed taunting Oliver. Flashback Oliver becomes the hood around Anatoly and Anatoly finds it ridiculous. Helix refuses to help Felicity until Felicity helps them. Diggle tries to calm Oliver down by saying people are a strength. They rescue Susan Williams and then Talia and Adrian kidnap Oliver.

Kapiushon: Adrian tortures Oliver. Gregor dies and Anatoly becomes Bratva captain. Adrian makes Oliver and Evelyn fight. Adrian “kills” Evelyn. Oliver seemingly kills Kovar. Oliver says that he liked being a killer. This episode was so dark. Evelyn’s fine. Adrian blowtorches Oliver’s Bratva tattoo. Kovar’s alive. Oliver wakes up unbound and returns to the Arrow cave. He’s been gone six days and says he’s done.

Disbanded: Oliver breaks up with Susan Williams. He brings in the Bratva to kill Adrian. Felicity uses Helix to try and unmask Adrian. What the Bratva want in return in to create an addictive street drug. The team minus Oliver stop them from killing Chase and Oliver comes in to keep them from getting away with the drugs. Felicity and Curtis steal tech from Kord Industries to unmask Adrian. Once SCPD finds out that Adrian is Prometheus, he kills his protection detail.

Dangerous Liasons: Helix agrees to help find Chase if Felicity helps them get into A.R.G.U.S. Felicity does and Helix accidently kills somebody. They want to break out Cayden James, the founder of Helix. They need a second key and attack A.R.G.U.S. and team Arrow to get it. Oliver and Lyla do not approve of her plan. Felicity does it anyway and later gets in between Oliver and Helix, opting to go with Helix, who promptly ditch her. They do leave her a biometric tracker, which reveals Adrian is there.

Underneath: The lovely Olicity bottle episode. Olicity gets trapped in the bunker and the team has to get them out. Olicity is back y’all!

Honor Thy Fathers: All of the people Chase prosecuted have been released and Team Arrow is spread thin watching them. A huge crate containing a corpse buried in concrete is delivered to Oliver’s office. Robert Queen’s DNA was under the man’s fingernails and the concrete came from a Queen Consolidated subsidiary. When Oliver and Diggle check it out, they get stuck in a concrete trap. Curtis and Dinah have to go off Derek Sampson detail to rescue them. They find a lawyer who represented both the corpse and Claybourne and he gives them a flash drive, which Oliver tells Thea to destroy. Thea watches it and the man’s death was an accident, but an accident Robert Queen covered up. Oliver puts back on his costume because of Felicity and fights Chase. Oliver tells Chase his father was going to disown him and Chase gives up. Flashback Anatoly takes Oliver back to Lian Yu and tells him that he’s going to bribe a fishing boat. Kovar shows up and drugs Oliver.

Missing: In flashback, Kovar gives Oliver what is called the “Red Death” and he has painful flashbacks but finally frees himself. Team Arrow celebrates Oliver’s birthday! And then people start to drop like flies. Black Siren’s escaped and they never told Lance about her. Her and Evelyn tranq Thea and Lance and Thea has to explain about other Earth’s and doppelgangers. Diggle and Felicity try to pull an Isabel Rochev on Talia Al Ghul, but it doesn’t work. Malcolm comes to help. Oliver is adamant that he won’t let Chase go until he gets a call from William. He and Malcolm incapacitate the Marshalls and let Chase get away. Oliver brings in Nyssa to help and it’s super awkward. Everyone’s on the island and Oliver recruits Slade Wilson.

Lian Yu: EVERYONE MAY OR MAY NOT BE DEAD! This is all you need to know going into tomorrow.

[un-enfant-immature]

23andMe underscores that privacy-loving customers need to opt out of its data deal with GlaxoSmithKline

23andMe, the genetics testing company, is in a state of constant evolution, as you’d expect any 12-year-old company would be. But that also means that customers need to be aware of how the company is using data that users may have earlier consented to give without anticipating its newer initiatives.

One new tie-up was a particular point of interest here at TechCrunch’s massive Disrupt show, taking place this week in San Francisco. Specifically, CEO and cofounder Anne Wojcicki was asked a series of questions about 23andMe’s pact with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, which announced in July that it acquired a $300 million stake in 23andMe in order to more efficiently develop drugs. As part of the four-year-deal, GSK gains exclusive rights to mine 23andMe’s customer data to more quickly and efficiently develop drug targets. Said Wojcicki of the partnership: “If we start with genetics, will we have higher success rate” when it comes to drug development? (She clearly thinks so.)

As Wired reported last month, this isn’t entirely new terrain for the company. 23andMe has for the last three-and-a-half years been sharing insights gleaned from many of the more than 5 million people who’ve sent their spit off to 23andMe. It just used to be that it shared that information with GSK and six other pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. Now, GSK alone will be able to access what Wojcicki describes as aggregated and wholly anonymized customer information.

