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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?"
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..."
B) That's great for Europe and the rest of the world, but the next influenza pandemic doesn't seem likely to originate in Vienna or Nice. Does Ho Chi Minh city have such a system in place? Something makes me doubt it.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
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.
I suspect that the idea is to be able to find people who have been in contaminated areas after the fact, so that they can be monitored and quarantined if necessary. I doubt the idea is to preemptively notify people before they travel to high risk areas - rather, it's to find people who just left Phnom Penh to return to the States, now that people in Phnom Penh (or wherever) are suddenly dropping like flies.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
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.
Why? I care about freedom of speech, but if I have to pick between freedom and safety I will usually pick safety.
but if I have to pick between freedom and safety I will usually pick safety then you don't deserve either.
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....
some of us don't want our freedoms sacrificed for your/our/everyone's safety. If people like you got your way there would be no interstate travel because "thats how them there sickness gets spread" and yes you might not die of dog/cat/media-scare flu, but odds are you weren't going to anyway.
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.
If that means that I sacrifice some of my freedom for the safety of the general public, so be it.
Then on that premise, I demand the government install cameras in everyones homes to stop drug abuse, to stop domestic violence, to stop bomb making, to stop religious cults, to stop all manner of evil deeds that are plotted and conducted in the privacy of peoples homes.
You see where that reasoning gets you? It's a huge slippery slope. You need to decide where to draw the line in the sand. I would recommend you get yourself a history book and start reading. What I know of history tells me that you draw the line in the sand as far away from your home and personal life as possible, or you'll end up with no home and personal life.
Freedom is dangerous. That's the way it is. Maybe you're happy with a big brother watching over you, but I don't want that.
And I thought the basis of the civil rights movement was that everyone was equal.
This is MY life. I don't owe you or anyone else anything. You don't pay my bills. You don't bear my burdens. You don't fight my demons. You don't share my triumphs.
Your "equal rights" do not extend to MY life. Equal rights mean that we are dealt with equally according to the law. It does not mean that you get an equal cut of my labor, or of my freedom. I don't want your freedom, why they hell do you want mine? I'll tell you this, you'll have a great chance of survival against an infectious disease, than against your fellow citizens rising up against you when you try to take away their rights.
Well, if they already have the information, they don't need this latest measure then, do they? So if they do have the information, I'd have to oppose gathering it twice.
And if they don't, then there's still something for opposing the encroachment of the Surveillance State.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
There will probably be a clause in the bottom of a particular document that reads something along the lines of ;
"I hereby swear that the above information is true and complete".
Soon after on the document will be a statement that says "providing false information is a Federal offence and is punishable by a million years in a government correctional facility.
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.
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.
CNN: Breaking news on the War on *new disease name of choice* - more than 50% of the population in NYC is currently quarantined, thanks to the new mobile tracking system...
Seriously, it's not like if you inform them, they will automatically and volunteerly go into quarantine. That's one of the major issues when SARS striked. Most people that should be quarantined still went to work because their bosses will fire their @ss if they don't. And nevermind the decisions made by health officials here in Toronto. If you look at Asia, take Taiwan for example. The Gov official closed off a hospital specifically to contain all those who have serious symptoms of SARS, and all of the cases are redirected there. This greatly decreased the chances of contracting the disease when seeking medical help for other stuff. Looking back to TO, they didn't even consider that option. People go to the hospital for a twisted ankle, next thing they know, they're being quarantined. The system was not effective at all, and many people, especially the health professionals, got sick because of that.
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"If everything seems to be going well, you obviously don't know what the hell is going on." - Murphy's Law
There may be some people who want to get rid of searches and security altogether, but it's the ID requirement that is really onerous. If you allow the airlines to search your bags, you walk through a metal detector, you even allow them to search your person, then why the hell do they need to see a photo ID as well? Does a lack of ID suddenly make a person dangerous?
I'm happy to go through even a pastiche of a security check that will weed out the stupidest criminals.
I guess that's where we're different. I don't like to submit to false authority. I suppose you would also be happy to have your house or car searched without a warrant, and would gladly spread your cheeks for a cavity search. I actually appreciate the constitutional prohibition on unlawful search and seizure (what's left of it, after the Reagan regime). Civil liberties don't protect themselves--but I must be old-fashioned for caring about an antiquated document like the Bill of Rights. And no, Big Brother doesn't have mind-reading satellites, but that's on their wish list, now that they have Eschelon, the PATRIOT Act, and the ability to jail citizens indefinitely without trial.
