A joint statement from LPNC gubernatorial candidates Shannon Bray and Mike Ross regarding Senate Bill 749 currently under consideration by the North Carolina General Assembly re: changing the way members of the Boards of Election are selected.

North Carolina violates this core principle in an egregious manner when it comes to our elections.

CityCoins are a new type of cryptocurrency that is designed to benefit local governments. They are created by a project called CityCoins.co, which is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

CityCoins work by rewarding people for supporting local businesses and organizations. When someone spends Bitcoin or Ethereum on a CityCoin, a portion of the transaction is sent to the local government. The government can then use these funds to support local projects, such as infrastructure, education, and public safety.

Shannon Bray is a libertarian candidate for Governor in North Carolina. He is a strong supporter of non-interventionism and is against US involvement in the Ukraine.

Bray believes that the US should not be involved in foreign wars, especially wars that do not directly threaten the United States. He argues that US involvement in foreign wars has led to instability and bloodshed around the world.

Shannon Bray is a libertarian candidate for Governor in North Carolina. He is a strong supporter of abolishing the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is a private central bank that was created in 1913. It is not part of the United States government, and it is not accountable to the people. The Federal Reserve has the power to print money, set interest rates, and regulate the banking system.

Bray believes that the Federal Reserve is a threat to individual liberty and economic freedom. He argues that the Federal Reserve's policies have led to inflation, economic instability, and a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.

Bray has proposed a number of reforms to the Federal Reserve, including:

• Making the Federal Reserve a public institution that is accountable to the people.
• Ending the Federal Reserve's monopoly on the printing of money.
• Giving Congress the power to set interest rates.
• Repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed in 1999 and allowed commercial banks to merge with investment banks.

Bray's proposals have been met with mixed reactions. Some people support his ideas, while others believe that they are too radical. It remains to be seen whether Bray will be able to achieve his goal of abolishing the Federal Reserve.

• The plan will increase the national debt.
• The plan will raise taxes on the middle class.
• The plan will stifle economic growth.
• The plan is too expensive.
• The plan will not create the jobs that Biden promised.

In this post, I want to explore two topics:

• Wasting the third party vote
• My impact on the 2020 election

My reasons for becoming a Libertarian are a little out of scope for this article but after spending time on the campaign trail for the 2020 US Senate for the state of North Carolina election, one of the most common statements I heard while meeting people across North Carolina included the following:

• I really want to vote for you, but I don’t want to waste my vote.
• I believe you are the right person for the job BUT I don’t want to waste my vote.
• I would vote for you if you were a Democrat.
• I would vote for you if you were a Republican.
• If you are not a Republican or Democrat, you can’t win. Why wastes your time?

These questions or statements are not crazy. Depending on your experience or where you live; these are quite valid. In truth, ever since the Clinton administration (IMHO), politics have become more like Super Bowl contents as opposed to making informed decisions, people pick their team whether they agree with most of the platform or not. See my previous post on the affects of social media and gun violence and you can probably use the same argument for any number of topics.

So let's get into it .....

In a recent tweet, I stated: “Covid-Passports are a violation in your personal privacy and violates the law. aka HIPAA”. The backlash, while moderate, was constant for days.

The inspiration for the tweet came when Governor Cuomo announced that he is implementing a “vaccine passport”. The passport would enable New Yorkers to prove vaccination or history of a negative COVID-19 test. The program, called the “Excelsior Pass,” is an app that is being called “not mandatory” but is being forced upon venues who wish to fully reopen. There has been addition communication and articles stating that the Biden Administration may be considering a similar program for the entire nation.

The “Excelsior Pass” is a product from IBM for contact tracing with covid; IBM insists user data will be kept confidential, as it will use blockchain technology to record and transmit data; I have no reasons to doubt them, but everything is being hacks these days. In addition, the terms of service accompanying the app do not explicitly state how the data is tracked or safeguarded, even less so than standard smartphone applications. This is important to keep in mind because, in the terms of HIPAA, IBM is not a covered entity. I will discuss what a covered entity is here shortly but who is the custodian of the data will be key.

For now, the important take away is that people will soon start carrying an app that entrusts the government with HIPAA-privileged health information and is able to track its users by recording protected health information, tracking individual locations and correlating gatherings in real-time. If you did not carry big brother in your pocket before, they have you now.

It is my plan to outline why I believe our currently privacy laws prohibit the creation of vaccination passports without the consent of the patient. This argument does not apply to those who consent because they have opted out of their privacy by requesting a passport and by using voluntarily using it. There are several other privacy laws I can include here but due to the complexity of this argument, I will keep it focused on HIPAA. It is also a fun exercise since I have a ton of haters out there who say I do not know anything about it. But it is worth noting that I am a cybersecurity and data privacy expert and have had to build secure systems for many types of organization that contained personal health information. While I know absolutely nothing about the medical billing aspects of HIPAA, the privacy and security rules of Title II are what sets the requirements of who can see your health data.  But, more about that later.

Even before we get into the privacy issues and the laws that protect us, I think it is also worth noting that by the time, the program roles out, the community should already have obtained herd immunity. Creating software and making sure it is reliable take months if not years to get right. President Biden has already stated July 4th should be great family holiday to get together because he believes the virus will be at a controllable level. If so, these apps are not needed but the rollout would open the door to possible government abuse. Every law starts out as someone’s great idea. They may even have merit, but good laws are abused all the time. I can provide many.

The app may start out with your covid vaccination but then what is stopping lawmakers from slowly adding to that list. Now you may be carrying your full medical record followed by military, school, or police records. Your entire life may now be captured as a QR code and everyone with a reader can access it. We can talk about phone security in another topic but keeping private information that is accessible with a look or fingerprint has its own set of risks.

I have something I want you to consider. After every mass shooting, people cry out for gun control. For weeks or months, gun control is all you hear and then it goes silent. There are many people who believe that the availability of weapons is why we have mass or school shootings. The thought is that if you take the guns away from everyone, these types of events would not happen. If we just pass a few more gun laws, we will save our children.

There comes a time when we need to find the core of the issues and not just slap band-aids on everything. Everything in our community has become fuel for our cancel culture; if someone does not like it, they want it gone for everyone, but that is a topic for another day. For the sake of this article, let us call the band-aid gun control and let us consider the core of the issue: social media. No doubt you already knew where I was going with this since the title states it clearly but let me make my point and offer you several references so that you can come to your own conclusion. First, I will highlight the growth of social media. Second, I will present data that will show social media links to depression and anxiety. Third, we will discuss the characteristics of people who commit these crimes. And finally, I will offer various approaches that will help mitigate these issues and explain why Congress is unable to address the problems by simply passing a bill.