What we aren’t writing about in this article are the groups using this data Cambridge Analytica style to sway political opinion, and other less than stellar purposes.
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...
Makes zero sense to me that our pandemic response was about "keeping small businesses afloat" rather than keeping transmission low for a few weeks. I guess besides sacrificing grandma to the economy for $2 margaritas at Applebee's we should have evicted millions during winter so that landlords wouldn't be aversely affected by a pandemic. Weird how the eviction moratorium included aid for them as well, but I guess they were the real victims here and should have gotten more.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/01/25/nearly-20percent-of-rent...
That means as an individual you will either pay higher rent or be forced to buy. Many people would rather have the flexibility and no maintenance that renting provides.
It's a good thing that's not what they did, then. Making landlords wait to be paid for a limited time is not the same thing as "stealing," and furthermore there were billions upon billions in subsidies passed around to mitigate the effects of this very reasonable measure.
It's telling that the best we can come up with to criticize the CDC's actions is "won't someone think of the landlords."
It is though. Banks make an entire business about taking your money now and giving it back to you later. They even pay you extra!
How would you feel if your employer decided to only pay you in 3 months' time? What consequences do you think this could have on the average person?
They weren't being paid, that's the whole issue. If they were then an eviction moratorium wouldn't have mattered.
> furthermore there were billions upon billions in subsidies passed around to mitigate the effects of this very reasonable measure
Are government subsidies to corporations something you're supporting here?
> It's telling that the best we can come up with to criticize the CDC's actions is "won't someone think of the landlords."
Property rights are fundamental to a capitalist, free, society. If you want an economic system where property rights are ignored or where the government wholesale manages the economy then just come out and say it.
> Are government subsidies to corporations something you're supporting here?
Actually, in the case I have direct knowledge of, this was direct subsidies to renters (via the Emergency Rental Assistance Program), who then repaid their landlords.
> If you want an economic system where property rights are ignored or where the government wholesale manages the economy then just come out and say it.
I believe we could have an economic system that is so rigid and inflexible that it can't respond sensibly to a crisis and instead forces society into a death spiral to protect capital, but that we're wiser than that.
The back rent owed exceeds the limits of the assistance program, so even if/when they get paid, it'll be far less than what they are owed. And every month that goes by unpaid isn't covered by the program and will never be paid. But they won't make a decision on the applications, and they won't allow eviction. The homeowners are stuck in an unlimited legal limbo, indefinitely.
Yay California.
By whom? My understanding of the situation was that landlords did not get a subsidy to make up for lost rents or being unable to evict non-paying tenants. Back-rent would be nice, but is not likely, especially with up to 12 months worth.
> I believe we could have an economic system that is so rigid and inflexible that it can't respond sensibly to a crisis and instead forces society into a death spiral to protect capital, but that we're wiser than that.
Well if that's the only choice here, then you made a pretty good argument for it.
So basically what I already do every year?
That's not even considering the currency devaluation, which is probably an even bigger contributing factor than landlord uncertainty. But it sure doesn't help.
But also, semi-related: they implemented a policy to prevent people from becoming homeless during a global pandemic and it had a negative impact on the people who have been padding their bank accounts for decades by steadily increasing margins on a basic life necessity. Sorry if I don't feel bad.
This is just plain wrong.
* you are painting every landlord with the same brush
* you beleive the fabric of our society should treat people differently, predicated upon the above point
* you think it is OK to suspend checks on government power, if you happen to dislike a category of people it effects
From your attitude, I would presume you believe renting places to live, to be wrong?
That anyone doing so, must be effectively stealing from people?
You need to get your head on straight. I know lots of landlords which have one house the rent out, or a duplex (where they live in the top).
If you want to be anti-profit about everything, why aren't you railing on about grocery stores? Schools? Clothes manufacturers?
At some point someone while sneeze and everyone will be restricted to their homes. Not every bad decision has a bad intend at the start, but they will happen without any form of opposition.
> At some point someone while sneeze and everyone will be restricted to their homes
What would their motivation be? Why wouldn't there be any opposition? This isn't like spying where you can do it without people knowing. Even if entirely justified (like we saw during covid), people will oppose such measures - what makes you think they wouldn't of they weren't justified?
