SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
September, 16 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Email:,press@fightforthefuture.org
More than 1,000 Parents Sign Open Letter Calling for a Ban on Facial Recognition in Schools
As kids head back to school, parents raise the alarm about invasive surveillance tech being used both in person and for remote learning, and call for lawmakers and school administrators to ban facial recognition.
In less than a week, an open letter from parents opposing the use of facial recognition in schools has already been signed by more than 1,000 parents from all 50 states.
WASHINGTON
As kids head back to school, parents raise the alarm about invasive surveillance tech being used both in person and for remote learning, and call for lawmakers and school administrators to ban facial recognition.
In less than a week, an open letter from parents opposing the use of facial recognition in schools has already been signed by more than 1,000 parents from all 50 states.
See the open letter at https://www.parentsagainstfacialrecognition.org
The letter, addressed to lawmakers and school administrators, calls for a ban on the technology in the interest of kids' safety and specifically highlights the unknown psychological dangers of constant surveillance, the potential physical danger if someone gains access to the data collected by facial recognition systems, and how it will exacerbate discrimination against students of color, girls, and gender nonconforming kids.
The letter is a part of a new effort by Fight for the Future, the digital rights group behind BanFacialRecognition.com, that will specifically focus on K-12 schools. "Momentum is growing to ban facial recognition for good, but we know that companies are specifically targeting schools, which is why we need to ban it now," said Caitlin Seeley George (she/her), Campaign Director and a parent of two young children. "These tech companies care more about making money than on how much their product will hurt children. We've already seen how facial recognition has endangered adults, we can't let this happen to our kids."
Earlier this summer New York became the first state to pass a moratorium on facial recognition in schools (the bill is currently awaiting the signature of Governor Cuomo). At the same time, a school in Kansas announced it is using facial recognition as a part of its plan to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to signing the letter, some parents added their personal comments to share why they don't want this technology being used on their children.
Taina, a parent from New York wrote: "Raising a Black son in the United States means being constantly vigilant and worried about my child's safety. Racist surveillance software like facial recognition makes my children less safe at school, not more safe. This technology will just amplify existing discrimination and feed the school-to-prison pipeline. I'm glad that New York has stopped schools from using biometric surveillance on our kids. I hope the rest of the country follows suit, because parents have enough to worry about without greedy tech companies conducting unethical experiments in our kid's schools."
Suzanna, a parent from California, said "I am against facial recognition for our children. Keeping a data bank on children is conducive to gaining power and control over populations. The time has come for these kinds of tactics to be removed from our society. Equality, equanimity, and the reduction of hierarchy systems of control are the direction which our society will be moving so get aboard and move in the direction of the new paradigm of people caring for people not people controlling people. "
In Massachusetts, Sasha wrote that "Children can't meaningfully consent to their participation in this kind of technology--as fast as it's advancing, we need considerable safeguards before adults can even give informed consent themselves! All industry/government level use of this technology needs to be on pause until real ethical benchmarks are in place and can be upheld."
Asher from Florida wrote that this is an "Outrageous attempt to control and penalize kids and major blatant invasion of privacy. Facial recognition has no place in schools."
More comments can be seen on the campaign's page at https://www.parentsagainstfacialrecognition.org/
Since last year, Fight for the Future has been leading a national campaign backed by dozens of other grassroots organizations calling for an outright ban on law enforcement and government use of facial recognition. In February, the group expanded its efforts to explicitly call for lawmakers to also ban private individuals, institutions, and corporations from using this technology in public places, for surveillance purposes, or without the subjects' knowledge and affirmative consent, such as unlocking a phone. The group launched an effort in the spring to keep facial recognition off of college campuses, and got more than 60 schools to commit to not using the tech. The group is also providing support for activists on the ground pushing for bans at the local level, including Portland, Oregon's recent bans against government and private use of facial recognition.
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
(508) 368-3026LATEST NEWS
Peer-Reviewed Health Study Warns of Trump's 'Silent But Deadly Assault' on Health of Americans
“This is not just a policy shift—it’s a wholesale abandonment of government commitments to the American public," said one advocate.
Mar 31, 2026
The so-called "Make America Healthy Again" movement encapsulated a key campaign promise ahead of President Donald Trump's second term in office, with Trump telling one Pennsylvania crowd in 2024, "We’re going to get toxic chemicals out of our environment, and we’re going to get them out of our food supply."
But the Trump administration has gradually announced a slew of public health-related policies and proposals since the president took office—pushing to loosen emissions rules for the cancer-causing gas ethylene oxide; suggesting the polio vaccine should be optional; and mandating the production of carcinogenic glyphosate—and a peer-reviewed study has now cataloged the "grave threat to America's health" that Trump's policies present.
