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Pervasive surveillance through digital technologies is the business model of Facebook and Google. And now governments are considering the web giants' tools to track COVID-19 carriers for the public good.
Among democracies, Israel appears to have gone first: prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced "emergency regulations that will enable the use of digital means in the war on Corona. These means will greatly assist us in locating patients and thereby stop the spread of the virus."
[...] The idea of using tech to spy on COVID-carriers may now be catching.
The Washington Post has reported that the White House has held talks with Google and Facebook about how the data they hold could contribute to analysis of the virus' spread. Both companies already share some anonymised location [data] with researchers. The Post suggested anonymised location data be used by government agencies to understand how people are behaving.
Thailand recently added a COVID-19-screening form to the Airports of Thailand app. While the feature is a digital replica of a paper registration form offered to incoming travellers, the app asks for location permission and tries to turn on Bluetooth every time it is activated. The Register has asked the app's developers to explain the permissions it seeks, but has not received a reply in 48 hours.
[...] If other nations follow suit, will it be possible to put the genie back in?
Probably not: plenty of us give away our location data to exercise-tracking apps for the sheer fun of it and government agencies gleefully hoover up what they call "open source intelligence". ®
After the 9/11 attacks, laws were enacted in the United States that have since resisted being scaled back. Think, for example, of the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001).
There were sunset provisions to the act which, failing reauthorization, would cause provisions to expire on December 31, 2005. In the years since, most of the provisions have been extended. Most recently we have the USA FREEDOM Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015). Among its provisions was the extension of the USA PATRIOT Act.
"KTO NIE PAMIẸTA HISTORII SKAZANY JEST NA JEJ PONOWNE PRZEŻYCIE" GEORGE SANTAYANA ("THE ONE WHO DOES NOT REMEMBER HISTORY IS BOUND TO LIVE THROUGH IT AGAIN" / GEORGE SANTAYANA) from a plaque at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Polish and translated into English. Wikipedia link.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 19 2020, @02:54PM (10 children)
Totalitarians view this as a golden opportunity to seize formal control once and for all. The opposite is going to happen.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 19 2020, @02:59PM
I hope like hell you're right, because the historical trajectory we're on is hideous.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DimestoreProstitute on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:20PM (1 child)
What you're suggesting requires people to open their eyes and I don't see that happening.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @09:15PM
if they did all they would see is toilet paper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @09:32PM
You can feel they are just *lusting* to effectively put us all in prison while trying to scare us with end-of-the-world virus bullshit.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday March 20 2020, @03:50AM (5 children)
Going for a funny mod? Peasant revolts almost always fail against the authoritarians. They have professional armies that are always better organized. That's why the American Forefathers (actually it was a pretty common belief at the time) considered having a professional army to lead to tyranny. It's one of the main reasons that the 2nd amendment mentions the militia.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 20 2020, @12:08PM (4 children)
The American military is all volunteer. The Air Force is not going to drop napalm on Boston. Tanks are not going to roll on Houston.
The supply depots and infrastructure that serve the military machine are all around us, surrounded by American rabble.
But let's suppose there is an army that will follow a tyrant's command to suppress the masses. If the American military had trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan will full permission to fire, how will they do against their own citizens who own something like a billion guns? How will they do against engineers and chemists and others with practical skills who can employ them toward sabotage and IEDs in a heartbeat?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @02:46PM
They'd do it for the greater good.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Friday March 20 2020, @04:12PM (2 children)
Yet, you've already had one civil war where city's were burned by the volunteer army and more recently a few times the army has been called out against labour unrest or even ex-military unrest after WWI. Just have to divide the country up and make sure the army unit ordered to roll their tanks is from a totally different part of the country after severely politicizing things. Divide and conquer basically.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:23AM (1 child)
The Union Army did not attack its own civilians on purpose. The Confederates did not theirs, either.
Are you referring to Ludlow? Those were Pinkertons.
This is not China, which can roll in units of ethnic Mongolians to suppress Han students in Tiananmen that they hate anyway. American units are not geographically- or in any other way segregated now. You can send units stationed in Washington state to attack people in Georgia, but the odds are very good there will be a lot of Georgian boys in that unit who will flip out.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 21 2020, @04:57AM
I thought that the civil war was between the American States, they were part of America, didn't want anything more to do with the feds and war ensued. It is called a civil war for a reason.
As for the various labour wars, I guess it depends on whether the national guard is considered part of the army. Examples of Federal troops becoming involved include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain [wikipedia.org] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877 [wikipedia.org]. Considering 3 Federal army personal were killed in the Battle of Blair Mountain, it sounds like a shooting thing.
There were also numerous examples of the militia being called out and shooting at strikers.
There's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army#Army_intervention [wikipedia.org] where Patton had 6 tanks as well as ordering the cavalry to attack. While it was mostly bayonets and tear gas, the infantry was quite willing to charge.
Today, America seems more divided then ever, with a President who encourages it and isn't even willing to try to work with others during the present crisis. It is easy to believe that a Trump supporting army unit would attack a bunch of Liberals. Just have to claim there coming for their guns or letting in aliens or such. As I said, divide the people against each other and conquer.
Shit even here in Canada, it wasn't that long ago (1990) that the army was deployed against the Iroquois though the shooting was earlier and at least one 15 year old girl getting bayoneted. And just a couple of months ago the Conservatives were screaming that it was time to deploy the army against the people again and I'm sure they would have if they were in government.
Famous picture, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_to_Face_(photograph) [wikipedia.org]