Slashdot Mirror
CDC Wants to Track Travelers
gearspring writes "According to Government Health IT the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants your email address, your mobile phone number, names of your traveling companions, your name, your address, and your emergency contacts name, address, and phone number. This information would be gathered by airlines, travel agents, and online reservation systems for all travelers. Their goal is to protect us in the event of a pandemic. The SARS crisis showed them the difficulty of notifying people that they may have been exposed to a disease. It is a noble goal, but couldn't they do this anonymously?"
Anonymously? What, will they use a war-dialer to randomly notify people that someone somewhere was likely exposed to a new strain of bird flu? Maybe a really big phone tree?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Could that be any less grammatical? :-)
It is a noble goal, but couldn't they do this anonymously?
It just begs the question, doesn't it?
The submitter asks "couldn't they do this anonymously?"
:)
Err.. probably not. Even if you only gave them a phone number, or an e-mail address, you wouldn't be anonymous any more. And if you didn't give them any personally identifying information, how would they be able to contact you?
Besides, I think I'd want to know that I'd possibly contracted some deadly disease, rather than remain anonymous
"Don't break my arse, my bargey wargey arse, I don't think my pants would understand..."
Almost all airlines keep that information already in some form (for marketing, frequent flyer programs, etc.), they just may be too disorganized to be able to respond to CDC requests. This would require them to be able to do that. I don't see a problem with that. This kind of mandate would even be compatible with a strict data retention and privacy standard that requires deletion of all customer data after, say, a couple of weeks.
That's easy, I'm homeless and have no friends. Maybe I'm not, but how are they going to know?
No address, no contacts, no email, no phone. Are you going to deny someone travel because they can't afford these things? Or choose not to have them?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Back home in the good old days KGB used to collect this sort of information. Just in case you get sick and they need to give you a shot.
Why is everyone so worried about the government using their data? I would rather not catch a deadly disease and not have my town attacked by terrorists than keep anonymous. The government (usually) isn't evil, you know.
and they need to collect it electronically because, when they used to print it out on a piece of paper, those slips were often confiscated at check-in because terrorists could threaten to give someone a really nasty paper cut with it...
Cool! And what about here goal?
>>your email address, your mobile phone number, names of your traveling companions, your name, your address, and your emergency contacts name, address, and phone number.
I'd fill that form with something along the lines billgates@microsoft.com, 202-456-1414, traveling with E. Presley and R. Nixon, My Name, 221B Baker Street, 911...
Information they are asking is outrageous, is there any way they can force you to submit it?
Yep it's a noble goal but it sounds to me like an avenue to control the masses the first time the wrong person get his hands on the "the easy button" this provides. Noble goal but not a noble result.
It may save lives but increase overall human misery. Power like that just *finds* its way into the wrong hands. --JTWe really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
Honestly, this seems like a pretty good idea...in theory. The problem is you are giving up some of your personal freedoms, to travel wherever the fuck you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want. They're not really stopping you from doing any of this (unless there is a disease wherever you want to go, which in that case you probably shouldn't go anyway), but now "they" know about it.
Could this list be used to track possible terrorist suspects? Yes and you can bet it will be.
But if you're not a terrorist (still don't know if they have a big readership on Slashdot) I don't really see the harm in telling the CDC where you're going so in case some flu pandemic breaks out where you just got back from they can notify you . Sacrificing a little personal freedom for increased safety of the whole is worth it to me in THIS SITUATION. There are other situations where I think the benefits do not outweigh the consequences, but with the increased possibility of a flu pandemic in the future this might just help quell the casualties.
Frell Security! My privacy for security, poor trade, look at Britain...
But my health, my child's health! Definitely worth while to store all this information, in the case of an outbreak and all!
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" - Ben Franklin
Sure, but who's going to protect us from them? I'm always leery of people wanting to "protect" me without being asked to do so. And if the airport questionnaire asks "Do you have stairs in your house?", then I think I'd rather walk.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
With the seemingly never-ending erosion of privacy these days, congress needs to pass a constitutional amendment that puts clear restrictions on what data the government can collect, under what conditions, and what the government can do with this sort of data. There also needs to be clear standards for violating people's constitutional rights.
Without some very clear constitutional restrictions, this erosion of privacy will continue forever. Next the DOJ will want your list of acquaintances so they can track down terrorists. Then the CDC will want stores to identify everyone that purchased something and when. Then they will want cell phone companies to give them constant updates on where people are.
You would think that the fourth amendment would be clear enough:
But then it was decided this amendment should only apply to seizures, not searches. It was further decided that it was okay to bar people from doing anything unless they "voluntarily" surrendered this right every time they board a plane, buy a bus ticket, enter a federal building, an so on.
Homer's auto-dialer: "This is CDC. You or someone around you may have been exposed to . Please report to the nearest fenced area for quarantine. Thank you for traveling with ."
Blog via SMS text messaging
info on us can be collected on us under many precepts by our goverment and accessed by any in goverment. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 enough said....
So the Cult of the Dead Cow has gone from crackers to trackers.
Yes, it all makes perfect sense!
Not to support the information gathering, but I guess that would help stop the spread of disease.