Ever noticed that most interior ministers are surveillance freaks? Comes with the job as well. An opposition is actually beneficial for them as the consequences of decisions wouldn't rest on their shoulders alone.
So a solution to this dilemma is to limit powers in the first place. Such decisions should ideally go through parliament in democracies. Sure, sometimes acting fast is beneficial, but just as often quick decisions come with costs as well.
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.
Care to elaborate? CDC has historically been an extremely powerful organization devoted to the safety of the US public.
They are a government institution, and not to be blindly trusted. They require oversight above and beyond what private institutions require. I'm not sure why you want to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
A few of the best ways to lose your individual autonomy are to die or become ill or disabled.
Optimizing for as little of that as possible across society is a good thing for individual freedoms.
The CDC unliterally...
* Outlawed all evictions * Mandated masks on airplanes and public transportation * Banned migrants at the border * Grounded the entire cruise industry
And it's not that those things shouldn't be done. It's that they were done by a body with no checks and balances. None - whatsoever. There should not be a body in our government that can just make laws undemocratically. Or should there? This should be a cause of concern for everyone.
I'd say the worst thing about the past two years is how it's proven how absolutely fucked we are if anything more dangerous and lethal than Covid comes along. There'll be people like this making every effort to prevent governments from doing anything to protect people.
Turns out there are a lot of anarcho-capitalists out there, especially present here on HN, and especially loud during pandemic-related topics. And i thought it's one of those historical things that theoretically exists today as a fringe ( like actual neo-Nazis).
There's no question the CDC increased deaths by calling masks ineffective at the beginning of the pandemic. Their credibility never recovered, especially not when they are still flip flopping to this day (recommendations on masks oscillated by the week, often in response to public sentiment/political pressure -- not science).
There was a poll [1] on this specific question (from May 2021 - so right in the middle of the pandemic), and as of then only 52% of Americans felt that the CDC was trustworthy. That factor alone is going to dramatically outweigh any sort of benefit of their lie. And of course it wasn't just the lie, but their general behavior which frequently came off as extremely disingenuous.
In anything even vaguely approaching the longrun, honesty always win. Because while lies may create more optimal outcomes in the extreme shortrun, the decline in trust it causes ultimately means we start getting to play out the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf on a societal level. And that's not pleasant.
[1] - https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/202...
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/18319/priorities-f...
But smoking? Do we really need to study it? It isn't even a disease. The states signed the Master Settlement Agreement. I feel like that should be the last time the government ever brings it up or spends another dollar worrying about it. The corporations were given blanket immunity in exchange for a paycheck. Any further expenditure of government on the subject is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Addiction is considered a disease by physicians, psychiatrists, and medical researchers[1].
> I feel like that should be the last time the government ever brings it up or spends another dollar worrying about it.
The CDC publishes research on things like:
- second-hand smoke
- preventing your children from starting to smoke
- the costs to society -- not just the smoker
- pros/cons of taxing tobacco in different ways
Because of government-funded research, smoking is banned in a lot of places that I don't have a choice of avoiding, such as airports, government offices, and grocery stores.
The government's research is to protect non-smokers from corporations that are trying to trick them into an addiction and also from smokers who fill shared air with carcinogens.
And that's not even getting into the cost to society of someone dying early. They leave behind medical debts that increase all of our costs, and they potentially leave behind family members who need care.
1. https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/brain-health/science-says-...
If the MSA is failing at that, the solution is to void the agreement and coerce the tobacco industry into another one with updated statues. Not to expand the CDC into areas like tax policy.
And really - "preventing your children from starting to smoke"? There is no research that needs to be done in this area. The industry can't market to children. The industry can't sell to children. There are no shortage of smokers who shared their plight before their death (Yul Brynner comes to mind). If all that isn't enough to stop the problem, then the problem lies elsewhere in society. No more money needs to be evaporated into this "research".
That is what they're researching: how to stop people from harming themselves, others, and society by smoking.
Tobacco companies can't market directly to children, but they have been working around it in many ways for decades. The latest method is vaping.
Science and policy are not "one and done". We need to know if past policies were mistakes, and we need to adapt new policies to changes in tactics by bad actors.
Coercion is the literal function of government.
