Several U.S. states are exploring using technology to make sure COVID patients are staying home and adhering to social distancing and self-quarantine rules. Meanwhile, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that he wants all kids to get a microchip tracker when they are born as well as those who return to schools and kindergartens, something that would surely drip down to the rest of the population.
A deep dive by Reuters
into the issue of using Orwellian technology revealed officials in the
states of Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky and West Virginia suggests using
GPS-enabled ankle bracelets and smartphone apps to track COVID-19
patients.
“Various ideas being evaluated for tracking those under mandatory
quarantine in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are right now just that,
ideas,” Hawaii’s COVID-19 Joint Information Center said for the Reuters piece published Thursday.
“We don’t want to take away people’s freedoms but at the same time we
have a pandemic,” added Amy Hess, Louisville, Kentucky’s chief of
public services.
According to Reuters, officials in some states would also
use the measures to enforce stay-at-home orders given to arriving air
passengers who are forced to abide by a 14-day quarantine.
Ankle bracelet tracking is already in place in Kentucky, Reuters further reports.
Seven people who broke quarantine rules in Louisville,
Kentucky were court-ordered to wear GPS-tracking devices manufactured by
Colorado-based SCRAM Systems, according to Amy Hess, the city’s chief
of public services.
Reuters additionally reports that ankle bracelet supplier Shadowtrack
Technologies Inc. President Robert Magaletta, which supplies nearly 250
clients across the criminal justice system, even commented that it has
had state and local governments inquire about re-purposing their tools
for quarantine enforcement. However, the company wouldn’t name the
states that have requested to buy the technology.
That’s not all, a smartphone app maker, E-Cell, said they had
recently been approached by a state agency that wanted to adapt its
detainee-tracking smartphone app for quarantine enforcement.
Of course there needs to be funding for the Orwellian COVID-19
tracing technology; that’s where House Resolution 6666 comes in, a new
bill proposed to fund it all. The TRACE Act, states it is “To authorize
the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants to eligible
entities to conduct diagnostic testing for COVID–19, and related
activities such as contact tracing, through mobile health units and, as
necessary, at individuals’ residences, and for other purposes” upwards
to $100 billion dollars allocated.
The latest Johns Hopkins University data on the contagion puts U.S. cases over 1.3 million, including almost 80,000 deaths at the time of this report.
The nation’s overall population sits at roughly 330 million so that’s
still a small percentage of the population infected with the virus.
While America is going insane with prospective quarantine
surveillance technology, Israel takes the cake when it comes to
surveillance; the country already implemented tracking of cellular
communications, giving itself authority.
Now, Israel’s Prime Minister has suggested microchipping kids to keep
their distance, treating them like a car alarm (yes, really).
While speaking at a press conference, Jerusalem Post reports
that Netanyahu suggested the Health Ministry use microchip technology
to help Israel adjust to its new routine as the state is lifting the
coronavirus lockdown. “That is, technology that has not been used before
and is allowed under the legislation we shall enact,” Netanyahu stated.
“I spoke with our heads of technology in order to find measures
Israel is good at, such as sensors. For instance, every person, every
kid – I want it on kids first – would have a sensor that would sound an
alarm when you get too close, like the ones on cars,” the prime minister
said.
“It will be hard to do it to more than a million schoolchildren who
return to their educational institutions in order to ensure one student
sits at the distance of two meters from another. It is fictional and
dangerous,” cyber resilience expert Einat Meron told Ynet.
“Theoretically, I get the idea behind it,” she said. “But although
such distance-sensitive microchips exist in vehicles, it is different in
humans.” According to Meron, “a beeping sound telling me I got close to
someone is not enough. Who says it will change anything? I would have
gotten closer either way.”
Israel currently has a total of 254 deaths and over 16,000 confirmed
coronavirus cases, according to the Johns Hopkins map at the time of
this report.
Activist Post has previously told readers that COVID-19
would go down in history as COVID-1984 due to the measures being put in
place that will last generations. Specifically, Activist Post warned about smartphone tracking. According to Top10VPN, which is tracing implementation of surveillance technology by constantly updating their blog post about it:
- 28 countries have implemented contact tracing apps
- Alternative digital tracking measures are active in 32 countries
- Physical surveillance technologies are in use in 10 countries
- COVID-19-related censorship has been imposed by 16 governments
When Activist Post originally reported
on the digital rights group’s list, there was only a total of 15
countries which had already started measures to track the phones of
coronavirus patients, ranging from anonymized aggregated data to monitor
the movement of people more generally, to the tracking of individual
suspected patients and their contacts, known as “contact tracing.” Now,
there are 28 countries that have implemented contact tracing through
smartphone apps; that’s a significant increase in just a month’s time.
Activist Post also expressed that measures being put into
place now will likely remain long after the pandemic has stopped and the
virus has run its course. That’s the everlasting effect that COVID-19
will have on our society. The coronavirus is now classified as a
pandemic by the World Health Organization, and it may very well be a
legitimate health concern for all of us around the world. But it’s the
government’s response that should worry us more in the long run.
If you don’t agree with the direction we are heading, a petition is available:
PROTECT OUR RIGHTS AGAINST THE ILLEGAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL H.R 6666 “TRACE ACT”!
**By [@An0nkn0wledge](https://steemit.com/@an0nkn0wledge)**
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post.
Image: Pixabay
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