Technically they're not denying you travel, they're denying you access to most mass transit. No planes, only some trains, maybe boats(I have no idea). You're free to hoof it, or ride a bike or horse (can't drive a car, motorcycle, or truck, though). You can ride with somebody, hire a car service (maybe), and (someplaces) hitchhike.
Also, I've done some work with the Georgia Law Center for the Homeless and I believe they've gotten homeless people gov't ID before, though I don't think driver's licenses.
Err... how about just making an opt-in list for people who want to be notified in case they were exposed?
Just run a few TV ads in every state and I guarantee that nearly everyone except neurotic Slashdotters (who are afraid that the government might find out what their address is....) will sign up.
..... from spam..?
Hey my problem is that the airlines/travel agent are the ones holding the information.
I love humanity, it is people I hate
Mr. Bush has already made his intentions clear .
e wsid=5596
He has publicly stated if a pandemic strikes there will be martial law, and
the national guard, state police, local police, and "other" authorities will
block "all" travel .
My quetion to this is , who is gonna stop the birds from flying around ???
Want to take that to a WHOLE new level ???
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/8788
Remember the civet cat and Sars ???? Oh my, guess what .
This virus is changing, and it is not done changing .
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8372
If this thing becomes transmitible to the common house cat, killing and eating birds in
every city that has alley cats . We got ourselves a recipe for a bad situation .
Another point of this strain that is being missed is the mortality rate so far .
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?n
If this thing kicks off at anywhere near this supposed 75%, it will be worse than the plague .
Some current numbers put it under 50% and lets hope it becomes less deadly as it mutates .
Keep in mind the 1918 pandemic was 2 - 5%, and not with modern medicine .
This has the potential for a major catastrophe .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
20 - 50 million world wide died in a time before widespread food shipment and travel .
A pandemic has reoccured with regularity every few decades, but this is shaping up to be
the deadliest in modern times if the mortality rates are anywhere near what they are now .
I hope all countries around the world take this VERY seriously .
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Can you even buy airline tickets with cash?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
You already have to provide your name due to security regulations. So I don't see how there's any change there, really.
If you want to book travel, chances are you already provided this, in the form of a billing address, or a shipping address... so I don't see why this would be a big deal.
Not too hard to give a fake one, and really, if you want to take the risk of being out-of-contact when the CDC is trying to contact you to tell you you have just been exposed to some sort of new strain of Hemorrhagic Fever... hey, it's your ass that's bleeding, not mine.
Okay, perhaps a stretch. But again, not too hard to set up a hotmail account, "mikes_garbage_email@hotmail.com", and provide that. You never even have to check it, if you don't want to.
I'm not sure of the regs on this, but it would seem to me that using your passport when you travel would get tracked somewhere in some government database already.
And if you don't want to say who you're traveling with? Say you're traveling alone... not so hard, is it? What are they, going to deny you access to the airplane because you talked to someone while waiting in line?
Well, seems to me the airline would already know this, since you booked yourself on the flight and purchased tickets... so I think this falls in the "already tracked" category.
Again, not a particularly unreasonable request... but not hard to give bogus info if you really wanted to, either.
I guess I'm just having a lot of trouble seeing this as any sort of risk or violation of privacy, as I think most of this stuff would either be: a) already tracked, or b) easy to look up given that you HAVE to give your name to get on the plane... with a name and a credit card number, I'd imagine it would be pretty straightforward to track down pretty much anybody. (And let's be honest... sure, you could probably pay cash to buy the ticket... but how many people are REALLY going to do that?) It seems to me that this would simply allow the CDC to speed up the data collection... which means that it would take them 3 days to notify me I've been exposed to the new Ultra-death-killer SARS strain on my return flight from Singapore... rather than 2 weeks later, when I've already developed a strange cough . . .
There this piece from the Alaska HSS: "Although the recent spread of avian influenza to Europe is a major agricultural and economic threat, it is not a pandemic.
Scientists and public health experts agree that we cannot stop an influenza pandemic, but we can control and limit disease and death through early detection and a well-planned response. In Alaska, disease-monitoring systems are in place for detection of influenza.
Call me paranoid, but it looks like a multi-pronged approach. "See, there's no chance of a pandemic, it's an economic crises. But just in case, we'd like to get your information, and here a small chip we would like to plant just under your skin, temporarily. Thanks."
I live in the air crossroads (Alaska), for birds and people, and I'm not taking any chances, but I'm not going to panic, either.
I see that Alaska has been monitoring the Avian Flu since at least 2000.
The problem is the flu being carried to America by the birds. What makes you think bird flu will spread when everyone knows about it? SARs never got here.
had a "noble goal" too.
"I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working with subatomic particles."
What does the Cult of the Dead Cow have to do with stopping pandemics?
...Oh.
Do you really think this will only be used for its stated purpose? The US government has a long history of spying on the people. See for example, COINTELPRO which "conducted 740,000 investigations of 'subversive matters' and 190,000 investigations of 'extremist matters.'". If any of your acquaintances is acquainted with someone who is being investigated, you can bet you'll be investigated too.
In Soviet Russia, KGB shoots YOU
Here are my hopefully humorous replies to the below.
1) Ummm, okay, they can have that I guess.
2) Current? Well, let us just say I'm transient with no fixed address, yeah, that's it.
3) I don't have my own phone number, seriously. Not everyone is privileged enough to pay $20+ per month to only use it scarcely.