The issue is, government is too spineless to ever actually do that. Governments have become dependent on the money that flows in from taxes on those products and settlements like the MSA. They can't actually make good on the threat to ban them because they depend on the money.
So instead we get "research", "negotiations", and "compromise". Which are all a waste of taxpayer money. The US has some of the most brutal punishments in the world for drug trafficking and possession (I think China is actually worse, but I am unsure) for individuals. But we can't just ban the marketing of nicotine containing products and accessories? I don't buy it.
Would it help to learn that the CDC researched AIDS extensively in the very early 1980s (as well as one small study from 1978-1984)? That they tracked the spread of AIDS worldwide during that time, and were the first to identify blood-transfustions as a vector for infection. That in 1982/1983 they were issuing guidance for dealing with suspected cases - 2 years before there was a test. That the CDC hosted the first international symposium on AIDS in 1985?
The solution there is not to get information from the president, but from the experts.
Smoking was something they started researching after they were granted more investigative powers in 1987 and 1992 bringing their scope beyond "disease" to "health research". And messaging. AFAIK, most research they do on smoking is on smoking cessation programs and the efficacy of anti-smoking measures. Well, and thanks to vaping, a lot on the health effects of that.
>virtually unlimited executive powers the CDC believes it has
is not true
Obama also had them author a massive study on all aspects of gun violence, but the results went quite against what the Dems wanted to claim, so it got pretty quiet again.
What happened is they did publish some studies, and one was quite bad (to this day the author will not release the dataset, for example), but was invoked for a lot of policy. Congress chastised them for it, banned them from advocating public policy, but they did not ban the CDC from studies (and they still do studies, very few - if you search you can find them).
That said, 2018 finally saw an interpretation of the Dickey Amendment codified that allowed, unambiguously, research into gun violence. And 2020 finally saw funding allocated for gun violence research. So, after over two decades, the CDC finally regained both the go ahead and the funding.
Given the above, I think it's still reasonable for people to use the shorthand of saying the CDC had been banned from doing gun violence research. Softening the language to be slightly less absolute would help, but I'd consider people to be in the ballpark of correct when they call it a ban on research. And it's also correct that that's no longer the case, thankfully.
Other than that, I'm not sure why you're being downvoted without replies.
Here are the recent CDC funded gun studies.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/funded-resea...
Kellerman’s methodology that he published among swaths of missing data included ~250 phone surveys where someone was shot in their own home and a police report was filed (nothing verified, no concern to who owned the gun or who was shot). This was FAR more representative of drug use and domestic violence than a typical gun owner - yet - it was used as a primary factor to the push assault weapon ban and Brady Bill in 94. This then directly led to the Republican blowout of 96 and likely costing Al Gore the presidency in 2000 according to Bill Clinton. Kellermann is an absolute hack who still enjoys appearances on NPR, ABC, etc as a gun violence expert.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/funded-resea...
>virtually unlimited executive powers the CDC believes it has
is not true"
This is from the same user. That and the use of "even" in the other comment makes me think they believe that the CDC can't do/fund firearm research, as that is a common media/political narrative.
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 agree with anybody tracking me, but even say insurance companies which is the other worst thing that comes to mind have limited purview in what they might be interested in
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 want to do doesn't mean they're oppression.
orthogonal does not mean what you think it means given your usage. orthogonal means its entirely unrelated. but the fact is disease control and being able to make personal choices w/ respect to living your life can be in direct conflict means its not orthogonal.
apologies for this correction orthogonal is just one of my favorite words. =)
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 everyone will object at some point. For example, would you accept a Shanghai-style lockdown?
1: https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/Public-Health-Order_Gener...
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?
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 applying limitations on people.
But no biggie.
> Supporters argue by presenting evidence that smoking is one of the major killers, and that therefore governments have a duty to reduce the death rate, both through limiting passive (second-hand) smoking and by providing fewer opportunities for people to smoke. Opponents say that this undermines individual freedom and personal responsibility, and worry that the state may be encouraged to remove more and more choice in the name of better population health overall.
The main thing that public health agencies do is promote healthy behaviors, like, for example, washing your hands. You could say that their primary goal is convincing you to “live your life” in a healthy way.
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'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.