Even still, in an age where privacy leaks are rampant, 23andMe customers have expressed some chagrin about the deal, and Wojcicki’s chat today might not assuage them. The reason, as she underscored: 23andMe customers aren’t being asked to opt in to this data-sharing agreement, but rather, they are being told they can opt-out via email. The move assumes that someone who bought a 23andMe kit years ago will respond to an email from 23andMe that gives them this option, when, let’s face it, many may never even see the email, let alone open it.

What consumers may well like better is the future that Wojcicki imagines for 23andMe, one that focuses not so much on drug development but also, and perhaps even predominately, on prevention.

The idea, said Wojcicki, is to rely on 23andMe’s “community” of customers who tell the company “all kinds of things” about themselves — then potentially figure out connections between these disparate things. “Some people have Crohn’s disease. Some have heart issues. People have everything” and sometimes at once, she suggested. Meanwhile, 23andMe is uniquely able to help figure out links that siloed research cannot.

Relatedly, the company hopes to do more to help its customers manage conditions that they may be prone to develop. If someone appears to have a heightened risk of macular degeneration, for example, 23andMe might suggest that the customer wear sunglasses and take vitamins and get tested as soon as possible. If someone appears to have a heightened risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, the progressive nervous system disorder that 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with each year, 23andMe hopes eventually to be helpful in preventing or mitigating the outcome of the disease, she said

What 23andMe will never do, said Wojcicki, is work with police departments to help it identify any of its customers. As she explained it, 23andMe requires “a lot of saliva from customers specifically for privacy issues.” (She noted that a smaller amount — as with drool that might escape the mouth of someone who’s asleep — isn’t sufficient.) 23andMe also prevents people from uploading data from outside sources in order to try to make connections, as happened in the case of the so-called Golden State Killer, wherein investigators used an open-source genetic database, GEDmatch, to explore family trees and see whether any contained matches to DNA samples from the crime scenes they studied.

It worked. The killer was caught. But 23andMe has a moral obligation only to its customers, she said.  When law enforcement knocks, said Wojcicki, “We say no.”

You can check out the full discussion here.

[neptunecreek]

Genetic Genealogy Company GEDmatch Acquired by Company With Ties to FBI & Law Enforcement—Why You Should Be Worried

This week, GEDmatch, a genetic genealogy company that gained notoriety for giving law enforcement access to its customers’ DNA data, quietly informed its users it is now operated by Verogen, Inc., a company expressly formed two years ago to market “next-generation [DNA] sequencing” technology to crime labs.  

What this means for GEDmatch’s 1.3 million users—and for the 60% of white Americans who share DNA with those users—remains to be seen. 

GEDmatch allows users to upload an electronic file containing their raw genotyped DNA data so that they can compare it to other users’ data to find biological family relationships. It estimates how close or distant those relationships may be (e.g., a direct connection, like a parent, or a distant connection, like a third cousin), and it enables users to determine where, along each chromosome, their DNA may be similar to another user. It also predicts characteristics like ethnicity. 

An estimated 30 million people have used genetic genealogy databases like GEDmatch to identify biological relatives and build a family tree, and law enforcement officers have been capitalizing on all that freely available data in criminal investigations. Estimates are that genetic genealogy sites were used in around 200 cases just last year. For many of those cases, officers never sought a warrant or any legal process at all. 

Earlier this year, after public outcry, GEDmatch changed its previous position allowing for warrantless law enforcement searches, opted out all its users from those searches, and required all users to expressly opt in if they wanted to allow access to their genetic data. Only a small percentage did. But opting out has not prevented law enforcement from accessing consumers’ genetic data, as long as they can get a warrant, which one Orlando, Florida officer did last summer.  

Law enforcement has argued that people using genetic genealogy services have no expectation of privacy in their genetic data because users have willingly shared their data with the genetics company and with other users and have “consented” to a company’s terms of service. But the Supreme Court rejected a similar argument in Carpenter v. United States. 

In Carpenter, the Court ruled that even though our cell phone location data is shared with or stored by a phone company, we still have a reasonable expectation of privacy in it because of all the sensitive and private information it can reveal about our lives. Similarly, genetic data can reveal a whole host of extremely private and sensitive information about people, from their likelihood to inherit specific diseases to where their ancestors are from to whether they have a sister or brother they never knew about. Researchers have even theorized at one time or another that DNA may predict race, intelligence, criminality, sexual orientation, and political ideology. Even if later disproved, officials may rely on outdated research like this to make judgements about and discriminate against people. Because genetic data is so sensitive, we have an expectation of privacy in it, even if other people can access it.

However, whether individual users of genetic genealogy databases have consented to law enforcement searches is somewhat beside the point. In all cases that we know of so far, law enforcement isn’t looking for the person who uploaded their DNA to a consumer site, they are looking for that person’s distant relatives—people who never could have consented to this kind of use of their genetic data because they don’t have any control over the DNA they happen to share with the site’s users.  