"During the first administration of President Donald Trump, nearly 100 environmental and occupational protections, including air-quality safeguards, were rescinded," reads the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on March 25. "Although many of those rescissions were delayed by litigation or reversed by President Joe Biden, they inflicted considerable harm on Americans’ health. The second Trump administration’s actions have been even more aggressive, portending greater harm."
Weeks after the US Senate confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy in February 2025—a confirmation that he secured after making the baseless claim that Americans would prefer the for-profit insurance system over universal healthcare and refusing to reject debunked claims about vaccines—the administration appeared to make clear its true views on public health when it announced 31 climate regulation rollbacks.
"Those initiatives and other administration actions are set to reverse progress on pollution, make workplaces more dangerous, and (in Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s words) drive 'a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion,'" reads the study.
The proposals swiftly introduced by the administration included:
- Loosening standards for particulate matter 2.5 pollution, which killed approximately 460,000 people in the US from 1999 to 2020;
- Ending subsidies for clean energy production under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act;
- Weakening tailpipe emissions standards, putting Americans at greater risk for cardiopulmonary mortality and climate crisis risks; and
- Delaying implementation of stronger silica rules for coal miners—putting them at risk for black lung disease—while also demanding that coal plants continue production.
Ken Cook, co-founder of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said the study described "a deliberate dismantling of safeguards that protect the air, water, and health of nearly every person in this country—all in the service of polluters."
“This is not just a policy shift—it’s a wholesale abandonment of government commitments to the American public and the MAHA movement that helped propel Trump into office,” said Cook, who did not contribute to the study.
Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and public health physician who directs the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College and is the lead author of the paper, told EWG that the “impacts of these rollbacks will fall most heavily on the most vulnerable among us—including infants—resulting in brain injury, neurodevelopmental disorders, increased preterm births, and elevated lifelong risk of chronic disease.”
Children and other vulnerable populations, including those in low-income communities situated close to petrochemical industrial areas, are likely to have increased mercury, benzene, and arsenic exposures—raising their risk of developing cancers and other diseases—due to the Trump administration's rollbacks, according to the study.
"Several proposed policies would weaken water-quality standards, reducing drinking-water safety for millions of people," reads the paper. "For example, the EPA seeks to weaken regulations governing effluent discharges from coal-fired power plants. The resulting increase in waterborne lead, mercury, and arsenic will increase the incidence of bladder cancers and adversely affect children’s cognitive function."
The study's authors emphasized that "statistics and documentation are not enough" to protect the public from the White House's harmfiul policies.
"Unless health professionals speak up, and unless we put a human face on the tragic consequences of these environmental rollbacks, the connection between these seemingly abstract policy changes and the real health harms they cause may remain invisible," reads the study. "We health professionals must call urgent attention to this silent but deadly assault on Americans’ health, work with broad coalitions to halt it, and ultimately rebuild the agencies, protections, and shared sense of trust and responsibility that have given us clean air and water and enabled us and our children to live longer, healthier lives."
Cook noted that the NEJM itself has been a target of the administration, with Kennedy calling highly respected, science-based journals "corrupt" and the Department of Justice questioning the publication's editorial integrity.
“No amount of political pressure or intimidation should silence independent science or the experts working to protect public health,” Cook said. “The NEJM and the study’s authors rightly ignore those threats and lay bare the real-world consequences of the Trump administration’s actions—and the American people deserve to hear it.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Is a Hiring Recession': Economists Raise Red Flags at Latest Gloomy Data in Trump Economy
"Hiring was ice cold in February," said one economist.
Mar 31, 2026
New data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Tuesday continued to show weakness in the American jobs market.
The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) shows that the number of new hires in February decreased to 4.8 million, which was roughly 400,000 fewer hires than were recorded in February 2025.
The report also shows that the US hiring rate in February fell to just 3.1%, which is the lowest rate since April 2020, when the economy was shut down due to the global Covid-19 pandemic.
The good news in the report is that the number of quits and layoffs remained relatively steady, meaning that people who already have jobs are retaining them at a healthy clip.
But Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted that these bad hiring numbers came before President Donald Trump launched an illegal war with Iran, which has since destabilized global energy markets and raised prices for oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel.
"This is a hiring recession," Long wrote in a social media post. "And Americans are feeling it. There were notable hiring pullbacks in February in hospitality and construction. Bottom line: The job market was already frozen before the war in Iran began. It's worrying that a 'no hire, no fire' situation could turn into a 'no hire, start to fire' job market quickly if there isn't a resolution soon."
