May 27, 2021: Citizen Scraps Private Police App; Biden Orders Review Of Virus Origins; Exxon Shareholders Revolt Over Clean Energy

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TODAY'S HEADLINES:


One of the sketchiest libertarian venture capitalists in America
planned to launch an app to summon a private police force by
smartphone. Today we are pleased to report that, thanks to
negative publicity, the rent-a-cop app is being scrapped.


Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has given US
intelligence agencies ninety days to figure out where the
coronavirus came from. And he says they’ll be entertaining a
theory favored by many Republicans, that the virus somehow
escaped from a lab in China.


And lastly, activist shareholders, with the
support of public pension funds, won a vote forcing Exxon Mobil
to hire directors who favor clean energy. It’s a massive defeat
for Exxon management and a repudiation of the company’s old,
planet-destroying ways.


THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:


This dispatch from the dystopia comes from CBS News. The
crowdsourcing crime- tracking app Citizen, whose earliest backers
include the venture capitalist billionaire Peter Thiel, is
ditching plans to develop a private police force that could be
summoned by users via the smartphone app. The company began
offering the service in Los Angeles last month as a pilot
program. For the service, Citizen partnered with a private firm
called Los Angeles Professional Security, which describes itself
as a provider of subscription law enforcement. But on Tuesday,
Citizen ended the program, stating it has no plans to launch a
similar service elsewhere. The company's decision follows more
than a week of negative publicity for the popular app, which uses
cellphone-location data to alert users of potential safety
hazards, emergencies and criminal activity in their area.


CBS reports that as Citizen's popularity has grown, so, too, has
its number of critics, who say the app raises privacy issues as
well as racial bias. Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the app "a digital
superhighway for racial profiling," In mid-May, the app
misidentified a homeless person as the source of a recent
wildfire in Los Angeles. Citizen posted pictures of the man, and
offered a $30,000 reward to anyone who could provide information
leading to his arrest. A few days later, a different man was
arrested for the crime. If you think the regular police are bad,
wait until you see what Silicon Valley comes up with.


Biden Orders Review Of Virus Origins


This update on the politics of the pandemic comes from the
Washington Post. President Biden said yesterday that he has asked
the intelligence community to determine the origin of the
coronavirus pandemic. It’s a major departure from the previous
White House position that the World Health Organization should
lead efforts to uncover the contagion’s origin. Biden has asked
for a report within ninety days. The new message from the White
House reflects the rapidly changing views about the origins of
the virus. In recent weeks, a theory has gained more support that
the source of the coronavirus may have emerged from the Wuhan
Institute of Virology in China, though that is far from proved.
Some Republicans pushed the idea early on, including Donald
Trump. But the idea was dismissed by many influential scientists
and Democrats.


The Post says that in recent weeks, some prominent researchers
have begun arguing that the lab theory should remain on the table
until more is known. And a series of reports in the Wall Street
Journal, including one that highlighted how several people who
work at the Wuhan lab became sick in fall 2019 with Covid-like
symptoms, has been part of a reexamination. Biden said one
element of the US intelligence community leans toward the view
that the novel coronavirus came from a laboratory accident. Two
other components, on the other hand, believe the virus came from
animal-to-human contact. But are American spies really well-
suited to make this determination, especially without Chinese
cooperation?


Exxon Shareholders Revolt Over Clean Energy


You love to see it. The New York Times says Big Oil was knocked
down a peg yesterday. Shareholders of Exxon Mobil dealt the
company’s management a stunning defeat by electing at least two
board candidates who pledged to steer the company away from oil
and gas and toward cleaner energy. The success of the campaign,
led by a tiny hedge fund against the nation’s largest oil
company, could force the energy industry to confront climate
change. Analysts could not recall another time that Exxon
management had lost a vote against company-picked directors. The
vote reveals the growing power that giant Wall Street firms now
have to press corporate managements to pursue social goals.


According to the Times, the hedge fund leading this campaign,
Engine Number One, was seeking to defeat four of the company’s
twelve director candidates. Its victory is the culmination of
years of efforts by activists to force the oil giant to change
its environmental policies. Some big pension funds, including the
New York State Common Retirement Fund and the California Public
Employees’ Retirement System, had joined the effort. In another
sign of change, shareholders of Chevron, the second largest US
oil company, yesterday voted for a proposal to reduce emissions
from the fuel the company makes and sells. And in the
Netherlands, a court required Royal Dutch Shell to reduce its
emissions by forty five percent by 2030.


One day these companies will be only a memory, and the world will
be better for it.


AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:


The Los Angeles Times reports that nine people were killed,
including the gunman, in a shooting yesterday morning at a San
Jose rail yard. The suspect set his own house on fire, then drove
to a Valley Transportation Authority union meeting and began
shooting, law enforcement sources said. Sympathy and solidarity
to all affected.


The Washington Post reports that Amazon will buy MGM Holdings
from its investment- group owners, paying $8.45 billion billion
to put the historic studio in the hands of the retailing giant.
The Post is also owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, but we aren’t, so
we can say he has enough money, power and cultural influence,
already.


According to the Associated Press, President Biden is nominating
former senior State Department official Nicholas Burns to serve
as his ambassador to China, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
to be his ambassador to India. Prominent Democratic fundraisers
Denise Bauer, Jane Hartley and David Cohen have also emerged as
leading contenders for postings in France, Italy and Canada,
respectively. Gotta love those patronage jobs!


Good news! The New York Times reports that immunity to the
coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving
over time – especially after vaccination. That’s according to two
new studies, both in the journal Nature. The results suggest that
people who have recovered from Covid-19 and later been vaccinated
will continue to have high levels of protection against emerging
variants, even without a vaccine booster. So there’s a silver
lining for survivors.


AM QUICKIE - MAY 27, 2021


HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner


WRITER - Corey Pein


PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw


EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn