Secretary of State Michael Watson said he will appeal a ruling by a Hinds County judge that would allow early voting for people with pre-existing conditions who feel they could be at risk from COVID-19 this November. Read the rest here.
The upcoming US presidential election seems set to be something of a mess—to put it lightly. Covid-19 will likely deter millions from voting in person, and mail-in voting isn’t shaping up to be much more promising. This all comes at a time when political tensions are running higher than they have in decades, issues that shouldn’t be political (like mask-wearing) have become highly politicized, and Americans are dramatically divided along party lines.
So the last thing we need right now is yet another wrench in the spokes of democracy, in the form of disinformation; we all saw how that played out in 2016, and it wasn’t pretty. For the record, disinformation purposely misleads people, while misinformation is simply inaccurate, but without malicious intent. While there’s not a ton tech can do to make people feel safe at crowded polling stations or up the Postal Service’s budget, tech can help with disinformation, and Microsoft is trying to do so.
On Tuesday the company released two new tools designed to combat disinformation, described in a blog post by VP of Customer Security and Trust Tom Burt and Chief Scientific Officer Eric Horvitz.
The first is Microsoft Video Authenticator, which is made to detect deepfakes. In case you’re not familiar with this wicked byproduct of AI progress, “deepfakes” refers to audio or visual files made using artificial intelligence that can manipulate peoples’ voices or likenesses to make it look like they said things they didn’t. Editing a video to string together words and form a sentence someone didn’t say doesn’t count as a deepfake; though there’s manipulation involved, you don’t need a neural network and you’re not generating any original content or footage.
The Authenticator analyzes videos or images and tells users the percentage chance that they’ve been artificially manipulated. For videos, the tool can even analyze individual frames in real time.
Deepfake videos are made by feeding hundreds of hours of video of someone into a neural network, “teaching” the network the minutiae of the person’s voice, pronunciation, mannerisms, gestures, etc. It’s like when you do an imitation of your annoying coworker from accounting, complete with mimicking the way he makes every sentence sound like a question and his eyes widen when he talks about complex spreadsheets. You’ve spent hours—no, months—in his presence and have his personality quirks down pat. An AI algorithm that produces deepfakes needs to learn those same quirks, and more, about whoever the creator’s target is.
Given enough real information and examples, the algorithm can then generate its own fake footage, with deepfake creators using computer graphics and manually tweaking the output to make it as realistic as possible.
The scariest part? To make a deepfake, you don’t need a fancy computer or even a ton of knowledge about software. There are open-source programs people can access for free online, and as far as finding video footage of famous people—well, we’ve got YouTube to thank for how easy that is.
Microsoft’s Video Authenticator can detect the blending boundary of a deepfake and subtle fading or greyscale elements that the human eye may not be able to see.
In the blog post, Burt and Horvitz point out that as time goes by, deepfakes are only going to get better and become harder to detect; after all, they’re generated by neural networks that are continuously learning from and improving themselves.
Microsoft’s counter-tactic is to come in from the opposite angle, that is, being able to confirm beyond doubt that a video, image, or piece of news is real (I mean, can McDonald’s fries cure baldness? Did a seal slap a kayaker in the face with an octopus? Never has it been so imperative that the world know the truth).
A tool built into Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud computing service, lets content producers add digital hashes and certificates to their content, and a reader (which can be used as a browser extension) checks the certificates and matches the hashes to indicate the content is authentic.
Finally, Microsoft also launched an interactive “Spot the Deepfake” quiz it developed in collaboration with the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, deepfake detection company Sensity, and USA Today. The quiz is intended to help people “learn about synthetic media, develop critical media literacy skills, and gain awareness of the impact of synthetic media on democracy.”
The impact Microsoft’s new tools will have remains to be seen—but hey, we’re glad they’re trying. And they’re not alone; Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have all taken steps to ban and remove deepfakes from their sites. The AI Foundation’s Reality Defender uses synthetic media detection algorithms to identify fake content. There’s even a coalition of big tech companies teaming up to try to fight election interference.
One thing is for sure: between a global pandemic, widespread protests and riots, mass unemployment, a hobbled economy, and the disinformation that’s remained rife through it all, we’re going to need all the help we can get to make it through not just the election, but the rest of the conga-line-of-catastrophes year that is 2020.