Long's analysis was echoed by Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at hiring site Indeed, who wrote in a research note flagged by Axios that hiring in the US "was stuck in neutral going into this [Iran] conflict," and "getting it into gear just got harder" thanks to the war.
Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, noted that hiring rates in the US hit 3.1% or lower the last two times the country was in a severe recession.
"3.1% is not only comparable to the Covid low point—it's also comparable to late 2009 and early 2010, when the unemployment rate was around 10%," Berger explained. "Hiring was ice cold in February."
Scott Lincicome, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who has been a harsh critic of Trump's tariffs, found that the February JOLTS report wiped out an unexpected January increase in manufacturing job openings that the president's allies attributed to his trade policies.
"Alas, the perils of cherry-picking," Lincicome commented.
The new data on hiring in the US job market comes weeks after a BLS report estimated that the economy lost 92,000 jobs in February. On the whole, the American economy has posted a net loss of jobs since Trump announced his “liberation day” global tariffs in April 2025.
Keep ReadingShow Less
New Trump Rule Would Let Private Equity, Crypto ‘Endanger Retirement Savings of Millions'
“This isn’t about advancing the interests of retirement savers, it is about opening a new profit center for crypto and Wall Street," said one critic.
Mar 31, 2026
US President Donald Trump's Labor Department on Monday unveiled a proposal that would welcome private equity and cryptocurrency investments into Americans' 401(k) plans, the culmination of an aggressive Wall Street lobbying push that could leave the retirement savings of millions vulnerable to the wild swings of so-called "alternative assets."
The proposed rule, now subject to a public comment period, was issued at the direction of a Trump executive order from last year that was characterized at the time as "the holy grail for private equity."
In addition to giving employers a green light to include private equity and crypto investments in 401(k) plans offered to workers, the new rule would establish a "safe harbor" allowing retirement account administrators to avoid legal action from employees who believe their funds were steered into excessively risky products.
"The legal immunity created by this safe harbor will incentivize financial advisers to pitch these toxic products, which will become ticking time bombs in tens of millions of retirement accounts, which will no doubt result in significant losses," warned Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy at the advocacy group Better Markets. "There are good reasons why 401(k) plans have been considered closed to private markets and cryptocurrencies, and those reasons have not changed. The only thing that has changed is the administration’s support for these industries and regulators’ willingness to do their bidding."
"This is no reason to endanger the retirement savings of millions of Americans," Schiffrin added.
Oscar Valdés Viera, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, similarly warned that "opening 401(k)s to these products risks turning workers’ retirement savings into a Ponzi-like scheme that throws a lifeline to an industry scrambling for fresh cash."
"This isn’t about advancing the interests of retirement savers, it is about opening a new profit center for crypto and Wall Street," said Viera. "Retirement savers should not be bailing out these high-risk industries and subsidizing the Wall Street and crypto billionaire class."
"Private equity firms should not get a free pass to loot workers’ 401(k) retirement savings."
Americans currently hold over $10 trillion combined in 401(k) plans, a huge trove of wealth that the private equity industry has been working for years to access. The Labor Department indicated that its proposed rule would apply to over 720,000 retirement plans covering roughly 118 million workers.
The American Prospect reported Tuesday that the managers of private equity firms are "already pressuring companies, third-party administrators, and the consultants who advise them to list their offerings" among workers' retirement plan options.
"One staffer at an institutional investor who is not authorized to speak to the media told the Prospect about their primary worry: that private equity will stick their most overvalued companies into continuation funds exclusively for 401(k) plan holders, or 'retail investors,' as they are known," the outlet continued. "Private credit firms are retailoring their funds for 401(k) plans as well, and some of the biggest have already struck deals with asset managers like Voya and Vanguard. 'I’d be shocked if the industry doesn’t attempt to dump their garbage onto retail,' the staffer said."
One recent analysis by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) found that private equity funds for retail investors "dramatically underperformed publicly listed stock indexes" in 2025 while charging much higher fees.
Jim Baker, PESP's executive director, said Monday that "private equity firms should not get a free pass to loot workers’ 401(k) retirement savings."
“The bar for including private equity in 401(k)s should be extremely high,” said Baker. “Private equity funds have lagged public markets while charging much higher fees, and public pension funds are pulling back from the asset class. Instead, this rule risks shifting more financial risk onto workers who rely on their retirement savings for long-term security.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also ripped the Labor Department rule, saying in a statement that "Americans facing an uncertain future in Trump’s economy will now have more reasons to question the security of their retirement savings—all so that Trump’s Wall Street buddies have another pile of cash to play with."
"Anyone who cares about the financial security of working people," said Warren, "should oppose this proposed rule."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular