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CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
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Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true in the abstract but adds nothing to the discussion if you actually had to make a decision. Lumping everything into "Government" and not government is partly why American society is completely broken in some regards.
As long as every branch of "Government" has the authority to escalate to forcible imprisonment for noncompliance with their policy, I will be equally mistrustful of all of them.
Sure but sometimes you just want to get the pothole outside your house fixed, which requires being able to construct (even for just the short term, privatise that road if you) systems and incentives that work for real problems, which in turn requires people to (regardless of trust) get their arms dirty which I think is unlikely if you have everyone trying to propitiate to the ghost of Ronald Reagan.
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that this data is available for anyone to purchase. And anyone includes groups that you don't want to have it. Some people focus their attention on limiting the government's ability to collect this information, but just go about ignoring businesses being legally allowed to keep and sell this data. Now the government is leveraging privatized markets for all of their spying needs and it is neatly kept ou…
How could you even prevent the government from accessing the data if any random company with a few bucks can get it? If you had really strong safeguards, maybe you can stop the government from accessing it directly but what kind of safeguards are going to stop contractors of contractors of contractors from doing what every other private company does?
I'm not afraid of marketing flyers. I can handle crap like that. Highly Targetted Advertising, as annoying as it is, doesn't threaten to lock me up if I don't purchase something.
But I can't stop an inadequate power hungry government bureaucrat threatening me and my family over whatever because they want to feel important or powerful over others.
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What are you talking about? The CDC's mission is fundamentally the same as the mission of the Chinese disease control agency. The difference is how that mission is balanced against people's freedom to live their lives. Please don't misunderstand; that doesn't mean that I oppose everything they do. Everything they do limits freedom, but sometimes that is necessary.
Which specific limits on freedom are necessary? What are the criteria for determining necessity?
> Which specific limits on freedom are necessary?
That's the eternal question. Not just for disease control, but for everything.
> What are the criteria for determining necessity?
In a democracy, ultimately: elections.
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely not orthogonal to how you live your life; their very purpose is to limit how you live your life in order to prevent/reduce behaviors that spread disease. For example, they issue quarantine orders.[1] People understand that is their mission. Some find it scary. Everyone has a different threshold at which they start to object to the CDC overriding people's freedom in the pursuit of disease control, but…
It feels like your living in some strange alternate reality. What are you talking about? How is the CDC 'overriding freedom'? They collect data and make recommendations. The rest of the world is out here waiting for you, please wake up. We need everyone to make this work.
The CDC also enacts regulations under Section 361. Some of them, like the rent/eviction freeze, arguably encroached upon “freedom.”
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#236This is an excellent use of the data, a proof that it is worthwhile for the data to exist, and a terrifying demonstration that we need to grow the hell up with respect to data privacy. It actually sounds like the anonymization and aggregation was done pretty well for this. There's no such thing as 100% anonymity, but there are useful levels of anonymity. The fact that we don't have a standardized way of blessing data…
Doesn't the way they went about this have the same issue as the NSA, etc., going to the UK or other jurisdictions to get data on Americans when they can't legally obtain that data? If that is shady, then why isn't this also called out?
It looks like this is a method to circumvent the law.
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#237Yea, this data isn’t really anonymized. Draw a circle around your house, and simple algorithms for mobility data can detect and follow all patterns of life around, to & from your house.
Most people don’t realize mobility data even exists. Let alone what you can do with it.
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#238This is an excellent use of the data, a proof that it is worthwhile for the data to exist, and a terrifying demonstration that we need to grow the hell up with respect to data privacy. It actually sounds like the anonymization and aggregation was done pretty well for this. There's no such thing as 100% anonymity, but there are useful levels of anonymity. The fact that we don't have a standardized way of blessing data…
>and a terrifying demonstration that we need to grow the hell up with respect to data privacy Once again, "conspiracy theorists" were right. I'm beginning to think the governments of the world are reading them for ideas. >The fact that we don't have a standardized way of blessing data with varying known levels of privacy, checked and enforced by law, is kind of ridiculous in 2022. Sure, and then as soon as that happe…
This is commercial tracking data, not COVID app data. It's been well known for a long time that plenty of phone apps sell data to aggregators, it's not a conspiracy theory.
That commercial data isn't something any court would call a violation of the 4th amendment.
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Fauci as the saviour in Stockholme Syndrome... Not a downvoter (to your comment, I rarely vote) but does anybody pro-mask/pro-vaccine/pro-lockdown actually consider him a saviour? All I see (as a non American) is folks on the right hating him being considered a saviour... but I don't find a single post glorifying him even on left-leaning reddit.
Pro-vax, pro-science here. I respect him for trying to help our society in dealing with infectious disease but do not worship him (that's saved only for David Bowie). My take on anti-vaxxers is that they have a "religious" relationship to their belief system and therefor project their personal assumptions onto others.
I’m deeply troubled that Bowie worshipped him
Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was used correctly, you've just mistaken the point made about the CDC and how they view their mission
It's definitely not orthogonal to how you live your life; their very purpose is to limit how you live your life in order to prevent/reduce behaviors that spread disease. For example, they issue quarantine orders.[1] People understand that is their mission. Some find it scary. Everyone has a different threshold at which they start to object to the CDC overriding people's freedom in the pursuit of disease control, but…
> their very purpose is to limit how you live your life
Their purpose is to increase the overall duration of healthy life we have, both individually and in aggregate. Limiting how you live your life is, again, orthogonal to that.
For example, how is their campaign to control mosquitos and eradicate malaria in the US limiting how you live your life?