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Could you give federal level US examples to this that aren’t opt-in contact tracing? (Genuine question because perhaps I’m missing a major news event) If anyth

by ahevia 5y ago

Could you give federal level US examples to this that aren’t opt-in contact tracing? (Genuine question because perhaps I’m missing a major news event) If anything I’ve felt my privacy increase. Masks are finally normalized. What’s more private then covering half your face and not being weird for being the only person doing it? Ive walked by people I know and don’t even recognize them. If you look back at the Capitol Rioters think of how many were identified by not covering their face. I also recall the Hong Kong protestors years ago using masks & face paint to obscure themselves from facial recognition systems.

league_ryze 5y ago
Unfortunately, I can't give you a privacy-related example. In this case, I think that's because there have genuinely been few (if any) infringements on the privacy rights of US citizens due to this specific crisis (unlike the terrorism and CP issues). However, there have been federal-level incursions on "dissent or constitutional rights" that was mentioned in the GP post - in particular, freedom of assembly, and the sovereignty of one's own body, with what has effectively been a federal vaccine mandate (as there's little effective difference between "companies with 100 companies or more must force their employees to get vaccinated" and "every citizen must get vaccinated"). And, I'd like to point out, that yes COVID-19 is a real issue that has killed many people - as are terrorism and CP. But you know what? There's still an infringement of rights that threatens our freedom, and like both of those issues, I strongly suspect that after we get past our emotional fear of the virus, we'll realize that, even given the number of people that died, it wasn't really worth giving up our rights for (as the "temporary" powers meant to be used to fight terrorism were never given up, for instance). I encourage you to really think about the comparison between COVID-19 and 9/11 - how a real tragedy could be abused to advance the powers of a government that does not have your best interests in mind.

by ahevia 5y ago

league_ryze 5y ago

Unfortunately, I can't give you a privacy-related example. In this case, I think that's because there have genuinely been few (if any) infringements on the privacy rights of US citizens due to this specific crisis (unlike the terrorism and CP issues). However, there have been federal-level incursions on "dissent or constitutional rights" that was mentioned in the GP post - in particular, freedom of assembly, and the sovereignty of one's own body, with what has effectively been a federal vaccine mandate (as there's little effective difference between "companies with 100 companies or more must force their employees to get vaccinated" and "every citizen must get vaccinated"). And, I'd like to point out, that yes COVID-19 is a real issue that has killed many people - as are terrorism and CP. But you know what? There's still an infringement of rights that threatens our freedom, and like both of those issues, I strongly suspect that after we get past our emotional fear of the virus, we'll realize that, even given the number of people that died, it wasn't really worth giving up our rights for (as the "temporary" powers meant to be used to fight terrorism were never given up, for instance). I encourage you to really think about the comparison between COVID-19 and 9/11 - how a real tragedy could be abused to advance the powers of a government that does not have your best interests in mind.