Governments Are Tracking Peoples Location Using Their Smartphones Because Of The Coronavirus
By
Arjun Walia
Arjun Walia
In Brief
- The Facts:Governments may start tracking the location and movement of people with Coronavirus, or those who have come into close contact with people who have the coronavirus.
- Reflect On:Are these measures justified? Is this a new phenomenon or, as Edward Snowden has emphasize, are we all being tracked all the time?
Has
the government announced that they will start tracking people’s
location via their smartphones in
order to keep the coronavirus in
check? It depends on which country you’re talking about. A new live index of
security measures by Top10VPN details the countries which have already
brought in measures to track the phones of coronavirus patients. Canada
and the United States are not on this list.
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For example, in Singapore on March 20th, an app called TraceTogether was
released by authorities in Singapore to help trace the spread of
COVID-19. The app apparently is nearing one million users, and it was
developed by the Government Technology Agency and the Ministry of
Health. According to the Straits Times,
the app can “identify people who have been in close proximity […] to
coronavirus patients using wireless Bluetooth technology.”
Top10VPN lists 10 more countries that are starting to take similar measures, like India. Reuters reported that,
“People suspected of having the coronavirus in India have received hand
stamps and are being tracked using their mobile phones and personal
data.”
Other countries on the list include
Poland, The UK, Italy, Israel, Germany, Hong Kong, Austria, South Korea,
Belgium, Iran, and Taiwan. The National Post is also reporting
that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on Monday gave the
authorities five days to develop a system to track people who have come
into contact with anyone with coronavirus by using mobile phone
geolocation data.
As the novel coronavirus continues to spread around the world, more governments are relying on mobile carrier data to track everything from patients who should be isolated to how well people are following limited-movement edicts. (The Verge)
The Rise Of Surveillance
Obviously, in such a crisis,
it’s possible to conceive how such surveillance measures might be
extremely beneficial when it comes to trying to slow the spread of COVID
19. That being said, we’ve seen backlash from the general population
on a number of surveillance issues. For example, after 9/11 the United
States government really ramped up surveillance and security protocols,
and when people discovered that the ‘war on terror’ was being used as a
false pretext for increased surveillance, many were upset and tried to
awaken others. Today, it’s not uncommon to see accusations put upon the
US government for creating the same terrorist groups that they claim to
be at war with. The false pretext here is bringing democracy to other
countries and is is often referred to as “false flag terrorism.”
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The leaks of NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden has also revealed a lot of information regarding the measures
various governments have taken to keep an ‘eye’ on their citizens, as
well as citizens of other countries. Wikileaks’ Julian Assange is
another hero in that regard.
Their leaks revealed that the entire
citizenry is actually tracked, and although these mass surveillance
systems are constantly pushed as justifiable by the national security
state, they are a big infringement on our privacy rights. If the ‘war on
terror’ is in a sense a fabrication by the same group of powers that
use it to justify mass surveillance, what’s really going on here?
Is mass surveillance really a tool to
protect the citizenry? Nowadays, it’s hard for many people to see how
governments, or at least the powers that control them, are actually
acting in the interests of citizens. Whistleblower William Binney, who
was one of the highest-placed intelligence officials to ever speak out
on insider NSA information, made headlines when he resigned in 2001
after 9/11 after having worked more than thirty years for the agency. He
has disclosed that the US government is so into tracking and monitoring
people that their goal is nothing short of “total population control.”
A Pandemic As Justification For Surveillance
But what about pandemics, like COVID 19?
Can a pandemic be a ‘false flag’ and be weaponized for ulterior
motives? Again, this is a thought that most would simply brush off as a
mere conspiracy theory, but it’s not out of the question, at least in my
opinion. These days, it’s almost as if you can’t even share an opinion
on something without getting a ‘fake news’ strike. The war on
information is indeed real. For example, according to Dr. Ron
Paul received a ‘fake news’ strike for sharing this opinion in an
article:
“People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus “pandemic” could be a big hoax, with the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated by those who seek to profit – financially or politically – from the ensuing panic.” (source)
Dr. Francis Boyle, a law professor who
drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, recently shared his
thoughts about the Coronavirus, stating that it could be a bioweapon
that was either released or leaked out of a lab. You can read more about
that here.
Unfortunately the video in that article seems to have been removed off
of YouTube, I can’t find it, so you can watch another interview with him here if interested.
Questioning The Hype
This is not to say that the virus is not
a threat, but John P.A. Ioannidis, a professor of medicine and
professor of epidemiology and population health, as well as professor by
courtesy of biomedical data science at Stanford University School of
Medicine, makes some interesting points in an article he recently
published titled “A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.”
In it, he points to the fact that
current fatality rate predictions are useless, ridiculous, and are
simply scaring people, when it looks like this is not going to be as bad
as all the hysteria makes it seem. In fact, he makes the point that
coronaviruses already affect tens of millions per year, and could have
fatality rates as high as 8 percent among the elderly population. A
recent study published in Italy shows that 99 percent of people who have
died so far from COVID 19 had pre-existing medical conditions that made
them more susceptible to death. This may have changed as we are still
in the early stages. You can read more about that and access that study here.
The point is, although it’s best to take
precautions, we may be dealing with something that is no different from
many viruses and diseases already out there with regards to the number
of infected, and the death rate as well as the dangers that are posed
the the elderly and those who already have underlying health conditions.
So why all of these lockdown measures now?
After the passing of this “fiasco,” you
can rest assured that there will be those who will have profited off of
this event politically and financially, and perhaps we will see some new
legislation come into fruition as a result.
On a final note, it’s quite a
head-scratcher that nothing but drugs and vaccinesare being promoted as
the only potential solutions when other substances have showed promise.
This is why clinical trials for intravenous vitamin C
have begun in China, for example. But in the West, that’s ‘fake news’
and there is no possibility that it can even work. If that’s the case,
why would China start clinical trials and why would doctors take to youtube to express the fact that success is being seen?
These are all very important questions
to ask, despite the fact that the answers may not be readily available.
I’ll leave it up to you to speculate. In my opinion, it’s quite clear in
this day in age that nothing is ever presented as it really is.
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