I have never really understood the expression “one cannot have their cake and eat it too.” I mean, why would you not eat your cake? Are you going to just sit it up and look at it? The expression baffles me, and as a writer I refuse to use it due to how contradictory it is in the first place.
I want my cake and I promise you that I will eat it too. I want to enjoy my life to the fullest. Hence why you won’t find me up there on the list of paper-thin model material. I like my Italian food and I like my ice-cream. There are things I like too much to sacrifice it for the latest diet fad and a few pounds lost. I relish life too much. Do I sometimes look at the numbers on the scale and grimace? Heck yeah, but it doesn’t last long…or maybe only until the next round of my mother’s homemade lasagna.
Honestly, the whole not being able to have our cake and eat it too is just a belief that is handed down to us by society and we adopt it as truth inside us. Maybe without even realizing we have done so. Think about it the next time you see someone really enjoying life and soaking it all in. Does their joy make you upset? Does it trigger some raw emotions like how dare they think they can have their cake and eat it too? Perhaps it is because you have that rooted belief that was handed down to you and you adopted it without even thinking about it. You just remember hearing your mom repeat it to you as a child or your grandfather saying it when he was observing someone over-enjoying life (I mean if over-enjoying life is a thing). Then you adopted it as a core belief without even realizing you had done so.
I remember as a small girl, pulling up to the Lee County Library to check out books (I was a book worm even way back then) and there was a sleek black Lexus parked across the lot. I immediately chimed in that I wanted a car like that when I grew up. My mom, being the practical person she happens to be, reminded me that “luxury was a fantasy.” I adopted the belief right then that it was only a dream to own a luxury car. I didn’t realize it until years later that this belief, adopted way back when I was kid as truth, had hindered me from pursuing certain achievements in my life because I thought they were not meant to be achieved.
I limited myself.
The truth is, my potential is unlimited.
In fact, I test drove a Range Rover this week because it is the next SUV I want to buy. I want my cake and I want to eat it too.
I challenge you this week as you go about your normal daily routines to find where you cast small judgements on people without even realizing you are doing it. Then take those judgements and trace them back to why you feel that is the truth.
Many times, we’ll find that it comes from a deep-rooted belief that we didn’t even know we had. Maybe we just heard it passed down and adopted it as our own somewhere along the way. But we are holding ourselves back with these baseless and untruthful beliefs. If we can find them and weed them out of our garden of life, we can all of a sudden watch our plants in our garden grow bigger and healthier. We aren’t stifling them with some crazy gunk that is not even needed. We are showering them with the belief that if I want my cake and to eat it, by goodness, I am going to do just that.
I had the pleasure of traveling to France earlier this year before the big C word took over. One of the amazing things I learned was that everyone stopped at the local bakery every day and got themselves some goodies. The had cake and they ate it in the slowest, relishing life, enjoying the moment, kind of way.
I was just in awe. They would sip their cappuccino or hot chocolate while taking small bites from their pastries and laughing with friends at the table. It reminded me that life is meant to be enjoyed. It is meant to be taken in and relished. Life is too short to throw the cake away. Geez. Enjoy your life. Take your cake, grab a fork and eat it up!
Until next time…I am going to eat more cake! Are you?
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Hinds County residents cast their votes at Eudora Welty Library during Mississippi’s Primary Election Day, Tuesday, August 6, 2019.
Secretary of State Michael Watson said he will appeal a ruling by a Hinds County judge that would allow early voting for people with pre-existing conditions who feel they could be at risk from COVID-19 this November.
In the ruling handed down late Wednesday, Chancellor Denise Owens ruled people with pre-existing conditions that could be worsened by the coronavirus can vote early in person at the circuit clerk’s office or by mail.
Owens stopped short of granting a request of a group of Mississippi voters to allow all people with COVID-19 safety concerns to vote early. The judge’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Mississippi Center for Justice, the ACLU of Mississippi and the national American Civil Liberties Foundation.
Watson, who was a defendant in the case and who oversees elections in Mississippi, said his office will appeal to the state Supreme Court to try to gain more guidance from the courts on who can vote early during the pandemic.
