DAMN!! How will HISTORY look back on Trump, Fox News & all his supporters during Coronavirus & AFTER he leaves office? UPDATE: Trump WON
- Thread starter playahaitian
- Start date
Rep. Greene Ridiculed for Bill to Bring Fauci Salary to $0
Greene introduced two long-shot bills to Congress that would zero out Anthony Fauci’s salary and require businesses to serve the unvaccinated.
Rep. Greene Ridiculed for Bill to Bring Fauci Salary to $0
Greene introduced two long-shot bills to Congress that would zero out Anthony Fauci’s salary and require businesses to serve the unvaccinated.
Marjorie Taylor Greene offers bills to fire Fauci, ban vaccine passports
BY TAL AXELROD - 04/01/21 12:27 PM EDT 1,595
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced two bills Thursday that would eliminate Anthony Fauci’s salary and ban vaccine passports.
Greene’s Fire Fauci Act would cut the salary for Fauci, the government’s leading infectious diseases expert, to zero. It is unclear if such a cut could be authorized even if the legislation is passed.
According to the conservative firebrand, the cut would be made until a new director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is “confirmed by the Senate.” However, that position's appointment is not subject to Senate confirmation.
The We Will Not Comply Act would “ban” vaccine passports — documents that show that Americans have been vaccinated — by prohibiting businesses engaged in interstate commerce from using them to allow patrons to access their services.
Neither bill is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House and Senate, but the legislation marks an escalation of Greene’s criticism of the federal guidance regarding the pandemic.
Greene, who has already faced backlash for a slew of controversial remarks and support for conspiracy theories, has garnered new pushback over her criticism of health guidelines, which detractors say could curtail Americans' trust in public guidance on the virus.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said the new pieces of legislation are examples “of why Members of Congress need good staff.”
“Helps prevent us from introducing stupid, nonsensical bills,” he tweeted.
Greene is not alone in her criticism of Fauci and vaccine passports.
Other GOP lawmakers have slammed Fauci over what they view as missteps in the early days of the pandemic. And a number of governors have railed against vaccine passports, which could be used to grant access to certain activities, buildings or events.
Fauci most recently clashed with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) last month when the Kentucky senator said masks were “theater.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) earlier this week urged his state’s GOP-controlled legislature to pass a law forbidding the passports.
Democrats have said such remarks could further undermine trust in federal health guidance, which already appears to be low among Republican men.
Last month, a PBS NewsHour-NPR-Marist poll found that 49 percent of Republican men would not receive a coronavirus vaccine.
Dan Patrick and the damaged Republican psyche
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (Photo by Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images)
There is no greater proponent of Trump's false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election than Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R). Patrick described Trump's wild claims of rigged voting machines and stuffed drop boxes as "not only essential to determine the outcome of this election," but "essential to maintain our democracy and restore faith in future elections." Patrick was so convinced there was a cover-up of the real election results that, a week after the election, he offered a $1 million reward "to incentivize, encourage and reward people to come forward and report voter fraud." Patrick also supported a lawsuit, filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Supreme Court, to throw out election results in four states won by Biden.
None of that worked, and now Patrick is turning his attention to passing Senate Bill 7 (SB 7) in the Texas legislature, a measure to restrict voting in Texas. Trump won Texas and there is no evidence of any significant voter fraud in the 2020 election. Paxton devoted 22,000 hours to investigating potential voter fraud and ended up finding 16 cases of people who listed invalid addresses on their voter registration forms. But, even though Texas already has the strictest voting laws in the country, Patrick and his allies are determined to make voting even more difficult.
This effort has hit some snags. Corporations, including iconic Texas companies like American Airlines and Dell, have come out in opposition to the law. Some Republicans in the legislature are expressing doubts. "I don’t know if the measures that are being talked about are necessary,” Texas Representative Kyle Kacal (R) said this week. "I don’t know how much fraud there really is, but people need the opportunity to vote." Texas Representative Lyle Larson has also suggested he’s leaning against the bill. The new Speaker of the Texas House, Dade Phelan (R), has not publicly supported the legislation. Republicans can only afford to lose nine Republicans in the House and still pass the bill.
All of this has Patrick and other Republicans agitated. Patrick let out his frustrations in a wild 35-minute press conference on Tuesday in which he berated a reporter for asking a "stupid question," excoriated American Airlines, and repeatedly lied about his efforts to restrict voting in Texas.
Trust the system
According to Patrick, SB 7 is needed because “Americans no longer trust the system.”
