Do you really think that this feature has drawn a line in the sand where previously they couldn't track you and now they can?
But it was labelled as terrible. I was for the secret service.
Now it's going to be culturally accepted, and in the hand regular administrators.
This is on order or magnitude worse, for something that was awful.
There are no good choices in a pandemic.
- not handling the pandemic
- tracking the population
You can get information about people assembling in other ways:
- helicopters
- intel gathering
- cops and army patrolling dressed as civilian
- create groups of citizen in town responsible to patrolling
And probably many I don't know about.
Then you add to that: keeping to communicate with the public, testing a lot, providing masks, etc.
The fact you are using this argument shows how much powerful the culture about "the end justify the mean" and "trusts the authority to deal with this" is.
I remember the first time I saw Jack Bauer on TV decapitating a terrorist in 24 to get an information. I though, "wow, they are really creating a new normal here".
That's what it is about: creating a new normal. And pretending there is no other choice, while nobody is trying to provide any.
If we abandon our commitments to human rights in times of crisis, how important are they to us, really?
Seriously? “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” is literally Article 3 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - and 1&2 are “this applies to everyone; yes, we mean it”. Privacy is all the way down in Article 12.
I’ll take my life, health and freedom, for which targeted suppression of this disease is essential, over my privacy any time, thank you very much.