It's a scientific question as to whether a specific limit on freedom (of movement, of contact, etc.) is effective.
But it's a general approximation that greater freedoms mean higher mortality rates during lethal pandemics. And vice versus.
What level of mortality we're prepared to accept, and what level of limitations on freedom, is a political question in a democracy.
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.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/about/index.html
> In 1979, the U.S. Surgeon General identified violent behavior as a key public health priority. In 1980, CDC began studying patterns of violence. This effort grew into a national program to reduce the death and disability associated with injuries outside the workplace. In 1992, CDC established the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) as the lead federal organization for violence prevention. The Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) is one of three divisions within NCIPC. DVP is focused on preventing violence and its consequences so that all people, families, and communities are safe, healthy, and free from violence.
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 parade, aka "a bunch of people walking down the street together." What did the CDC say about such events? (Hint: it praised them if they were BLM.)
Note that Covid-19 is SARS2 - SARS1 was 10 years ago.
No, influenza is not a coronavirus.
> Note that Covid-19 is SARS2 - SARS1 was 10 years ago.
I don't know what this has to do with my comment, but if we're going to be pedantic, Covid-19 is the disease caused by the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus.
Do you really want to argue that the public health community was saying "hey, we're only interested in influenza" when they used various pandemics to argue for funding for the last 80+ years? (Influenza wasn't even distinguished until the mid 30s.)
Yes, Covid-19 is SARS2. My point is that SARS1 was 10 years ago, which is plenty of time for the public health community to do relevant research and yet ....
Do you want to bet that they didn't fundraise off of SARS1 specifically? And yet...
Ok, that's enough for me. You're clearly just trolling
How long then?
If you consider this the epitomy of gish galloping then you haven't been near conspiracy forums with pages and pages of garbage links.
Most everything that is wrong with modern discourse is due to ad hominem and labeling rather than discussion of facts.
If my local fire department behaves in a way that manifests immense mistrust in the neighborhood, sure as hell I wouldn't want them to exist.
Fortunately, around the country, fire department people are the nicest, kindest, inspiring leaders.
Yes? As the CDC's only enforcement mechanisms are generally small teams in tyvek suits with fertilizer sprayers with bleach. Their primary function is public advisement and their employees are civilian.
So yes, CIA, FBI, IRS, NSA, military, Homeland security (tsa and coast guard), grb; but also Facebook, apple, Google, at&t.
... 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.
I don't want to get involved with what the CDC is doing here (because they're probably not doing anything too nefarious), but I would like to pull this point out. The intentions of an institution (or at least surface level justifications) are kind of unrelated to the point. What an institution thinks is best for someone and what that individual thinks is best for themselves are often quite different.
I'm reminded of the old CS Lewis quote here:
> Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
The quote at the end was supposed to convey the opposite message.
Unless someone can prove that no one involved in the tuskegee "incident"[0] is no longer employed or influential at the CDC I will just resign myself to thinking that THEY are the conspiracy theorist, a conspiracy to seem infallible or at least incorruptible. Such a concept is of course ridiculous, don't turn off your brain with an appeal to authority.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
EDIT: spelling
The Tuskegee Experiment started 90 years ago and ended 50 years ago. I don't know what proof you need, but the simple facts of human biology basically guarantee that anyone who had any power during that timeframe is no longer working at the CDC.
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
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.
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.
I think we can talk about our concerns in a realistic way without resorting to baseless speculation. It's fair to question whether the CDC should be using this data.
The thing about Tuskegee is that it wasn't a conspiracy. It started in 1932, in a time when the majority of Americans probably would have supported it if they knew about it. That doesn't make it OK, but it does make it a poor example of a conspiracy.
Systems and incentives are much better predictors of behavior.
You don't need an explicit intentional criminal conspiracy when a "conspiracy of common interests" can produce similar results.
The relevant argument here would be the extent to which this approach to scientific experimentation was normal at that point in time and how it compares to current protocols. I.e. whether CDC aligns with scientific research protocols and therefore the focus would be on whether these protocols are strong enough to warrant broad access to data without consent.
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
The career is long certainly but I think we all believe we are evolving in our careers. No one here would want to be accused of working in the same way or having the same knowledge in year 1 of their career compared to today.