4) Who says I have an e-mail address? Where is an e-mail address required to travel?
5) See number 1 above.
6) Ummm, I'm a loner, yeah, that's it.
7) See number 1 above.
8) See number 6 above.
1) First, last and middle names, in addition to suffixes.
2) Current home address, including street, apartment number, city, state/province and ZIP code.
3) Mobile, home or pager phone numbers.
4) E-mail address.
5) Passport or travel document, including the issuing country or organization.
6) Traveling companions or group.
7) Flight information, including date, airline, flight number and return flight details.
8) Name, address and phone number of an emergency contact.
All they seem to have to do anymore is claim something will make us safer and most americans will offer up their Bic lighters to help burn the Constitution. Just how much information about everything we do does the government really need? Several thousand people die in the 9/11 attack and they offer up the constitution on a platter. 20X that many die from the flu every year in this country and there's no out cry. It was tragic but isn't heading down the police state road and making tin foil hats mandatory a bit of an over reaction? This flu may be as bad as claimed but I still remember the swine flu scare in the 70s and SARS just happened. It's important to take these threats seriously but over reaction gives the bad guys in the government more power and threatens to make people suspect the next time around, cry wolf anyone? The threat is real but until it manifests the over reaction can do more harm than good. We've all but been promised it'll happen within the year yet the truth is no one knows if a human strain will show up next month, next year or ten years from now. Can we mantain DEFCON 2 for that long? The irony is over use of antivirals before it hits could leave it immune and kill far more people. Let's not start implanting tracking chips and sending people to leper colonies for a head cold just yet. Wait till there's at least one confirmed human to human transmition before we torch that abused document that protects us when we let it. Give up your privacy rights if you want but bloody well leave mine alone.
It's all about profiling, it's not who you are, it's who the guy in the seat next to you is.
*sob* *sob* *sob*
*rage*
*sob*
*RAGE*
but it appears to be computer generated.
Problems such as 911 and avian flue have been used as excuse for giving up much of our privacy. Are we heading towards a future much like the book "1984"? What would someone like Hitler have done with RFID technology? No one would have been able to blend into the background and hide from him.
There is a "loss of privacy" pattern in recent years. An example is the plans to use RFID tags in most consumer products. Wallmart and various other companies as well as the U.S. military and federal government agencies have been pushing for increased use of RFID tags. There are plans to use inexpensive RFID tags in every item that we buy. The RFID tags would have a unique serial number for each and every single item sold. The passive type of RFID tag does not use a battery and would continue working for many years afterwards. It is mainly intended for inventory control. In a few years we will quite likely be wearing shoes and clothing which have hidden RFID tags which can be read from several feet away by anyone. We will also quite likely have RFID tags in items in our wallet such as our drivers license, charge cards, shoppers discount cards, and passports. There are also proposals for RFID tags in our tires, license plates and possible requirements to be embeded elsewhere in our cars. There has even been a proposal to embed RFID tags in postage stamps in the U.S. I don't know the details but, perhaps tracking all our mail would would be intended as a way to protect us from terrorists who send us packages with explosives or letters with Anthrax.
Many cars in the Houston area have toll passes hanging from their mirrors which have active RFID tags. Houston has over two hundred miles of freeways with "Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) stations every five miles along the road. Big brother is watching.
I won't go into all the various privacy issues associated with RFID tags. But, if anyone is interested, the entire first chapter of a "Spychip" book is avialable online from the publisher at http://www.lfb.com/index.php?stocknumber=PV9017. There is also a RFID spychips organization at http://www.spychips.com.
People are already tring to figure out how to deactivate RFID tags by microwaving them, slicing them or zapping them with static electricity. If RFID tags ever become common I will search out the few stores that still sell RFID tag free items. Should I be less paranoid and be more trusting and less suspicious of my government?
Captain Obvious really needs a tv show
his sidekick should be Corporal Oblivious.
According to our records your recent travel to the nation of XX has resulted in your having a YY per cent chance of having contracted ZZ. Please report to your local detention isolation and testing center. Failure to respond to this notice will result in ...
if *you* are said traveller, handing over all this information won't help you. So you go to Singapore, fly back, and suddenly Singapore has a SARS outbreak. You won't need the CDC to phone you - it'll be all over the news.
The information will be used so that they can track the disease's spread across the country. It's not Patient Zero (that's P0 for the USA, not P0 for the disease) they'll be helping...given the speed of bureaucracy they'll never reach P0 before symptoms set in.
Being able to examine an outbreak - and trace it back to a P0 - will allow them to work back up the tree via P1, P2, P3...and predict further outbreaks based on their behaviour.
Did no one else read that thinking Culf of the Dead Cow?
If you are notified that you have been exposed, what steps might you be expected to take? Self-imposed quarantine? Are mandatory quarantines a possibility?
Is it just me that hears this to the tune of "the old gray mare" as sung by the old man in the simpsons
poohneat the land of the free, aint wat it used to be aint wat it used be. aint wat it used to be.
announcer and now, the poohneat dancers!
poohneat the land of the free, aint wat it used to be aint wat it used be. aint wat it used to be.
