The Firsthand Report ⌗1

In this issue: COVID Justice Resolution asks Senate for reckoning, NYHIPA is back, NYC worker reinstatement rule change further delayed, Religious Liberty Commission hearing Monday

Welcome to The Firsthand Report, a new newsletter from Firsthand Media. There’s a lot going on these days, and this is where I’ll be bringing you brief reports on developments in civil liberties, public and tech policy, and current events.

I’ll be focusing on New York and continuing to cover the impact of NYC’s COVID-era policies, but I’ll also touch on national and international developments. Like the name says, I do my best to get the information I report firsthand, from on-the-ground reporting and primary sources.

Here goes issue #1:

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☞ It’s been six years since the WHO declared a pandemic and governments everywhere rolled out a series of restrictive policies that began with “two weeks to slow the spread” and culminated in thousands of ordinary people getting fired, censored, and vilified. They have not received the reckoning they’ve been calling for all this time.

Now a coalition of organizations is petitioning U.S. Senators to initiate that reckoning with a COVID JUSTICE RESOLUTION. The resolution “repudiates the most destructive COVID-era policies and establishes binding principles to ensure they are never repeated.” To learn more about it, check out this conversation with Michael Kane from Teachers for Choice and some of the people who worked on the resolution.

You can read the COVID Justice Resolution and sign it on the coalition’s website.

☞ NYHIPA IS BACK. The New York Health Information Privacy Act made it all the way to the governor’s desk last year only to get vetoed. If it had passed, it would have created the nation’s strongest privacy protections for health-related consumer data, which isn’t covered under federal HIPAA rules.

It was a flawed piece of legislation, with requirements for companies that might have made it impracticable for them to comply. It was also the most lobbied bill in Albany last fall.

Now it’s starting at square one again in a revised form, working its way through committees. The new version adds some specifics about what’s covered and gives companies a little more time to respond to consumer requests. It also adds a bunch of carveouts for government entities and employers. I’ll be taking a closer look at those as the legislation moves toward a floor vote.

☞ No, the NEW YORK STATE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION HAS NOT RECEIVED THE RULE CHANGE required to reinstate some NYC municipal workers who were fired under NYC’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can get the full story in my previous coverage.)

Those who have been following this story know that the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) proposed an amendment to the City’s personnel rules that is required to make reinstatement possible for many workers. DCAS had a hearing on it back in November, and the next step was for the rule change to go to the Civil Service Commission for approval.

As of this week, the rule change appears to still be with DCAS. According to the New York State Civil Service Department’s Public Information Office (PIO), the Commission hasn’t received it for consideration and it’s supposed to come to them directly from DCAS (not through the Mayor’s Office as some have speculated).

It gets worse. The PIO explained the approval process to me: “Once our office receives the formal resolution, the required analysis—ensuring conformance with Civil Service Law—can take up to 90 days before the item is placed on the State Commission calendar. This timeline is subject to the complexity of the analysis and the date of receipt.”

Fired teachers are in a slightly better situation because the rule change isn’t required for their reinstatement, but the Department of Education has basically ghosted them since former mayor Eric Adams announced the reinstatement policy in November. No reinstatement process has been put in place for them, and the DOE isn’t answering questions about it.

If you’re a teacher and have received a response or any other relevant information, please let me know in the comments or at tips.firsthandmedia@protonmail.com.

☞ The RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION WILL HOLD A HEARING ON MONDAY that will address religious exemptions to vaccine mandates, among other topics. The Religious Liberty in Healthcare and Social Services hearing will take place at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. from 8:30 to 2:30, and it will be livestreamed. I don’t have any information about who will be testifying yet.

If you haven’t seen Hermione Susana’s testimony at last month’s hearing, you can watch it here beginning at 2:40:22. She did a tremendous job of laying out the ordeal she went through after being denied a religious exemption and losing not one but three jobs as a hospitality worker at major NYC venues—you know, the ones where athletes were allowed to play without being vaccinated but unvaccinated workers were fired.

Listen until the end so that you can hear her responses to questions from the Commission. She touched on the situation with public sector workers as well as private sector employees like herself in the brief time she had to speak.