Yet, Patrick failed to acknowledge his role in eroding public trust before and after Election Day.
In May 2020, as officials in the state worked on expanding mail-in voting in response to the COVID-19 crisis, Patrick called these efforts “the greatest scam ever” by Democrats and said that it “will destroy America if we allow it to happen.” In June 2020, Patrick said on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show that expanded mail-in voting would spur the demise of democracy :
Then, after the election, Patrick offered a cash reward for evidence of voter fraud. But even with a million-dollar cash reward on the line, Patrick has yet to provide evidence to back his allegations of fraud. His justification of SB 7 rests on the mere perception of fraud as opposed to its actual existence — a perception he played a big role in creating.
At the press conference, Patrick acknowledged that evidence of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. Yet, he is still confident it is happening. “Mail-in ballot fraud is so hard to catch and to prove, but Democrats and Republicans alike know it exists, and that’s why we have to secure our mail-in ballot,” he said.
Patrick's big lie
Patrick also claimed that the criticism of the bill was unwarranted because it changed nothing about any aspect of the voting process in Texas:
First, the bill would ban drive-thru voting in Texas. 127,000 voters in Harris County cast their votes early in drive-thru locations in 2020. And others voted at a drive-thru location on Election Day. Republicans sued to invalidate the votes but lost. Patrick claimed he is actually doing people of color a favor because most don't own cars.
Second, SB 7 would outlaw 24-hour voting locations anywhere in the state. In 2020, Harris County operated eight 24-hour voting locations. The practice helps reduce early voting lines and provides opportunities to vote for people who work odd hours. "Hopefully in the future, dozens of counties follow our lead and offer a night of 24-hour voting to support their voters," Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins said. Patrick, without citing evidence, claimed these locations were insecure.
So, despite Patrick's angry denials, SB 7 imposes significant new restrictions on early, Election Day, and mail-in voting. "Everything I said today is true. Every fact I gave you is correct. And, if I’m off a number and I misspoke, I’ll correct it," Patrick insisted.
The not-so-friendly skies
Echoing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Patrick said that companies that speak out against voting restrictions should expect payback. American Airlines issued a statement saying they were "strongly opposed" to SB 7 and "others like it." The company said it had an obligation to "honor the sacrifices made by generations of Americans to protect and expand the right to vote."
Now that American Airlines has spoken, Patrick warned the company not to come to him and Governor Abbott with "their hand out" because that's not "the way we do business."
The last question
After a lengthy soliloquy, Patrick took a few questions from the press. Christian Flores, a reporter for CBS News, asked if he planned on giving the $1 million reward to Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D), who provided Patrick with evidence that a Trump supporter in Pennsylvania tried to cast an illegal vote.
"Don't ask me a stupid question," Patrick said. "I didn't come here to take stupid questions from the media."
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (Photo by Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images)
There is no greater proponent of Trump's false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election than Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R). Patrick described Trump's wild claims of rigged voting machines and stuffed drop boxes as "not only essential to determine the outcome of this election," but "essential to maintain our democracy and restore faith in future elections." Patrick was so convinced there was a cover-up of the real election results that, a week after the election, he offered a $1 million reward "to incentivize, encourage and reward people to come forward and report voter fraud." Patrick also supported a lawsuit, filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Supreme Court, to throw out election results in four states won by Biden.
None of that worked, and now Patrick is turning his attention to passing Senate Bill 7 (SB 7) in the Texas legislature, a measure to restrict voting in Texas. Trump won Texas and there is no evidence of any significant voter fraud in the 2020 election. Paxton devoted 22,000 hours to investigating potential voter fraud and ended up finding 16 cases of people who listed invalid addresses on their voter registration forms. But, even though Texas already has the strictest voting laws in the country, Patrick and his allies are determined to make voting even more difficult.
This effort has hit some snags. Corporations, including iconic Texas companies like American Airlines and Dell, have come out in opposition to the law. Some Republicans in the legislature are expressing doubts. "I don’t know if the measures that are being talked about are necessary,” Texas Representative Kyle Kacal (R) said this week. "I don’t know how much fraud there really is, but people need the opportunity to vote." Texas Representative Lyle Larson has also suggested he’s leaning against the bill. The new Speaker of the Texas House, Dade Phelan (R), has not publicly supported the legislation. Republicans can only afford to lose nine Republicans in the House and still pass the bill.
