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I hadn’t even thought yet about the degree of digital surveillance that may have kicked in.

Forget traditional epidemiological contact tracing. For every infected, the Chinese government can pull up their location history and find every other cellphone that was nearby.
Obvious potential for abuse. But this is that rare situation where many would opt in to being tracked.

It could help determine the people and behaviors spreading the coronavirus. Literally a life & death issue. Far more immediate than terrorism or crime.
As you go from crime, to terrorism, to pandemics the frequency decreases but severity increases.

Governments ask for powers in times of crisis. They will be granted them. They may use them to solve the crisis. Then they often eventually abuse them.

Both crisis & abuse are real.
Citing a movie feels trivial, but I can’t help but be reminded of the Dark Knight scene where every cellphone in the city is turned into a tracking device.

It was written to explore the ticking bomb of terrorism but is even more applicable to contagion.
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