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Sacrifice For Squalor

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At Fort Lee and around the nation, military families are plagued by unsafe housing. Here’s how some Virginians are trying to solve the problem.

In the span of a career in the armed services, military families will move six to nine times. Each time, the family must reorient: new routes to work, new schools, and the various culture shocks typical for a cross-continental move. It can be exhausting. 

When Patricia Santos, her husband, and her three children moved to Fort Lee, they didn’t know what to expect. It was 2017, and this was their second move since Santos’ husband joined the Army in 2004.  

“When a young family comes into the service, they’re just happy to have a home,” Santos said. “They go throughout their daily life and take housing for their word. They don’t want to cause trouble.” 

However, when Santos worked as a temp at a military housing office a few years earlier, she saw glimpses of a darker side. “If they couldn’t find the move-in sheets, they’d throw it away,” Santos said. “If you refused to pay for a carpet stain that was there when you moved in, they would threaten to call the MP’s [military police].” 

The Santos family were hopeful that Fort Lee, 25 miles south of Richmond, would be different. Yet when they arrived, trash and debris littered their new home. Santos said Hunt Military Communities (HMC), who handle leasing for on-base housing at Fort Lee, insisted the home was cleaned — yet the family recorded six pages of damages during their inspection. 

Unfortunately, they had no place else to go. “It was a take it or leave it situation,” Santos said. “[HMC] said there were no other options.” 

A year later, Santos spotted a water leak and mold emanating from the water spout outside. Then her children got sick: her 5-year-old son developed dark rings under his eyes. She put in a work order. “They came, they turned it on, turned it off, said it was fixed,” she said. “They did nothing to fix the water spout.” 

A few days later, Santos discovered a major water leak entering the wall from the outdoor water spigot. She requested that HMC replace the floorboards and the wall ruined by water. Their request was denied. “He says, ‘We’re just going to paint over it,’” she said. “I said ‘No, this needs to be removed.’” 

In the meantime, the mold began to spread throughout the home. The housing office met with Santos and HMC Maintenance director Jeff Koch at the home. “He’s touching the exposed floorboards — no protection, no goggles, no gloves — saying, ‘Oh there’s nothing here.’” Santos said. “I said, ‘Sir, that black stuff, that’s mold.’” 

The leasing office at Fort Lee ultimately ordered Koch to remove the floorboards and siding, but with the mold exposed, the family couldn’t occupy the first floor. Families are typically provided another residence at an on-post private hotel during large maintenance, however, they must cover the cost. According to HMC’s Fort Lee Community Director, Charleen Herriott, there were no available accommodations. 

“They could not move us anywhere,” Santos said. “So we had to live upstairs the whole time it took for them to take everything out. It was about three weeks.”

During this time, the home was barely habitable. The family became severely ill, as did their babysitter. Santos dealt with flu-like symptoms, while her children — already on nebulizers — needed breathing treatments twice a day to combat upper-respiratory infections. 

A few days after the order was finished, Santos found a check for $100 in her mailbox. A HMC rep told her it was for, “Giving [you] a hard time on the mold.” She tossed it back in the mailbox. 

Under Virginia law, tenants in unsafe housing can exit their leases. They can make repairs themselves and deduct the cost from rent. They can notify their local agencies to enforce health codes. They can fight back. 

But on military bases, different rules apply. Tenants may not inspect homes prior to move-in; nor can they fight improperly-documented claims of damage reported when they move out. Tenants aren’t allowed access to the building’s history, and if issues arise and housing services refuse to act, service members can’t hold out on rent. 

“Military families don’t have recourse,” Shannon Razsadin, Executive Director of the Military Family Advisory Network, told CBS News. “They never even see the money. It immediately goes from [the military] to this privatized housing company. So they don’t have the ability to withhold rent when they’re dealing with a challenge.” 

In January 2019, the Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) conducted a national poll for families who lived on base within the past three years, and received around 17,000 responses. The results were scathing: nearly two-thirds of respondents reported a negative experience with privatized military housing. Housing issues were reported at more than 160 military installations across the country, including at seven of the 10 largest military installations in the U.S. A third of respondents reported mold in their residences, and more than 1,500 reported problems with vermin or pest infestations. 

Families also reported that requests for repair are often denied or ignored — and when they report housing company reps to military command, they’re bullied into silence. Some even claim they received threats. 

“We were overwhelmed by the number of respondents that we had, and it really goes to show that these aren’t one-off issues,” Razsadin said. “This is a widespread problem, and it’s something that needs to be acted on.” 

