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Here's The Criticism Jeff Bezos and Amazon Actually Deserve…

• https://www.thedailybell.com

People like Bernie Sanders attack the rich for being successful.

Yesterday we talked about legislation Bernie Sanders introduced last week. Called the Stop BEZOS Act, it specifically targeted Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon, and richest person in the world.

If it passes, the legislation will tax large corporations 100% of the dollar value of any welfare any of their employees get from the federal government. It is basically a disincentive to hire poor people. Plus it nudges companies to automate with robots to avoid liability and other costs of human workers.

Jeff Bezos should not be criticized for being successful, making a lot of money, and providing half a million jobs of all skill levels.

But the endless anti-free-market whining of Democratic Socialists drowns out the valid criticism of Jeff Bezos.

I agree with portions of a letter sent to Jeff Bezos on behalf of 100 of his employees.

They are against certain government contracts Amazon fulfills.

The employees raised concerns over the facial recognition software called Rekognition, developed by Amazon. Amazon sells the software to law enforcement and federal policing agencies.

But facial recognition software is basically an unwarranted unreasonable search. You shouldn't have to reveal your identity to the government without being suspected of a crime. And with this software, just going out into public means the government will defacto search you, and be able to track your whereabouts.

In the letter, employees also spoke out against Amazon providing services to Peter Thiel's company Palantir.

Palantir offers predictive policing tools. It analyzes vast amounts of data in order to map complex social connections and behavior patterns.

Palantir is almost like Minority Report… the police might know you are going to commit a crime before you do…

The technology is named after the crystal balls used by the dark lord Sauron and evil wizard Saruman to spy on middle earth in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

The letter reads:

Dear Jeff,

We are troubled by the recent report from the ACLU exposing our company's practice of selling AWS Rekognition, a powerful facial recognition technology, to police departments and government agencies. We don't have to wait to find out how these technologies will be used. We already know that in the midst of historic militarization of police, renewed targeting of Black activists, and the growth of a federal deportation force currently engaged in human rights abuses — this will be another powerful tool for the surveillance state, and ultimately serve to harm the most marginalized…


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