All of this has Patrick and other Republicans agitated. Patrick let out his frustrations in a wild 35-minute press conference on Tuesday in which he berated a reporter for asking a "stupid question," excoriated American Airlines, and repeatedly lied about his efforts to restrict voting in Texas.
Trust the system
According to Patrick, SB 7 is needed because “Americans no longer trust the system.”
Yet, Patrick failed to acknowledge his role in eroding public trust before and after Election Day.
In May 2020, as officials in the state worked on expanding mail-in voting in response to the COVID-19 crisis, Patrick called these efforts “the greatest scam ever” by Democrats and said that it “will destroy America if we allow it to happen.” In June 2020, Patrick said on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show that expanded mail-in voting would spur the demise of democracy :
Just days before the election, Patrick stated on live television that if Trump “loses Pennsylvania or North Carolina… or Florida, they'll lose it because [Democrats] stole it.”
Then, after the election, Patrick offered a cash reward for evidence of voter fraud. But even with a million-dollar cash reward on the line, Patrick has yet to provide evidence to back his allegations of fraud. His justification of SB 7 rests on the mere perception of fraud as opposed to its actual existence — a perception he played a big role in creating.
At the press conference, Patrick acknowledged that evidence of voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. Yet, he is still confident it is happening. “Mail-in ballot fraud is so hard to catch and to prove, but Democrats and Republicans alike know it exists, and that’s why we have to secure our mail-in ballot,” he said.
Patrick's big lie
Patrick also claimed that the criticism of the bill was unwarranted because it changed nothing about any aspect of the voting process in Texas:
If that's the case, why is anyone objecting to SB 7? The reason is that Patrick was lying. Later in the same press conference, Patrick detailed legal changes SB 7 would make to mail-in, Election Day, and early voting in Texas. Patrick freely admitted that these changes were specifically targeted at Harris County, the largest in Texas, which includes Houston. It has one of the largest concentrations of Black voters in the state.
First, the bill would ban drive-thru voting in Texas. 127,000 voters in Harris County cast their votes early in drive-thru locations in 2020. And others voted at a drive-thru location on Election Day. Republicans sued to invalidate the votes but lost. Patrick claimed he is actually doing people of color a favor because most don't own cars.
SB 7 would make other important changes to in-person voting. It would require countywide polling locations to have a roughly equal number of voting machines, effectively banning the use of arenas as mega-polling locations. Arenas were used in cities across Texas to reduce lines and increase safety across the state. It would also allow observers to film voters at polling locations, which could subject voters to intimidation and harassment.
Second, SB 7 would outlaw 24-hour voting locations anywhere in the state. In 2020, Harris County operated eight 24-hour voting locations. The practice helps reduce early voting lines and provides opportunities to vote for people who work odd hours. "Hopefully in the future, dozens of counties follow our lead and offer a night of 24-hour voting to support their voters," Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins said. Patrick, without citing evidence, claimed these locations were insecure.
Third, Harris County also sent absentee ballot applications to all residents 65 or older. (The county attempted to send them to all voters but was blocked by the Texas Supreme Court.) SB 7 would prohibit sending anyone a ballot application they didn't specifically request. Patrick asserts, without evidence, that sending applications to registered voters invites fraud. He raised the specter of dead people voting, a favorite tactic of Trump.
SB 7 would also prohibit the use of drop boxes to return mail-in ballots.
So, despite Patrick's angry denials, SB 7 imposes significant new restrictions on early, Election Day, and mail-in voting. "Everything I said today is true. Every fact I gave you is correct. And, if I’m off a number and I misspoke, I’ll correct it," Patrick insisted.
The not-so-friendly skies
Echoing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Patrick said that companies that speak out against voting restrictions should expect payback. American Airlines issued a statement saying they were "strongly opposed" to SB 7 and "others like it." The company said it had an obligation to "honor the sacrifices made by generations of Americans to protect and expand the right to vote."
Now that American Airlines has spoken, Patrick warned the company not to come to him and Governor Abbott with "their hand out" because that's not "the way we do business."
Patrick referred to American Airlines derisively throughout the press conference, frequently asking rhetorically if "Mr. American Airlines" would approve of various aspects of the bill. He also repeatedly claimed that no one at American Airlines read the bill, which the company denies.
The last question
After a lengthy soliloquy, Patrick took a few questions from the press. Christian Flores, a reporter for CBS News, asked if he planned on giving the $1 million reward to Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D), who provided Patrick with evidence that a Trump supporter in Pennsylvania tried to cast an illegal vote.