Housing will push families to accept the home before even seeing it. And if they don’t accept, they have no alternative. For families with special needs or stationed for a short stay, on-base housing is their only option. 

“I want an apology,” said Leticia Lewis, a former Fort Lee resident. “My family wants an apology. Everyone here at Fort Lee is owed an apology by Hunt Housing.” 

Leticia Lewis and her family moved into a special-needs home at Fort Lee in April 2018. In the first few weeks, black mold accrued in her upstairs bedroom. Then mushrooms grew up from the floor. It took three weeks to remove it. 

“Would you allow your kids to sleep in a room like this? No. So don’t do it to someone’s family,” she said. “What we are all fighting for here is our health.” 

Meanwhile, her son was hospitalized in a pediatric ICU for three days, and had to be put on oxygen. “My son has missed so much school,” she said. “He needed to recuperate — he’s five years old.” 

What the Santos and Lewis families have experienced is not uncommon. Military families at Fort Lee and across the nation live in squalor: black mold, lead paint, faulty wiring, poor water quality, pesticides, and a slew of vermin, insects, and animals in their homes. And until recently, their concerns have largely been ignored. 

Fort Lee is the third-largest training post in the Army. One third of the Army’s soldiers will either train or be stationed at Fort Lee sometime in their career. The average stay for a family at Fort Lee is six to 12 months; few stay more than three years. 

“They are counting on us moving out quickly,” Santos said. “They are counting on the quick turnover rate, the high dollars they charge us for normal wear and tear. These profits come off our backs and our sacrifice.” 

A year into Amanda Vargas’s residency at Fort Lee, her carpets began showing clear signs of mold. According to her lease, the carpet was to be replaced by HMC every four years, but when Vargas contacted the previous residents, who lived there for four years, she learned the carpet wasn’t replaced during their stay. When she requested that it be tested, she was denied. 

“If I leave a water bottle out, I can see mold grow in it within hours,” Vargas said. Over the last year, Vargas’s five-year-old daughter has had constant upper-respiratory issues. 

“We live in these homes,” Vargas said. “These homes are not free, they come with a sacrifice. And our children pay the most sacrifice.” 

Hunt Military Communities, who runs the housing at Fort Lee, is one of America’s largest landlords. Of the 35 companies referenced in the MFAN survey, Hunt Military Communities was the third-highest cited of any property manager included. Several families have accused the company of fraud, conspiring to conceal dangerous conditions, breach of contract, and gross negligence. Service members describe feeling powerless, that they have little to no recourse. 

Housing privatization began in 1998, as an unofficial bailout initiative when the Department of Defense failed to provide adequate housing for approximately 200,000 military families. Competitions were held for developers to manage homes on more than 150 installations across the country; those chosen were signed to 50-year contracts. 

The initiative received wide bipartisan support, and worked at first with close attention from civilian and military leaders. But it was never projected to succeed — according to a 1998 pilot report by the Government Accountability Office, cost and earnings from privatization were overstated, and savings would not be as large as the DoD originally claimed. 

Despite these well-informed concerns, the initiative moved forward. But after a financial meltdown in 2008 and cutbacks in military staff in 2011, the military diverted its attention to other priorities, leaving housing companies without oversight. 

“I suspect that [military command] thought things would be better by putting it in the hands of private owners, but in the end they handed it over to a business. And like any other business, they’re out to make money,” Santos said. “They’re not truly fulfilling the mission that the army has entrusted them to do, and that’s taking care of military families.” 

Santos would like to see the DoD engage in more direct oversight of on-base housing and the companies that provide it. 

“I think it would make a difference, because it would make younger families have an idea, when they move in, [of] where their rights would stand,” she said. “That’s something that should’ve been proposed the first time they signed 50-year contracts with these people.” 

In response to the MFAN’s findings, Congress held hearings in February and March to address the concerns. “This issue seems to have caught us by surprise,” said Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Congressional leaders and top military brass toured homes and were appalled by the poor housing conditions and lack of responsiveness from housing providers. 

“We are deeply troubled by the recent reports highlighting the deficient conditions in some of our family housing,” stated Secretary of the Army Dr. Mark Esper. “It is unacceptable for our families who sacrifice so much to have to endure these hardships in their own homes. Our most sacred obligation as Army leaders is to take care of our people — our Soldiers and our family members.”

After the hearings, committee members drafted the Ensuring Safe Housing for our Military Act. The bill would require installation commanders to withhold the family’s rent from the landlord after notifications of potential health, safety or environmental hazards, until military housing officials and the families agree that it has been fixed. 

