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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?"
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.
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.