The CDC has a lot to make up for - it also started in 1946, after tuskegee was started
You can't go a decade of American history without some sort of "yeah that's F'ed up" thing happening that was done with good intentions. Saying constitutional checks and balances prevent bad things from happening is like when the police say they investigated themselves. In reality the public needs to remain vigilant and press the issue.
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.
The mafia is easy. Pay them and they DGAF what you do. Creepy ex is more or less a non-issue because any threat of violence one person can bring can be matched by another one person.
It's the police, terrorists and other well resourced but potentially capricious organizations (like the CDC, or any other federal bureaucracy, obviously the trigger happy ones are higher on the list), the kind of organizations who can send a dozen thugs to kick in your door and who have diffused responsibility across so many people you can't "get even" that you don't want coming after you.
>the CDC is at worst going to do what it thinks is best for you,
Every horror in history was committed with the best of intentions.
Edit: and to be clear, I'm not too worried about the CDC themselves, I'm worried about the legions of useful idiots that will happily take whatever they say and run with it. If the CDC makes BS or politically charged recommendations there is a myriad of other institutions (government and otherwise) that will see that as their ticket to do whatever bad thing they were already fishing for a reason to do. I don't want anyone having my data. But given the choice I'd rather have people who want to sell me penis pills and time shares have my data than people who want to tell me how to live.
The CDC has a historical record of such things. What makes you think human beings are incapabale of repeating such crimes against humanity?
Is there any historical precedent of elementary school teachers committing crimes against humanity comparable to public health officials?
>It's much more productive to talk about actual concerns. Do you have any to share?
Are you not familiar with any of the historical atrocities committed by public health officials across the world since the beginning of "public health"?
So thousands of people that are burgled, mugged and murdered by random criminals every year are a non-problem. Organised crime is a non problem.
You suffering a hypothetical potential for overreach by the CDC in some undefined timeframe is a real problem
FBI, CIA, local police, any branch of military, Oathkeepers (a group that did track me for a while because I organized a pro-voting event in my city)... it's a very long list. Basically anyone with a gun and a desire to harm me is a lot scarier.
In the past, companies used to assassinate leaders of unionization efforts, too.
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 of commercial advertising is to nudge your purchasing behavior (what they’ll blithely refer to as “lifestyle”); the CDC has no such motive.
This can’t be said for nudges: the entire point of an effective nudge is that you can’t be certain that you aren't acting of your own volition. That strikes me as a much worse state of affairs: not only are you controlled, but you don’t even know it!
TL;DR: two years after this entire fracas, it’s apparent that the government’s ability to force you to do anything w/r/t public health is mostly hollow. Meanwhile, the continence of our actions online seems to be increasingly shaky.
Not exactly, you can be on board or suffer whatever punitive action is designed to "incentivize" you. You can't just politely decline to comply or participate.
> not only are you controlled, but you don’t even know it
I don't think we should equate "being controlled" - which is a rather horrific thing when done directly with the threat of violence - with being nudged. When you are nudged, you are in fact acting of your own volition. If you disagree you have to define what "your own volition" means exactly. To me it means acting in the absence of a threat of violence.
> the government’s ability to force you to do anything w/r/t public health is mostly hollow
Plenty of business owners were arrested and imprisoned for refusing to comply with public health measures. Many, many more suffered the closure of their business and the loss of their livelihoods by complying.
Personally I'm sticking with the scientists, atleast they earnt that power through real excellence rather than winning some popularity contest.
That's not a fair response given the examples provided to you.
OP's comment mentioned the Cambridge Analytica case which-- if true-- is certainly more concerning than someone advertising at you.
It's one thing to argue that case was overblown, but it's not serious to sweep it into the bin of "otherwise grab my attention."
Edit: changed the word "satisfactory" to "fair." It's not that the comment I'm replying to wasn't tasty enough for my enjoyment or something. It's more that it hand-waved away the point OP was making.
To your point, yes we shouldn't allow tracking. But, whatever fix we apply should not be so limited that it only affects the CDC, it should be generally applied to stop all groups as well.
In principle, I agree with the idea of anonymous data used exclusively and apolitically to "understand society" as you say. I just see no evidence that would ever be possible, either to trust that it will be kept anonymous or that whatever conclusion get drawn from it and acted upon will be remotely nonpartisan. It's sad in a sense, but I think the only viable solution is to reject any notion of tracking, no matter how much anyone swears they'll only use it for what they consider good.