Senator Tim Kaine, a champion of the bill, stressed that it was the only way to combat malpractice by property managers. “There has been recent attention on the national scope of dangerous conditions in military base housing, including children poisoned by lead, and lapses in oversight that have put military families at risk,” Kaine wrote in an Op-Ed for the Daily Progress. “Military families make enormous sacrifices in service to our nation, and they deserve safe housing.” 

After Fort Lee completed its Congressionally-mandated assessment of on-post homes in March, work order numbers nearly quadrupled — from 194 to 850. As of the most recent town hall, 5,000 work orders had yet to be completed. 

Senator Mark Warner held a roundtable for military families in April. At the roundtable, Vargas and other Fort Lee families stressed their inability to hold HMC accountable, and their suspicions that important documents were being erased or withheld. 

“Hunt is to get work orders done within 10 days, but they rarely honor nor adhere to the appropriate response times for work orders,” Vargas said. “When they do come to do fix things, they leave jobs incomplete.” 

“My concern is, we may improve circumstances for all of you,” said Warner. “But if we don’t change the system, things will get better for a year or two and they’ll fade from people’s memories — and your successors will be sitting here, telling me the same stories.” 

Repairs to military homes nationwide could cost upwards of $386 million, according to a series of reports made between 2013 and 2016 by the Defense Department’s Inspector General. The report found these deficiencies stemmed from “a lack of adequate preventative maintenance and inspections being performed at the installations,” and recommended bi-annual inspections of all homes. 

But defense officials rejected the recommendations. They would “unnecessarily increase costs” and “impose more government intrusion into a private business enterprise,” the D0D said in its official response. 

Returning the responsibility of housing to the DoD (as it was before 1998) would involve enormous costs to U.S. taxpayers, and has potential to bring back the problems that led the government to privatization in the first place. Yet the current system is failing many families, and despite Congressional and military efforts to improve it, problems remain deeply entrenched. 

Many military families agree that a tenant’s bill of rights would be a good first step. But current legislative changes won’t take effect until 2020, and many don’t see themselves sticking around for it. Instead, they are leaving the service prematurely, for the sake of their families’ health. Vargas’s husband plans on leaving in July, on his 4-year anniversary of joining the military. For now, her daughter sleeps in a walk-in closet — the only room in the house without a mold-infested HVAC duct. 

Just before Senator Warner’s roundtable in April, Lewis got a call from the hospital. They informed her that TriCare, the Department Of Defense’s military health insurance provider, won’t cover her X-ray screenings for infections she contracted during her time at Fort Lee housing. But she doesn’t blame TriCare. 

“TriCare doesn’t need to be paying for my medical bills,” Lewis said. “Hunt housing needs to be paying for my medical bills.” 

Organizers Move To Protect Immigrants in the River City

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On Thursday, June 20, after facing extreme political pressure from both parties, President Trump signed an executive order to end his administration’s practice of separating children from their families as they cross the border. However, the administration has no clear plan to reunite the more than 2300 children who have already been taken from their families. In fact, many of the separations could be permanent.

The humanitarian crisis at the southwest border is drawing much-needed national attention and resources, and it has many Richmonders wondering how recent changes to immigration policy and enforcement are affecting our local communities.

Immigrants in Richmond Face Increased Pressure 

According to the American Immigration Council, more than one in eight Virginia residents is an immigrant. One in six Virginia workers is an immigrant, and immigrant-led households in the state paid $6.7 billion in federal taxes and $2.7 billion in state and local taxes in 2014.

“These are our neighbors, our friends, our children’s’ friends,” said Jennifer West, a local immigration attorney and partner at Roth Jackson. “It’s overly simplistic to tell people ‘just get in line, wait your turn, follow the rules.’ The people presenting themselves at the border for asylum are doing things the right way, and they’re being arrested and detained anyway. Others may be fleeing dangerous situations in their home countries and may not always have the luxury of waiting years for paperwork to go through. “

“The sentiment in our community is increased fear and uncertainty,” said Tanya Gonzalez, executive director at the Sacred Heart Center, a hub for Latino communities in Richmond that focuses on education, social integration, empowerment, and success. “Members of the Latino community in Richmond have had an increased number of incidents of discrimination and harassment, ranging from things like being told not to speak Spanish in a public place to bullying in schools.” A recent report from Virginia police show hate crimes are up nearly 50 percent year-over-year in the state, including ten anti-Hispanic crimes.

Reports of ICE Enforcement in Richmond Have Increased

While Richmond has not yet seen the kind of sweeping, large-scale, military-style immigration raids that have taken hundreds of parents away from children in communities in California, Ohio, Tennessee, Iowa, and elsewhere, local immigration rights’ advocates have seen changes in our area and worry about what the future holds.