We need to think long and hard as a society about whether law enforcement should be allowed to access genetic genealogy databases at all—even with a warrant.

These are also dragnet searches, conducted under “general warrants,” and no different from officers searching every house in a town with a population of 1.3 million on the off chance that one of those houses could contain evidence useful to finding the perpetrator of a crime. With or without a warrant, the Fourth Amendment prohibits searches like this in the physical world, and it should prohibit genetic dragnets like this one as well.  That means these searches are nothing more than fishing expeditions through millions of innocent people’s DNA. They are not targeted at finding specific users or based on individualized suspicion—a fact the police admit because they don’t know who their suspect is. They are supported only by the hope that a crime scene sample might somehow be genetically linked to DNA submitted to a genetic genealogy database by a distant relative, which might give officers a lead in a case. There's a real question whether a warrant that allows this kind of search could ever meet the particularity requirements of the Fourth Amendment. 

We need to think long and hard as a society about whether law enforcement should be allowed to access genetic genealogy databases at all—even with a warrant. These searches impact millions of Americans. Although GEDmatch likely only encompasses about 0.5% of the U.S. adult population, research shows 60% of white Americans can already be identified from its 1.3 million users. This same research shows that once GEDmatch’s users encompass just 2% of the U.S. population, 90% of white Americans will be identifiable.

Although many authorities once argued these kinds of searches would only be used as a way to solve cold cases involving the most terrible and serious crimes, that is changing; this year, police used genetic genealogy to implicate a teenager for a sexual assault. Next year it could be used to identify political or environmental protestors. Unlike established criminal DNA databases like the FBI’s CODIS database, there are currently few rules governing how and when genetic genealogy searching may be used.

We should worry about these searches for another reason: they can implicate people for crimes they didn’t commit. Although police used genetic searching to finally identify the man they believe is the “Golden State Killer,” an earlier search in the same case identified a different person. In 2015, a similar search in a different case led police to suspect an innocent man. Even without genetic genealogy searches, DNA matches may lead officers to suspect—and jail—the wrong person, as happened in a California case in 2012. That can happen because we shed DNA constantly and because our DNA may be transferred from one location to another, possibly ending up at the scene of a crime, even if we were never there. 

All of this is made even more concerning by the recent acquisition of GEDmatch by a company whose main purpose is to help the police solve crimes. The ability to research family history and disease risk shouldn’t carry the threat that our data will be accessible to police or others and used in ways we never could have foreseen. Genetic genealogy searches by law enforcement invade our privacy in unique ways—they allow law enforcement to access information about us that we may not even know ourselves, that we have no ability to hide, and that could reveal more about us in the future than scientists know now. These searches should never be allowed—even with a warrant.

Related Cases: 

Maryland v. King

Carpenter v. United States

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[itsadroneslife]

Amazon patents eyes in the sky, should we be worried?

Yahoo Finance reports this week that Amazon may soon send drones into the sky to gather data with the help of drone surveillance technology. Earlier this month, the retailer received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a new data-gathering system.

With this latest patent, Amazon expands its information-collecting reach. While the company rose to prominence selling information (also known as book sales), the Seattle-based mega retailer has gone deep into data collection with its always-listening virtual assistant, home-monitoring company, and a facial recognition tool it offers to law enforcement.

In the first line of Amazon’s patent, the filing would allow an “unmanned aerial vehicle” to gather data about the places it flies over. The patent notes that Amazon’s drone would obtain data about objects within and around a specified “geo-fence,” or a virtual boundary. An option to surveil only authorized areas would offer the ability to keep other areas private.

Amazon filed the patent in 2015, two years after the company first unveiled its plans for Prime Air, which included putting drones to work to deliver packages. A drone program has, clearly, remained a priority for Amazon as the company unveiled an update to its drone design earlier this month – see the video below. No matter the use, delivering packages or observing the environment, Amazon will need further approval from the FAA to get its drones off the ground.

Amazon Prime’s delivery drone in action

According to Amazon though, the drones purpose will be delivery first and surveillance, second—if at all. In a statement to Fortune, an Amazon spokesperson clarified the company’s interest in drones, noting that patents take multiple years to receive and do not necessarily reflect the company’s current product roadmap.

“Some reports have suggested that this technology would spy or gather data on homes without authorization—to be clear, that’s not what the patent says,” said Amazon’s John Tagle. “The patent clearly states that it would be an opt-in service available to customers who authorize monitoring of their home.”

Amazon’s patent can be read in its entirety here.

Amazon’s info-gathering history

Though gathering information by drone may raise an eyebrow or two on the privacy front (it wasn’t long ago that we learned Amazon employees were listening to our conversations with Alexa), information-gathering is now a prominent part of the company’s DNA. When Amazon announced the Amazon Echo smart speaker in 2014, the device promised a virtual assistant for the home that could be summoned simply by calling out its name.