The groups filing the lawsuit said they will file a cross appeal.
“The court correctly concluded that Mississippi voters may vote absentee if they have medical conditions that will lead to particularly severe consequences if they contract COVID-19,” said Rob McDuff, director of the George Riley Impact Litigation with the Mississippi Center for Justice. “But we believe the right to vote extends even further and requires that absentee voting be available to all Mississippi voters who are following public health guidance and avoiding community events during this pandemic.”
Owens based her ruling on a provision in state law that says people could vote early because of a permanent or temporary disability that put that person or someone else in danger at the polling place.
Earlier this year, the Legislature amended that provision to say people also could vote early if under a physician-imposed quarantine because of the coronavirus. Some questioned how that change would impact the previous provision, arguing people could vote early because of a temporary disability.
The lawsuit argued the legislative change should allow everyone to vote early because health care professionals on both the state and national levels have cautioned people to avoid crowds when possible. But Owens refused to allow everyone to vote early because of COVID-19.
On Thursday, Watson said he was appealing “in an effort to receive clarification for our circuit clerks, so they know exactly what does and does not equate to a temporary disability under the statute. The goal is to make sure the applications of the term is consistent for every Mississippi voter.”
The lawsuit is one of two filed because of the state’s limited early voting laws.
Last week, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Southern Poverty Law Center and private attorneys filed a recent lawsuit in the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi on behalf of state residents and organizations claiming the state’s absentee voting rules are unconstitutional because they could jeopardize the health of citizens trying to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even though the state has in recent months had one of the nation’s highest number of coronavirus cases per capita, Mississippi is one of the six states that “do not allow legitimate fear of illness from COVID-19 as an excuse to request an absentee ballot,” according to the second lawsuit.
The lawsuit said Mississippi laws and regulations do not comply with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Preventions guidelines developed to help ensure voter safety.
Even before the pandemic hit, Mississippi was among a minority of states that did not allow no excuse early voting via the mail or in person.
In Mississippi, a person must be disabled, over age 65 or out town to vote early. And Mississippi is the only state to require both a ballot application and the ballot to be notarized for a person voting by mail.
Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/ Report for America
Approximately 9,000 fans will be allowed into The Rock for the first game of the season matching NCAA FBS teams.
I have no idea what to expect tonight when South Alabama visits Southern Miss for the first college football game of 2020 season matching two FBS teams. I just know it will be different.
Hopefully, it will be safe – or as safe as football ever is.
Rick Cleveland
Let’s begin with what we do know. It will be the first football game ever between the two schools that are less than two hours away. USM and USA have long played in baseball, dating back to when The Brat, former Major League hero, Eddie Stanky, was creating a baseball powerhouse at the Mobile school.
They have played almost yearly in basketball and in other minor sports. But they’ve never played football, mostly because Southern Miss didn’t want to give up the recruiting advantage in south Mississippi, southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle it felt it held over its neighboring school. That advantage, for the most part, is gone. The football series makes too much sense. Fact is, the two teams should be in the same conference – and eventually will be, I believe.
Steve Campbell
We know that Steve Campbell, no stranger to Mississippi, is the head coach at South, and we know that he can really, really coach. He won a National Championship at Delta State 20 years ago with a no-huddle, option-styled offense that won 14 games and shattered Division II records. Some games you remember forever. I will never forget Delta State’s national championship victory. Ten times, the DSU offense got the ball that day. On the first nine possessions, they scored touchdowns. On the 10th, they ran out the clock. Such precision: They pitched a perfect game is what they did. They were as well-coached as any offense these eyes have seen. Later on, Campbell won another national title at Gulf Coast Community College. Campbell’s first two teams at South have won just five games, but I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t get it going there, as well.
We know that Southern Miss is a two-touchdown favorite, this despite the fact the Golden Eagles recently have lost three of their best players, if not their three best players. All-conference defensive end Jacques Turner, linebacker Racheem Booth and wide receiver/kick returner Jaylond Adams, the fastest player on the team, are among six players who decided not to play this season. Such losses, all happening so close to the start of a season, would stress any college football program. Southern Miss, which long has struggled for depth, surely is no exception.
