Was forced to use biometrics instead of a boarding pass to board a
@unitedairlines@bird.makeup flight today. This is completely unacceptable. No airline should be allowed to possess biometric data on California residents...or anyone, for that matter.
Unfortunately, United hides its opt out forms behind an email alias (privacy@united.com) that generates a user-specific opt-out form. This is an anti-pattern designed to discourage the exercise of your rights.
The request-specific web form itself contains anti-patterns designed to discourage use, from clunky date fields to other fields designed to make you make a mistake so they can deny. Those are followed by multiple attempts at identity confirmation, adding friction and risk.
In forcing the use of #biometrics on passengers, United Airlines joins Trumps' ICE Gestapo in violating the #privacy and individual rights of both citizen and non-citizen alike. This move is NOT about safety. It's got to stop.
Does size matter? When it comes to legislatures, it does.
You're bound to hear stories of intense lobbying, and speculation on where a particular legislator stands on Trumps' obscenity of a budget bill. But missing from all these news stories is critical context: the US has far fewer legislators relative to its population than other democracies.
Every US House member "represents" nearly 600,000 people. In the UK, each MP represents 45,000, meaning money speaks proportionately less in those elections. Even if you factor out the institutionalized corruption inherent in our campaign finance system this dynamic would stand. US plutocrats have fewer politicians to buy, and their spending has an outsized impact.
When it's time to clean up the wreckage of #Shitler 2.0, it's critical to expand the House by a factor of 4 or more.
We need to undo Project 2025, and the #DOGEDamage for sure...but we also need to ensure that stuff never happens again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_number_of_members
JWM (Joe No Se)
ProPublica