The trade-off came in user privacy: for Amazon’s assistant Alexa to hear you, the device has to always be listening. Customers make a similar trade-off when they use one of Amazon’s Ring products. The Ring line consists of home security cameras, video doorbells, and security systems that send information through Amazon’s servers.

Broaden the scope from consumer tech and there’s even more evidence of Amazon’s data collection leanings. In May 2018, the ACLU learned that Amazon markets their facial recognition tool, Rekognition, to law enforcement. The ACLU noted that officers in Washington County, Ore. and Orlando, Fla. had been using Amazon’s facial recognition tech since 2017.

The Washington County Sheriff’s office has used the technology to help in their investigations. “We were able to index more than 300,000 photo records within 1-2 days, and the identification time of suspects went from 2-3 days down to minutes,” the Oregon police force noted on Amazon’s Rekognition customers page.

It’s too early to tell how Amazon could make use of a network of drones for potential surveillance purposes. The company could very well sit on the patent and do nothing, or the complete opposite and watch from the skies. Now that Amazon has officially been granted its four-year-old patent, we may not have to wait long to find out.

So what about your privacy

To get a feel for just how deeply Amazon’s roots entwine every aspect of your online life, I recommend you find a few minutes to read this article: I tried to block Amazon from my life, it was impossible – it’s fascinating and scary.

You might say, “I don’t care if Amazon knows a bunch of random facts about me, my house and my movements. So what if it knows I have a Ford Focus, listen to Little Mix and watch In the Night Garden at 6:45 every evening?”

This way of thinking about privacy is misleading; it trivialises the scale of the problem. It’s not about stand-alone fragments of information – it’s a holistic and contextual profile of you.

Back in the 80s, if you went shopping, the knowledge the shops would have of you would be limited to what the staff remember and perhaps how long they kept their security footage. They might know your favourite tea or how often you shop there, but that’s about it.

That “data” was relatively harmless;  it had an expiration date (physical human memory) and it had very little context (the shop didn’t have information on your family, friends, or even your shopping habits in other shops).

Fast forward to today. Google knows you’ve looked up directions to the shop, so it knows where you’re going before you go. It’s tracked you en route via GPS. If you’ve stopped, it knows where and for how long.

And likewise, if you have an Amazon app installed on your phone, in all likelihood it will be tracking your location (check your app permissions now!). It knows which shops you’ve been in and, assuming you already checked prices online, it’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re buying.

These big tech companies have done this every day for as long as you’ve had a smart phone, and it’ll have this information forever. Even if its servers were obliterated by a rogue asteroid tomorrow, you’d have no way of knowing if or how often that information has been copied or stolen into other systems.

There are lots of people who want to get insights into your life. Your ISP provider wants to sell your web history. Facebook and Google want to run more effective ads. The government wants Apple to build a decrypted “backdoor” into all iOS devices.

But it’s all for our own protection – right?

These tech companies and our government have done a great job of making us believe that the laws they’re bulldozing through are for our own protection. They make privacy feel like it’s being used solely as a cover for suspect behaviour.

Why would you be so up-in-arms about privacy unless you had something to hide?

The point is, if we don’t have privacy, at best we lose the ability to explore and be our authentic selves. At worst we face retaliation and persecution. And there’s an entire spectrum of concerns between those two extremes that we need to be cognisant of.

Over to you

I’d love to hear what you think about this development. Are you worried and concerned about what appears to be yet another means for tech giants to gather data and intelligence on your every move?

Or, as seems to be the case in a growing proportion of the public, are you happy to pay the price of giving up your private self for the clever tech and convenience that you get in return?

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[ralphmorgan-blog1]

Brexit: 50 things the UK needs to do after triggering Article 50

London (CNN)UK Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Article 50 on Wednesday, officially kicking off the Brexit process and the painstaking legislative to-do list that comes with it.

One of the next key steps in the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union will come when May's government introduces the Great Repeal Bill.

The bill is designed to put an end to the EU's legal jurisdiction over the UK. But first it will transpose all current EU laws into the UK statute books "to ensure the maximum stability on exit," the government says.

Parliament will then begin the daunting task of deciding which EU laws to keep and which to scrap, essentially untangling four decades of EU rules now enshrined in UK legislation.

There are nearly 20,000 EU legislative acts in force that make up a mind-boggling set of rules dictating everything from how much clean energy a country should use to the acceptable curvature of a grocery store banana.

So where will the government begin? Here's a list of just 50 things the UK will need to work out as it sets sail on its own.

MORE: What Article 50 actually says

The big questions

1. A new immigration system

Immigration was a key issue in the Brexit debate. After the UK withdraws from the union, a system to allow its nationals to visit, work, study and live in the EU -- and vice versa -- must be hammered out.

The UK is currently part of the European Single Market, which allows goods, services and people to move freely through member states. EU citizens have the right to travel and seek work in other EU countries. Roughly 1.2 million Brits were settled in the EU in 2015, and around 3.2 million EU nationals were living in the UK, according to government statistics.