We know that the crowd will be small, and the home-field advantage virtually non-existent. Only about 9,000 fans will be allowed into The Rock, about 25 percent of capacity. We know that all stadium workers will wear masks. We know social distancing will be enforced. We know fans will be required to wear masks when entering the stadium and when moving around within it.
We know the officials on the field will wear masks. Traditionally, the guys in striped shirts have often been called thieves, crooks and worse. Now, they will look the part.
Seriously, there is so much more we don’t know.
We don’t know how much COVID-19 has affected preparations by either team. We don’t know how many players have missed practices or how many practices they’ve missed. We don’t even know if results of recent tests will cause any key players to miss tonight.
We don’t know how much missing spring training will affect the quality of play. Since reporters have not been allowed to view practices, we don’t know much about depth chart changes or the new additions to either team.
We don’t know how much players’ conditioning has been affected by the pandemic. We don’t know how many players have been quarantined and for what length of time. We just don’t know.
We don’t even know if we really ought to be playing football at all. We don’t know how long the season that begins tonight will continue. This promises to be the strangest of seasons, one so many across the country have decided not to play.
We do know they’ll play football in Hattiesburg tonight. And we know what we say these days when anyone leaves home or their comfort zone: Stay safe.
A former director at the Mississippi Department of Education has been charged in connection to an alleged conspiracy to circumvent the state’s contract procurement process and award contracts to individuals in exchange for kickbacks.
Cerissa Neal, the former director of the Office of Educator Licensure, is accused of conspiring with three others to split contract requests from one contract into smaller contracts in order to avoid the required competitive bidding process. She would then allegedly award the contract to her co-defendants’ businesses at an inflated price.
Neal is being charged on one count of conspiracy; seven counts of wire fraud; one count of money laundering; and three counts of bribery.
The federal indictment charges Neal and three Tennessee-based business owners of fraud by “bid rigging, false quotes, and altered purchase orders” in order to make money for themselves and their businesses.
But Neal’s attorney Lisa Ross says if her client is being targeted, the Mississippi Department of Education should be targeted as well.
“If this goes to trial, the Mississippi Department of Education is going to be on trial,” said Ross. “Because these were their policies, and the way this thing played out was pursuant to their rules and regulations.”
In a statement, State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright said the department of education was glad to see action was being taken.
“The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is pleased to see legal action being taken against the individuals who are alleged to have defrauded the MDE and the State of Mississippi. We reported this suspected activity in October 2017 to the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) when we discovered evidence that a former employee may have violated state procurement laws,” Wright said.
“At the time of the discovery, we conducted an immediate, internal audit of all business transactions in which the former employee was involved and provided the audit results and all related records to the OSA. We are eager to continue to assist the investigation through to its conclusion.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst
U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst, whose office brought the charges against Neal, said pursuing public corruption is a high priority for his office and a personal mission of his.
“Those who defraud the public’s trust will find themselves standing before a court of law to answer for their wrongs. Public corruption erodes faith in our democracy and decays the very soul of our form of government,” he said in a statement. “…We will continue to pursue corruption wherever it may lead.”
Other contracts awarded by the Mississippi Department of Education have been the object of scrutiny in recent years. The department’s awarding of contracts totaling over $600,000 to former co-workers of State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright also garnered attention in 2016.
The department’s payments of $214,469 in fiscal year 2015 to Joseph Kyles, a Memphis community activist named as a co-defendant of Neal’s, raised eyebrows several years ago, including those of then-State Auditor Stacey Pickering.
“I applaud the investigative work in this case and that of our federal partners,” said State Auditor Shad White, who has repeatedly criticized the department about spending in recent months. “In 2017, the auditor’s office provided information about these defendants to federal authorities, so I’m grateful for the work of those investigators and former Auditor Pickering as well.”
In cases where a competing quote was required by the state education department, Neal is accused of obtaining “false and inflated quotes, by herself and from the other conspirators, designed to make the intended conspirator’s business the lower bid,” according to the indictment.
Neal would then receive payments from the winning bidder, one of her three fellow co-defendants: Kyles, David B. Hunt and Lambert Martin, all of whom owned businesses in Tennessee.
