This is why mask bans are suddenly being proposed. If you’re in a place where that’s happening and you think we should prioritize public and personal health and freedom over expanding the powers of the police state then please do let your representatives know why the freedom to mask matters to you
Seriously wondering if I'm going to have to carry around a little laminated card from my doctor explaining that I'm on two powerful immunosuppressants so no I can't just walk around with my fucking mask off.
Right, my recent labs and the reason for the IVIG infusion is bc my blood labs are showing my bone marrow is not doing it's job...at all. This isn't an exercise in constitutionality, it's my life. I have never been so depressed.
Nah, just learn to channel your inner 8YO and say "They're my germs and you can't have them." I haven't found a single anti-masker who has even a vague response to that.
At least in florida, part of the masking ban *included* removing the medical exemption for breaking their proposal. Which is funny because they sure did push for medical exemptions when masking was a thing.
Austria passed a “no head coverings” law in an attempt to stop women from wearing hijabs.
Mostly, it only impacted people wearing ski masks, and _one_ hijab wearer, who kept getting fined, because the law did not deter her.
not to mention they're not going to reduce crime in any way whatsoever. If someone's gonna commit a crime and wear a mask specifically to conceal their identity while doing crime, they're not going to care that wearing the mask is illegal - they're already deliberately doing crime
if anything it's going to add a charge to innocent people. "Well you weren't involved in the bank robbery (or insert other crime conservatives assume) on the 27th, but you were at the bank wearing a mask, so you still broke a law."
Depending how they pursue the investigation & persecution process & how the bans work, with the justice system being as fucked as it is this will often lead to innocents being convicted of actual crime and actual criminals getting away
Idc about the criminals but that's the thing to tell politicians
the one they passed in NC increases penalties if the crime is committed wearing a mask. it is 100% aimed at getting people to fear being arrested at protests
yes but it went through revisions first and they put the health exemption back in. so you can still mask for health reasons, but the increased criminal penalties part did pass
Right cuz that's the point - harming marginalized people protesting a brutal state. That's why we need to not have them and why we should require cops to have their real name and badge number in 400pt font on their chests.
ah yes, "The criminal was doing something that makes it harder to identify them, potentially creating reasonable doubt, so they get a higher penalty if we're able to plant enough evidence to convict someone anyway"
it's so idiotic, they could not make it any more obvious who it's really for
yep, it's beyond obvious that if they wanted to claim someone at a protest was "committing a crime" they could do so no matter what the reality. they just want to arrest people. that said, i am going to continue wearing my n95 at protests because they are crowded & legitimately a covid risk!
Though that’s a fabricated „argument“ on why to ban masking.
Facial recognition software can easily do the number crunching to „calculate the mask away“ with great reliability.
The company I work for sells access control systems and masks + biometrics aren’t a real issue anymore.
yeah, it's more about "how dare you disrespect my authority to see your unobstructed face +hair whenever i want"
plus "how dare you acknowledge the pandemic/pollution/wildfire i am studiously ignoring"
than a functional inability to ID ppl
I met one of them once. I channeled my inner 8YO and said "They're my germs and you can't have them." I saw him again about a week later, but a little old lady just ahead of me mimicked my response and the guy just wandered off looking defeated.
I keep seeing techies who work in this industry say it’s not even necessary- the AI they use and biometrics on eyes already does a lot of this work.
I remember hazmat masks banned in Seattle in 90s because cops wanted to use tear gas and it wasn’t hurting people masked enough, for example ...
You can't get good biometrics on eyes from shitty security cameras or body cams haphazardly pointed at the street. You can do it for access control systems because you have a good high quality baseline, and fixed high quality checkpoint cameras.
Also sunglasses.
As someone who works in tech and AI bullshit: never trust any tech person who tells you "oh yeah our thing can be easily adapted to this slightly different problem". They're 100% lying, or huffing their own farts, ESPECIALLY if the slightly different problem has poorer information quality.
Interesting. Why not ban sunglasses then? I do appreciate knowing this - it’s something I see repeated here and there in feeds and resources and it’s difficult for the layperson to wade through the bullshit.
I wrote to some of them in North Carolina, though I didn't tell them I'm a California, to express my feelings. Many wrote back and several told me that there would be exceptions for people with medical requirements. So does that mean they'll be medical carding people wearing masks? Ick.
That’s interesting. I live in NC and contacted literally dozens about this ban (I’m immunocompromised) and only one wrote back to me. I don’t know what else to do at this point. I called and emailed every time they voted on it. Nothing
I wrote one email through a portal, and though they dribbled in over about 3 weeks, I heard from at least 10. I was pretty impressed. But I don't remember what the portal was to share that.
I called and emailed them directly. I’m not at all impressed with our reps here.
Thank you so much for pitching in as well, it really does mean a lot 💗
I mean, the same has been said about *other* laws which are all about restricting personal liberties. "Oh, there can be exceptions."
Yes. There are. For the in-group.
When I think of other things that are exceptions for disabled people, like parking in the blue spaces, we have to have something indicating our right to do that. Having a placard or a special license plate isn't that onerous. Needing to carry a card and show it on demand for a mask would be.
This is not what I am referring to by "other things with 'so-called medical exemptions'."
However, my mother (who walks with two canes) has had someone insist she was faking it and demanded proof she actually "deserved" the placard. Nobody in authority, but still.
People have *lost* their minds.
Privacy advocates were all over it. I gotta admit though, I’m still a little taken aback by the assertion that we actively comply with being surveilled. It’s one thing to passively watch, another to require specific behavior to make id easier whenever in public. What’s next, visible QR codes?
Someone once gave me guff for wearing a mask in a store and I told them it was so that the DeEp StAtE couldn't track me.
I thought it was just a way to maybe nudge someone in the right direction if for the wrong reasons but yeah, now I think it's valid.
