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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

#291

Post by darkhorse222 »

anamax wrote: post #273
mullingitover wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CDC wants a say in how people live their lives and thinks they know better than individuals about risk tolerance and decisions. Their charter is disease control . How you 'live your life' is orthogonal to that mission - they're responsible for stopping you from infecting other people with communicable diseases. That is also your own responsibility , and just because responsibilities aren't always things you wan…

Ah yes, the CDC. They've been saying "Spanish Flu - give us money" for years and we find out that they didn't bother to research how any of the flus are transmitted. It's not like flus haven't been killing 35-75k Americans every year for as long as anyone has counted. Speaking of the Spanish Flu, Fauci's PhD was on how improvised masks made it worse... Also, one of the big Spanish Flu outbreaks was "credited" to a pa…

Careful, you're tipping your hand.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#292

Post by brewdad »

loceng wrote: post #262
pstuart wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And you're so certain, perhaps even arrogant even, that you're belief in "science" isn't a "religious" ideological relationship?

You're on a message board dedicated to tech and you don't believe in the scientific method? GTFO.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#293

Post by jtbayly »

Brybry wrote: post #269
jimmydorry wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to assume that you are discussing in good faith, as per the HackerNews commenting guidelines, and did not deliberately pick a specific CDC campaign as a strawman. The CDC's campaign to control mosquitos and eradicate malaria in the US probably does not limit how people are living their lives, but ordering an immediate nationwide halt on evictions of any renter for nonpayment of rent would be an example of a…

To be fair, the national eviction moratorium was ruled illegal/not a power that the CDC has. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a23_ap6c.pdf

Precisely. The group that is willing to illegally order you to do things they have no right to order is also tracking you. But no biggie.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#294

Post by cde-v »

anamax wrote: post #273
mullingitover wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CDC wants a say in how people live their lives and thinks they know better than individuals about risk tolerance and decisions. Their charter is disease control . How you 'live your life' is orthogonal to that mission - they're responsible for stopping you from infecting other people with communicable diseases. That is also your own responsibility , and just because responsibilities aren't always things you wan…

Ah yes, the CDC. They've been saying "Spanish Flu - give us money" for years and we find out that they didn't bother to research how any of the flus are transmitted. It's not like flus haven't been killing 35-75k Americans every year for as long as anyone has counted. Speaking of the Spanish Flu, Fauci's PhD was on how improvised masks made it worse... Also, one of the big Spanish Flu outbreaks was "credited" to a pa…

Gish galloping at its finest

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#295

Post by brewdad »

thegrimmest wrote: post #208
mhh__ wrote: post #157

Earlier 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.

Do you live off the grid and grow all of your own food? If not, then the "government" keeps you alive. You don't have to give them a free pass on everything but you can't pretend it serves no purpose but to oppress you.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#296

Post by colordrops »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #291
anamax wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the CDC. They've been saying "Spanish Flu - give us money" for years and we find out that they didn't bother to research how any of the flus are transmitted. It's not like flus haven't been killing 35-75k Americans every year for as long as anyone has counted. Speaking of the Spanish Flu, Fauci's PhD was on how improvised masks made it worse... Also, one of the big Spanish Flu outbreaks was "credited" to a pa…

Careful, you're tipping your hand.

So what? They may be coming from a politicized angle, and probably only passing facts that support their case, but at least they are facts, and not misinformation, like graphene in vaccines or whatever. Everyone is coming from some bias and angle, so don't judge on that. Judge on the veracity of the statements. Do you have anything to say about the actual statements?

Most everything that is wrong with modern discourse is due to ad hominem and labeling rather than discussion of facts.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#297

Post by brewdad »

chaps wrote: post #255
jonathankoren wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

My problem is absolutely related to data privacy and I'm not sure why you think otherwise, let alone why you think I'm interested in spreading disease (seriously, what.). At a practical level, one of my bigger concerns is that they've very likely made it possible to FOIA for the location information they bought.

It would be cheaper to buy the data on the open market than to pay the research fees for a FOIA request. A LOT more timely too.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#298

Post by brewdad »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #233
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You didn't answer the question. If the bureaucrat wants this info, he'll get it through a third or fourth or X-th party. The root problem is that this data exists at all. Of course, if it didn't, half the posters here would be out of a job.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#299

Post by colordrops »

cde-v wrote: post #294
anamax wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the CDC. They've been saying "Spanish Flu - give us money" for years and we find out that they didn't bother to research how any of the flus are transmitted. It's not like flus haven't been killing 35-75k Americans every year for as long as anyone has counted. Speaking of the Spanish Flu, Fauci's PhD was on how improvised masks made it worse... Also, one of the big Spanish Flu outbreaks was "credited" to a pa…

Gish galloping at its finest

Ignoring the statements of the comment and resorting to implicit ad hominem at its best.

If you consider this the epitomy of gish galloping then you haven't been near conspiracy forums with pages and pages of garbage links.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#300

Post by edmcnulty101 »

lkbm wrote: post #58
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It did nothing if you didn't turn it on. How do you know though? Google is constantly tracking your every move by default without you turning anything on. So even if this feature had an on/off it was more by the grace of Google than by any strongly enforced anti-tracking feature.

> Google is constantly tracking your every move by default without you turning anything on. They are. And you decided to take issue with a default-off feature instead. Of all the tracking features your phone has, this one seems like the least creepy. It's not like they're "asking consent" for every other feature they ship.

Totally disagree.

This is a feature that, with govt cooperation , could have led to criminal punishment.

There were already government punishments for COVID in place just not coordinated with big tech.

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