Let's be clear. Without a government-issued ID there is no actual prohibition on TRAVEL. There is, however, the ability for COMMERCIAL, PRIVATE transport companies (be they bus, train, plane, ferry, whatever) to REFUSE SERVICE to people failing to present such an ID.
Let's be clear. You are obviously misinformed, unaware of the fact that the government is requiring airlines to ask for ID, citing a secret law that does not exist on the books. How would you like to be convicted of violating a law that you aren't allowed to read, and just take the police's word it exists? How could a lawyer possibly defend a client against such a law? That sounds pretty close to a definition of "police state," or at least some nightmarish Kafka story.
I hate sloppy language, especially when it's used by chicken-littles to suggest we're moving toward a police state...like the hypocrites at Cryptome.
You hate sloppy language? Here's something that should be straight-forward for you: we're moving toward a police state. That's not a suggestion, but a fact. If you can't see that, you're more oblivious than the "stupidest criminals" you mentioned. Start paying attention.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Irrelevant, as _no_ antibiotics were in use in 1918. Penicilline was (re)discovered in 1928, but wasn't actually used until the 1940s. Sulfonamides were in use in the 1930s. * While vaccination has certainly come a long way from 1918, to date, no one has ever actually cured a virus.
What does vaccination have to do with "curing a virus" ?
Also, antiviral drugs are available, and they are effective, but usually narrow-band (meaning that they target fairly specific viruses). Aciclovir works against Herpes, but not much else.
The common cold is still common.
Yep. Mainly because it can be caused by a variety of different viruses and bacteria.
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.
It rapidly spread pretty much everywhere, not just in countries involved in the war.
We have *slightly* better sanitation and hygene now than in 1918. You know, like indoor plumbing, hand washing, etc.?
Most of Europe (and I assume the US) had decent sanitation by the end of the 19th century.
Many of the 1918 deaths were *not* from the flu; rather, they were from secondary causes (dehydration, secondary infections, etc.). These are perfectly treatable now.
Most of the deaths were from pneumonia caused by an immune response the virus. Younger, healthier people with the strongest immune systems died the fastest. Antibiotics would have been no use whatsoever then, any more than they are against H5N1 now.
Oh, yes, and there's little matter of a vaccine. You *are* aware that we can now vaccinate against virus strains, aren't you?
Flu vaccines are really quite rubbish, a very significant proportion of vaccinated people will develop flu in the next 12 months.
Post-infection, there are also anti-viral medicines that appear to work quite effectively.
Nearly 50% mortality rate *with treatment* is *effective*?
These points are all very easy to think through
Just a shame they're all dribbling nonsense.
so I'm wondering why you're playing Chicken Little?
As opposed to playing an ostrich I suppose?
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'"
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.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."
Let's be clear. Without a government-issued ID there is no actual prohibition on TRAVEL. There is, however, the ability for COMMERCIAL, PRIVATE transport companies (be they bus, train, plane, ferry, whatever) to REFUSE SERVICE to people failing to present such an ID.
Did you just miss the last decade?
The reality you describe was the way it was before Homeland Security took over and before the TSA took over arline security. Now we have government agents manning security checkpoints requiring government issued ID in order to travel on airplanes within the borders of the United States. I had no problem with private companies or individuals making arbitrary requirements to use their services or be on their property, such as requirements to provide them with photo ID. If you want to ride in my car I should be able to ask for any ID I want and make you wear a yellow banana suit for all the government should care. What is new, is that the government is now setting the requirements for ID in order to travel. As if I was forced to ask for ID in order to give someone a ride in my car.
I hate sloppy language, especially when it's used by chicken-littles to suggest we're moving toward a police state...like the hypocrites at Cryptome. They're utter libertarians for THEMSELVES, but they apparently find it reprehensible that private businesses also may make choices.
Providing ID at the checkin counter is the commercial company making a choice, unless it is being compelled by government order. But TSA agents at airport checkpoints are not working for the airlines.
FWIW I'd personally like to see the marketplace decide. All the tinfoil-hatters need to band together, invest, and start a budget airline where there is NO I.D. required, no searches, no security. See how many people fly such an airline. I think airline security is mostly a joke, and more an exercise in mass psychology than actual safety, but I'm happy to go through even a pastiche of a security check that will weed out the stupidest criminals.
And that would be illegal! You say let the market decide and I agree, but that is not the reality of the laws that have been imposed. Our Civil Rights HAVE ALREADY BEEN VIOLATED, this is not chicken little saying the sky is falling, the sky has already fallen and some people were just too dumb to notice. Now we have to pick up the pieces.
Not to mix metaphors, but despite what you might have been told, you have no clothes.
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 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.