I would much rather _not_ give this stuff to the CDC (nor the airlines for that matter) but rather have them use the natural channel of broadcast to notify people of this stuff. FRont page of less than a dozen news papers and a few fifteen second slots on Sunday night baseball and the hallmark channel should do just fine. It would cost less and if it really is a pandemic it would get the info out to everyone (making people who knew someone that was just in a chicken farm in Hong Kong as incentivised as the guy who was there to make them known to the disease police)
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
They tap your phones to protect you from terrorists, they limit your rights to research encryption technology and software protection to protect the economy and they monitor your every move to protect you from a pandemic. Wonderful with all the protection we get. Politicians are all starting the following receipe: 1 Create fictional threat. 2 Create solution to fictional threat that preferably also include increased population control 3 Increase popularity in fool demographic 4 goto 1
(Trivia digression: when did ID for airlines start? Answer: after the 1996 TWA "non-terrorism" crash. Wow, that ID stuff was really effective, wasn't it?)
TFA/CDC may have mentioned only airlines, but of course it would be extended to all forms of travel. Pretty clever, actually -- it's easier to sell the idea of ID'ing on buses for the bird flu than it is for terrorism.
And I didn't see a link for it in any of the +5 comments, so here is Gilmore v. Gonzales, John Gilmore's attempt to challenge the practice of ID'ing at airports.
Yes, because 100 people out of 6 billion contracting a non-contagious, non-human strain of avian flu by direct contact with infected birds constitutes a crisis. Riiiiight....
ok
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
CDC almost certainly does want a DB available to contact those that went into infected areas.
The real problem will be, that it is the same DB that the feds will use, via the patriot act, to track who is going where outside of the USA.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
is that it not, in and of itself, all bad.
Think of the good that could be done by people NOT being forced to report all their income and attempting to lie about it.
We could take care of people as and when they need it, instead of being ripped off by scammers who look for and find every flaw in a system where you have applications to fill out, and 'qualification' hoops to jump through, like you have to be indigent to get any help so any 'bad break' HAS to be catastrophically bad. (Anecdotal evidence: I know a woman who had an illness and to sell her CEMETARY PLOTS and come back when the money had ben spent because you can't own any PROPERTY and get 'state' medical care.)
But it demands truly altruistic people be in charge, and truly altruistic people don't exactly run for office.
We keep getting lawyers, ex-lawyers and people who should be behind bars.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Dear Sir,
You may have traveled with someone who was infected with (name of disease). If you are the person who was traveling with the other Anonymous person, please contact us immediately.
You know who you are.
If you are not the anonymous person who recently traveled, please forward this the the anonymous person who did. In order to protect your identity, we are also sending this message anonymously.
Thank you.
We should start referring to processes which run in the background by their correct technical name... paenguins.
If you happen to not have a mobile phone, you'll be a shadow, moving from place to place and leaving no trace of your presence. At least until you pay for something with a credit card.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Actually, when you book with a travel agent the airlines often don't have your phone number and contact information. The agencies are (rightly) afraid of airlines contacting you directly and stelaing you as a customer. So, they buy PC software that keeps all that stuff on their desktop and puts the agency's phone number in the reservation. It's often the same for online agencies (web sites), some put all your info in the reservation, many don't.
When you fly international, the airlines will then ask for emergency contact info when you check in. They also want your passport info as they can't trust the agencies to get it right. Guess who pays the fine if you're refused entry when you arrive at customs on the other end of your flight?
The answer is no - you can't do something like that anonymously. Who gives half a crap if the CDC knows where you travel, seriously? In cooperation with the Gov. they should know this stuff already, but sadly they do not so I'll give it to them if it's properly 'secured'. I'm paranoid, just not against the CDC.
So John Smith contracts the disease while traveling, then gives it to the entire flight, also to all the people in the coffee shop he went to, then maybe the gas station attendant catches it, and passes it on to everyone who stops in for a fill up.... Wouldnt a better solution be to inform the public as a whole? Using the media to get the word out faster?
Big Brother is watching you.
In case anyone does not understand this, pandemics happen a lot more often than we realize. And with the world having shrunk significantly due to air travel, an unknown infectious disease can be everywhere in the world in 24-48 hours. This is especially frightening when you think there are actually drug-resistant strains of some diseases already out there.
So what's it going to be? I'm as paranoid as the next person, and I don't even give out information to cashiers at department stores, but I for one would welcome this kind of information being given to the CDC, especially if it could help me avoid getting into the middle of a pandemic, but more importantly giving my family a contact point if I'm actually in one. Given the virulence of some diseases nowadays, you could be dead within 72 hours and how would anyone know where you were or more importanly, how to get in touch with your relatives?
At some point we have to bite the bullet. Assuming it is organized and run by the CDC, the data kept securely, and the federal government can keep their hands off it, this will become an invaluable tool in preventing a world-wide health crisis. Let's just hope we don't get caught before anything can be implemented.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I wouldn't trust the CDC with anything as facists as this. After all, these boneheads consider gun ownership a disease.
OK. Lets put the privacy issue aside.
As a taxpayer, do you want every government agency tracking your every move just from a financial point of view?
The CDC wants to track travelers in the event of a nasty disease. What can that do beyond simply asking the people with common and severe symptoms questions (if they want) about where they have been and whatnot? Isn't that just as effective and cheaper?