That said, I may be missing something but I still think it's less worrisome to hear that private companies are using information that customers didn't actively hide and provided by voluntarily using their product (I still don't like it, but I don't think it should be illegal for a company to say "we're giving you this tracking device", use it and get a discount). Compared with the government, given the whole "monopoly of violence" thing or whatever weaker version you like, and also as the agent of the people, to be using that data, I think is a whole different think. Same as there is a difference between an ISP logging your internet traffic, and one voluntarily giving that information to the government and effectively becoming a government agency.
Anyway, this is going too far astray, and getting too long, you see my point about the distinction
The CDC primarily exists to address collective risk with collective decisions in the face of public health and especially infectious disease events where the dynamics are inevitably collective.
Sometimes collective decisions curb individual freedom -- like curbs literally do, along with a host of related automotive policies one could use as analogs. Criticizing the CDC for "wanting a say" is like criticizing any other area in which collective government wants a say: it's fine to talk about limits to what government should be able to require and what would constitute a compelling reason for doing so (and in fact, that's what citizens of a democratic republic should do), but speaking as if it's a threat to "want a say" in general is unbalanced.
> And they seem to think they can have unchecked power by invoking "science".
Whether they decide to make their decisions on the basis of science observation and study or not, no public institution in the United States has unchecked power, there are always avenues for feedback and change, especially if you have a point that other people find persuasive.
And personally, I'd prefer most institutions made their decisions informed by scientific efforts, which would make them accountable both to fellow professionals in their field and other democratic institutions.
Data's a part of scientific efforts.
Although we've have had a chance to see some of the issues with mismatched state-level responses. Infectious agents don't seem to care much about any border their hosts can cross.
I find it incredible that people are capable of discrediting the very process that resulted in the platform for their ability to express that.
The ability for you to press a key, have that intent transmitted to a micro-circuit, have that micro-circuit calculate how to display that character on a pixel grid, and see that result on a display is the result of more than a millenia of an intellectual process called "science." The same intellectual process discovered germs in ~1665, or 368 years ago. Very shortly after we discovered germs we realized that isolation would prevent the spread of germs from one person to another.
People who referred to it as "science," chose to discredit/ignore it and put scientists into the situation where they were trying to figure out how to keep a sinking ship afloat. You know, by doing what scientists have always done: drawing facts from real-world data.
But no, let's rather believe that 368 years ago some rotten fellow initiated massive a conspiracy, which millions of "scientists" for generations to come kept secret, so that in the 2020's the CDC could collect cellphone data for a few months and ruin your insurance profile.
Also, HIPAA.
Nobody was trying to discredit science.
Some people refer to "science" (in quotes) because any criticism of a policy or individual was cynically dismissed as a criticism of science itself.
"So it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science" is an actual quote by someone in power to shut sceptics down.
The people who used science as a shield from criticism of course wanted everyone to forget that in complex situations, especially in a new situation where not enough data is available, it's very common that scientists disagree on something.
Being sceptical of a scientist's interpretation of reality is actually science.
Do you think the average American knows more about these issues than the CDC? If so, how did they go about getting their knowledge?
The problem is when we transfer those assumptions to the real world, all of the most important adjectives in that prior sentence start to fall apart. The managers in the CDC are not neutral or independent. They are by and large bureaucrats who have professional reputations, career trajectory, office politics, and other competing incentives that compete and often conflict with their stated goal of making the "best health decisions" for everyone.
This has resulted in the absurd patchwork of logically inconsistent mask and vaccine rules that we've all be subjected to for the past 2 years. For me, this has firmly demonstrated that the structure of these institutions and their methods of public communication have lost the public trust and we cannot give them broad, sweeping powers.
