Big Brother and Covid-19:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...d-do-the-same-to-track-covid-19/#2b14a56857eb
The company Sabre in the post above reminds me of the company Choice Point. Among other things, they are a data conglomeration provider. They buy info from all companies - credit card companies and banks, insurance companies, retailers, etc. - about who bought what, who did what, etc. They know more about every individual in this country than any other entity -- even the individual's mother.
The government itself is prohibited from creating such a database. But is not prohibited from BUYING that information on an individual, and does not need a warrant to do so.
In the 2000 election, you might remember a certain county in S. FLA in which controversy erupted. It was either the same or a neighboring county which was also democratic, and populated by a majority of Black folks, a large portion of whom lost their rights to vote by being purged off the voting rolls at the last minute. They were "confused" with other folks with similar names, was the official government response. The names of those folks who were denied their right to vote was provided by Choice Point. "W" came to Hotlanta, where Choice Point is located, during his campaign before the election. It is (was) a privately owned company (which I worked for as a sub-contracted home owner's insurance property inspector before I came to find out how evil they were). "W" spent the night at the house of the owner of Choice Point.
The next night he spent at the house of one of the owners of Home Depot. After the election, Democrats called him out in a public speech for giving HD a break on import taxes for ceiling fans. In reality, my mom worked for HD back then, as the import manager. The tax code is really complex, based on where each individual part in a product (fan) is made and what it is made of, as well as where the product was assembled. She calculated that the ceiling fan/lights were more "lights" than "fans" (or something like that) and went to the federal import tax court in D.C. in HD's subsequent fight to get the tax rate lowered - and won. (The rep from the government told her afterwords that she was the most knowledgeable and prepared witness they ever had.)
But who called out "W" on his night with Choice Point? I only heard it in the news for 12 hours before the story was killed and buried deep.
It's companies like this that scare me far more than rhona. In the meantime, my mom still works long hours. Last week she said she hand-modified a 30,000 line spreadsheet of items (medical masks and gowns, etc.) to import or export or something. She had to positively identify what each item was (it wasn't always listed in the spreadsheet), sometimes having to go find a picture of it to tell for sure, and then make sure it had the right tax code, because "the freight forwarders are lazy and get the numbers skrewed up".