As someone else pointed out, the airlines started compulsory checking and requiring IDs for travel in 1996. To get commercial airline training requires IDs and other loopholes. But its still completely possible for 3 airlines to get hijacked by foreigners who showed their IDs and everything and have fun with them.
What about "gun control"? That takes and ID. Convicted felons have lost the right to have firearms of any kind. I guess that will start to eliminate murder by guns any day now, right? (BTW, in the USA guess what is the 3rd most common murder weapon after guns and knives? Glass -- usually in the form of a broken bottle!)
Personally, I believe that privacy is the fundamental thing in question here. But lets put our tin foiled hats aside, and focus on dollars and cents. Is this privacy bashing effective in terms of doing what it is supposed to do in terms of its intent or in terms of cost? I don't believe so. Its only very recently during the "war on terror" that the government is even playing lip service to doing things like guarding our borders, but they are incarcerating people without being charged with crimes for years, they are trying to collect our reading at libraries, they are trying to give us a full strip and body cavity search to ride on an airplane. The thing here is not that some people are gaining from the government's actions, but rather that most people are loosing because of them.
So, I say that instead of focusing on our privacy which most people seem very willing to give up, let them focus on their pocket book. Its quite clear that the government sucks at collecting and keeping their information private (eg, the recent CIA leak).
If a private company has tight requirements for their liability or whatever reason. That is fine, we have the choice of another company or just do without. Its very difficult and a long process to overthrow a government. So lets just keep them doing whatever they do so long as it keeps out of our business and pocket books.
Yes. There's this tattoo and chip combo thing you get called a "Mark". Report to the appropriate Loyalty Station to receive yours.
Sinc.,
The Beast
So this is how libery dies? With Thunderous Cockle doodle dooing.
CYA
after there is a problem, people will say "why didn't you..."
"Why didn't you track all travelers"
"we tried but everyone said 'no'"
To my knowledge we don't live in a communist or totalitarian country, right? Therefore submission of this type of PERSONAL information must be VOLUNTARY. In case the CDC is actuallly trying to force people they can go and fuck themselves. If they really want me to make up some data I will gladly do that.
And yet, the CDC protects you anyway, and you reap the benefits, even though you didn't ask for it.
You can certainly go somewhere without a strong public health structure, where you can worry about malaria, MMR, Guinea worm, cholera, polio, and a whole lot of other things besides the CDC.
It's a little disingenous to level that degree of suspicioun against an agency that is working, rather successfuly, to maintain a public health infrastructure that you benefit from on a daily basis.
But hey, sure. They probably just want to steal all your personal information and tap your phone calls. Nice catch. +5 Insightful
Okay, let's look at it from a financial perspective:
- It's not the government tracking this information, so I fail to see how it costs the government any money aside from the time spent developing the standards. They're asking the airlines to maintain a database of information -- most of which they already maintain , probably in multiple, diverse, insecure, incompatible formats -- in order to allow the CDC to find out who's been exposed to some sort of transmissible health issue as rapidly as possible. I fail to see how this costs the government inordinate amounts of money, if the airlines are charged with implementing, tracking, and maintaining the system.
- In the case of a massive outbreak of flu, or SARS, or ebola, or some other nasty virus, how much time & money would it cost for the CDC to track this data after the fact? When you're trying to stop the spread of a transmissible disease, time is a crucial factor -- the more time you let infected people walk around, passing it on to others, the more people become infected, and end up walking around passing it on to others. It's an exponential curve... that extra week it would take to find all the possibly infected people could cost the government a lot to our health care system, because the response needed to contain the disease becomes all that much more massive -- rather than quarantining & treating 5000 people who've been exposed, you have to try and quarantine & treat several million... so in terms of economics, what's cheaper, paying to find & treat five thousand people who've come in contact with an infected person in the 2 days since the person was exposed, or mobilizing the military to quarantine a few dozen cities where the disease has been possibly spread to millions in the 2 weeks it took the CDC to track all the people on that plane?
In the final analysis, I still fail to see how this is a bad thing, or really even all that newsworthy... The airlines already track 90% of the data the CDC would ask for already, so it can't be THAT much of a privacy issue -- if you didn't want them having that info, you'd already refuse to purchase air travel on grounds of privacy... and by your financial argument, it seems that NOT doing it would be at least as expensive, financially, due to the simple fact of infection following an exponential growth curve -- and in that case, time is money in a very real sense.2 years 6 months and 4 days thank you very much you insensitive clod, and it wasn't even good sex!
I have to admit, when I first saw the headline I thought they were talking about Cult of the Dead Cow.
:)
Back Orifice anyone ?
Your data is convincing but it doesn't address the problem that travel agencies are facing. How do you contact someone who has been exposed to infection?
The worst case answer is you can't, which really says more about the inefficiency of the FCC (at least in the US, where communication is probably worst) than anything else.
Cellular phone companies can implement just about anything they want, as long as they extract huge taxes from their customers. They can lock their phones, charge extra for key features (like SMS, voice messages). You cannot reliably contact someone by their cellular phone.
Of course even though there is no protection of cellular users many people are dropping landline service. Pair that with telephone companies charging for voicemail, and the lack of good answering machines, and you really can't reliably contact someone by their POTS phone.
In my personal experience the average joe/jane doesn't know their own email address. They might give you a aol screen name, or they might leave out symbols. Email addresses are usually too long, and too complex for dumb people to write down.