If your concern is changing rules over time that seems more optimal than maintaining the most draconian rules both from a freedom standpoint and a public health one. Essentially you want enough exposure to push herd immunity or lockdown never ends, but not excessive exposure or the health system collapses. If you track the number of people in hospitals over time especially in terms of local hotspots it explains the CDC’s behavior quite well.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend
Some of the rules have never made much sense, particularly in regards to masking in restaurants and who was going to have to enforce those rules, but also the insistence on vaccine mandates that filtered down in very logically inconsistent ways to the local level. In an effort to prevent anti-vax conspiracy theorists from having a thread to pull on, they maintained public messaging that was borderline deceitful about the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing reinfection and encouraged ridiculous local regulations like showing vaccine cards to enter establishments. This mirrored the deceitful nature of the "only medical staff need masks" messaging at the beginning of the pandemic to prevent a mask supply shortage.
The turning point for me was Omnicron, as it was very quickly apparent this was a distinct, new disease that had a different risk profile than previous variants. But for what appears to be face-saving measures, no guidance was updated and it took months for them to concede that there were other metrics more important than case counts.
The insistence of continually extending the federal travel mask mandate is a case in point: I don't know of anyone who believes that the loose paper and cloth masks worn by most of the general public (sometimes covering nose and mouth, more often not) are actually producing a substantial effect in reducing transmission in indoor spaces, and AFAIK it's well understood that anyone at high risk of serious infection is well protected with a properly fitted N95 mask, especially in a well ventilated space like an airplane. At no point has there been a focus on educating people on the efficacy of different types of masks, just a continual hammering of the "mask up" narrative, treating people as too stupid to understand the difference.
For what appears to be ass-covering behavior on their part, they have focused on maintaining a consistency of messaging that ignores new data and and discredits any opposing points of view, even from other qualified members of the medical community. They are more focused on projecting authority and consistency than honestly handling nuance and it's become pretty obvious that is not the key to building trusted institutions.
I'm not saying disband the CDC, tear down the building, and exile Fauci. I'm simply saying that we need to recognize that the approach that was taken here did not work correctly and has resulted in less institutional trust than we started with and that we need to learn from our mistakes.
More importantly. Average knowledge is not important. What matters is that exchange happens so that the optimal decision is arrived at and communicated much faster by a large group , even if each individual knows very little information themselves.
This is the same principle that rules over new tech adoption. You don't need to know how to replicate the new tech, or even how to operate it.
You just need to know it works . That's what real (applied?) knowledge is about, at least in the context above.
"Sir, we've dropped your health insurance policy because we've noticed from your location history that you frequent fast food restaurants, which is defined in your health insurance policy as a 'prohibited unhealthy lifestyle'."
"Sir, we've determined from your location history that you average 5 mph over the speed limit, so we're reclasifying you as a 'high risk' driver and increasing your premiums"
I don't see them believing they have unchecked power, or they would ne enjoying their magical empire right now. And I have no idea what specific harm CDC tracking could enable, even assuming they tried?
This was a public health agency recommending the most trivial countermeasures against the worst acute disease afflicting the world in a century. A three-year old with a LEGO understanding of germ theory and bodily fluids would come up with masks and staying away from other people. As the pandemic ends, so do all countermeasures, and life rapidly returns to normal. It is utterly insane to see this sequence of events as anything but the most obvious, predictable, harmless, working-as-intended storyline.
Well the context of DISEASE CONTROL is different from the context of individuals living their best lives. Take as long as you need to wrap your head around that.
Would you like me to show this to my friends who work at the CDC and record their reactions for you? Oh how they wish...
The CDC doesn't want to control you, they just want you to wash your damn hands. They aren't invoking 'science' (with or without the scare quotes) - they are doing science because understanding whether, how, and why people follow the requests of public health officials is useful to know to both model and make decisions about the next pandemic. It is also just basically their mandate.
this ' ' ' science ' ' ' is more about realizing that ' ' ' controlling people ' ' ' is a lost cause, and just trying to figure out how to prevent the spread of infectitious diseases given the new reality of self important typhoid marys.
The fact that you think the people who eradicated smallpox are scarier than the CIA or facebook is just patently absurd.
They do.
It says "disease control" in the tin. If you aren't a sterile robot, you're a potential disease carrier. Connecting the dots isn't hard.
Prime weaponizable mandate. Of course there's those advertised constitutional/human rights, but, hey, it's just for the duration ...
You know the spiel. The classic Roman 6-month limit on dictatorship wasn't worth much either.