“In the last year or so, we’re seeing increased enforcement, more red tape, and much longer delays in general,” said West. “Both businesses and families going through legal processes have to wait much longer and jump through more hoops. Those delays can be a big hardship on a family waiting to be reunited and on local entrepreneurs who can’t find Americans to do their jobs.”

“We’ve heard several reports of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents arresting immigrants at courthouses or nearby, including arresting people they didn’t have a warrant for,” said Phil Storey, an immigration attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center. “That’s a relatively new and troubling practice.”

“Things are changing for this community rapidly,” said Alina Kilpatrick, another immigration attorney in Richmond. “I have clients on appeal who have been going to regular and routine check ins with ICE or with DHS contractors every six to 12 months who are suddenly being told to pack their bags and leave behind children and spouses who are legal citizens. I’m also hearing about increased arrests and detentions at routine ICE appointments in addition to deportations.”

The majority of immigrants living in Virginia are legally allowed to be here. More than half the immigrants living in Virginia are naturalized, and many more are eligible for naturalization. Over 10,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients live in Virginia.

Fewer than one-third of all immigrants are undocumented, but it’s an issue that affects many families since nearly 100,000 children in Virginia who are legal U.S. citizens live with at least one undocumented parent. Therefore anytime parents are swept up in ICE enforcement raids, they’re often leaving behind at least one child who is a U.S. citizen.

Child of Abbie Arevalo-Herrera. Photo by Carlos Bernate

One human example of the often arbitrary line between documented and undocumented immigrants is a Richmond mother named Abbie Arevalo-Herrera, a woman from Honduras seeking asylum in the U.S after escaping domestic violence in her home country. Threatened this week with deportation and now taking sanctuary in Richmond’s First Unitarian Universalist Church (information made public by her legal team), if she goes back to Honduras, she will be leaving behind her husband and two-year old son, both legal U.S. citizens. Although she is fighting for herself and for domestic violence survivors everywhere, her future in Richmond is uncertain.

How to Help Your Neighbors in Richmond

There are a number of national organizations dedicated to helping immigrant families at the Southwest border, but for people who want to help here in Richmond, here are a few ways to help.

Support Local Organizations

Central Virginia has a number of organizations dedicated to working to support immigrants while promoting equity, civil rights, and empowered, integrated communities. The following is a partial list.

Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC):  The LAJC is a nonprofit organization with offices across Virginia, including Richmond, whose mission is to strengthen the voices of low-income communities and root out the inequities that keep people in poverty. In Richmond, they provide legal support, including individual representation, to communities facing legal crises, including immigrant communities. Statewide, LAJC is a leader in the creative use of litigation to demand the release of unaccompanied minors in detention and to push back on ICE practices such as so-called “collateral arrests.”

What they need:

Sacred Heart Center (SHC): SHC is a community hub for Richmond’s Latino community, and offers a variety of educational and human service programs to individuals and families, including educational opportunities for adults (including GED, ESL, computer, and leadership classes), programs for youth and children (including school readiness, school enrichment, summer camp, parenting classes and more), and strategic community partnerships (that help with food assistance, health care, support groups, tax preparation, and more).

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to their Family Protection Project, which seeks to prevent the separation of local families by offering low-cost or pro bono immigration services, assistance locating loved ones who have been lost or detained, and volunteer training.
  • Volunteers: opportunities range from cleaning to tutoring to photography to teaching ESL.    
  • Donations of gently used clothing, new stuffed animals and books, diapers and school supplies
  • Nonperishable food items for the Bainbridge Ministry Food Bank, open Monday through Friday, 9:15 am to 12 pm, Monday to Friday.

Central Virginia Sanctuary Network (CVSN): A project of the the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, the CVSN is made up of interfaith congregational and organizational members, as well as individuals who volunteer through the Circles of Protection. Member commitments range from commiting to host guests facing deportation to supporting that work through fundraising, accompaniment, and hospitality.

What they need:

  • Monetary donations to the Sanctuary Fund, which provides for people fighting detention or deportation while in Sanctuary, and also covers bail and legal defense.
  • Volunteers: CVSN is looking for congregations and individual drivers (to take undocumented people who are not eligible for driver’s’ licenses to appointments), writers and communications professionals, legal resources, outreach, hospitality (arranging meals, entertainment, visitation, and counseling), accompaniment to court hearings (which often protects people from detainment), and other tasks.
  • Fundraising: Buy a t-shirt, tote bag, poster, or tank top with original artwork saying by Richmond artist Alfonso Perez reading “all are welcome here.”