As it happens there is no solution to the email problem. If everyone and their brother wants to use gmail, the government can't stop them. Average IQ's are getting worse, so dumb people aren't likely to wise up and understand their own email.
The solution must be with cellular phones and home phones. It's high time the FCC had done something to justify their exuberant taxes, and clean up some phone systems. As usual I dont expect this to happen. They'll probably ask for about 6 forms of contact, none of them being reliable (or fast in the case of USPS) enough, and assume that one will work.
While I'm on a rant, why not crack down on some email spam so people can trust their inbox?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Yes.
For a pandemic, they could simply broadcast over all TV stations, all newspapers, all radios (Emergency Broadcast System) that people traveling on Plane Flight 123 from LNX to WIN or OSX should contact their local authorities to be tested, innoculated, treated.
An identity provision suggests the authorities want the option to be able to more strictly enforce quarantine measures.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
..Could this list be used to track possible terrorist suspects? Yes and you can bet it will be.
... (emphasis mine)
But if you're not a terrorist (still don't know if they have a big readership on Slashdot) I don't really see the harm in telling the CDC where you're going so
If they're tracking possible terrorists, then we all have something to fear. If they're tracking terrorists, then you only have something to fear if your a terrorist.
Everyone has the potential to be a "possible terrorist suspect." All it takes is an accusation.
The CDC would be stupid not to interview these people anyway. If a nasty new disease comes out, and it was caused by people fucking a pig, looking for airline information would be a waste of time and money. Also, the CDC does want the tracking of this information according to the article. If I get my lawnmower fixed, they collect things like my name and phone number, but that is not shared with other lawnmower fixers or the government (AFAIK).
In the case of a massive outbreak of flu, or SARS, or ebola, or some other nasty virus, how much time & money would it cost for the CDC to track this data after the fact?
How much time does it take to cure something like SARS, AIDS or flu? These things have not yet been cured in a matter of days, weeks, years, or decades to date. Diseases come from many different places. Fleas, mosquitos, sex, airborne, food. What makes airlines so special? So, if its OK for the CDC to track airline information, what about my sexual partners? What about the insects I've been exposed to? What about my diet?
This is why I avoid Television and media in general. Of COURSE the bad guys will be able to spin up a reasonable-sounding argument for why you should slit your wrists. The problem with TV is that you can't argue back at it. All you can do is sit on your arse and watch pre-fab 'debate' happening on your behalf which, of course, will always end up with the various anti-freedom, anti-privacy sharks presenting the lion's share of convincing argument.
The game is so very, very rigged.
The frustrating part is that I know I am right, but I'm not allowed to say why. It has to stay in the realm of, "Maybe he's making it up." --Otherwise, it gets dangerous for yourself and the people around you. Basically, if you dig deeply enough into areas such as this, then grudgingly or not, you eventually become a brick in the wall dividing knowledge and ignorance.
-FL
They should track that 12 Monkeys guy with the vials.
I saw him get on the plane and everything.
I think he's up to no good.
It's safer not to think about the provisions the UK government has in an emergency. Under the Civil Contingencies Bill they recently rammed through parliament, they basically said that a load of political people can declare an emergency. Unless something changed very late on, it doesn't even have to be major players like the Prime Minister or Home Secretary, who will at least be held accountable eventually, if only by getting their government unelected. Rather, it can be a few political weenies at the Treasury or something.
Now it gets really good. Once an emergency has been declared, the government may require you to do almost anything (literally), may require you not to do almost anything (literally), and specifically may restrict your freedom of movement or association, may confiscate your property or kill any animals without any obligation to pay compensation... well, you get the idea. I don't think they quite suspended voting rights and the requirement to hold a general election every few years, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been added as a late amendment.
Yeah, it's a great Act, right up there with Regulation of Investigatory Powers, all the recent anti-terrorism stuff, ID cards/database, and the almost-finished-without-any-parliamentary-oversigh t police plan to install spy cameras every few hundred metres on our main roads and track every vehicle in the UK everywhere it goes.
We really, really need a written constitution setting forth, amongst other things, reasonable rights to privacy and not to have personal information about you stored where it's not absolutely necessary. No, a declared state of emergency isn't a good enough excuse: that's like the US government saying they'll only completely ignore the US Constitution during war time, and then conveniently reinterpreting the word "war" to apply to actions against unspecified targets with unspecified end criteria ("war on drugs", "war on terror") in order to pretend the rights of citizens no longer apply in perpetuity.
The sort of thing they're talking about seems unlikely to help anyway. If something like a highly virulent human flu-bird flu hybrid does take hold, they'll never have the resources to track down all the individuals who might be affected fast enough to do anything useful anyway. It might help with collecting statistics, but I can't see it saving (m)any lives. (Can anyone who knows more about the field tell me whether I'm missing something here?) At that point, mandating complete surveillance of society that will inevitably be abused sooner rather than later seems a rather high price to pay for a small, and only hypothetical, benefit.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I will easily give my up what amouts to a insignifcant amount of privacy so that i dont die nor do I kill 3 billion people if i am the first to get sick. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
But hey -- I can understand -- people just dont give a damn about anything but themsleves. So improperly fill out your info with the CDC, then you can kill half your family along with the half the people on earth.