> bound by boards and ethics committees
Is there any evidence an ethics committee was party to this? If in fact, one was, they found it ethical to consume personally identifiable data without those persons’ authorization?
I assume this classifies as research so it should be subject to the same ethical requirements.
https://exhibits.lib.berkeley.edu/spotlight/census/feature/j...
Personally, I would really prefer a system where health information was centralized and easily transferrable to healthcare providers, as I think it would be massively better if we could learn from the bad outcomes of others rather than creating thousands of information silos that have to learn these expensive lessons in parallel, and it would also allow us to know the prices of healthcare services thereby enabling efficient markets to develop.
* "Who was in close proximity (~15m) of this known COVID superspreader event?" or * "Who has spent a large amount of time in this region where the rate of cancer is 6 standard deviations above the statewide rate?"
So yeah, I'm firmly asserting location data enables us to explore a lot of important problems that negatively impact people's health, and I think learning from the past (ie from data) is how we improve the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outb...
Would you be okay if the CDC purchased data from period-tracking apps to track periods? Or how many bottles of soap I purchase in a year? Or how much booze everyone buys?
By the way, HIPAA privacy rules regulate the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI) in healthcare treatment, payment and operations by covered entities.
Per this CDC FAQ [0]: """ What information is protected? All medical records and other individually identifiable health information used or disclosed by a covered entity in any form, whether electronically, on paper, or orally, are covered by the final rule.
For what disclosures and uses must consent be obtained by a provider? The Privacy Rule states that: In general, “[a] covered health care provider [with a direct treatment relationship] must obtain the individual’s consent,…prior to using or disclosing protected health information to carry out treatment, payment, or health care operations.” (See section [§] 164.506, 65 Federal Register [F.R.] p. 82810, for complete requirements.) """
Non-covered entities, like commercial data brokers, are free to sell PHI-containing data (assuming they aren't contractually prevented from doing so), and unless the data said broker sells is from a covered entity, no plausible interpretation bars the CDC from buying data available to anyone.
> Would you be okay if the CDC purchased data from period-tracking apps to track periods? Or how many bottles of soap I purchase in a year? Or how much booze everyone buys?
Legally? Yes, unambiguously. Morally? Depends on what they're do with their analysis. If it's for disease control and/or harm prevention, that seems to fall squarely within their scope.
Ideally you'd want to stop both, but if I had to choose I'd prefer that only the government has access rather than the highest bidder (which can be the government if they so desire, so in the end you're back at square one anyway).
One pretty nasty example would be revenge porn.
a lesser one would be piracy of copyright material
> Governments have a long and storied record of data abuse, from the Stasi in East Germany to LoveInt at the CIA.
"Governments" is far too coarse-grained of a category; it invites sloppy thinking.
Which of these is more common and useful?
The first step should be to separate the identity from the data. The phone's ID is plenty for research purposes, keep the name out of it.
Lumping everything into "Government" and not government is partly why American society is completely broken in some regards.
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 out of the courts.
As the article points out, it wasn't just the CDC performing these kinds of analysis. News organizations were doing the same thing.
If we want to curb government surveillance, we need to curb corporate surveillance by legally enshrining a right to privacy that limits the information that companies can collect and sell. Which, ironically, will mean government regulation and enforcement.
The problem is this data is not owned by the individual.
Which will mean government guidelines and optional private enforcement via lawsuit with meaningful minimum penalties.
Nip those two things in the bud and the problems will slow down, I think. But it's a pipe-dream, I know.
In the early days of Android, I remember reading that Android was Android because you had to jump through all these permission hoops with j2me (Java 2 Mobile Edition). Hence, Android was better and more easy to use than j2me. Here we are, 15 years later with exactly the same set of permissions problems... with one exception, Android still gives out internet access without permission. Many devs here would be aghast at the idea of an app not being internet connected.
I believe Google did it that way because Steve Jobs had done it that way in the iPod and iPhones. (I presume there's some HN'ers here that can refute this?) I remember my colleagues at the time remarking how refreshing it was to not have to deal with permissions (because customers disliked all the modal permissions that popped up in j2me)... and we all jumped on board the iPhone and Android development train, not knowing the problems that we'd have down the line.
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?
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.
The damage it is doing far outweighs the benefits of temporary profits.