"Don't ask me a stupid question," Patrick said. "I didn't come here to take stupid questions from the media."
I would keep asking where is my reward money. Lord knows if a black person voted democrat twice, they would never stop talking about it.
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Politics: 46 percent of Republicans think the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict is wrong
https://twitter.com/search?q=%2246%25%20of%20Republicans%22&src=trend_click&vertical=trends @easy_b @Camille
www.bgol.us
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Prior to Trump the president of the United States for years has always been known as the most "Powerful Man in the World." Guess Trump never saw that memo. Trump was so wrapped up in his own bullshit he never lived up to that title.
Just look at how he adored Putin. If Putin was a bitch, he'd put a ring on it. Also notice Biden's handling of Putin, Biden knows. Also notice Russians are demonstrating against Putin.
Just look at how he adored Putin. If Putin was a bitch, he'd put a ring on it. Also notice Biden's handling of Putin, Biden knows. Also notice Russians are demonstrating against Putin.
I been telling people that CNN is part of the problem.
bruh thats a rightwing YT channel,its got nothing to with FORBES financial media , its a deceptively named channel , everything on that channel is anti-black
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Ooh no not my retirement fund.
401k, ROTH IRA, HSA not affected.
It also applies to ppl making $1M and more per year.
Prophetic statement at the time...
Pro-Trump web forums are abuzz with directions to forge Covid vaccine cards
Some states put templates online, spurring pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums to start spreading tips for how to create fake cards.
www.nbcnews.com
April 29, 2021, 4:44 PM EDT / Updated April 29, 2021, 7:06 PM EDT
By Kevin Collier and Ben Collins
Specific directions showing how to forge Covid-19 vaccination cards have proliferated on conspiracy, pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums throughout the internet in recent weeks, as users have exploited a largely makeshift verification system.
The cards, distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have been handed out to the more than 140 million Americans who have already received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccination. The Biden administration has declared it wouldn't create a federal vaccination database, citing privacy concerns, paving the way for the cards to become the country’s default national way to verify if someone has been vaccinated.
And while one state — New York — has embraced a vaccination verification app, there is scant evidence that others are close behind.
While much of the country is in the early stages of deciding how to ask employees, students and travelers to prove they've been vaccinated, most of those entities that have already established a plan rely on those cards. The Silicon Valley company Salesforce announced earlier this month that employees returning to work in person will need to show their cards, and United Airlines said it will require the same of its employees.
Seven universities that already have plans in place to ask students to be vaccinated before attending this fall — American University, Bowdoin College, the University of Colorado Boulder, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Fort Lewis College, Rutgers University and Wesleyan University — all said the verification process would consist of asking students to upload their CDC cards, at least if they're coming from out of state.
New warning about fake Covid vaccine cards
April 9, 202101:34
But since the cards are marked by hand, don't contain much information, are printed on easily obtainable heavy white paper and are impossible to quickly verify, it leaves an opportunity for the anti-vaccine community to beat the system by sharing directions on how to forge them.
"It's a cardboard paper card," said Alyssa Miller, a cybersecurity expert who specializes in protecting large organizations. "There's absolutely nothing about it that would prevent you from reproducing it."
"How are you going to make someone at the opposite end, the ones who are supposed to be verifying these, to look at one and determine if it's legitimate or if it's fake?" she said.
In March, the FBI released a public warning that creating or buying a fake vaccine card is illegal.
On conspiracy and anti-government forums throughout the web, users have linked to card templates that were left visible on the websites of state governments, including high-resolution PDFs from the websites of both the Wyoming and Missouri health departments.
The CDC has since delivered guidance to states to pull the templates from their sites, citing “misuse” by the anti-vaccine community, according to state officials.
"CDC has consistently advised states not to post the vaccine card template publicly," CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich said in a statement.
The instructions for how to create forged cards have appeared in high-ranking comments and posts on pro-Trump forums, like TheDonald.win, which was rebranded to Patriots.Win after its userbase urged one another to storm the Capitol in the days before the Jan. 6 riot.
On the extremist forum 4chan, users were told to download a template from Wyoming’s Department of Health website, then given specific directions for the thickness of cardstock needed to replicate the cards. The directions note that some vaccination centers affix stick-on labels on cards to denote the date, so the recommended resolution for the printed labels is also provided.
Versions of the instructions, which have also been posted to gun forums and QAnon forums, remind users to write the date in a blue ballpoint pen, and not to be too neat with their handwriting, emulating a rushed or tired nurse. Some instructions provide potential batch numbers of the Pfizer or Moderna shots that align with dates they were distributed.