"ATTENTION CITIZENS. IF YOU HAVE TRAVELED TO THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES YOU MAY BE AT RISK FOR CARRYING THIS DISEASE. PLEASE SEE YOUR NEAREST HOSPITAL IMMEDIATLY IF YOU ARE AT RISK"
Why isn't such a message like that simply broadcast over the radio, television, and internet news? The only people who probably wouldn't get the message, even though there would be ample opportunity to receive it, would be poor people, as they are less likely to pay attention and react to the news. Poor people aren't traveling overseas anyway. So they wouldn't be on the proposed CDC list anyway. I don't see why just some general broadcast is not enough. No, this is about control. This is about letting the CDC and other organizations and governments know exactly where you are so they can round you up and herd you into some kind of quarintine in the event of some kind of pandemic.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
You bring out some important facts to support your argument, but you leave out some other important facts that inconveniently do not support it. Let's stroll over to Wikipediain another tab as we examine your claims, shall we?
You write: The main reasons the spanish flu got so bad are
1) There was a big war on and millions of soldiers were lying around in cold, wet, unhygienic trenches just begging for a disease to come kill them and
The flu did not limit itself to the soldiers fighting in WWI. The total death toll (military and civilian) of World War I was at least 16 million, of which about 9 million were military and about 7 million civilian. This is over the course of 4 years. Contrast this with the Spanish Flu killing at least 25 million (quite possibly 50 or 100 million) in 18 months.
While it usually only infected less than one-third of the population in most places and killed only a fraction of those infected, there were a number of towns in several countries where the entire population was wiped out. The only sizeable inhabited place with no documented outbreak of the flu in 1918-1919 was the island of Marajó at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil.
2) There was a big war on and media censorship effectively kept the disease from being reported and therefore no effective countermeasures could be put into effect.
And, pray tell, which effective countermeasures could have been taken? Given the state of technology at the time?
The facts are that 1)The airlines are already collecting this information about you, and if the "security" services want it, they'll be able to get it. 2) Modern travel will allow a pathogen to reach many many more people in a much much shorter amount of time.
Fortunately, we have a better understanding of such diseases (at the time of the Spanish Flu, they didn't understand that it was a virus; they believed it was a bacterium), and we have better information technology to track who may be exposed to such a virus. For the sake of precious privacy (yes, it is precious) you'd sacrifice precious life. Your privacy isn't going to do you a lot of good if you're dead.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
This is a spurious argument on several levels:
Oh, and by the way... do you really, truly, believe that the FBI or even local police couldn't get at your lawnmower repair information if there was some bizarre reason they needed to have it for reasons of public safety or law enforcement?
How much time does it take to cure something like SARS, AIDS or flu? These things have not yet been cured in a matter of days, weeks, years, or decades to date. Diseases come from many different places. Fleas, mosquitos, sex, airborne, food. What makes airlines so special? So, if its OK for the CDC to track airline information, what about my sexual partners? What about the insects I've been exposed to? What about my diet?
Another spurious argument. They're not saying that with this information they'll be able to cure all of those diseases. Nobody made that claim, so to use this as a counter-argument is a little silly. BUT, if they can intervene before a disease spreads to pandemic proportions in the population, they can prevent a lot of people from getting sick in the first place.
As far as your question of what makes airlines different from fleas, mosquitoes, etc. -- you're confusing the issue. Fleas, sex, etc. are vectors for transmission, just like people are in these cases. The airlines are "special" in that they allow an infected person to travel around the world in a matter of hours, greatly increasing the distance a disease can travel, and as a direct consequence, the number of people around the world that can be affected by a nasty disease that jumps out of a local quarantine.
And incidentally, if you contract a disease which is being monitored by the CDC, you'd better believe they're going to ask you a lot of questions about your diet, your sexual partners, and who you've been associating with lately. All that the airline info tracking does is make it easier for the CDC to find out who an infected person may have been in contact with, which allows them to intervene and perhaps halt the spread of something nasty before it reaches pandemic proportions. As I said before, time spent gathering data == lives lost to disease == more money spent on more sick & dying people, when you're talking about epidemics.
I thought it might be handy to step back, take a closer and in depth look at this article and try to find out what it *really* means.
The regulations will require airlines to collect and maintain in an electronic database the following passenger information
So this means that the CDC isn't going to be holding on to the information, it's going to be the airlines, right?
The same rules would also apply to passengers on international cruise lines and international ferry companies at U.S. ports, which the CDC estimated carry about 75 million passengers a year.
So now it's going to be cruise lines and what seems to be any form of international travel that they can potentially track. I'd be willing to place bets that they will *not* attempt this with any border crossings though, because if you thought the lines were long before... No-one would go for it, plus it would be political suicide to decide to break or hamper NAFTA at this stage of the game.
The CDC plans to collect data at what it calls the point of sales(POS) and estimates this would spread the cost among airlines, travel agents and global reservation systems used by airlines, hotels and travel agents.
Now then, that implies that these databases are going to be maintained by the people you book your travel through as well as who is actually moving you around.