But as May has made clear, the UK will no longer be part of the single market, so this free movement will come to an end after Brexit.

The idea of a points-based system like Australia's has been floated, with the aim of attracting immigrants with certain skills to fill gaps in the economy.

2. Asylum seekers and refugees

The UK has opted out of most EU legislation on immigration, but an exception is the Dublin III regulation, under which EU member states can transfer asylum seekers back to the first safe EU country they entered.

Since asylum seekers often reach the UK after traveling through countries like Italy and Greece, the UK transfers more asylum seekers back to those and other European countries under this rule than it receives.

But that law will no longer apply after Brexit, so those countries won't be obliged to receive asylum seekers whom the UK wants to send back. If the UK wants to preserve the principle of Dublin III, the government must negotiate separate bilateral arrangements with each individual country.

3. A trade deal with the EU

One of the most contentious points of the Brexit debate was the UK's trade relations with the EU. A new trade deal is expected to be one of the most difficult and important parts of the negotiations.

The UK intends to leave the EU's single market and may also leave the EU customs union, through which Britain enjoys tariff-free trade. If no trade deal is agreed upon, the UK would have to trade with the EU under World Trade Organization rules, which could lead to new tariffs and regulations.

MORE: How many Brexit promises will be broken?

4. Trade deals with everyone else

Post-Brexit doors are opening for the UK to strike new trade deals with non-EU countries like the US, China, Brazil, Australia and Canada. As a member of the EU -- which negotiates trade deals as a bloc -- this would not have been possible.

5. Security vs. privacy

The UK government has proved nosier than most of its EU counterparts -- last year, Parliament passed the Investigatory Powers Act, better known as the "Snooper's Charter," which gives UK law enforcement agencies unprecedented access to personal data and requires telecommunications companies to store web-browsing histories for a year.

But the EU has strict data protection laws -- including one directive, for example, that says EU countries must guarantee that information is stored or accessed only if the user has been informed and been given the right of refusal.

The EU in December ruled that parts of the "Snooper's Charter" were unlawful. When the UK leaves the EU however, the judgment will be rendered invalid.

6. Law enforcement

As well as being a member of Europol, the UK is part of an EU system where police forces from different countries can automatically share DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration data for law enforcement purposes. According to European think tank CEPS, "Brexit means that the UK will lose access to all these information tools for law enforcement purposes."

The peculiar and pedantic

7. Working out what jam is

In 2010, an EU directive was passed stating that jams must consist of 60% sugar and come from a list of approved fruits in order to be classified as jam. The directive alarmed many small business owners already marketing their product as jam, who thought they would have to either change their labels or sugar content due to the regulation.

In 2013, Michelle "Clippy" McKenna, a British apple preserve maker, argued that her product was a jam even though it didn't cross the sugar threshold -- but it turned out that there was a clause in the EU rule allowing for exemptions. It was just that the UK had not included this clause into its own law. The government has kept a lid on its plans to amend any food directives for now, although Brexit would allow the UK to can the jam rule altogether should it wish to.

8. Pig semen

Want to import pig semen into the EU? Farmers seeking to improve the quality of their pork must obtain pig semen from an authorized collection center and make sure it comes with an animal health certificate, according to another EU directive. It's not clear how the future of the swine gene pool will be affected by Brexit yet -- but it's surely on the minds of the farmers overseeing the 10,000 pig farms in the UK.

9. Bright lights

Could traditional incandescent light bulbs make a return to high street shelves in the UK? The UK mostly phased out incandescent bulbs following an EU directive favoring more energy efficient options in 2009. But the regulation only applied to domestic use, and to this day the traditional light bulbs are commercially available in the UK. It's possible Britain could bring back the bright lights after Brexit.

10. Bendy bananas

The EU rules on bananas have long been the subject of mockery. According to the 1994 regulation, bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature," be more than 14 centimeters in length and come in bunches of at least four. Other parts of the regulation say the fruit must be free from pests and mostly free of bruises. Bananas might be bendier after Brexit -- but could they be less appetizing too?

11. Footwear labeling

Look at the label on your shoes. If you bought it in the EU, you'll find information about the materials used to make them. EU law specifies that shoe labels must be embossed on the footwear or attached by an adhesive label, fastener or string. Shopping for shoes after Brexit could be a much more confusing affair if the UK doesn't find its footing with a new bill.

12. Move your horses

If you want to move a horse within the EU, strict rules apply. The animal must show no sign of disease in the 48 hours prior to traveling and must have had no contact with horses that have an infectious disease in the previous 15 days. But countries outside the EU face even tougher rules, including additional inspections by experts from EU countries and the European Commission. A post-Brexit UK may need to negotiate a separate arrangement to avoid these stricter regulations.

13. The future of football

The rules around sporting transfers are likely to change when Britain leaves the EU -- and impact one of the world's most watched leagues.

