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

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341–350 of 442 posts

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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CDC are the least scary people buying this data Most buyers probably just want to target advertising at me, or otherwise grab my attention. The CDC wants a say in how people live their lives and thinks they know better than individuals about risk tolerance and decisions. And they seem to think they can have unchecked power by invoking "science". Can someone name a scarrier entity that could be tracking you? I don't…

> Can someone name a scarrier (sp) entity that could be tracking you? ... The Mafia? Any other criminal or terrorist organization or individual? The police operating under an incorrect warrant? A creepy ex? Unless you buy into conspiracies, the CDC is at worst going to do what it thinks is best for you, and is constrained by constitutional checks and balances.

> Unless you buy into conspiracies, the CDC is at worst going to do what it thinks is best for you, and is constrained by constitutional checks and balances.

Technically, someone buying into conspiracies would at most have a correlation to CDC activities, it couldn't exert a causal force.

Also, you don't actually know what the CDC is going to do, or how well it is constrained by constitutional checks and balances - you can speculate and form a belief, but you do not have actual knowledge.

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

#342
post #308

This was mentioned in April 2020 ish and no one blinked an eye. It was showing how much people left their houses, how far out did they travel to, did they participate in entertainment venues, did they eat out etc. The data was never used for enforcement purposes. (if it was.. it wasn't very efficient at all)

I might be in the minority, but I don’t care if it was used to make macoroni art. I also don’t care how harmless or good the CDC might be to someone. A government entity should not be a using tax payer money to purchase privacy sensitive data of citizens.

they should only collect it themselves amiright?

This was the least expensive and most responsible way to conduct this study. What alternative would you provide? Just not doing it?

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

#343
post #273

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…

Almost like the flu and Covid are different diseases that don’t have identical patterns of transmission

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

#344
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be in the minority, but I don’t care if it was used to make macoroni art. I also don’t care how harmless or good the CDC might be to someone. A government entity should not be a using tax payer money to purchase privacy sensitive data of citizens.

they should only collect it themselves amiright? This was the least expensive and most responsible way to conduct this study. What alternative would you provide? Just not doing it?

> Just not doing it?

An interesting proposal.

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

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Not only are they completely unnecessary, but more importantly many of your so-called "limits on freedom" are blatantly unconstitutional and illegal.

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

#346
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why the CDC should not exit. Their mission is at loggerheads with liberty.

So any organization which impinges on liberty shouldn't exist? The IRS, fire departments, police departments?

IRS? Yes. I'm OK with abolishing the others too. Volunteer (only) fire departments can stay.

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

#347
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this response. Could you elaborate?

What I mean is that one example doesn't contradict the fact that the CDC had limited direct power during the pandemic, and that various other federal agencies and, even more so, state and local governments were the ones implementing and enforcing most of the restrictions we experienced during the pandemic. I may have exaggerated how minimal the role of the CDC was in my initial comment, but only because I keep seeing…

Yes, I agree with you. State and local governments had a much larger impact.

My point was the CDC was also forcing people to do things against their will in addition to state and local governments, it just affected fewer people. That force negatively affected many people (mostly landlords and non-US National travelers).

The flip-flop guidance throughout the pandemic was annoying, but completely ignorable.

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

#348
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That _should_ be their role, but unfortunately they overstepped. The CDC implemented an eviction moratorium for around a year (September 4, 2020 through August 26, 2021). That had very real, negative impact on landlords during that time. I doubt those effected would call it toothless. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/04/2020-19...

There were not zero policies enacted by the CDC.

And on top of this: there were ample opportunities for every single state to exercise judicial review of the CDC’s order. The CDC was a politically efficient vessel for an overwhelmingly popular policy that probably kept millions of people from homelessness.

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

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are doctors, lawyers, administrators, and talking heads in their 80s who are well known and respected in their fields today. My knowledge of biology and arithmetic puts them at around 30 years old in the year 1972. That's the year the program ended. If not the CDC then maybe we should just question everyone's motives and I apologize for trying the sensationalist approach. EDIT. Maths. Unedit. Still maths

>maybe we should just question everyone's motives At some point, you have to have some level of trust in society and its institutions. Or become a paranoid nutter. Maybe the paranoid nutters are right (just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you), but that's still no way to live.

> At some point, you have to have some level of trust in society and its institutions. Or become a paranoid nutter.

I see this as a false dichotomy. It is possible to simply assume that everyone is doing their best, and that is "not necessarily great" due to poor system design and various other reasons, or it may be even worse due to some bad actors - but necessarily becoming a paranoid nutter is a false belief, and the commonality of such beliefs makes me suspicious that they are not entirely organic.

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

#350

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. And they seem to think they can have unchecked power by invoking "science". Can someone name a scarrier entity that could be tracking you? This describes every AdTech firm to a T, except that you’ve decided to direct your ire at a public health agency instead of them. The entire point…

They wanted me to purchase vaccines, but indirectly because they want everyone to pay for them.

Yes, that’s normally how taxes and uniform policies work. I suppose you could be opposed to either or both of those things in the abstract, but expressing your ire at vaccines specifically strikes me as special pleading.
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