Virginia Coalition for Immigrants Rights (VACIR): VACIR is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic coalition of organizations that exists to win dignity, power and quality of life for all immigrant and refugee communities. VACIR gives grants to other organizations, often to small and under-resources local organizations who mobilize quickly to do rapid response in emergency situations. VACIR has supported naturalization clinics, “know your rights” seminars, and DACA assistance programs.  

What they need:

Make Your Voice Heard Locally

Protests: There are a number of upcoming protests around Virginia aimed at fighting unjust immigration policies, advocating for reuniting the 2,300+ children who have already been taken, and ending the zero-tolerance policy that criminalizes and detains families.

Call your Senators and Representatives: Ask them to support common-sense immigration reform and insist on reuniting separated families. Check out Indivisible’s Guide on what to ask for when calling Republicans and Democrats.

Be an ally to local immigrants. Here’s how.

Use your privilege. If you’re not sure what that means, start here.

Elect, donate to, and work for people who hold views on immigration that you support. Vote in every election that you can. Volunteer to canvass, phone bank, and drive people to the polls. Give money.

In Virginia, Tim Kaine is up for reelection against Corey Stewart, a neo-confederate candidate for U.S. Senate. In the 7th House District, which covers much of the Richmond area, newcomer Abigail Spanberger is challenging incumbent Dave Brat, a Republican who has a strong anti-immigrant platform.

What else are we missing? Leave your comments if you have other ideas to support and defend immigrants in RVA.

Photos by Carlos Bernate.

Senators Warner and Kaine Sponsor Bill Legalizing Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity

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Virginia’s agriculture industry might have a big win in its future.

US Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have cosponsored a bill that would legalize hemp and define it as an agricultural commodity.

The Hemp Farming Act of 2018 would effectively remove the plant from the list of controlled substances because hemp would no longer be grouped with marijuana. Which, despite it having so little tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in it, thus no narcotic capability, it was defined as marijuana in the Controlled Substance Act back in 1970 when President Richard Nixon was in office.

Because of its current legal definition, right now hemp is harvested for research purposes in the state of Virginia, but cannot be grown for commercial use. More than an estimated 25,000 products use the plant from textiles to furniture to construction materials, personal care items and more.

The 2014 Farm Bill allowed industrial hemp to be used for agricultural research purposes. Since its enactment, Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, the University of Virginia, and James Madison University have been active in hemp research.

This new bill, however, is pulling support from both sides of the aisle.

In a Wednesday press release, Warner said the nation’s agricultural industry shouldn’t be held back by outdated restrictions, which by default prevent the creation of more jobs and hurt the economy.

“Hemp products are already bought, sold, and consumed right here in the United States,” Warner said. “This bipartisan bill will help Virginia farmers, manufacturers and small businesses benefit from the economic growth we have seen in this industry.”

In the same press release, Kaine said he is always looking for ways to support Virginia’s agricultural economy since it’s the state’s leading economic sector.

“Hemp was grown in Virginia by Thomas Jefferson, and research and input from Virginia agricultural stakeholders, agricultural scientists at JMU and Virginia Tech, and economic development leaders like the Tobacco Commission have shown that it is safe and holds economic promise for rural Virginia,” Kaine said. “I’m satisfied that this bill takes sensible steps to address law enforcement concerns and, in turn, that it makes sense to remove industrial hemp from the federal controlled substance list.”

The Hemp Farming Act will also give states the opportunity to be the primary regulators of hemp, make hemp farmers eligible to apply for crop insurance, and allow hemp researchers to apply for more federal grants.

The bill addresses law enforcement concerns regarding the similarity between hemp and marijuana by requiring states to submit hemp growth and production plans for USDA approval.

Warner has been serving on the Senate since 2008 and will keep his seat until 2021. Kaine on the other hand has served on the Senate since 2013 after his reign as governor. He just announced his bid for reelection early last month. 

Cambridge Analytica and The Future of Facebook: The Bleak Reality

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Facebook, every time you sign in it starts.

One of the hallmark achievements of our century, this segway into a new evolutionary age of connectivity; designed to be a banner of equality to distance us from the imbalance of power. Every post to your status, you’re continuing the excavation into this new wonderland, while you lean back in your chair wondering where this rabbit hole leads.

The creation of organic social communities, digital frontiers for pioneer developers to flourish with little hindsight paid outside the family researcher. Each update would shift the parameters of modern society. Their intent became their mission, prophesied as higher purpose, one of equal footing. The sole responsibility of a users’ personal data- in many cases, one’s livelihood- was left, cradling upon a bridge of trust. And for many, that expectation was good enough.