The posts usually link to templates that were publicly available and posted on the back end of the websites of several states.
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A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said they received a call from the CDC "about a month ago" saying "it would be best for states to no longer have that material available online as some were using the card/file for fraudulent use."
"Initially, it was included on our vaccinators' resources web page because there were times when providers would not receive enough cards with the vaccines, especially when additional doses were being drawn before larger ancillary kits were made available," a Missouri Health Department spokesperson said.
Wyoming’s Health Department also confirmed its template was removed April 1, citing "misuse."
"The initial goal for posting the document was to make things a little easier for community providers," a department spokesperson said.
Despite how easy the cards are to forge, digital privacy advocates say that a paper-based system is still preferable to a central online database or smartphone app. More programs like New York's Excelsior program — so far the only statewide smartphone app that functions as a vaccine passport — would create more ways for individuals' data to be monitored, said Hayley Tsukayama, a legislative activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit.
"Setting up massive systems for tracking folks, collecting their information, and then with no kind of exit plan, how is that data going to be treated?" she said.
"We have an analog system that works for the purposes of what we're doing. You know sometimes when you're looking at smart technology, and you're like, 'Does that really need to be smart? Was that a thing that I needed in my life?'" she said. "I think this is a good example of that."
One alternative is allowing vaccine distributors, such as state governments and pharmacies, to print official cards with more built-in safeguards, more akin to a driver's license. But that requires longer-term planning for a vaccine response that's largely created in real time, said Eva Velasquez, the president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a victim advocacy organization.
"Paper is always going to be less of a risk for unintended compromise of anything digital," she said.
"If [the CDC card] is just a short-term solution for how we temporarily navigate the world and get back to resuming our normal, then it is probably adequate. But there's a lot of unknowns. We don't know how long this is going to last."
Still, the templates now proliferate online. Some users have created archives of the documents using instant archival services like archive.is, which users now link to directly, along with the forgery instructions.
Polling has shown vaccine hesitancy is most prevalent among Republican men, with one Monmouth University poll from April 14 showing 43 percent of Republicans saying they would never receive the shot.
On pro-Trump forums like Patriots.Win where the forgeries run rampant, conspiracy theories about the vaccine and government control are the norm, not the exception.
“If they actually go the route of trying to make this ‘mandatory,’ this will become one of the most forged documents in history,” reads the top comment on one of the posts directing users to forge cards.
Kevin Collier
Kevin Collier is a reporter covering cybersecurity, privacy and technology policy for NBC News.
Ben Collins
Ben Collins covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News.
Some states put templates online, spurring pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums to start spreading tips for how to create fake cards.
Pro-Trump web forums are abuzz with directions to forge Covid vaccine cards
Some states put templates online, spurring pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums to start spreading tips for how to create fake cards.
www.nbcnews.com
April 29, 2021, 4:44 PM EDT / Updated April 29, 2021, 7:06 PM EDT
By Kevin Collier and Ben Collins
Specific directions showing how to forge Covid-19 vaccination cards have proliferated on conspiracy, pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums throughout the internet in recent weeks, as users have exploited a largely makeshift verification system.
The cards, distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have been handed out to the more than 140 million Americans who have already received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccination. The Biden administration has declared it wouldn't create a federal vaccination database, citing privacy concerns, paving the way for the cards to become the country’s default national way to verify if someone has been vaccinated.
And while one state — New York — has embraced a vaccination verification app, there is scant evidence that others are close behind.
While much of the country is in the early stages of deciding how to ask employees, students and travelers to prove they've been vaccinated, most of those entities that have already established a plan rely on those cards. The Silicon Valley company Salesforce announced earlier this month that employees returning to work in person will need to show their cards, and United Airlines said it will require the same of its employees.
Seven universities that already have plans in place to ask students to be vaccinated before attending this fall — American University, Bowdoin College, the University of Colorado Boulder, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Fort Lewis College, Rutgers University and Wesleyan University — all said the verification process would consist of asking students to upload their CDC cards, at least if they're coming from out of state.
New warning about fake Covid vaccine cards
April 9, 202101:34
But since the cards are marked by hand, don't contain much information, are printed on easily obtainable heavy white paper and are impossible to quickly verify, it leaves an opportunity for the anti-vaccine community to beat the system by sharing directions on how to forge them.