But if you stop and think about it, how much of that information do they ALREADY get from you when you try to book some travel. Name, address, and flight information they already have. Email address? What if you booked online? Phone number? Most places I got flight tickets from already ask for that. Passport? They ask you for that when traveling, right? This likely means that the airline is already recording that. Emergency contact? Depending on what you're going on, they likely ask you for that. When's the last time you went for a package vacation deal? Oh, wait, that's where they're going to get your traveling companions/group. So it sounds like they're not going to be adding any questions that you'll be asked for when you travel, they're just trying to get at that pre-existing information.
Now I could quote the whole article, but it sounds like the CDC got pissed during SARS, because when they did try to ask for information, they got red tape from the travel industry (requiring written requests was one listed), so they're trying for some legislation that would require the travel industry to hand over the information in a timely manner.
As for those worried about Big Brother(TM)
The new regulations, which are available on the CDC's Web site and will be posted for a 60-day comment period in the Federal Register starting Nov. 30, would require airlines, travel agents and global reservations systems to collect personal information that exceeds the quantity of information currently collected by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) or the Homeland Security Department (DHS).
Okay, so that means that the TSA and DHS are already collecting information on you. This means that for anti-terrorism purposes, no matter what, they already have a bead on you. So all the jockeying around about "OMG!!1 Big brother is watching me!" is moot, because if you bought a ticket, they(TSA and DHS) already have your information.
Furthermore, since government agencies have such a SPLENDID time of co-operating with other agencies (as evidenced by the fiasco caused by Katrina, 9/11, etc.) I highly doubt that the CDC is going to play nice and expedient with outside agencies trying to gain access to the information available to them.
Bureaucratic infighting is just as bad, if not worse than corporate infighting. Good examples are just how well local PD's co-operate with county, state and federal police units, up to and including the Coast Guard. It usually ends up as a cluster... Well, you know what I mean.
And there are already signs of just th
is the last time we had a serious pandemic? HYPE. Privacy invasion.
The CDC shouldn't worry. Local hospitals will know soon enough who your wearly slightly contagious traveler has come in contact with.
As Nat Hentoff and Alexander Cockburn have observed, fascism will gain a toehold in the US via public health organizations.
Talk about Slashdot running old news... this was plastered all over the tv and newspapers a week ago.....
Slashdot is getting really old.... digg.com is the way to go for news for nerds and stuff that matters.....
>
> Keep in mind the 1918 pandemic was 2 - 5%
From TFlink:
Global mortality rate from the influenza was estimated at 2.5%-5% of the population, with some 20% of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent.
i.e., the Spanish Flu was 12-25% fatal, not 2.5-5% as you suggest.
Moreover, mortality rates of an epidemic are often/usually lower than those of the source disease, thanks to mutation---forms less likely to disable their hosts spread more rapidly (more points of contact), so the mortality rate is likely to be lower than what's been observed.
Moreover, what's been observed is a biased measure of the true mortality rate---we're mostly counting the people who are so sick they get noticed for it, and those around them. Are we sure we've counted all the people who've contracted H5N1 but haven't died? How many didn't get very sick, and so weren't even considered by doctors as potential victims?
In all likelihood, a pandemic from H5N1 would be no worse than the Spanish Flu was.
Keep in mind, though - the Spanish Flu was bad, so this is still a serious issue. It's just not so apocalyptic as some would fear.
People, I think most of you are on the wrong track....someone posted a link to John Gilmore's site and this telling comment was posted in the mailbag:
Airlines began requiring ID when they determined that small businesses were using previously purchased tickets for individuals to send other individuals. This is a fact that can be documented. The airlines forced this issue in 1997.
As a small business manager, there were many times when I had terminated employees and needed to send the new employee on the specific trip. This really comes into play where trade shows are concerned and you need to book several months in advance. I have communications sent to top AA management in this regard but no answer.
The airlines grabbed the ID platform in order to increase revenue margin. At the same time they increased "change" charges from $35 in 1994 to $75 in 1997 to now $100.
I think some people forget that it's not usually malice and power that really motivate these type of things....it's the $$$
DennyErecting the wall of separation between church and state is absolutely essential in a free society. - Thomas Jefferson
The flu did not limit itself to the soldiers fighting in WWI.
No, but this is where it found its breeding ground. The soldiers were easy targets and they carried the disease home with them when they went on leave, got dismissed, etc.
And, pray tell, which effective countermeasures could have been taken? Given the state of technology at the time?
The most effective countermeasures against an epidemic are still mainly non-technological: containment and isolation. Since wartime censorship prevented people from knowing there was an epidemic going on, however, those were not put into effect to the extent necessary.
sigs are hazardous to your health
I still don't think you appreciate how quickly this thing spread world wide, despite the rather "primitive" vectors. True, it most likely found it's breeding ground in the muddy trenches of WWI and from there moved to the Civilian population.
Today, we can cross the oceans in mere hours, not days. A pathogen similar to the Spanish Flu, unchecked, would wipe out a staggering amount of people before we even knew what hit us. If there is an outbreak, time is off the essence.
Yes, you are right, containment and isolation are the most effective countermeasures. Which is why timely information about who has been exposed is so vital. At least you are not one of those here who seems to be saying (in the name of liberty!) that they would refuse to be quarantined if exposed to such a virus. Man, that just blows my mind. I suppose it shouldn't, being born and raised in the US.
Basically, I agree that the reasons you gave were factors, but not what I would call the two main reasons. So, we'll have to agree about some things and disagree with out others.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.