The unmarked conquest of American capitalism accumulated inside the smokescreen amidst the new toymakers’ workshop. The original purpose lost amidst the obsession for connection. And the worst of it- the warning signs have been present all along, embedded in the fine print for anyone who cared to look.

In a memo addressed in June 2016 to fellow board members at Facebook, Vice President Andrew Bosworth relayed a statement far gone from the original benign aspirations of a group of college kids making a platform in their dorm room.  

Bosworth was quoted as saying, “So we connect more people. That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools” His rumination did not stop there, “And still we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned. That isn’t something we are doing for ourselves. Or for our stock price (ha!). It is literally just what we do. We connect people. Period.”

The firestorm over Cambridge Analytica’s (CA) scornful acquisition of an estimated 87 million Facebook users personal data has shifted focus to the tech giant in a way that has not happened before. As further layers are peeled back, the walls surrounding the tech giants – not just Facebook – have started to crumble with a hail of scrutiny battering upon the doors – the barbarians are indeed at their gates.

CA CEO Alexander Nix. Photo from CA YouTube Channel

As the investigations into the CA scandal unfolds, many wonder- how could they obtain this information so easily – all while under the radar?

In response, Facebook desperately pushed to distance itself from CA, suspending the firm’s Facebook access and labeling them and their affiliates, as “rogue third parties”. They have been drawn up as the villains who took advantage of the helpless social network and their users. Nonetheless, several whistleblowers have since come forward, including ex-Facebook managers and former CA staff, illustrating a different story; one of deep negligence and malfeasance by both parties.

Since previous campaigns have knowingly used similar microtargeting techniques, CA has become a red herring, however. A diversion best left in the backdrop of growing national outrage over the protection of users’ personal data.

Jason Arnold, an Associate Professor of Political Science at VCU who spoke with RVA Mag about this issue summed up Facebook’s initial response:

Facebook is either lying or naive in saying that it cannot be responsible for what happens to datasets once it sells them to outsiders like the Cambridge [Analytica] researcher.

What once stood as the road to connecting the world now rests a dwindling bridge. The public has now been presented with the actual state of data mining and usage. Facebook’s original obsession with connectivity has turned decidedly toxic, catching the eyes of lawmakers and intelligence professionals who are still attempting to understand how platforms like Facebook influence events in real-terms.

“While companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google are great American success stories, so far I’ve been disappointed at how reluctant they have been to accept the fact that we are seeing the dark underbelly of social media,” said Virginia Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in articulating this challenge.

A growing body of evidence purports this to be a symptom of a widespread complication, a drop in the bucket to continual risks facing a society co-dependent to social media for relevance in a modern economy.  

“It is very unlikely that CA had something that was light years ahead of what competing firms were doing,” said Arnold. This is true, companies such as Experian and Acxiom have faced disablement following ties to ad-targeting. 

For instance, Graph API, the interface in which Facebook allows third-party apps to use your data, is at the center of this ethical uproar. It’s here where Facebook’s own data collection tools have encouraged the monetization of personal data with careless oversight. For proponents of electronic privacy, this is political transparency dozing at the wheel.

But it is also apparent there is plenty of blame to go around.

“I think we’re all to blame,” said Charlies Ajemian, chairman of Social Enterprise Alliance of Virginia (SEAVA). “I thought it was primitive, but definitely didn’t think people would hand over their information to marketers to use it on their own end. He went on to say that Facebook is also to blame, knowing that it was their responsibility to protect people’s data. “There can be a lot of great things about social networking that benefits the essential things, but it can also be used to other ends.’

Social media has become a necessity these days, much like a public utility. This necessity has also become very lucrative to marketers and consumers.

Most if not all businesses are deeply connected to social media, and the data scraped from the different platforms provides insight into what the public finds interesting. Whether through the messages we send, mentions of products we like, companies we follow – our online presence has become a modern-day currency and all E-Commerce runs on these metrics like fuel.

But what was not taken into account in these business models was something which coincides with its very foundation – the idea of progress and what that means in the context of 2018. Facebook has clearly underestimated its own tools and its own ideals. And perhaps without the proper oversight, many believe this problem will continue, leaving all of us codependent on social media in a precarious position.

“Facebook has proved they cannot handle this responsibility alone,” said Ajemian, “Social media is leading us towards a certain degree of social engineering and I don’t believe our current laws were created with this kind of attack in mind.”

