The Surveillance State Thrives During the Pandemic

Can we take government officials at their word that they’ll eventually abandon their new powers?

by J.D. Tuccille
Reason.com

From cellphone tracking to drone eyes in the sky, perused health records, and GPS ankle bracelets, an epidemic of surveillance-state measures is spreading across the world. It’s all done in the name of battling the spread of COVID-19, of course, since every crisis is used to justify incursions into our liberty. But long after the virus has done its worst and moved on, we’re likely to be stuck with these invasions of our privacy—unless we push back, hard.

The rationales for surveillance are easy to understand, within certain limits. Public health authorities battling the pandemic want to know who is spreading the virus, which people they may have infected, and the movements of those potentially carrying the bug.

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