Approved~Løki
The response to the coronavirus pandemic have ranged from mocking the disease (such has Brazil’s Bolsonaro) to physically sealing people inside of apartment buildings in China.
Now governments are deploying an array of legislative and technical measures to track and control citizens during the outbreak which has killed over 21,000 in roughly three months.
Outside of China, governments are enacting strict measures to combat the pandemic.
In Hungary, a bill has been introduced to allow Prime Minister Viktor Orban to rule by decree indefinitely. It includes up to five years in prison for anyone trying to “distort facts” which might weaken the government’s “defense measures.”
In Russia, police are using Moscow’s extensive CCTV network to arrest people violating quarantine after returning from high-risk countries – deploying one of the world’s most advanced facial-recognition systems to monitor over 13,000 people required to self-isolate.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron established a committee to address the pandemic which includes a potential “mobile identification strategy” to track anyone who has come into contact with infected people. Paris, meanwhile, has been using drones to enforce quarantines.
Singapore recently launched a voluntary phone app which uses Bluetooth technology to map close contacts in case an infected person can’t remember all of their social interactions.
Israel has granted the police the ability to monitor those suspected to be in isolation, while the internal security service, the Shin Bet, can track and infected person’s mobile phone data going back two weeks.
India just enacted an unprecedented three-week lockdown across the entire country, while officials are tracking mobile phones, cross-referencing reservation data from airlines and railways, and stamping the hands of those with suspected infections.
According to Nanjing University philosophy professor Gu Su, governments worldwide “should be allowed to concentrate and expand their power, to some extent, to handle the crisis more efficiently,” as long as it is “strictly limited.”
The problem is that governments have issues with limits, and will push boundaries until enough pitchforks come out. Then, everyone forgets – while big brother has a new suite of toys to track, control and oppress at will.
FadedJoke