In response to calls for reform, Facebook has taken an initiative to formulate a multi-stage plan for regaining composure, particularly in respect to the upcoming midterm elections. While their terms were technically updated in 2011 and later again in April 2014 to restrict data mining, loopholes have continued to be exploited, only to be realized in the past few weeks. This means the upcoming elections are likely still to be considered at risk. Nonetheless, for a company to weaponize illegitimate personal data mining demonstrates reasonable risks to the electoral process and democracy altogether.

Which has led some to believe regulation needs to come from government. “This is another strong indication of the need for Congress to quickly pass the Honest Ads Act to bring transparency and accountability to online political advertisements,” said Warner.

In direct response the CA scandal, Ajemian believes that greater transparency will be required. He has posited that Facebook could become an objective medium for the political arena.

“Facebook could build an objective continuity around candidates, offering data to the public to help have a better understanding of who a candidate is as a whole to help the electoral process,” he said. “Politicians run to win a position. Then it’s their duty to govern. We’ve gone too far into the campaigning side, it should be the best to govern not the best to win.”

Still, this doesn’t end with Facebook and remains an industry-wide problem. Data breaches happen, but it’s the response time that matters.

However, with Facebook, the problem remains complex since to “fix” their problem with data breaches they would need to build an entirely different platform to begin with. Some experts have speculated on new models for the tech giant, working searching for the sweet spot between privacy and data collection.

There’s a way you could use [Facebook] as a real solution for the world we’re moving in to. Facebook is valuable because of our identities, without us it’s nothing,” Ajemian said. “The real currency in the world is our attention. the better our attention is, the more we get paid.

In a review conducted by the Research Group COSIC out of Beligum, their analyst stated that Facebook should change its platform altogether – putting the power back into the hands of the user.

“In order to assist users and enhance transparency, we proposed a privacy scoring computation mechanism for the collateral information collection of third-party applications on Facebook,” said Iraklis Symeonidis, the lead researcher.  “The privacy score calculates the amount of the personal information of users that can be collected from such applications. Being able to raise awareness on personal information collection, it can support decisions and foster user control on personal data disclosure.”

In this regard, Facebook is not really a social network any more than an ad network. Letting the user take control of what information they want available for collection could be achieved, possibly a win-win for user and network. “You can’t maintain this model of selling our values to marketers,” said Ajemian.“What Facebook is doing is on steroids. It needs to change its model to empowering users. If only they worked to share the profits with the users, make them the partners. That would get people to participate voluntarily.”

A professor of journalism at VCU, Jeff South, stated alternatives to advertisement isn’t a new concept. “Restricting the use of our personal data on social media would greatly undercut the network’s appeal to advertisers,” he said. South added that “technological disruption” has put many media sources that relied on traditional methods of advertising back on a model that followed the subscription services of the 1830s.

Symeonidis remains skeptical about Facebook actually taking this level of initiative. “To be honest, I would be surprised if Facebook didn’t know about the analysis work. We have been publishing several articles since 2015 about Facebook and the third-party applications privacy issue,” he said in his analysis for COSIC.

The responsibility is not Facebook’s alone though, the public has a responsibility to bear some of this criticism too. “Our responsibility is to understand media literacy in the modern age. Take note of when people are blaming others, take a deep breath, and understand what they’re really saying. The way you approach something should not alienate people,” said Ajemian.

What has become clear in this debate is that the goals of each tech giants – not just Facebook – will constantly be in question moving forward. Their incomprehensibility to the layperson provides them a sense of ambiguity in how they represent their product to the public. Yet transparency should always take precedence, no matter the latest feature. And this bleeds into technical issues outside of the conversation over fixes to the platform, connecting to issues that should have never been present to begin with.

Warner got to the heart of the matter, implying regulations may be the unavoidable route. “We’re going to have to get this problem under control, and I’m not sure the companies are able to do it on their own. I don’t want to regulate these companies into oblivion, but I think it is time for them to accept responsibility for the potential misuse of their platforms and work with us to figure out the best way to prevent it.”

Whether Facebook decides to make a change for the better is little more than speculation. One distinction is for certain- the internet may have been for the user, but Facebook is still for its customers.

Who are the customers, and what are they trying to sell?

 

Sen. Warner submits two bipartisan bills aiming to curb student debt

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Virginia Senator Mark Warner hopes to help alleviate the burden of college debt with
bipartisan legislation that he is introducing to Congress.

The two bills are the Dynamic Repayment Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and the Employer Participation in Repayment Act, co-sponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-SD). While the first bill aims to simplify paperwork and keep payments affordable, the second encourages employers to help their employees pay off student loan debt.

The average student loan debt from public universities nation-wide tops $37,000 per graduate. Nationwide, Americans currently owe more than $1.3 trillion in student loans. According to Warner, this surpasses credit cards and auto loans as the country’s top source of non-housing debt.