That means once Britain's demarcation from the EU is finally drawn, footballers looking to ply their trade in the English Premier League -- or in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- are likely to be subject to a tougher set of rules that govern transfers from outside the region.

The English Football Association in 2015 tightened the rules for non-EU players joining English teams in an effort to give indigenous players more chance.

So non-EU players had to have made a minimum number of international appearances for a top-50 country over the previous two years (the higher the ranking, the fewer the number of matches necessary).

Spanish superstar footballers, for example, may have to get the same work permits as Brazilians to play in post-Brexit England.

14. Safety at work

EU laws on health and safety at work are often mocked for being excessive. Employers must make sure workers have information about the weight and weight distribution of a load before handling it, and they must organize workstations to make handling as safe as possible. The directive warns of increased risks if the floor is uneven, the load is unwieldy or the worker is wearing unsuitable clothing. Without this law, or a similar replacement, is UK workplace safety in jeopardy?

15. The future of coloring in

The EU is currently attempting to introduce new measures limiting the amount of lead allowed in toys and items that may be chewed on by children. Some British media characterized the proposal as little more than bureaucrats in Brussels clamping down on coloring pencils and crayons.

According to the European Chemicals Agency, the average lead content in the blood of European children is up to four times higher than recommended. EU toy safety regulations are some of the toughest in the world. It is unclear if the UK will stick to these rules after Brexit.

16. Noisy vehicles

An EU regulation aims to cut down on noise pollution by ensuring new cars are a little quieter than before. In three stages, it will ban new four-wheel passenger vehicles that are louder than 77 decibels by 2026, and vehicles carrying goods will be limited to 79 decibels. It also requires electric and hybrid cars to make artificial engine noises to avoid accidents, especially involving pedestrians. The chances of Britain being flooded with annoyingly noisy vehicles after Brexit seems unlikely, but the country may not stick to such stringent rules.

17. Trade in torture instruments

EU member nations are banned from importing items that have no practical use other than carrying out capital punishment, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. Among them are electric chairs and shock belts, shackles, gallows, guillotines and pepper spray. Revisiting this law could make for some interesting deliberations in UK Parliament.

The nitty gritty

18. Brits abroad

At the moment, UK nationals can turn up to an EU country, flash their passports and be granted freedom of movement within the union. But once the country pulls out of the EU, this privilege could come to an end.

The government will need to negotiate a deal for its citizens and will likely try to retain visa-free travel. But the European Commission may have other ideas -- it currently has a proposal on that table for a visa waiver system, much like the scheme in the United States, to tighten screening of all non-EU members entering the EU. This would involve applying online for a visa ahead of time and paying a small fee to be given access to the zone.

19. Roaming charges

EU citizens pay relatively low roaming fees for phone calls and data usage within the EU. And the union is aiming to abolish roaming charges altogether by June this year.

As outsiders, telecommunications companies will not be obliged to offer the same low rates to British travelers, and these rates may come down to what kind of deal the government strikes with the EU.

20. Cost of air travel

Air travel between EU countries has become much more affordable since the EU removed several competition barriers, allowing budget airlines to flourish. But after Brexit, UK airlines such as EasyJet won't be able to take advantage of these benefits and will need to make new agreements to operate in EU airspace, according to the Chief Executive of the Civil Aviation Authority. The impact this could have on prices is unclear.

21. Air passenger rights

If you're an EU citizen and your flight is canceled or delayed, or if you're denied boarding against your will, you are entitled to various forms of compensation under EU law. Even if you're simply seated in a class lower than you paid for, you can claim up to 75% of the price of the ticket. After Brexit, UK citizens will no longer have these rights.

22. The 48-hour work week

Employers are obliged to make sure their employees work no more than 48 hours a week on average under the EU's Working Time Directive. Think-tank Open Europe claims that the rule costs the economy 4.2 billion ($5.3 billion) a year. It's still unclear whether the UK government will scrap the law after Brexit, but the Trades Union Congress (TUC) fears that working time protections could be weakened.

23. Carers' rights

A landmark 2008 European Court of Justice decision ruled that non-disabled employees are protected by law if discriminated against on the basis of their association or care for a disabled person. For example, if an employer discriminated against a parent caring for a disabled child, the parent could claim for discrimination. After Brexit, the UK government will be free to decide on the future of carers' rights in the workplace.

24. Equal pay for agency workers

The EU has also obliged employers to pay temporary agency workers at the same rate as permanent employees. The government may choose to revisit this rule, which Open Europe says costs the economy a further 2.1 billion ($2.6 billion) a year.

25. Part-time workers' pension

Rulings by the European Court of Justice obliged the UK to enroll part-time workers in employer pension schemes -- not doing so was seen as discrimination against women, who work part-time roles in higher numbers. It is unclear whether the government will reconsider this rule.

26. Annual leave

Under EU law, if you get sick while on annual leave, you can retake that leave at a later date and even carry it over into the following year. According to the Local Government Association, this conflicts with UK law, which doesn't allow employees to carry over leave from one year to the next. This conflict may mean that this particular EU regulation is scrapped after Brexit.