"It's a cardboard paper card," said Alyssa Miller, a cybersecurity expert who specializes in protecting large organizations. "There's absolutely nothing about it that would prevent you from reproducing it."
"How are you going to make someone at the opposite end, the ones who are supposed to be verifying these, to look at one and determine if it's legitimate or if it's fake?" she said.
In March, the FBI released a public warning that creating or buying a fake vaccine card is illegal.
On conspiracy and anti-government forums throughout the web, users have linked to card templates that were left visible on the websites of state governments, including high-resolution PDFs from the websites of both the Wyoming and Missouri health departments.
The CDC has since delivered guidance to states to pull the templates from their sites, citing “misuse” by the anti-vaccine community, according to state officials.
"CDC has consistently advised states not to post the vaccine card template publicly," CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich said in a statement.
The instructions for how to create forged cards have appeared in high-ranking comments and posts on pro-Trump forums, like TheDonald.win, which was rebranded to Patriots.Win after its userbase urged one another to storm the Capitol in the days before the Jan. 6 riot.
On the extremist forum 4chan, users were told to download a template from Wyoming’s Department of Health website, then given specific directions for the thickness of cardstock needed to replicate the cards. The directions note that some vaccination centers affix stick-on labels on cards to denote the date, so the recommended resolution for the printed labels is also provided.
Versions of the instructions, which have also been posted to gun forums and QAnon forums, remind users to write the date in a blue ballpoint pen, and not to be too neat with their handwriting, emulating a rushed or tired nurse. Some instructions provide potential batch numbers of the Pfizer or Moderna shots that align with dates they were distributed.
The posts usually link to templates that were publicly available and posted on the back end of the websites of several states.
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Tech NewsPro-Trump web forums are abuzz with directions to forge Covid vaccine cards
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A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said they received a call from the CDC "about a month ago" saying "it would be best for states to no longer have that material available online as some were using the card/file for fraudulent use."
"Initially, it was included on our vaccinators' resources web page because there were times when providers would not receive enough cards with the vaccines, especially when additional doses were being drawn before larger ancillary kits were made available," a Missouri Health Department spokesperson said.
Wyoming’s Health Department also confirmed its template was removed April 1, citing "misuse."
"The initial goal for posting the document was to make things a little easier for community providers," a department spokesperson said.
Despite how easy the cards are to forge, digital privacy advocates say that a paper-based system is still preferable to a central online database or smartphone app. More programs like New York's Excelsior program — so far the only statewide smartphone app that functions as a vaccine passport — would create more ways for individuals' data to be monitored, said Hayley Tsukayama, a legislative activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit.
"Setting up massive systems for tracking folks, collecting their information, and then with no kind of exit plan, how is that data going to be treated?" she said.
"We have an analog system that works for the purposes of what we're doing. You know sometimes when you're looking at smart technology, and you're like, 'Does that really need to be smart? Was that a thing that I needed in my life?'" she said. "I think this is a good example of that."
One alternative is allowing vaccine distributors, such as state governments and pharmacies, to print official cards with more built-in safeguards, more akin to a driver's license. But that requires longer-term planning for a vaccine response that's largely created in real time, said Eva Velasquez, the president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a victim advocacy organization.
"Paper is always going to be less of a risk for unintended compromise of anything digital," she said.
"If [the CDC card] is just a short-term solution for how we temporarily navigate the world and get back to resuming our normal, then it is probably adequate. But there's a lot of unknowns. We don't know how long this is going to last."
Still, the templates now proliferate online. Some users have created archives of the documents using instant archival services like archive.is, which users now link to directly, along with the forgery instructions.
Polling has shown vaccine hesitancy is most prevalent among Republican men, with one Monmouth University poll from April 14 showing 43 percent of Republicans saying they would never receive the shot.
On pro-Trump forums like Patriots.Win where the forgeries run rampant, conspiracy theories about the vaccine and government control are the norm, not the exception.
“If they actually go the route of trying to make this ‘mandatory,’ this will become one of the most forged documents in history,” reads the top comment on one of the posts directing users to forge cards.
Kevin Collier
Kevin Collier is a reporter covering cybersecurity, privacy and technology policy for NBC News.
Ben Collins
Ben Collins covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News.
Trump Gave a Scholarship to a 4th Grader ‘Trapped’ in a ‘Failing’ Public Education at the State of the Union. She Reportedly Attends a Top Charter School
Trump pointed to her experience as an argument for expanding school choice
I have no idea how i missed this...
That man is just the worst
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I think this about covers it.