The crimes reportedly occurred over a three-year period from 2013 to 2016. The Kyles Company received the largest amount of state funds at more than $650,000, according to court documents.
The allegedly fraudulent contracts were for transferring teacher personnel record files from microfiche to digital storage media and purchase orders for educational classroom equipment. The equipment was to be paid for from federal funds.
Neal, who pleaded not guilty on all counts, referred questions to Ross, her attorney.
“We were totally shocked by the indictment. It’s too early to say where we’re going, we’re looking at all of our options and in the end we’re going to do what’s best for my client,” Ross said. “We’re going to work to make sure that she’s not singled out. That’s our goal.”
Ross also said she urged people to remember they are hearing “only one side of the story.”
Hunt, the owner of Doc Imaging and Hunt Services in Jackson, Tenn., said he hired Kyles as a consultant to help his document management company find business over a three-year period. He said he has all of his receipts and does not know why he’s been charged in connection with this.
His attorney Michael Dawkins said the allegations “paint a picture that the facts do not support” and that his client did not break the law.
“He is confident that as the facts of this case are revealed, he will be cleared of all charges, and his good name will be restored,” said Dawkins.
According to the indictment, Neal received more than $42,000 in direct or indirect payments from her co-defendants.
The trial has been set for Sept. 28 before U.S. District Court Judge Tom S. Lee.
Democrat Mike Espy is challenging Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith this November.
Two months from Election Day during one of the most uncertain political moments in American history, we asked top Mississippi politicos to share their thoughts on the 2020 U.S. Senate race between Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy.
Click on the names of political experts below to read more about what they think of the 2020 Senate race.
STUART STEVENS, best-selling author and longtime Republican political consultant who has been a top strategist for numerous presidential and congressional campaigns.
“I would think it would be a true statement to say that Mike Espy is in the business of getting votes,” Stevens said. “Cindy Hyde-Smith is in the business of not losing votes. I would much rather be in the business of getting votes.”
PAM SHAW, a longtime strategist who has focused her career in Mississippi politics on reaching and turning out Black voters.
“If you’re a Democrat, you can always count on older Black folk to show up,” Shaw said. “But you can’t count on them to show up during this pandemic. I know older Black people who haven’t missed a vote in many, many cycles who have not been out of their house since March. That has to be a very real concern (for Espy).”
HENRY BARBOUR, a longtime Republican strategist for national and statewide candidates and Mississippi Republican national committeeman.
“I tend to think that Trump voters are more likely to turn out in Mississippi than the folks wanting to beat Trump,” Barbour said. “I think that Cindy Hyde-Smith has an advantage there that she’ll get to ride with a big presidential turnout.”
MARVIN KING, associate professor of political science at the University of Mississippi.
“I think (Hyde-Smith’s) strategy of laying low is safe because she had some major gaffes in 2018,” King said. “As long as you’re polling ahead, despite not raising as much money recently, and as long as Trump is polling ahead, she can just say, ‘I’m a Trump Republican.’ That might be all she needs to do or say. My guess is her advisers know that.”
NATHAN SHRADER, chair of the Department of Government and Politics at Millsaps College.
“That has been my past impression of (Hyde-Smith’s) strategy, to ride on the coattails of the president,” Shrader said. “Think back to the special election in 2018 – Donald Trump’s visit. Part of his rhetoric was pretend I’m on the ballot when you go to vote for Cindy. Now she doesn’t have to rely on pretending he’s on the ballot.”
D’ANDRA OREY, professor of political science at Jackson State University.
“The aftermath of George Floyd’s death has illuminated stark racial, social and economic disparities that grossly impact African Americans,” Orey said. “Those viewing race relations through a more conservative lens may have framed the violence that has taken place as ‘riots’ and ‘looting’ being conducted by ‘thugs.’ These voters will be more attracted to law and order campaign messages.”
MARTY WISEMAN, longtime Mississippi politico and professor at Mississippi State University.
“I think Espy has got a shot, but everything has to fall perfectly,” Wiseman said. “People would have to turn out to vote who probably haven’t turned out to vote since the Obama races in ’08 and ’12.”