27. Gender equality

Under its Strategic Gender Equality plan, the EU allocated 6.17 billion euros ($6.7 billion) between 2014 and 2020 to reach certain targets, such as reducing the gender pay gap, preventing and combating violence against women and getting more women involved in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The UK government will need to decide how to fill this funding gap, post-Brexit.

In his 2017 spring budget speech, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond pledged to commit 20 million ($25 million) of government funding to support a nationwide campaign to stop violence against women and girls. Hammond also reinstated the controversial "tampon tax," a 5% tax placed on the sanitary item, which will be used to deliver an additional 12 million ($15 million) in support of women's charities nationwide, according to Hammond.

28. Maternity leave

Employers in the EU offer a minimum paid maternity leave of 14 weeks uninterrupted. Under UK law, new mothers in the UK get 52 weeks of maternity leave, 39 of which are partially paid. Brexit wouldn't likely change the UK's already generous laws.

29. Erasmus

UK university students currently have access to Erasmus, an EU student exchange program that allows them to study in another Erasmus country for three to 12 months. Nearly half of all UK students who travel to study elsewhere for a short period do so through this scheme. Access to Erasmus will no longer be automatic and will have to be renegotiated.

Oxford University: EU workers must stay in UK

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30. Recognition of qualifications

EU citizens who get a professional qualification in one EU country may work in another safe in the knowledge that their skill -- whether it be accounting, teaching, beekeeping or wine-tasting -- will be recognized.

It's fairly simple for UK citizens to find work or training elsewhere in the EU by using the European Qualifications Framework and the Europass to list their skills and qualifications. These standardized documents help universities and employers to compare applicants from countries across the EU. Once Britain has left the EU, UK citizens may not be able to access these tools and countries may decide not to recognize each other's qualifications unconditionally.

31. Horizon 2020

A number of UK universities, including Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge, have received millions of euros in funding through Horizon 2020, an EU program that promotes research into topics as diverse as health and well-being, green transport, outer space and future technologies.

According to the "white paper" on Brexit, the government "will work with the European Commission to ensure payment" when funds are awarded in research programs including Horizon 2020 . It promised to guarantee such grants, even if projects continue after the UK leaves the EU. The role of UK universities in future EU-led research programs remains unclear, however.

32. CO2 Emissions

The UK is part of the EU Emissions Trading System, the cornerstone of the EU's climate change policy and the world's first and biggest carbon market. Under the ETS, a cap is set on the total amount of certain greenhouse gases that can be emitted, and is reduced over time so that total emissions fall. The system is now in its third phase -- where a single, EU-wide cap on emissions applies in place of the previous system of national caps. If the UK leaves the ETS, the EU-wide cap will need to be adjusted and legislation introduced to keep the UK's CO2 emissions in check.

33. Keeping beaches clean

Until the 1970s, the UK could legally pump untreated sewage into the sea. That all changed with the 1975 EU Bathing Water Directive, which sets the standards for keeping the UK's beach and its waters clean. Although the British government continued to dump raw sewage into the sea until at least 1991, the EU directive has been successful. In 2015, 99.4% of the coast's bathing waters met minimum EU standards, according to the European Environment Agency. The UK will have to draw up new laws on how to keep over 11,000 miles of the country's coastline clean if it drops the initiative.

34. The air we breathe

In the UK, pollution levels have generally improved since EU limits were introduced in 2010. But most main roads in London -- and some areas in Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow -- regularly breach legal values for nitrogen dioxide emissions, a gas produced by diesel engines that causes lung disease and respiratory problems. The UK and any other offenders are slapped with heavy fines when this happens -- perhaps an economic incentive for the British government to amend or drop the 2008 EU directive on ambient air quality.

35. The fate of wild birds

The EU Wild Birds Directive provides the framework for the conservation of 500 wild bird species and their habitats in Europe. In the UK, this is executed through several different laws and regulations that come at high compliance costs. Andrea Leadsom, the UK's Secretary of State for the Environment, said only two-thirds of environmental legislation will be directly retained by the Great Repeal Bill, leaving the future of the rest -- including measures to conserve birds -- uncertain.

36. Animal welfare

Farm animals kept in the EU must be fed a wholesome diet, have enough space to move around and be treated immediately if they're sick or injured, according to one directive. There are around 40 other pieces of EU legislation that also deal with animal welfare, according to the RSPCA. As the government has made clear it won't remain in the EU's single market, Parliament will have to decide which regulations to keep and which to drop.

37. Save the bees

Neonicotinoid pesticides -- used on crops that attract pollinators -- have been strongly connected to the declining bee population, and the EU restricted their use in 2013.

Two years later the UK granted farmers an emergency authorization to use them on oilseed rape seeds. The UK expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the rules and could alter or drop them after Brexit.