“As the first person in my family to graduate from college, if I had that much debt coming out college I’m not sure I would be sitting where I am right now,” Sen. Warner said in a group conference call Monday. “I got out of college and law school combined with a total of $15,000 in debt, and most of that was from law school debt, rather than college.”

He and his co-sponsors hope to simplify and improve loan payment methods in ways that can be beneficial to many.

The Dynamic Repayment Act states that “federal student loan programs include numerous protections for borrowers to avoid default, but most students don’t utilize them because the system is so complicated.”

The bill suggests that due to the paperwork required to prove income changes, adjusting payments is burdensome during times of unemployment, another issue facing recent college grads who are either unemployed (5.6 percent) or under employed (12.6 percent).

To remedy this, the act would keep payments affordable by allowing a borrower to pay a reasonable percentage of their income until the load is paid or the time limit is reached. A borrower who is earning more income would pay more during times of fiscal prosperity, but the bill would protect all borrowers during periods of unemployment or lower earnings. Interest would not compound during payment which allows borrowers to actually make progress on their payments.

There would also be tiers of loan forgiveness that could be helpful for borrowers who unexpectedly realize their loan balances may be permanently unaffordable. The tiered forgiveness would also, according to the bill, minimize incentives for people to “engage in unnecessarily risky borrowing.”

“As someone who once owed more than $100,000 in student loans, this issue is personal to me, and I will continue working to simplify this complex and bureaucratic student loan system,” Sen. Rubio said in a press release.

Meanwhile, the Employer Participation in Repayment Act aims to expand upon an existing federal program that could benefit both employers and student-debt-riddled employees.

Presently, the Employer-Provided Educational Assistance Program allows employers to contribute pre-tax earnings in order to help employees pay for continued education. However, it does not allow this for people who have already incurred student loan debt throughout the course of their undergraduate or graduate studies. That’s where the Warner-Thune bill comes in.

Through amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, the Warner-Thune bill would allow employers to contribute up to $5,250 pre-tax to their employees’ student loans, which would not only give those with student loan debt some relief, but may serve as a new tool to recruit and keep quality employees.

“We should be looking for creative opportunities, like the one Sen. Warner and I have proposed, that would help Americans capitalize on their investments in higher education, enter the workforce, and pursue a career,” Sen. Thune said in a press release. “Our bill would give graduates the flexibility they need to work with employers to secure lower interest rates and pay part of their student loans back tax free. This is an obvious win for graduates, but it also helps businesses attract and retain talented employees.”

Warner referred to the bill as a “no brainer.”

“It definitely, I think, would help students in those first few years coming out of college to give more freedom and flexibility,” Sen. Warner said.

Warner explained that he hopes the bill will encourage more companies to help students pay their debt. He feels this could also be beneficial for smaller companies because the tax advantage may increase participation.

“I think these are both important bills, but they’re not going to totally solve the problem,” Sen. Warner said. “The bigger problem exists of ‘how do we make sure that college inflation and higher education inflation doesn’t continue to go up at such a rapid rate?’ Everyone talks about health care inflation and the unfortunate thing is in the last 10 years, higher education inflation is even higher than health care inflation.”

Both pieces of legislation were introduced to Congress last year and failed. However, this year Warner feels more confident they may actually go forward successfully.

Sen. Mark Warner says he’ll vote against Neil Gorsuch in SCOTUS battle

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Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner has found himself on the front lines in the fight against President Trump’s executive actions and we can now add the nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice to the list.

In a statement sent out this morning, Warner (top image left) said he was worried about the future of the Senate if the so called “nuclear option” was used. This maneuver, which would required Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to change the rules to deny any future filibusters for Supreme Court nominations, could have “lasting consequences” on the Senate, according to Warner.

But SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch (top image right), who’s been compared philosophically to his replacement Antonin Scalia, didn’t do enough to sway Warner during last week’s confirmation hearings.

“Despite his impressive academic credentials, Judge Gorsuch’s record and evasive responses – even refusing to answer questions regarding his views of cases like Roe v. Wade and Citizens United – do not give me confidence that he possesses a judicial philosophy that will serve the American public well,” Warner said.

For a bit more insight into the recent Gorsuch hearings check out the Daily Show’s breakdown here –

The first vote on Gorsuch is happening as I type this, with a full floor vote expected to shortly follow. Republicans need 60 votes to avoid the “nuclear option” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised as slow the process any way his party can. But if they do, Republicans only need 51 votes to change the rules and they currently have 52 seats.

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