38. Getting treatment

If UK citizens -- eligible for free healthcare under the National Health Service at home -- get sick or injured in another EU country, EU law says they can be treated for free and that the UK government must meet the cost. To access this care, travelers carry a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). The law also allows for citizens to travel abroad specifically for the purpose of getting treatment in another EU country. Whether UK citizens will be eligible for an EHIC and free healthcare in the EU after Brexit is yet to be negotiated.

39. Dealing with pandemics

The EU has an early warning and response system for potential public health threats, such as the SARS epidemic in 2003. Countries can easily share information, pool resources for lab investigations and work together to develop new strategies for future threats. After Brexit, the UK won't be part of this system and will have to develop other ways of coordinating with EU countries.

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40. EU health program

Through the EU health program, launched in 2014, EU countries work closely together to combat unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking and drug and alcohol abuse, by sharing information and good practices. Projects with these goals can receive up to 80% of their funding from the EU. The UK may still be eligible to be part of the program after Brexit but membership is not guaranteed.

41. Disease prevention and control

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control works to identify and combat threats to human health from infectious diseases such as influenza, waterborne diseases and HIV. It makes it easier for organizations across the EU to share information and expertise.

According to a report by the Royal College of Physicians, programs managed by the ECDC "could not be effectively fulfilled by national governments independently." After Brexit, the UK would be excluded from the ECDC and would need to negotiate a special arrangement to remain a member.

42. Medicine

Under mutual recognition licensing, any medical product licensed in the UK can be distributed throughout the EU.

At a recent hearing, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed that after Brexit the UK won't be part of the European Medicines Agency, the body responsible for authorizing new medicines, and instead hopes to negotiate its own form of mutual recognition agreement with the EU.

43. Road safety

Vehicle and road safety is covered by a long list of EU laws. EU regulations set out safety standards for all kinds of vehicles and even specify the type of crash protection systems required for vehicles in order to reduce the number and severity of injuries to pedestrians. After Brexit, the UK will be responsible for introducing national road and vehicle safety laws to protect its citizens.

44. 'Passporting' for the finance industry

A gripe for the finance industry during the Brexit debate was the possible loss of "passporting" -- the right for UK businesses to provide financial services anywhere in the EU and the wider European Economic Area while being based in the UK and regulated by UK authorities.

In the Brexit negotiations, the government could try to retain this right as part of a new agreement with the EU.

45. Firearms

EU law sets out strict regulations on who can own a firearm and buy ammunition. Among other things, the law requires EU states to keep a database of registered firearms and carry out regular checks on license holders. The law was also designed to make it easier for countries to share information about firearms and their movements around the EU. After Brexit, the UK could decide to loosen or tighten these regulations in its own laws.

46. Rules on tobacco

The EU has strict rules on how cigarettes and other tobacco products can be manufactured, marketed and sold. EU law is behind the large health warnings on cigarette packets. It will soon prevent extra flavors such as fruit or menthol being added to tobacco products that could encourage people, especially young people, to start smoking. Although the UK has strict tobacco laws of its own, the government will need to clarify where it stands on EU regulations, such as the ban on menthol cigarettes, which are currently available widely.

47. Irish dairy

For Irish dairy farmers whose land straddles the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Brexit could have significant implications. If a "hard border" is imposed, new import and export charges could be introduced This could mean big costs: 30% of total of Irish dairy exports go to the UK.

Farmers who have cows and a bottling plant on one side of the border, but with the milking equipment on the other side, could be hit with these import/export taxes if a hard border is introduced. As of now, it's not clear what will happen to the common travel area that exists between Northern Ireland, which will remain part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, which will stay in the EU. The British government said that its aim is "to have as seamless and frictionless a border as possible" in a 77-page "white paper."

48. The French border

In 2003, the French and UK governments signed the Le Touquet accord, which allows the UK to check passports in France and effectively situates the border on French soil. The agreement has nothing to do with EU law but last March the then French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron suggested Le Touquet could end if Britain voted to leave the EU.

Macron also warned that migration to Britain would increase if it left the EU, including from those who had camped out for months at a camp in the French city of Calais.

Macron is now a frontrunner in the presidential election, and he hasn't forgotten his pledge. At a campaign rally in London in February, he suggested he would try to partly renegotiate the agreement. Softer language perhaps, but the possibility of a change to border arrangements remains.

49. Keep broadband affordable

The EU has put in place a set of rules that are intended to help keep broadband costs down. They oblige governments to clear any legal obstacles that may hold back network operators from giving telecoms operators access to their physical infrastructure on reasonable terms and conditions, including price.

50. New passports

In 1988, dark blue UK passports began to be phased out and replaced with the common format burgundy passport determined by the European Community, which later became the EU. These passports are printed with the words "European Union" above "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" on the front. No decisions have yet been taken about any future UK passport. Responding to a question from a member of Parliament about the possible return of the blue passport in September 2016, Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill did not rule it out.

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